PROPENSITY OF SOUND: For Eliane – Byron Westbrook + Keith Fullerton Whitman
ISSUE will present performances from two young composers – Keith Fullerton Whitman and Byron Westbrook – electronic sound artists whose works demonstrate and acknowledge direct influence from the works of Eliane Radigue.
Byron Westbrook – Westbrook is an artist working with the dynamic quality of physical space using multi-channel sound and images. His audio/video performances, under the name CORRIDORS, involve the distribution of processed instrumental and environmental recordings through a multi-channel environment with a focus on energy distilled from sound and light. He has presented at venues such as Tonic, Roulette, The Stone, Diapason Gallery, ISSUE Project Room, Experimental Intermedia, Exit Art Gallery (NYC), Les Voûtes (FR), Wien Konzerthaus (Austria), NonEvent (Boston), Sonic Circuits Festival (DC), and the Institute of Intermedia (CZ). He has shared performance bills with Tony Conrad, Phill Niblock, Jandek, Sawako, Heribert Friedl, Stefan Tcherepnin, Maria Chavez, Alessandro Bosetti, Jason Kahn, Jon Mueller, Tetuzi Akiyama, among many others. Westbrook has also collaborated with Rhys Chatham in the drone metal group Essentialist (Table of the Elements), as well as performed in the ensembles of Phill Niblock, Rhys Chatham, Glenn Branca, Duane Pitre, David Watson and Jonathan Kane. He has worked as technical coordinator of Phill Niblock’s Experimental Intermedia Foundation since 2004. In 2007, he was the recipient of the Jerome Foundation Emerging Artists Commission through Roulette Intermedium. In 2008 he was an artist in residence at Hotel Pupik at Sclhoss Schrattenberg. A CD will be released in Fall 2010 on Sedimental Records. He currently lives and works in Brooklyn, NY.
Keith Fullerton Whitman - An American electronic musician, Whitman has recorded albums influenced by many genres, including ambient music, drill and bass, and krautrock. He records and performs using many aliases, of which the most familiar is Hrvatski (the Croatian word for Croatian). His works under the Hrvatski moniker hewed closest to the drill and bass facet of IDM and were his primary musical outlet in the mid-to-late 1990s. Other solo aliases include ASCIII and Anonymous. Keith has been in many bands in the 1990s, including El-Ron, The Liver Sadness, Sheket/Trabant, The Finger Lakes and Gai/Jin.
Keith Fullerton Whitman started recording using his own name in 2001, and most of his work recorded today is under that name. In 2006, he performed at North East Sticks Together.
The Propensity of Sound festival is presented, in part, through generous support from The Barbara Lee Family Foundation and from CHORA, a project of the Metabolic Studio, a direct charitable activity of the Annenberg Foundation led by Artist and Foundation Director Lauren Bon. CHORA aims to support the intangibles that precede creativity.
PROPENSITY OF SOUND: Eliane Radigue’s Naldjorlak performed @ 110 Livingston by Charles Curtis, Carol Robinson & Bruno Martinez
**At ISSUE Project Room @ 110 Livingston (entrance on 22 Boerum Place)**
Co-presented by Crossing the Line, the fall festival of the French Institute Alliance Française (FIAF) Crossing the Line is the fall festival of the French Institute Alliance Franyaise (FIAF), conceived as a platform to present vibrant new works by a diverse range of transdisciplinary attists working in France and New York City. Crossing the Line 2010 takes place September 10-27.
Eliane Radigue will introduce the New York premiere of her 2009 acoustic composition Naldjorlak, a two and a half hour work in three movements. The concert will mark only the 3rd performance in ISSUE Project Room’s future home at 110 Livingston: a McKim Mead & White-designed jewel box theater, featuring marble floors and 40-ft high vaulted ceilings.
Naldjorlak - After more than 30 years of infinitely discrete electronic music, Eliane Radigue abandoned her cherished Arp 2500 synthesizer to devote herself entirely to acoustic composition. Monumental in length but delicate due to the acoustic treatment of the pulsing and murmuring sounds, Naldjorlak was conceived as a trilogy with incredibly subtle harmonics, sub-tones and partials interacting continuously. The piece was elaborated in close collaboration with three virtuoso musicians who will be performing the piece: cellist Charles Curtis and basset horn players Carol Robinson and Bruno Martinez.
The suspension of time, the dialog with eternity, the proximity to silence, an appeal to contemplation, and exceptional concentration… all that has characterized Eliane Radigue’s music since 1970, is now more relevant than ever. But, Naldjorlak takes her even further on her musical journey, because with these three performers, she has found the ideal means of coming ever closer to the “impalpable chimerical” music of her dreams.
PROPENSITY OF SOUND: Laurie Spiegel With Joseph Kubera
Laurie Spiegel is one of those rare composers in whom head and heart, left brain and right brain, logic and intuition, merge and even exchange roles. Though she is one of the highest-tech computer composers in America, Spiegel is also a lutenist and banjo player, and sees the computer as a new kind of folk instrument. She makes her most intuitive-sounding and melodic music from mathematical algorithms, and her most complex computerized textures by ear and in search of a desired mood. Form and emotion are as difficult to separate in her music as they are in that of her idol, J.S. Bach.
