ARTIST IN RESIDENCE: MV Carbon
ISSUE Project Room is pleased to present the third Artist-in-Residence performance by MV Carbon.
MV Carbon is a Brooklyn based musician and artist. Her work frequently involves tape machines, voice, cello, analog synthesizers, field recordings, along with hand built electronics. She has recently been developing and performing new works which utilize physical computing and sensor controlled synthesis. Carbon is interested in spatial integration and site-specific consideration.
She has performed nationally and internationally with her solo work as well as in collaborations at spaces including Arnolfi (UK), ISSUE Project Room (NYC), Lehman Maupin Gallery (NYC), Museum of Contemporary Art (Chicago), Museum of Contemporary Art (Detroit), Nefertiti Jazz Club (Sweden), PS1 Contemporary Art (NYC), Roulette(NYC), The Sage, (UK), The Stone (NYC), the Tate Modern (UK), and Tesla (Berlin) . Her work with the dark-wave electronic duo, Metalux,has releases out on a number of experimental and independent labels including LOAD, 5RC and Hanson. Her solo release, The Dislodged Perihelion (LP), is coming out sometime in the future on Ecstatic Peace.
Her paintings and installations have been exhibited at galleries including the Butcher Shop (Chicago), D’Amelio Terras (NYC), Louis V.E.S.P.(NYC), MCCaigwelles Gallery (NYC), Pittsburgh Center for the Arts (PGH), Salon Invisible (Chicago), Three Rives Arts Festival (PGH), and West Nile (NYC).
ISSUE’s Artist-in-Residence program is made possible, in part, through generous support from the Jerome Foundation and with public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council, and the New York State Council on the Arts, celebrating 50 years of building strong, creative communities in New York’s 62 counties.
ARTIST-IN-RESIDENCE: Richard Garet
Richard Garet works interweaving multiple media including moving image, sound, live performances, and photography. He completed his mfa at Bard College, and was awarded a New York State Council on the Arts Grant. He currently has an artist residency at Issue Project Room, NY, and previously completed a residency at Taliesin West, Frank Lloyd Wright School of Architecture, Scottsdale, Arizona in 2006. Recent exhibitions and performances include: Never Can Say Goodbye at the former Tower Records Store; Sonochrome: an exhibition of recent works by Richard Garet, at the Public Trust Galllery, Dallas, Texas; Leervoll, Diapason Gallery; and previous exhibitions at the Museum of Contemporary Art (MACBA), Barcelona, Spain; Biennial Museo de Arte de Puerto Rico, San Juan, Puerto Rico; El Museo del Barrio, NYC; and more. His sound compositions have been published through sound based labels such as And-Oar, Non Visual Objects, Winds Measure Recordings, Unframed Recordings, Con-V, Leerraum, White_Line Editions, and Contour Editions. Additionally Garet co-curates with Louky Keijsers Koning, the monthly performance event LMAKseries, which integrates film, video, sound art, and media performance into the gallery’s mission at LMAK Projects in the L.E.S, NYC. Garet also currently directs the independent media label Contour Editions publishing works that explore the various possibilities of sound and light.
Richard Garet is interested in the phenomena found and produced in time-based media, and human beings’ relationship with both artificial and natural environments. His audiovisual exploratory steps are focused on concept and function, material and process, listening, viewing, and experience. even though garet’s work suits the standard gallery setting, many of his other activities as an artist explore the various practices of experimental sound and video performance. All of these modes are additional ways in which Garet’s work exposes the audience to real time explorations of audiovisual processes, emphasizing the experiential, the sensorial, and the active-reception of the body and mind. Richard Garet states, “when creating a piece I reflect on what the work is meant to accomplish, how it functions in relationship to the space, how it affects the audience, and how sound and visual content are connected to one another. These questions determine my choices and influence the direction of the work.”
Richard Garet is also interested in the vast landscape of noise that surrounds him, and how these noises establish the background-sonic-field that he experiences on a daily basis; consciously or unconsciously. The material for making his pieces emerges from this arena where sounds manifest from all directions and inevitably he becomes the receptor of such phenomena. He’s interested in how what he hears constantly derives from living situations and existential conditions and how the sonic world is constantly changing and modifying living experiences. Garet observes and pays attention to these mechanics and situations where sound is attached to function, purpose, commodity, decay, transformation, and environment. These sonic situations encapsulated in architectural structures or open without walls are very much responsible for activating sensations and states that trigger experiential, psychological, intellectual, emotional, and political responses. Some examples are media noise, the sounds of traffic, the sounds found in a nuclear plant, sounds created by electrical objects of commodity, the sounds of a street protest, the sounds encountered within the walls of a room, and appropriated sounds from mass media communication such as pop music and recorded sounds found in the Internet. The transformations and transpositions applied to each work focus on voicing not only the formal musical potential of the material but also the politics attached to its content. Garet’s intention is that his work function not only highlighting the experiential and listening qualities of the piece but also offering accessibility to its content, and that the subject matter activates the intellectual and political prospects of the work
ISSUE’s Artist-in-Residence program is made possible, in part, through generous support from the Jerome Foundation and with public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council, and the New York State Council on the Arts, celebrating 50 years of building strong, creative communities in New York’s 62 counties.
ARTIST IN RESIDENCE: Metalux + Aki Onda/MV Carbon duo
ISSUE Project Room is pleased to present the second Artist-In-Residence performance by MV Carbon.