Spiegel was born in Chicago where in her teens she played guitar, banjo, and mandolin, and through them cultivated a devout philosophy of amateur music making. After receiving a degree in the social sciences, she returned to music. Having taught herself notation, she studied classic guitar and composition privately in London, then baroque and renaissance lute at Julliard, and composition with Jacob Druckman and Vincent Persichetti.
Having worked with analog synthesizers since 1969, she sought out the greater compositional control which digital computers could provide and wrote interactive compositional software at Bell Labs from 1973-79. She later founded New York University’s Computer Music Studio, and became famous in rock music circles for her music software for personal computers, notably MusicMouse.
Despite her innovative involvement with technology, Spiegel the composer has never been dominated by Spiegel the computer technician. Her music from the 70s used compositional algorithms (in one case a realization of Kepler’s “Harmony of the Planets”, included in the Voyager spacecraft’s record Sounds of Earth) to generate music in an accessible, minimalist vein. Some of that music was captured on her record on the Philo label, The Expanding Universe, containing works from 1974-6.
But in the early 80s, Spiegel distanced herself from the downtown New York scene that she had helped create, saying that the new music scene’s general direction was toward an “expansion of the collection of tools and techniques available to make music (useful, but not as the central content of a work)”. “For me,” she more recently explained, “music is a way to deal with the extreme intensity of moment to moment conscious existence.” Since breaking away, Spiegel has lived as one of New York’s most independent musicians, supporting herself by her software and circulating her music privately.
Those who fell in love with the folk like melodies and early algorithms of The Expanding Universe may be surprised to hear how much darker and more complex Spiegel’s recent music has become. “Minimalism” may still aptly describe the slow movement of pitch in these pieces (Unseen Worlds), but it gives no hint of their complex timbres, glacial momentum,and cathartic climaxes. Such vibrant, expressive music could only have come from a composer who put her intuition and imagination first, yet who had the immense technical know-how needed to meet the challenges they posed.
Pianist Joseph Kubera has been a leading interpreter of contemporary music for the past three decades. He recently performed at Monday Evening Concerts in L.A. and The Stone in New York, and has been soloist at such festivals as the Warsaw Autumn, Berlin Inventionen and Prague Spring. He has worked closely with legendary composers John Cage, Morton Feldman, La Monte Young, Robert Ashley and others. Among the composers who have written works for him are Michael Byron, Anthony Coleman, David First, Alvin Lucier, Roscoe Mitchell, and “Blue” Gene Tyranny. A longtime Cage advocate, he has recorded the Music of Changes and Concert for Piano and Orchestra, and toured with the Cunningham Dance Company at Cage’s invitation. Mr. Kubera has been awarded grants through the National Endowment for the Arts and the Foundation for Contemporary Performance Arts.
Mr. Kubera is a core member of S.E.M. Ensemble, the DownTown Ensemble and Ostravska Banda, and he has performed with a wide range of New York ensembles and orchestras ranging from Steve Reich and Musicians to the Brooklyn Philharmonic. He tours with new-music baritone Thomas Buckner, and luminaries such as Terry Riley and Ingram Marshall have written for his duo-piano team with Sarah Cahill. Mr. Kubera’s playing may be heard on the Wergo, Albany, New Albion, New World, Lovely Music, O.O. Discs, Mutable Music, Cold Blue, and Opus One labels.
The Propensity of Sound festival is presented, in part, through generous support from The Barbara Lee Family Foundation and from CHORA, a project of the Metabolic Studio, a direct charitable activity of the Annenberg Foundation led by Artist and Foundation Director Lauren Bon. CHORA aims to support the intangibles that precede creativity.
Oval (First Set)
Oval, also known as Markus Popp, is an electronic musician from Berlin, Germany. He is a pioneer of “glitch,” a genre of music that embraces the purposeful mutilation of audio equipment to produce fragmented sounds in a rhythmic electronic style. Originally a trio, Oval also included members Sebastian Oschatz and Frank Metzer until Popp decided to pursue solo projects in 1995. Since then, he has released various CDs, most notably Ovalprocess (Thrill Jockey, 2000), Ovalcommers (Thrill Jockey, 2001), and his most recent debut, Oh (Thrill Jockey, 2010). Oval’s music has been featured alongside Björk, Gastr Del Sol, and Japanese singer Eriko Toyada, with whom he performed in a trio entitled So.
Oval – Ah! from Thrill Jockey Records on Vimeo.
Share – all night free open audio & video jam
What is share?
SHARE is first and foremost a platform to explore expression, in a variety of artforms. Through its weekly open jam sessions, SHARE.nyc engages its participants and spectators in a continually changing dialog on art and culture. As such, SHARE represents an ongoing exploration of collaborative performance as cultural exchange. It mines the relationship of artistic practice to cultural identity, remapping a multiplicity of cultural discourses. The act of creating artistic content in a multicultural collaborative context is a fascinating and natural extension of the SHARE concept.
Share is an open jam, not just for digirati, but for all new culture lovers. Participants bring their portable equipment, plug into our system, improvise on each others’ signal and perform live audio and video. We furnish the amplification and projection. Share happens every Sunday.
open jams and walk-in sets — Bring your equipment/instruments/gear etc. to join the jam!
audio jam: Prepared and spontaneous music from eight plus simultaneous performers. This is the time and place to perform a piece of music you’ve written and hear it on a large sound system, improvise spontaneously with other participants, get feedback on your latest project or try out that new max patch/software setup. Bring your noise maker of choice and an XLR, quarter-inch or RCA cable to join.
video jam: multi-user live video synthesis. Generating an immersive visual environment, in the SHARE tradition, in which multiple participants are able to jointly compose the video output. Try out and learn about new VJ wetware. As with the audio, walk-in sets are encouraged. Bring your clips or camera or laptop/amiga and VGA, S-Video, or RCA cables to join
8pm, free —
No featured guest scheduled tonight
Share @ Issue Project Room
The (OA) Can Factory
232 3rd Street, 3rd Floor
Brooklyn, NY 11215direction/map:
http://issueprojectroom.org/contact
http://is.gd/ljow
SHARE is always 100% FREE!! (no admission!)
Show up early!!! and stay late!!
http://share.dj/share
http://facebook.com/sharenyc
http://issueprojectroom.org
Share – all night free open audio & video jam – featured guests @ 10:30PM Chen + Yassin + Carey + Olsen
What is share?
SHARE is first and foremost a platform to explore expression, in a variety of artforms. Through its weekly open jam sessions, SHARE.nyc engages its participants and spectators in a continually changing dialog on art and culture. As such, SHARE represents an ongoing exploration of collaborative performance as cultural exchange. It mines the relationship of artistic practice to cultural identity, remapping a multiplicity of cultural discourses. The act of creating artistic content in a multicultural collaborative context is a fascinating and natural extension of the SHARE concept.
Share is an open jam, not just for digirati, but for all new culture lovers. Participants bring their portable equipment, plug into our system, improvise on each others’ signal and perform live audio and video. We furnish the amplification and projection. Share happens every Sunday.
open jams and walk-in sets — Bring your equipment/instruments/gear etc. to join the jam!
audio jam: Prepared and spontaneous music from eight plus simultaneous performers. This is the time and place to perform a piece of music you’ve written and hear it on a large sound system, improvise spontaneously with other participants, get feedback on your latest project or try out that new max patch/software setup. Bring your noise maker of choice and an XLR, quarter-inch or RCA cable to join.
video jam: multi-user live video synthesis. Generating an immersive visual environment, in the SHARE tradition, in which multiple participants are able to jointly compose the video output. Try out and learn about new VJ wetware. As with the audio, walk-in sets are encouraged. Bring your clips or camera or laptop/amiga and VGA, S-Video, or RCA cables to join
8pm, free —
Tonight’s feature guest will play @ 10:30PM: The set will happen immediately following Issue Project Room’s ‘Jandek’ concert taking place at the (OA) Can Factory’s courtyard.
A rare meeting of the three from three points of the world:
Audrey Chen (cello/voice) Baltimore
Raed Yassin (acoustic bass) Beirut/Amsterdam
Jeff Carey (live electronics) Odenton
Morten J Olsen (percussion) Norway/Berlin
Audrey Chen (cello/voice)
http://myspace.com/audreychen
jeff carey (electronics)
http://jeffcarey.foundation-one.org
Raed Yassin (acoustic bass)
http://myspace.com/raedyassin
Morten J Olsen (percussion)
http://www.myspace.com/themoha
———
Share @ Issue Project Room
The (OA) Can Factory
232 3rd Street, 3rd Floor
Brooklyn, NY 11215
direction/map:
http://issueprojectroom.org/contact
http://is.gd/ljow
SHARE is always 100% FREE!! (no admission!)
Show up early!!! and stay late!!
http://share.dj/share
http://www.share.dj/share/event_info.php?eventID=600
Share – all night A/V openjam
what is share?
SHARE is first and foremost a platform to explore expression, in a variety of artforms. Through its weekly open jam sessions, SHARE.nyc engages its participants and spectators in a continually changing dialog on art and culture. As such, SHARE represents an ongoing exploration of collaborative performance as cultural exchange. It mines the relationship of artistic practice to cultural identity, remapping a multiplicity of cultural discourses. The act of creating artistic content in a multicultural collaborative context is a fascinating and natural extension of the SHARE concept.
Share is an open jam, not just for digirati, but for all new culture lovers. Participants bring their portable equipment, plug into our system, improvise on each others’ signal and perform live audio and video. We furnish the amplification and projection. Share happens every Sunday.
open jams and walk-in sets — Bring your equipment/instruments/gear etc. to join the jam!
audio jam: Prepared and spontaneous music from eight plus simultaneous performers. This is the time and place to perform a piece of music you’ve written and hear it on a large sound system, improvise spontaneously with other participants, get feedback on your latest project or try out that new max patch/software setup. Bring your noise maker of choice and an XLR, quarter-inch or RCA cable to join.
video jam: multi-user live video synthesis. Generating an immersive visual environment, in the SHARE tradition, in which multiple participants are able to jointly compose the video output. Try out and learn about new VJ wetware. As with the audio, walk-in sets are encouraged. Bring your clips or camera or laptop/amiga and VGA, S-Video, or RCA cables to join
8pm, free —
Share @ Issue Project Room
The (OA) Can Factory
232 3rd Street, 3rd Floor
Brooklyn, NY 11215
http://www.share.dj/share/event_info.php?eventID=579
direction/map:
http://issueprojectroom.org/contact
http://is.gd/ljow
SHARE is always 100% FREE!! (no admission!)
Show up early!!! and stay late!!