Metalux is M.V. Carbon and J. Graf
Portraying physical and architecturally improbable spatial themes, Metalux seeks to situate the individual within a tangled web of technological interfaces. Their music can be heard as abstract sonic fiction. The processed human voice, with manipulated guitars, bass and samples, depicts a fictional engagement with the environment. Instruments alternate in carrying dominant themes, rhythm and melody. Metalux employs the use of rock music, only to suggest their compositions’ distant relationship to pop music. Using modified electronic instruments, bass, guitars, vocals and percussion, Metalux expands pre-written ideas with improvisation.
MV Carbon and Aki Onda duo
MV Carbon on cello and electronics, voice and tapes.
Aki Onda on tapes and electronics.
MV Carbon is a Brooklyn based musician and artist. Her work frequently involves tape machines, voice, cello, analog synthesizers, field recordings, along with hand built electronics. She has recently been developing and performing new works which utilize physical computing and sensor controlled synthesis. Carbon is interested in spatial integration and site-specific consideration.
She has performed nationally and internationally with her solo work as well as in collaborations at spaces including Arnolfi (UK), ISSUE Project Room (NYC), Lehman Maupin Gallery (NYC), Museum of Contemporary Art (Chicago), Museum of Contemporary Art (Detroit), Nefertiti Jazz Club (Sweden), PS1 Contemporary Art (NYC), Roulette(NYC), The Sage, (UK), The Stone (NYC), the Tate Modern (UK), and Tesla (Berlin) . Her work with the dark-wave electronic duo, Metalux,has releases out on a number of experimental and independent labels including LOAD, 5RC and Hanson. Her solo release, The Dislodged Perihelion,(LP) is coming out sometime in the future on Ecstatic Peace.
Her paintings and installations have been exhibited at galleries including the Butcher Shop (Chicago), D’Amelio Terras (NYC), Louis V.E.S.P.(NYC), MCCaigwelles Gallery (NYC), Pittsburgh Center for the Arts (PGH), Salon Invisible (Chicago), Three Rives Arts Festival (PGH), and West Nile (NYC).
Jenny Graf Sheppard (J.Graf) is an artist and improvisor who works with various mediums. Graf is concerned with the construction of sounds in order to radically shift social space. Using sound, video and collaborative performance that often take cues from the “audience” to direct the work, her work addresses such broad issues as gender, age and social convention. Her improvisiation and scored pieces include long-term investigations such as The Guitars Project and Proud Flesh.
J. Graf has been an active participant in the ongoing thriving international avante garde music scene since 1996. Building vivid, compelling soundworlds using intuitive homebrewed electronics, guitar and voice, her music as one half of Metalux and Harrius as well as her solo project J.Graf has bent the ears and minds of those who venture into her world.
Aki Onda is an electronic musician, composer, and photographer. Onda was born in Japan and currently resides in New York. He is particularly known for his Cassette Memories project – works compiled from a “sound diary” of field-recordings collected by Onda over a span of two decades. Onda’s musical instrument of choice is the cassette Walkman. Not only does he capture field recordings with the Walkman, he also physically manipulates multiple Walkmans with electronics in his performances. In another of his projects, Cinemage, Onda produces slide projections of still photo images set to live guitar improvisation. Onda has collaborated with artists such as Michael Snow, Ken Jacobs, Alan Licht, Loren Connors, Oren Ambarchi, Noël Akchoté, Jac Berrocal, Linda Sharrock, and Shelley Hirsch. http://www.akionda.net/
ISSUE’s Artist-in-Residence program is made possible, in part, through generous support from the Jerome Foundation and with public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council, and the New York State Council on the Arts, celebrating 50 years of building strong, creative communities in New York’s 62 counties.
Talibam! featuring Artist-in-Residence Matt Mottel
Hailing from New York, Talibam! has been making their presence felt since 2003 through numerous live gigs, self-released cdr’s and label releases. Talibam! has toured Europe ten times since 2006 and released 18 records during this period.
They have releases on ESP Disk, Roaratorio, Azul Discografica, Evolving Ear, Pendu Sounds, Wallace Records, Holiday Records, Thors Rubber Hammer, Ecstatic Peace, Gaffer Records, Blackest Rainbow, and others.
Talibam! Is one of the most potent and fascinating bands in contemporary music. The six plus years of interplay between Mottel and Shea has created one of the most unique and exciting live shows and some of the most powerfully recorded documents of any era. At a time when most culture sticks to conservative niche opportunities, Talibam! is interested in expansion and exploration; They manage to part the sea by not sticking to genre, aesthetic predisposition or the usual norms of what being a ‘band’ is. More inclined to put on a show that any and all will like, and not be stymied by ‘avant’ type casting, they have won over both unsuspecting and in the ‘know’ audiences worldwide. The energy of Kevin Shea’s full steam drumming is not to be missed, nor is the primal tone of Mottel’s synth run through a Marshall Half Stack.
TALIBAM! is collaborating with some of the most accomplished musicians working today. On their past two studio albums, they have been joined by Cooper-Moore, Jon Irabagon (Thelonious Monk Jazz Saxaphone Award Winner 2008), Peter Evans and countless others monster players. Working with both jazz and rock musicians, Talibam!’s former collaborators are in BATTLES, TV ON THE RADIO, GRIZZLY BEAR, WOODS, AKRON FAMILY, and more.
Matt Mottel’s visage should be familiar to anyone who’s been going to shows in NYC in the past ten years. He’s been hanging around NYC clubs since he was like 16, and dropping electric mind bombs with his synthesizer in those clubs nearly as long with folks like Awesome Color, Akron/Family, Jeffrey Lewis, Chris Taylor (Grizzly Bear), Kenny Wollesen, Chris Corsano, Ras Moshe, Cooper-Moore, Sean Meehan, and his new band Shadow Maps.
Kevin Shea’s drumming and stage gymnastics have been gazed at with wide wonder through his membership in bands like Storm & Stress (Touch & Go), Coptic Light (No Quarter), People (I and Ear), Peter Evans Quartet (Firehouse 12), Kyp Malone (TV on the Radio), Tyondai Braxton (Battles) Sexy Thoughts (rcarchives.com), Mostly Other People Do The Killing (Hot Cup), etc.
ISSUE’s Artist-in-Residence program is made possible, in part, through generous support from the Jerome Foundation and with public funds from the New York State Council on the Arts, a state agency.
Artist-In-Residence: Matana Roberts, post-concert talk with Nate Chinen
“Ms. Roberts isn’t just mildly curious to expand her medium: She seems driven to do it.” – NY Times
“Matana is definitely nondescriptive. She’s not a lady, she’s not a man; she’s just a being…” – Jazz Times
“Roberts is a deep traditionalist who looks beyond the rigid distinctions and definitions of musical style” – Chicago Defender
“…alto saxophonist and clarinetist Matana Roberts –add this name to the frustratingly short list of excellent, female reed players…” – All About Jazz
“…Roberts is a fluid, elegant player who rejects the star soloist approach of many a saxophonist….” – BBC Jazz
“The sound of Matana Roberts’ alto sax spans jazz her-story, from its roots in New Orleans, through the swinging ‘30s-40s, to the New Thing.” – All About Jazz
A CAN CAN FOR COIN COIN…
Rooted in her strong belief that sharing honest creativity is a catalyst for instant community, Matana Roberts and ISSUE Project Room will join together for A CAN CAN FOR COIN COIN, a concert and food drive for her last performance as Artist-in-Residence on December 9th. While developing her blood narrative COIN COIN, she has been trying to connect the work to the social activism inherent in sharing art, and the devotion to community activism prevalent throughout in her family tree. In honor of her ancestors, she is creating this community-focused food drive benefiting the Bread and Life Soup Kitchen, a healthy food initiative that brings both physical and mental nourishment to in-need areas around Brooklyn.
Matana Roberts (Reeds)
Amelia Hollander (Viola)
Jessica Pavone (Viola)
Daniel Levin (Cello)
Keith Witty (bass)
Tomas Fujiwara (drums)
Daniel Givens (projections)
The concert will be followed by a talk with Nate Chinen, a regular music contributor to the New York Times, JazzTimes and The Village Voice.
COIN COIN: In Essence, a Musical Monument to the Human Experience
Matana will premiere the last of three new COIN COIN pieces which focus on spacial and environmental interplay while excavating themes relating to her familial heritage and own personal history.
Matana cultivates an environment where every surface, from walls to floors, to furnishings to large instruments, serve as sonic reciprocators. Keeping visual aesthetics in mind just as much as the auditory experience, and having utilized raw space and various architectures before, Matana creates a comprehensive sensory experience for the audience, attempting to create an intimate “womb” feeling.
Her work during the Residency focuses on and attempts to deconstruct recent discoveries in her lineage and family histories. Researching back to the 1700’s, Matana explores themes of hardship and perseverance while trying to find and construct her own identity. Since beginning this project, she has found that her lineage includes Irish, Dutch, Danish, English, Scottish, African and others, imploring a critical look
at the title “African American”.
Since her youth, Matana was surrounded by musicians who showed by distinct example the importance of listening to one’s personal creative voice while at the same time using the profound and many layered traditions of jazz and improvised musics to act only as her creative guide, not as her creative definer. By using their mentorship, she has been able to craft a voice and creative focus that truly speaks to her own artistic individuality. She feels strongly that her music should not only reflect the many colors and moods of universal human emotions, but that it should also testify, critique, document, and respond to the many socio-economic, historical, and cultural inequalities that exist all over the world.
Matana, a 2006 Van Lier fellow, Brecht Forum fellow, and 2008 and 2009 Alpert Award in the Arts nominee, has appeared as a collaborator on recordings and performances in the U.S., Europe, and Canada with her own ensembles as well as with the collaborative jazz trio Sticks and Stones, Black Rock Coalition founder Greg Tate’s Burnt Sugar, Reg E Gaines and Savion Glover’s homage project to the late John Coltrane, the Oliver Lake Big Band, and the Julius Hemphill Sextet and Merce Cunningham dance. She recently released a homage project to her hometown entitled The Chicago Project, on Barry Adamson’s Central Control International, produced by pianist extraordinaire Vijay Iyer, featuring friends and supporters of her Chicago development. She has also recorded as a side person on recordings with such iconic bands as Godspeed You Black Emperor, TV on the Radio, Guillermo Scott Herren’s Savath and Savalas, Silver Mt Zion, and sound artist Daniel Given’s Day Clear/Day dark. Matana is a member of the AACM– Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians and the BRC– Black Rock Coalition.