Mivos String Quartet and the CNS Symphony Orchestra play works by Tony Conrad, Huang Ruo and Luke Dubois + Dave Soldier and Brad Garton
Dave Soldier and Brad Garton, June 2009
For my third string quartet, we choose to return to the essential quartet, that which is pure. To attain this ideal, one would bring to existence a string quartet untouched by human hands.
The piece is constructed as follows:
1. We selected a favorite string quartet, Schoenberg’s Second, scherzo movement.
2. We retained the original pitches and extirpated all of his rhythms and phrasing marks, rewriting them completely at our whim
3. The string players record our “enhanced” score
4. In performance, they place the instruments on chairs, and sit behind on other chairs. They trigger sections of their own playing using electroencephalograms: the brain waves are projected for the audience to see. The amplitude threshold of the brain signals trigger the entry of their various parts, while frequency and slope are derived to trigger transformations, including changes in tempo and pitch.
There are two movements
1. Fourier Transformations
This is the original Schoenberg second movement in amplitudes of frequency distributions without a time dimension: all frequencies (pitches) used in the piece are played simultaneously, in amplitudes (volume) which are the product of the number of times the pitch is played and the volume used. It is thus quite short in duration, and could be listened to music lovers in a hurry, as it is identical to the original version of the piece, containing all of the same information.
2. Exobiology: I breathe the air on other planets
Expanding time to a variable fractal dimension in our second movement, the recorded phrases are triggered by the performer’s minds. Performers may use motor actions, such as eye closure or isometric muscle presses, to trigger variable brain waves from the cortex and transform their prerecorded performance.
An epigram and further analysis for The Essential Quartet is a western blot (Figure 1) prepared by acquiring two violins, a viola, and a cello, boiling them (or boiling followed by varnish extraction with benzene), and displaying their entire constituent proteins on the basis of molecular weight on a polyacrylamide gel. This provides all essential information on the string quartet and is completely identical to the original.
Mari Kimura, Curtis Steward, violins & brainwaves
Herve Bronnimann, viola & brainwaves
David Eggar, cello & brainwaves
Brad Garton, Dave Soldier, conductors
TILT Brass presents New York Noise
TILT plays music by four legendary Downtown composers
Nick Didkovsky – Stink Up! (2003) [World Premiere]
full ensemble
Lois V. Vierk – Jagged Mesa (1990)
2 trp, 2 tnr trb, 2 bs trb
Rhys Chatham – Waterloo No.2 (1986)
3 trp, 2 trb, solo perc
Elliot Sharp – Coriolis Effect (1998/2003)
full ensemble
PERSONNEL
Trumpet – Shane Endsley, Russ Johnson
Josh Frank
French Horn – Mike Atkinson, Ann Ellsworth, Mark Taylor
Trombone – Joe Fiedler, Chris McIntyre
Bass Trombone – Jacob Garchik, Dave Nelson
Tuba – Ron Caswell
Percussion - Garrett Brown
Conductor - Greg Evans
TILT Brass’ New York Noise series presents compositions and improvising strategies developed within the singular musical culture of Downtown NYC during the past 30 years. By the late 70′s, “Downtown Music” referred to several strains of activity in New York such as minimalist tendencies in the classic SoHo Scene, the post-punk severity of No Wave bands, and the improvisational abandon of the Loft Jazz scene. As the 80′s progressed, a natural blending of these performance practices gave rise to a sort of Post-Modern hybridity still highly influential on the “new music” community today.
The musicians of TILT are direct descendants of these historical “local” traditions, continuing to evolve and mutate inherited aesthetic DNA, often along side important legacy artists. When possible, the group works directly with composers to adapt older works and/or create new ones for its innovative instrumentation(s), striving to expose and reinvigorate this important musical legacy.
New York-based TILT Brass is a collective of creative brass and percussion artists that has presented concerts throughout the city since 2003. Many of the musicians who participate in TILT projects are leaders in their field, such as trumpeters Russ Johnson and Nate Wooley, trombonists Joe Fiedler and Curtis Hasselbring, horn player John Clark, and percussionist Kevin Norton. The group’s repertoire features over a dozen works custom designed for its two projects, the 10-piece Creative Brass Band and 6-piece SIXtet. The latter, with duos of trumpet, trombone, and tuba, features Johnson, Wooley, Hasselbring and TILT Director Chris McIntyre on trombone, and Joe Exely and John Altieri on tuba.
>This ever-evolving list of idiosyncratic pieces being created for both ensembles includes works by important voices in the avant jazz and experimental concert music fields, including Anthony Coleman, John King, Chris Jonas, Taylor Ho Bynum, and group members Norton and McIntyre, among others. Coleman’s work Set Into Motion, premiered by the Brass Band in 2005, was released on the composer’s acclaimed Tzadik CD Pushy Blueness in August ’06. In addition to original works, TILT presents many pieces from the experimental tradition. Programs have featured historical compositions such as a Varése graphic score from the late 50′s and selections from James Tenney’s Postal Pieces, epochal works from the 70′s by Fredric Rzewski (Les Mounton de Panurge) and early John Adams (Light Over Water), and contemporary works by Elliott Sharp and Lois V. Vierk (June ’09).