To learn more about Matana’s vision for her residency, read her interview “In conversation with Matana Roberts, ISSUE’s Current Artist-In-Residence” with David Martinson or visit www.matanaroberts.com
ISSUE’s AIR program made possible, in part, through the generous support of the Jerome Foundation.
Artist-In-Residence: Matana Roberts
“Ms. Roberts isn’t just mildly curious to expand her medium: She seems driven to do it.” – NY Times
“Matana is definitely nondescriptive. She’s not a lady, she’s not a man; she’s just a being…” – Jazz Times
“Roberts is a deep traditionalist who looks beyond the rigid distinctions and definitions of musical style” – Chicago Defender
“…alto saxophonist and clarinetist Matana Roberts –add this name to the frustratingly short list of excellent, female reed players…” – All About Jazz
“…Roberts is a fluid, elegant player who rejects the star soloist approach of many a saxophonist….” – BBC Jazz
On November 18, Matana will present COIN COIN Happening II: Fields of Memphis, featuring violinist Mazz Swift
Matana ( mah-tah-nah)Roberts, is a dynamic saxophonist, composer and improviser, who tries to expose in her music the mystical roots and spiritual traditions of American creative expression.
As a Chicago native she was fortunate enough to be surrounded by musicians who showed her by distinct example the importance of listening to one’s personal creative voice while at the same time using the profound and many layered traditions of jazz and improvised musics to act only as her creative guide, not as her creative definer. By using their mentorship, she has been able to craft a voice and creative focus that truly speaks to her own true artistic individuality. She feels strongly that her music should not only reflect the many colors and moods of universal human emotions, but that it should also testify, critique, document, and respond to the many socio-economic, historical, and cultural inequalities that exist not only in this country, but all over the world.
Matana, a 2006 Van Lier fellow, Brecht Forum fellow, and 2008 and 2009 Alpert Award in the Arts nominee, has appeared as a collaborator on recordings and performances in the U.S., Europe, and Canada with her own ensembles as well as with the collaborative jazz trio Sticks and Stones, Black Rock Coalition founder Greg Tate’s Burnt Sugar, Reg E Gaines and Savion Glover’s homage project to the late John Coltrane, the Oliver Lake Big Band, and the Julius Hemphill Sextet and Merce Cunningham dance. She recently released a homage project to her hometown entitled The Chicago Project, on Barry Adamson’s Central Control International, produced by pianist extraordinaire Vijay Iyer, featuring friends and supporters of her Chicago development. She has also recorded as a side person on recordings with such iconic bands as Godspeed You Black Emperor, TV on the Radio, Guillermo Scott Herren’s Savath and Savalas, Silver Mt Zion, and sound artist Daniel Given’s Day Clear/Day dark. Matana is a member of the AACM– Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians and the BRC– Black Rock Coalition.
ABOUT COIN COIN : a blood narrative in blacks, browns, reds , and blues….
Since 2005 Saxophonist/composer Matana Roberts has been experimenting on a sound narrative about the intricacies, contradictions and questions that surround the human bloodline experience. How when broken down into the most minute details new meanings arise beyond the surface levels of one dimensional human acceptance; generally attached to shades of difference, and fear of the unknown. Transcending sometimes the unbearable in order to create new possibilities of understanding the human condition.
Using herself and research she has done on her own bloodline history and various ensembles she leads as the “guinea pig” in this sound endeavor, she has been able to cull a myriad of rich and awe inspiring stories that speaks many interesting truths about the flexibility and wonder of individual understanding. Transversing the American South of days past– traveling reflections of African, French, Irish, English, Scottish, Canadian, and Choctaw, Cherokee, Chickasaw Native America history, Matana is weaving together stories and lore that speak to a very distinct, historically experimental, yet common, American experience. For her, a very personal search in sound practice that opens a dialogue for possibilities going beyond the specific; regenerating a focus that she hopes in the end celebrates the inherent potential that resides in the overflowing capability of human love, sadness, kindredness, perseverance, and joy
To learn more about Matana’s vision for her residency, read her interview “In conversation with Matana Roberts, ISSUE’s Current Artist-In-Residence” with David Martinson.
ISSUE’s AIR program made possible, in part, through the generous support of the Jerome Foundation.
Artist In Residence: Ha Yang Kim
Cellist, composer and improviser Ha-Yang Kim was born in Seoul, Korea. Ha-Yang made her professional solo debut at age 16 with the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra. Hailed as “phenomenal” and playing with “brilliant technique full of energy, concentration, musicality and expression” (Mainpost, Germany), she performs new music as a soloist and with ensembles and artists in festivals and concert venues throughout the world. She is the founder of Odd Appetite, a cello-percussion duo which performs and commissions new contemporary works alongside original works and improvisations. Ms. Kim has developed a unique language of extended string techniques and has created her own music based on this work, as well as collaborating on new pieces from other composers. Her musical influences draw equally from a range of western classical music, American experimentalism, rock, jazz, and improvised music, to non-western musical sources from Bali, Korea and South Indian classical music (Karnatic). Her music has been performed in the US, Turkey, The Netherlands, Belgium, Korea, and Germany. In seeking new musical experiences, Ha-Yang has performed traditional and new Balinese music as a member of Gamelan Galak Tika, and has collaborated/ performed with many diverse musicians such as Evan Ziporyn, Cecil Taylor, John Zorn, Christian Wolff, Lee Hyla, Louis Andriessen, Lukas Ligeti, Larry Polansky, and Stefan Poetzsch, with whom she has presented original compositions incorporating electronics, dance, theatre, and multi-media.
Past performances include as soloist at Carnegie Hall, touring and playing at festivals in the US, Europe, Cuba and Bali, Indonesia, performing at the Bang on a Can Marathon with both her duo and the All-Stars, composing for and performing at the Kwacheon International Theatre Festival in Seoul, Korea, a solo recital at the Hochschule für Musik in Würzburg, Germany, and broadcast recordings for the Bavarian Radio Network. Upcoming performances of her music include at festivals in St. Petersburg and Moscow, Russia, Holland, Belgium and in the US. Ama, a CD of her own compositions, is released on Tzadik. Ms. Kim has also recorded for New World, Cold Blue, New Albion, Karnatic Lab and Bridge Records.
She has received prizes and awards including a grant from Meet the Composer, Trust for Mutual Understanding, the Argosy Foundation, the Ruth Schwob Foundation, and The Atlanta Symphony Orchestra. Ms. Kim has been an artist-in-residence at Princeton University, Brown University, Harvard University, Dartmouth College, Bates College, Brandeis University and at the Walden School for Young Composers. Ha-Yang studied cello, improvisation, and microtonality at the New England Conservatory of Music, Karnatic music concepts at the Conservatorium van Amsterdam, and was on the faculty at Franklin Pierce College in New Hampshire, USA. She currently lives in Brooklyn, New York.
ISSUE Project Room’s Artist In Residence Program is made possible through generous support from the Jerome Foundation
Artist In Residence: Matana Roberts
“Ms. Roberts isn’t just mildly curious to expand her medium: She seems driven to do it.” - NY Times
“Matana is definitely nondescriptive. She’s not a lady, she’s not a man; she’s just a being…” – Jazz Times
“Roberts is a deep traditionalist who looks beyond the rigid distinctions and definitions of musical style” – Chicago Defender
“…alto saxophonist and clarinetist Matana Roberts –add this name to the frustratingly short list of excellent, female reed players…” – All About Jazz
“…Roberts is a fluid, elegant player who rejects the star soloist approach of many a saxophonist….” – BBC Jazz
“The sound of Matana Roberts’ alto sax spans jazz her-story, from its roots in New Orleans, through the swinging ‘30s-40s, to the New Thing.” – All About Jazz
Matana Roberts COIN COIN : a blood narrative in blacks, browns, reds , and blues….
Since 2005 Saxophonist/composer Matana Roberts has been experimenting on a sound narrative about the intricacies, contradictions and questions that surround the human bloodline experience. How when broken down into the most minute details new meanings arise beyond the surface levels of one dimensional human acceptance; generally attached to shades of difference, and fear of the unknown. Transcending sometimes the unbearable in order to create new possibilities of understanding the human condition.
Using herself and research she has done on her own bloodline history and various ensembles she leads as the “guinea pig” in this sound endeavor, she has been able to cull a myriad of rich and awe inspiring stories that speaks many interesting truths about the flexibility and wonder of individual understanding. Transversing the American South of days past– traveling reflections of African, French, Irish, English, Scottish, Canadian, and Choctaw, Cherokee, Chickasaw Native America history, Matana is weaving together stories and lore that speak to a very distinct, historically experimental, yet common, American experience. For her, a very personal search in sound practice that opens a dialogue for possibilities going beyond the specific; regenerating a focus that she hopes in the end celebrates the inherent potential that resides in the overflowing capability of human love, sadness, kindredness, perseverance, and joy.
COIN COIN, in essence, a musical monument to the human experience.
For her residency at the Issue Project Room Matana has decided to use her time there to create what she is calling “COIN COIN Happenings” based on ideas and concepts she has used to put together some of the larger ensemble chapters. Purposely pairing down each piece to duo live instrumental pairings, combined with pre arranged field recordings, she will experiment in ways that she has been unable to yet in some of the large ensemble pieces, aiming to create sonic environments that would pull even the most particular witness in. These Happenings will be based around three upcoming chapters of the work, whose current working titles are:
Wed September 30th– Chapter 6: exodus: bell, book, and candle
Thursday October 29th–Chapter 7: papa joe
Wednesday November 18th– Chapter 8: the field(s) of memphis
Her last performance in the Issue residency ( Wed, December 9th) will be the premiere of a current new reworking of a large ensemble chapter — Chapter 1—Gens de Couleur Libre/Free People of Color
Each performance will be followed by reading from Matana’s self published ‘zine about the project Fat Ragged and will evolve from there into a question and answer session for anyone in attendance about the project as well as a discussion of resources that can be used searching for ones genealogical traces.
Matana (mah-tah-nah) Roberts, is a dynamic saxophonist, composer and improviser, who tries to expose in her music the mystical roots and spiritual traditions of American creative expression.
As a Chicago native she was fortunate enough to be surrounded by musicians who showed her by distinct example the importance of listening to one’s personal creative voice while at the same time using the profound and many layered traditions of jazz and improvised musics to act only as her creative guide, not as her creative definer. By using their mentorship, she has been able to craft a voice and creative focus that truly speaks to her own true artistic individuality. She feels strongly that her music should not only reflect the many colors and moods of universal human emotions, but that it should also testify, critique, document, and respond to the many socio-economic, historical, and cultural inequalities that exist not only in this country, but all over the world.