Over its 6 year history, a number of vital New York venues have presented TILT Brass projects such as the Whitney Museum, BAM Café, Joe’s Pub, Issue Project Room, and Tonic. In December ’06, TILT SIXtet joined forces with Chris McIntyre’s group Lotet (collectively known as LoTILT) at Roulette Intermedium to premiere his folio score Metaxis.The Creative Brass Band presented two nights of original repertoire at The Stone in June ’07. Entitled ALL TILT, these important events included the premiere of new works by Curtis Hasselbring and Nate Wooley,composer/performer members of TILT, and by multi-instrumentist Charles Waters and cornetist Taylor Ho Bynum. Recent SIXtet performances include a Febuary ’08 set during Issue Project Room’s Horn Week (featuring Santa Fe-based saxophonist and composer Chris Jonas) and an October ’08 presentation on Composer Collaborative’s Serial Underground at Cornelia Street Café.
Anthony Coleman + Huang Ruo’s Future in REverse (FIRE)
Huang Ruo’s Future in REverse (FIRE)
Three Pieces for Piano (1999-2005)
Stephen Buck, Piano
Tree Without Wind (2004)
Stephen Buck, Piano
Four Fragments (2006)
Judy Kang, Violin
Five Lights, Ten Colors (2008)
Stephen Buck, Piano
String Quartet No.1: The Three Tenses (2005)
Judy Kang, Violin I, Aaron Boyd, Violin II
Erin Wight, Viola, Charles Tyler, Cello
About the Composer:
Huang Ruo (Composer & Conductor)
Recently awarded both the First Prize and the Audience Award from the prestigious Luxembourg International Composition Prize 2008, Huang Ruo is Hailed by the New Yorker as “one of the most intriguing of the new crop of Asian-American composers.” Hailed by the New Yorker as “one of the most intriguing of the new crop of Asian-American composers,” Huang Ruo’s music has been premiered and performed by, among others, the New York Philharmonic, the Philadelphia Orchestra, the Asko Ensemble, the Nieuw Ensemble, the Dutch Vocal Laboratory, and the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, under conductors such as Wolfgang Sawallisch, James Conlon, Dennis Russell Davies, Ed Spanjaard, and Ilan Volkov. In 2003, Miller Theatre featured him on its Composer Portraits series. New York Times critic Allan Kozinn hailed the concert as the second on the list of his “Top Ten Classical Moments of 2003.” In February 2007, Naxos Records released his Chamber Concerto Cycle on its acclaimed American Classics series, and his orchestral lyric Leaving Sao was released on Albany Records in 2008. Planned CD releases include Divergence on Koch Records and The Three Tenses on Summit Records. His future commissions and premieres include chamber concerto MO for the Luxembourg Sinfonietta (Luxembourg), a chamber opera for the Dutch Vocal Laboratory (Netherlands), String quartet No.2 for the Carducci Quartet (Great Britain), and String Quartet No.3 for the Quartuor Diotima (France), chamber works for UMS ´N JIP (Switzerland), the Continuum Ensemble, Camerata Pacifica, the Bowdoin Summer Music Festival, and a documentary film sound tracks for the Museum of Chinese in America (MOCA). Huang Ruo’s past film credits include sound tracks to the films Jian-Fu Garden as well as Stand Up. His works are published by the Huang Ruo Publishing and Recording Company, which he founded in 2000. Also noted as an author, he published Selection of Classic Chinese Folk Songs (Zhong Shan University Press). In 2006, the National Committee on United States–China Relations selected him as a Young Leader Fellow. Huang Ruo was born in Hainan Island, China, in 1976, the year the Chinese Cultural Revolution ended. His father, who is a well-known composer in China, began teaching him composition and piano when he was six years old. Growing up in the 1980s and 1990s, when China was steadily opening up its gates to the Western world, he received both traditional and Western education at the Shanghai Conservatory of Music. He was admitted into its composition program, studying with Deng Erbo when he turned twelve. As a result of the dramatic cultural and economic changes in China following the Cultural Revolution, his education expanded from Bach, Mozart, Stravinsky, and Lutoslawski to include the Beatles, rock and roll, heavy metal, and jazz. Huang Ruo was able to absorb all of these newly allowed Western influences without inhibiting factors. As a member of the new generation of Chinese composers, he clearly knows that his goal and task is not just to simply mix both Western and Eastern elements, but to go beyond that to create a seamless synthesis and a convincing organic unity, drawing influences from various genres and cultures. After winning the Henry Mancini Award at the 1995 International Film and Music Festival in Switzerland, he moved to the United States to further his education. Since then, he has earned a Bachelor of Music degree from the Oberlin Conservatory of Music and Master of Music and Doctor of Musical Arts degrees in composition from the Juilliard School. His composition teachers have included Randolph Coleman and Samuel Adler. Huang Ruo is currently a member of the composition faculty at SUNY Purchase. For more information about Huang Ruo, please visit his website at www.huangruo.com.