Matana, a 2006 Van Lier fellow, Brecht Forum fellow, and 2008 and 2009 Alpert Award in the Arts nominee, has appeared as a collaborator on recordings and performances in the U.S., Europe, and Canada with her own ensembles as well as with the collaborative jazz trio Sticks and Stones, Black Rock Coalition founder Greg Tate’s Burnt Sugar, Reg E Gaines and Savion Glover’s homage project to the late John Coltrane, the Oliver Lake Big Band, and the Julius Hemphill Sextet and Merce Cunningham dance. She recently released a homage project to her hometown entitled The Chicago Project, on Barry Adamson’s Central Control International, produced by pianist extraordinaire Vijay Iyer, featuring friends and supporters of her Chicago development. She has also recorded as a side person on recordings with such iconic bands as Godspeed You Black Emperor, TV on the Radio, Guillermo Scott Herren’s Savath and Savalas, Silver Mt Zion, and sound artist Daniel Given’s Day Clear/Day dark. Matana is a member of the AACM– Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians and the BRC– Black Rock Coalition.
She has played alongside some of the most intriguing creative sound visionaries spanning across genres of this time period and currently resides in New York City
Ha Yang Kim
Artist In Residence: Ha-Yang Kim
Admission: $15
Cellist, composer and improviser Ha-Yang Kim was born in Seoul, Korea. Ha-Yang made her professional solo debut at age 16 with the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra. Hailed as “phenomenal” and playing with “brilliant technique full of energy, concentration, musicality and expression” (Mainpost, Germany), she performs new music as a soloist and with ensembles and artists in festivals and concert venues throughout the world. She is the founder of Odd Appetite, a cello-percussion duo which performs and commissions new contemporary works alongside original works and improvisations. Ms. Kim has developed a unique language of extended string techniques and has created her own music based on this work, as well as collaborating on new pieces from other composers. Her musical influences draw equally from a range of western classical music, American experimentalism, rock, jazz, and improvised music, to non-western musical sources from Bali, Korea and South Indian classical music (Karnatic). Her music has been performed in the US, Turkey, The Netherlands, Belgium, Korea, and Germany. In seeking new musical experiences, Ha-Yang has performed traditional and new Balinese music as a member of Gamelan Galak Tika, and has collaborated/ performed with many diverse musicians such as Evan Ziporyn, Cecil Taylor, John Zorn, Christian Wolff, Lee Hyla, Louis Andriessen, Lukas Ligeti, Larry Polansky, and Stefan Poetzsch, with whom she has presented original compositions incorporating electronics, dance, theatre, and multi-media.
Past performances include as soloist at Carnegie Hall, touring and playing at festivals in the US, Europe, Cuba and Bali, Indonesia, performing at the Bang on a Can Marathon with both her duo and the All-Stars, composing for and performing at the Kwacheon International Theatre Festival in Seoul, Korea, a solo recital at the Hochschule für Musik in Würzburg, Germany, and broadcast recordings for the Bavarian Radio Network. Upcoming performances of her music include at festivals in St. Petersburg and Moscow, Russia, Holland, Belgium and in the US. Ama, a CD of her own compositions, is released on Tzadik. Ms. Kim has also recorded for New World, Cold Blue, New Albion, Karnatic Lab and Bridge Records.
She has received prizes and awards including a grant from Meet the Composer, Trust for Mutual Understanding, the Argosy Foundation, the Ruth Schwob Foundation, and The Atlanta Symphony Orchestra. Ms. Kim has been an artist-in-residence at Princeton University, Brown University, Harvard University, Dartmouth College, Bates College, Brandeis University and at the Walden School for Young Composers. Ha-Yang studied cello, improvisation, and microtonality at the New England Conservatory of Music, Karnatic music concepts at the Conservatorium van Amsterdam, and was on the faculty at Franklin Pierce College in New Hampshire, USA. She currently lives in Brooklyn, New York.
ISSUE Project Room’s Artist In Residence Program is made possible through generous support from the Jerome Foundation
Artist In Residence: Ha-Yang Kim
Cellist, composer and improviser Ha-Yang Kim was born in Seoul, Korea. Ha-Yang made her professional solo debut at age 16 with the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra. Hailed as “phenomenal” and playing with “brilliant technique full of energy, concentration, musicality and expression” (Mainpost, Germany), she performs new music as a soloist and with ensembles and artists in festivals and concert venues throughout the world. She is the founder of Odd Appetite, a cello-percussion duo which performs and commissions new contemporary works alongside original works and improvisations. Ms. Kim has developed a unique language of extended string techniques and has created her own music based on this work, as well as collaborating on new pieces from other composers. Her musical influences draw equally from a range of western classical music, American experimentalism, rock, jazz, and improvised music, to non-western musical sources from Bali, Korea and South Indian classical music (Karnatic). Her music has been performed in the US, Turkey, The Netherlands, Belgium, Korea, and Germany. In seeking new musical experiences, Ha-Yang has performed traditional and new Balinese music as a member of Gamelan Galak Tika, and has collaborated/ performed with many diverse musicians such as Evan Ziporyn, Cecil Taylor, John Zorn, Christian Wolff, Lee Hyla, Louis Andriessen, Lukas Ligeti, Larry Polansky, and Stefan Poetzsch, with whom she has presented original compositions incorporating electronics, dance, theatre, and multi-media.
Past performances include as soloist at Carnegie Hall, touring and playing at festivals in the US, Europe, Cuba and Bali, Indonesia, performing at the Bang on a Can Marathon with both her duo and the All-Stars, composing for and performing at the Kwacheon International Theatre Festival in Seoul, Korea, a solo recital at the Hochschule für Musik in Würzburg, Germany, and broadcast recordings for the Bavarian Radio Network. Upcoming performances of her music include at festivals in St. Petersburg and Moscow, Russia, Holland, Belgium and in the US. Ama, a CD of her own compositions, is released on Tzadik. Ms. Kim has also recorded for New World, Cold Blue, New Albion, Karnatic Lab and Bridge Records.
She has received prizes and awards including a grant from Meet the Composer, Trust for Mutual Understanding, the Argosy Foundation, the Ruth Schwob Foundation, and The Atlanta Symphony Orchestra. Ms. Kim has been an artist-in-residence at Princeton University, Brown University, Harvard University, Dartmouth College, Bates College, Brandeis University and at the Walden School for Young Composers. Ha-Yang studied cello, improvisation, and microtonality at the New England Conservatory of Music, Karnatic music concepts at the Conservatorium van Amsterdam, and was on the faculty at Franklin Pierce College in New Hampshire, USA. She currently lives in Brooklyn, New York.
ISSUE Project Room’s Artist In Residence Program is made possible through generous support from the Jerome Foundation
Ha Yang Kim
Cellist, composer and improviser Ha-Yang Kim was born in Seoul, Korea. Ha-Yang made her professional solo debut at age 16 with the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra. Hailed as “phenomenal” and playing with “brilliant technique full of energy, concentration, musicality and expression” (Mainpost, Germany), she performs new music as a soloist and with ensembles and artists in festivals and concert venues throughout the world. She is the founder of Odd Appetite, a cello-percussion duo which performs and commissions new contemporary works alongside original works and improvisations. Ms. Kim has developed a unique language of extended string techniques and has created her own music based on this work, as well as collaborating on new pieces from other composers. Her musical influences draw equally from a range of western classical music, American experimentalism, rock, jazz, and improvised music, to non-western musical sources from Bali, Korea and South Indian classical music (Karnatic). Her music has been performed in the US, Turkey, The Netherlands, Belgium, Korea, and Germany. In seeking new musical experiences, Ha-Yang has performed traditional and new Balinese music as a member of Gamelan Galak Tika, and has collaborated/ performed with many diverse musicians such as Evan Ziporyn, Cecil Taylor, John Zorn, Christian Wolff, Lee Hyla, Louis Andriessen, Lukas Ligeti, Larry Polansky, and Stefan Poetzsch, with whom she has presented original compositions incorporating electronics, dance, theatre, and multi-media.
Past performances include as soloist at Carnegie Hall, touring and playing at festivals in the US, Europe, Cuba and Bali, Indonesia, performing at the Bang on a Can Marathon with both her duo and the All-Stars, composing for and performing at the Kwacheon International Theatre Festival in Seoul, Korea, a solo recital at the Hochschule für Musik in Würzburg, Germany, and broadcast recordings for the Bavarian Radio Network. Upcoming performances of her music include at festivals in St. Petersburg and Moscow, Russia, Holland, Belgium and in the US. Ama, a CD of her own compositions, is released on Tzadik. Ms. Kim has also recorded for New World, Cold Blue, New Albion, Karnatic Lab and Bridge Records.
She has received prizes and awards including a grant from Meet the Composer, Trust for Mutual Understanding, the Argosy Foundation, the Ruth Schwob Foundation, and The Atlanta Symphony Orchestra. Ms. Kim has been an artist-in-residence at Princeton University, Brown University, Harvard University, Dartmouth College, Bates College, Brandeis University and at the Walden School for Young Composers. Ha-Yang studied cello, improvisation, and microtonality at the New England Conservatory of Music, Karnatic music concepts at the Conservatorium van Amsterdam, and was on the faculty at Franklin Pierce College in New Hampshire, USA. She currently lives in Brooklyn, New York.
ISSUE Project Room’s Artist In Residence: Duane Pitre *
Duane Pitre (originally from New Orleans) is a Brooklyn-based, avant-garde composer and performer. His current works explore both chaos and discipline—and the relationship that exists between the two. Pitre primarily works with long-tones and utilizes alternate tuning schemes that focus on microtonally, enabling him to explore unaccustomed harmonic intervallic relationships.
Composing primarily for acoustic and electro-acoustic instrumentation, Pitre has scored works for large String/Wind Ensembles, String Quintet, his own Bowed Harmonic-Guitar Ensemble, solo performers, among other instrument configurations. In 2008 Pitre started exploring simple electronic sounds and their role in a dualistic relationship with acoustic instruments, as well as utilizing them in his recent “tape” pieces.
Pitre has releases on Important Records, Trome Records, NNA, and Quiet Design, among others. He has appeared on compilations with artists such as Keith Rowe (AMM), Sir Richard Bishop, Tetuzi Akiyama, Jandek, Sebastien Roux, and Thierry Muller/Ilitch. He recently curated and contributed a track to an upcoming Just Intonation compilation (Important Records), alongside Pauline Oliveros, Ellen Fullman, Michael Harrison, Greg Davis, Charles Curtis, and others.
Pitre has presented his works in NYC at such spaces as Roulette, The Stone, Phillips de Pury & Co., St. Marks Church, The Knitting Factory, and ISSUE Project Room (where he will be Artist in Resident for spring 2009). He has also performed in other cities across the U.S., as well as in Europe at Les Voûtes (Paris), St. Giles-in-the-Fields Church (London), and in Bristol, U.K.