About the Performers:
Future In REverse (FIRE)
Future In REverse (FIRE) is dedicated to the future of music. Specializing in multi-media and cross-genre projects, FIRE is widely praised for its innovative programming and performances. Founded in 2005 by composer and conductor Huang Ruo, FIRE has performed at Lincoln Center, Time Warner Center, Rubin Museum of Arts, Aspen Summer Music Festival, and the Greenwich Music Festival. FIRE’s diverse collaborations include visual music with kinetic painter Norman Perryman and ballets with choreographers James Sewell from the James Sewell Ballet and Charlotte Griffin from the New York Choreographic Institute. In 2008, FIRE recorded sound tracks for two films (Emperor’s New Garden and Stand Up), which will be released in 2009. FIRE’s upcoming projects including a U.S. tour in Fall, 2009, as well as concerts at Austrian Cultural Forum, Issue Project Room, and Lincoln Center. Comprised of both Eastern and Western instruments and some of today’s most gifted and promising young musicians, FIRE advocates music in a wide variety of styles, ranging from avant-garde modernism to world music, visual arts, and experimental music. For more information about FIRE, please visit: www.myspace.com/futureinreverse
Aaron Byod (Violin)
Violinist Aaron Boyd enjoys a versatile career as an established chamber musician, soloist and teacher. Since making his debut with the Pittsburgh Symphony at the age of 17, Mr. Boyd has been heard in concert across the United States, Europe and Asia. As a chamber musician, he as collaborated with members of the Beaux Arts Trio, the Juilliard, Guarneri and Orion Quartets, Phillippe Entremont, Mitsuko Uchida, Anner Bylsma and Gerard Poulet. Mr. Boyd has played as a member of the Metamorphosen, Prometheus and Orpheus chamber orchestras and toured internationally as a member of the Sejong Soloists. Mr. Boyd has participated in the Marlboro, Tanglewood, Fontainbleau, IMS Prussia Cove, Great Mountains (Korea) and La Jolla festivals and has been a prizewinner in numerous competitions including the Klein Violin Competition, the Tuesday Music Society and the Pittsburgh Concert Society.
Mr. Boydصs passionate interest in contemporary music has led to numerous premiers in concert and on record, including Milton Babbittصs 6th String Quartet and Babbittصs Clarinet Quintet. Mr. Boyd is currently first violinist and a founding member of the Zukofsky Quartet, Quartet-In-Residence at New Yorkصs Bargemusic series. With interests ranging beyond the classical genre, Mr. Boyd has played and recorded in collaboration with Jazz legend Dick Hyman, Chanteuse Badomi DeCesare, and appeared in concert on the mandolin with flutist Paula Robison. Highlights of the upcoming season include an appearance on Lincoln Centerصs زGreat Performersس series with Midori, the premier of David Gommperصs Violin Concerto with the Manhattan Sinfonietta, and at the invitation of Columbia University and The University of Chicago the Zukofsky Quartet will present all of Milton Babbittصs String Quartets in one concert. Born in Pittsburgh, Mr. Boyd began playing the violin at age 7 and graduated from The Juilliard School where he studied with Sally Thomas and coached extensively with Harvey Shapiro. As a recording artist, Mr. Boyd can be heard on the Tzadik, Furious Artisans, North/South and Naxos labels. Mr. Boyd recently joined the Violin Faculty of Columbia University and plays a violin crafted in 1995 by Samuel Zygmuntowicz.
Stephen Buck (Piano)
Stephen Buck, pianist, has performed solo and chamber works around the world. His most recent projects include joining the piano quartet Ensemble Argos and the co-founding new music ensemble Hammer/Klavier. Currently serving on the faculties of SUNY Purchase and the Hoff-Barthelson Music School in Scarsdale, NY, Dr. Buck was recently awarded his doctoral degree from Yale University. Recent engagements have included work with So Percussion at Columbia University’s Miller Theater, a concert of works by composer Huang Ruo, four-hand recitals and a performance of Mozart’s Concerto for Two Pianos with pianist and wife Tanya Bannister and the Westchester Philharmonic, vocal collaboration with soprano Heather Buck, and a lecture on the commedia dell’arte in piano repertoire at the Casa Italiana of NYU. An avid chamber musician and collaborative pianist, Mr. Buck has taught and performed for several summers at the Adriatic Chamber Music Festival in southern Italy. In 2006 he co-founded theAlpenKammerMusik Festival in Austria, an intensive 9-day course for musicians of all ages. He has studied at many prestigious summer music festivals, including Boston University Tanglewood Institute, Aspen Music Festival, Music Academy of the West in Santa Barbara, and Kneisel Hall in Blue Hill, Maine. A firm believer in the value of new music, Mr. Buck has performed works of George Crumb, Steve Reich, and Alvin Singleton for the composers, as well as many works by his own contemporaries, including Marcus Maroney, Sebastián Zubieta, Roshanne Etezady, and others.