In 2009, Pitre is planning more performances (national and abroad), a variety of releases, recording sessions, new works, and further exploration of electronic sound material.
Duane Pitre
ISSUE Project Room’s Artist In Residence Duane Pitre presents Perfect/Imperfect, for Amplified String Quintet and Sine Tones.
Perfect/Imperfect (x5)
For Amplified String Quintet & Electronic Sine Tones
A new work by Duane Pitre
March 8, 2009 • ISSUE Project Room • Brooklyn, NY
(The artist’s first of four presentations as Spring 2009 Artist in Residence)
Duane Pitre – composition
Damon Holzborn – programming
Jesse Peterson – violin
Chris Otto – violin
Frantz Loriot – viola
Chris Welcome – cello
Emily Dufour – cello
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Bow a violin (or instrument from the violin family) to match a predetermined electronic sine tone pitch as closely and steadily as possible, without vibrato.
This “pairing process” can be carried out once or multiple times, by a solo performer or by multiple performers, in the same pitch or in different pitches, and arranged however one chooses.
The amount of times that this process is carried out within a recording or live performance determines the (x numeral) in its title
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The three paragraphs above comprise the score for Perfect/Imperfect, a composition with simplicity at its core. The score does not address a specific arrangement, performance length, or pitch choices, as these aesthetic-based decisions are not at the core of the piece; they are secondary and can be changed from performance to performance.
The piece came to me while I was walking home from work last summer. When I arrived home I typed out the score on an old typewriter and tucked it away to let it “germinate” (which I find is the best method for my works). After being invited to participate in the ISSUE Project Room Artist in Residence Program, I decided to return to this simple idea and create a special arrangement of it to premiere at ISSUE.
Tonight’s arrangement, titled Perfect/Imperfect (x5), utilizes an amplified string quintet (two violins, two cellos, and viola), is 50 minutes in length, and uses pitches calculated from ratios that adhere to the tuning system known as Just Intonation. These pitch relationships are found in nature’s own Harmonic Series.
It is worth noting that the title of this piece came to me immediately; it may have even started the thought that led to the score. The title possessed a certain strength and made me think about aspects of modern society in which perfection is expected from “imperfect” creatures. This spiraled into me asking myself what “perfect” even means. It is a term relative to the cultural context in which it is used, changing from country to country, village to village. These thoughts made the piece all the more interesting to me.
The most relevant topic, both for me and for the piece, centers on the interaction of computer technology and the human race — and the relationships that exist between the two. As we strive for “perfection” we look for the most efficient (in terms of time, money, etc.) ways to carry out various tasks — important ones, menial ones, and everything in between. Can a computer do the job better or can a human? What about a mixture of both? Automated 1’s and 0’s or human flesh operated? Is the computer output too cold? Does the human touch give, well, life?
As I began writing these program notes, it occurred to me that my initial choice to type out the score for this composition on an old typewriter is significant. It offers a contrast to the 50+ hours a week I spend working with computers, often keying out perfectly rendered typeface characters. It is this contrast between the computer-generated and the handmade that this composition seeks to explore.
My Perfect/Imperfect experiment intends to put its performers in a silent space (a vacuum of sorts) to enable them and the audience to focus on the differences between the tireless stability of pitch offered by the electronic sine tones and the human-generated pitches of the sustained bowed strings, which over time will inevitably fluctuate to some degree. On a theoretical level Perfect/Imperfect is my way of creating a balance within the computer/human relationship. On an aural level it is a focus-piece, a concentration-piece, for both performers and audience.
- Duane Pitre (February 2009)
Duane Pitre (originally from New Orleans) is a Brooklyn-based, avant-garde composer and performer. His current works explore both chaos and discipline—and the relationship that exists between the two. Pitre primarily works with long-tones and utilizes alternate tuning schemes that focus on microtonally, enabling him to explore unaccustomed harmonic intervallic relationships.
Composing primarily for acoustic and electro-acoustic instrumentation, Pitre has scored works for large String/Wind Ensembles, String Quintet, his own Bowed Harmonic-Guitar Ensemble, solo performers, among other instrument configurations. In 2008 Pitre started exploring simple electronic sounds and their role in a dualistic relationship with acoustic instruments, as well as utilizing them in his recent “tape” pieces.
Pitre has releases on Important Records, Trome Records, NNA, and Quiet Design, among others. He has appeared on compilations with artists such as Keith Rowe (AMM), Sir Richard Bishop, Tetuzi Akiyama, Jandek, Sebastien Roux, and Thierry Muller/Ilitch. He recently curated and contributed a track to an upcoming Just Intonation compilation (Important Records), alongside Pauline Oliveros, Ellen Fullman, Michael Harrison, Greg Davis, Charles Curtis, and others.
Pitre has presented his works in NYC at such spaces as Roulette, The Stone, Phillips de Pury & Co., St. Marks Church, The Knitting Factory, and ISSUE Project Room (where he will be Artist in Resident for spring 2009). He has also performed in other cities across the U.S., as well as in Europe at Les Voûtes (Paris), St. Giles-in-the-Fields Church (London), and in Bristol, U.K.
In 2009, Pitre is planning more performances (national and abroad), a variety of releases, recording sessions, new works, and further exploration of electronic sound material.