Judy Kang (Violin)
This charismatic violinist, born and raised in Canada, is establishing a career filled with diversity in musical style and artistic flair, and a continuous innnovation in performance. Judy burst onto the classical music scene at age ten, in a nationally acclaimed televised performance as soloist with the National Arts Center Orchestra. At 17, Judy captured the Grand-Prize as well as the “Best Interpretation” prize at the CBC Competition for Young Performers, Canada’s most honoured competition. Judy has performed throughout North and South America, Europe, Asia, and the Caribbean Islands and has performed in recital and with all of the major orchestras of Canada. She gave a solo performance for former Canadian prime-minister Brian Mulroney when she was nine and has also had the privilege of performing for former US president Bill Clinton. She made her debut in Weill Hall at Carnegie Hall to critical acclaim, and has performed at Lincoln Center, Tokyo Suntory Hall, and Wigmore, as well as at the Metropolitan and Guggenheim Museums in New York. Judy has worked closely with notable composers, Leon Kirchner, Richard Danielpour, Alexander Goehr, and Pierre Boulez, with whom, after an intense week of collaboration, lead to a successful culminating concert. Canadian composer, Michael Matthews, has written a violin concerto for her. A founding member of the piano quartet ‘Made In Canada’, formed at the Banff Center in 2006, the group immediately earned recognition in their native Canada and have received scholarships and awards including the eminent 2006 Galaxie Rising Stars Award. They were featured in Chatelaine Magazine for Women as one of 80 women to watch. At the age of 19, Judy was granted the Lily Foldes Scholarship from the Juilliard School, and graduated with a Masters Degree. She became the first graduate, with high honours, of the prestigious Artist Diploma at the Manhattan School of Music. Her mentors include Sylvia Rosenberg, Robert Mann, and Lorand Fenyves, Aaron Rosand, and Gary Graffman.She won top prizes at the Nielsen, Dong-A, Kreisler, and Naumburg International Violin Competitions. Judy has appeared on CBC, CNN, and MTV. She released two critically acclaimed CDs on the CBC Records label. She is also frequently heard live and through broadcasts on CBC (Canada), BBC (London), and on WQXR (New York). She won the ‘Sylva Gelber’ Prize given to the most talented musician under 30. In recognition of her outstanding achievement and contribution to the arts, Judy is featured as an accomplished artist and inspiration in a book entitled Korea and Canada: A Shared History. Judy is a mentor and artist for Young Audiences (YA), the nation’s largest nonprofit arts in education organization. She is also an artist and ambassador for WorldVision, a Christian relief and development organization dedicated to helping children and their communities worldwide reach their full potential by tackling the causes of poverty. She currently plays on the 1689 “Baumgartner” Stradivarius on generous loan from the Canada Council for the Arts.
Erin Wight (Viola)
Violist Erin Wight, a Midwestern transplant to New York City, is an active chamber musician and avid performer of new music. She performs frequently as a member of the Red Light New Music Ensemble, Talea Ensemble, and Future In Reverse (FIRE), all ensembles with a dedication to exploring contemporary repertoire. Ms. Wight has also played with the New Juilliard Ensemble, Axiom, the Juilliard Electric Ensemble, and worked closely with members of Ensemble Modern. In addition, Ms. Wight is a founding member of the Toomai String Quintet, 2007 winners of the 92nd St. Y’s Music Unlocked! competition for emerging ensembles dedicated to educational outreach. Ms. Wight is deeply committed to community engagement and is on the teaching artist faculty of the New York Philharmonic’s School Partnership Program, Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, and the Weill Institute at Carnegie Hall. Ms. Wight completed her Master of Music degree at The Juilliard School where she studied with Paul Neubauer.
Charles Tyler (Cello)
Having been named winner of the 2006 Cleveland Institute of Music’s Concerto Competition and the 2007 Cleveland Cello Society Competition, Charles Tyler is a rising musician who has performed live on radio stations of Cleveland and Chicago and with orchestras around the country as soloist. Most recently Tyler acted as principal cellist for the National Repertory Orchestra’s 2008 summer season in Breckenridge Colorado. There he performed Tchaikovsky’s Variations on a Rococo Theme and Bernstein’s Three Meditations from Mass as soloist under conductors Andres Moran and Kristjan Järvi. In previous summers, Tyler attended the Meadowmount School of Music in 2002 and 2003 and the Encore School for Strings in 2005 and 2006 where performed works of Rachmaninoff, Martinu, and Brahms. In the summer of 2007 he attended Villefavard, an intensive master class session lead by Maurico Fuks and Michel Strauss in central France. He then continued his studies with Strauss at the Conservatoire National Superior de Musique de Paris for the fall of 2007. In addition to performing more traditional repertoire, Tyler has also performed George Crumb’s innovative electric string quartet Black Angels on a live radio broadcast on Cleveland’s WCLV. Being an advocate of new music, he has premiered and performed numerous new works in orchestral, chamber and solo settings. Tyler has performed in masterclasses for Paul Katz, Steven Doane, Eleonore Schoenfeld, Zvi Plesser, Peter Salaff, the Cavani String Quartet, and the Osiris Piano Trio and has previously studied with Tanya Carey and Jeanne Johannesen. In the spring of 2008 he received his Bachelor of Music degree from the Cleveland Institute of Music graduating with honors. There he was a student of Richard Aaron, Melissa Kraut, and Richard Weiss and will continue his studies in the fall of 2008 at The Juilliard School with Joel Krosnick.
ANTHONY COLEMAN – NEW WORKS
Six Short Pieces For Solo Piano (2008)
Flat Narrative (2008)
And More!
Anthony Coleman is a composer-keyboardist who has performed and recorded throughout the world. His projects include the piano trio Sephardic Tinge, which has released three discs: Sephardic Tinge, Morenica, and Our Beautiful Garden Is Open (all Tzadik) and has performed at the Sarajevo Jazz Festival (with support from Arts International), North Sea Jazz Festival, Saalfelden Festival, and the Krakow and Vienna Jewish Culture Festivals. His Selfhaters Orchestra has issued two CDs: Selfhaters and The Abysmal Richness of the Infinite Proximity of the Same (both Tzadik).
His compositions for other ensembles include Latvian Counter-Gambit for chamber orchestra, commissioned by the Crosstown Ensemble, Mise en Abime, commissioned by the Bang On A Can All-Stars/Jerome Foundation, Goodbye and Good Luck, commissioned by Neta Pulvermacher and Dancers/Meet The Composer, as well as commissions from Relche, Aspen Woodwind Quintet, and David Krakauer/Concert Artists Guild. Coleman’s compositions can also be heard on the following CDs: Carol Emanuel’s Tops of Trees (Koch); Guy Klucevsek’s Manhattan Cascade (CRI); A Guide For The Perplexed (Knitting Factory Works); A Conspiracy of Dances (Einstein); and Polka From the Fringe (Wave/Eva). Coleman’s other major projects have included by Night, a series of pieces based on experiences in the ex-Yugoslavia (Disco by Night [Avant]) and the duo Lobster and Friend, with saxophonist Roy Nathanson (The Coming Great Millennium, Lobster and Friend [both Knitting Factory Works] and I Could’ve Been A Drum [Tzadik]). He has also produced several recordings for other artists, including Marc Ribot, Basya Schecter and Pharoah’s Daughter, Romanian singer Sanda, as well as the acclaimed With Every Breath – the Music of Shabbat at BJ [Knitting Factory Works]. Anthony Coleman has received grants and residencies from the New York Foundation for the Arts, the Djerassi Colony, the Civitella Ranieri Center, the Frei und Hansestadt Hamburg Kulturbehrde and the Yellow Springs Arts Center.
In the last year, Coleman has been the subject of a three-day festival, Abstract Adventures, in Brussels, Belgium. He presented a concert of his music as part of the Interpretations series at Merkin Concert Hall, NYC. He spent the spring semester of 2003 teaching theory and composition at Bennington College in Vermont and toured Europe with his new trio, Professionales, featuring Brad Jones and Roberto Rodriguez. He has degrees in composition from the New England Conservatory of Music and the Yale School of Music and attended Mauricio Kagel’s seminar at Centre Acanthes in Aix-en-Provence, France.
A WEEK OF PERCUSSION II
February 14, 2008
raz mesinai + amir ziv + steve honoshowsky
RAZ MESINAI
Raz Mesinai
Composer and multi instrumentalist Raz Mesinai was born in Jerusalem in 1973. His first two decades were spent in frequent transit between Jerusalem and New York City, where he became immersed in both the worlds of traditional Middle Eastern music, and the dub and hip-hop scenes of the eighties and earlynineties in New York City. Mesinai’s electronic and electro-acoustic music exists at the crossroads of composition, sound design and modern studio production. Raz was a featured artist in the “Next, Next Wave” festival of the Brooklyn Academy of Music, and opened for Nubian master musician Hamza El Din at Lincoln Center, a personal highlight. Raz has received commissions from the Lincoln Center Festival in both 2000 and 2001, and In 2004, following his developing interest in visual narrative and storytelling in music, Mesinai was a Fellow at the Sundance Composer’s Lab. This year Mesinai was commissioned to compose works for Ethel, Maya Beiser, VIA, and The Kronos Quartet.
“Speak Softly and Carry a Big Stick” drum & percussion pieces by Amir Ziv & Steve Honoshowsky with special guest, Billy Martin
AMIR ZIV
Amir Ziv
“The astounding drum work of Amir Ziv may convince even the most ruff-neck kids that they’re in the hands of a master.” URB – Chris Muniz
Since arriving in the US in 1990 from his native country of Israel, Amir Ziv has emerged as one of the country’s most forward-thinking & visionary drummers, setting deep marks in both the Nu-Jazz as well as the “live” electronica scenes. His work with his band Droid featuring the work of Miles’ musical director/producer/synthesist – Adam Holzman, bassists Tim LeFebvre and Yossi Fine and trumpeter Jordan McLean, produced some of NYC’s most on-the-edge “live” electronica. Amir’s other band that he leads is KOTKOT, featuring percussionist to the stars Cyro Baptista, NYC’s “down-town” guitar-God Marc Ribot and bassist Shahzad Ismaily. Notable sideman credits such as Trey Anastasio, Cibo Matto, Beat The Donkey and Graham Haynes and his educator status has brought recent demand for his musical skills the world over.
STEVE HONOSHOWSKY
Steve Honoshowsky has been a percussionist for almost fifteen years and has professionally performed on drums and percussion for almost nine years. Steve teaches private instruction and is a facilitator of the TRAP (The Rhythmic Arts Project) program. He has performed for audiences all over the country in a variety of different musical groups ranging from jazz, funk and metal to many solo drum performances as well. One of the many groups he has performed in called No Use For Humans has had very positive reviews from many international music publications such as Progression, READ, and High Times magazines among many others. No Use For Humans have performed throughout the tri-state area and have opened for Skeleton Key, Captured By Robots, and The Legendary Pink Dots. In addition,
Steve’s has studied with Chris Pennie (Dillinger Escape Plan/Coheed and Cambria) and Billy Martin (Medeski, Martin & Wood).
8pm $10
On January 25, ISSUE Project Room will inaugurate its new space at 110 Livingston with Gaudeamus Muziekweek, a four-day festival celebrating groundbreaking and challenging new music by emerging composers from around the world. Working in partnership ...
ISSUE is starting off the New Year with a change of scenery. That's right, Issue Project Room is moving out of our space at the Old American Can Factory and into 110 Livingston in Downtown Brooklyn. We've had a great run at the Can Factory,...