Experimental Music

Chamber Music, Classical Music, Composers, Concerts, Contemporary Classical, Downtown, Experimental Music, Improv, Music Events, New York, Piano

Interpretations Season #20 Artist Blog #4 — JB Floyd, Raphael Mostel

This Fall marks the twentieth season of provocative programming in New York City brought to you by Interpretations. Founded and curated by baritone Thomas Buckner in 1989, Interpretations focuses on the relationship between contemporary composers from both jazz and classical backgrounds and their interpreters, whether the composers themselves or performers who specialize in new music. To celebrate, Jerry Bowles has invited the artists involved in this season’s concerts to blog about their Interpretations experiences. Our fourth concert this season, on 20 November, features composer-performers JB Floyd and Raphael Mostel at Roulette.

JB Floyd:
My concert on the Interpretations Series on November 20th will mark the third time that I have presented my compositions on this prestigious series. These concerts have featured my works for flute and piano, vocal pieces for Thomas Buckner and the Yamaha Disklavier™ and keyboard works that combine the unique features of the Yamaha Disklavier™ as a concert piano and as a controller keyboard.

Though my music is mostly notated there are usually opportunities for improvisation within each composition. Having worked on many occasions with Thomas Buckner I am particularly looking forward to our work together on a new piece of mine, In Crossing The Busy Street for baritone voice and Yamaha Disklavier™. The poem is by Daniel Abdal-Hayy Moore a poet whose works inspire musical representation.

Other compositions are for the Yamaha Disklavier™ and will be performed by my talented protégé, Liana Pailodze who is an Artist Diploma candidate at the Frost School of Music at the University of Miami. It is an honor to be included on this celebrated series that is celebrating its 20th Anniversary.

Raphael Mostel:
Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Black Bela
I am haunted by Bela Bartok. He composed certain musical ideas which pursue me, and unbidden keep coming back to mind. My Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Black Bela is an attempt to exorcise this musical “possession” using one particularly searing turn from Bartok’s Piano Sonata. I’ve enlisted help from John Cage, Morton Feldman, Leonard Bernstein, Gyorgy Kurtag and many others. Wallace Stevens’ poem seemed to bless this exorcism. My apologies to triskadecaphobes.

A Letter to Benoit Mandelbrot, or, Authenticity
I’d written to Benoit Mandelbrot, the father of fractal geometry, asking if he’d never wondered why — since visual representations of fractals are so beautiful — the supposed musical representations of fractals are not? I offered to explicate mathematically. He wrote back inviting elaboration, which I did. But my explanation, he said, “mystified” him. My Letter to Benoit Mandelbrot is a further meditation on music, self-similarity and cheating.

by JB
Chamber Music, Classical Music, Composers, Concerts, Contemporary Classical, Downtown, Experimental Music, Improv, New York

Interpretations Season 20: Artist Blog #1 — Michael Lipsey

This Fall marks the twentieth season of provocative programming in New York City brought to you by Interpretations. Founded and curated by baritone Thomas Buckner in 1989, Interpretations focuses on the relationship between contemporary composers from both jazz and classical backgrounds and their interpreters, whether the composers themselves or performers who specialize in new music. To celebrate, Jerry Bowles has invited the artists involved in this season’s concerts to blog about their Interpretations experiences. Our first concert this season on 2 October, features the Myra Melford Quartet and Henry Threadgill’s Zooid + Talujon Percussion Ensemble. Michael Lipsey of Talujon has volunteered to write about how his group worked with the Mary Flagler Cary Charitable Trust to commission a new work from Henry Threadgill:

Contemporary music is exciting. People are trying new things, creating new works, involving new audiences members. The division between genres is the most open it has ever been. With that in mind, Talujon Percussion, Henry Threadgill and Zooid have teamed up to play on the Interpretations Series in honor of the series’ 20th season.

Henry Threadgill is one of the most unique voices in contemporary improvisatory music. His resume is breath-taking, his skills are immense and his interests are wide and varied. About two years ago, Henry called me up a day before a Talujon concert. He told me he was interested in the group and wanted to come to our performance. We were happy to meet him and honored that he would come to one of our performances.

A few days after the performance, Henry again called and asked if we would be willing to work on a new work. The answer was, of course, “Yes”. Henry decided to write a piece for Talujon and his ensemble, Zooid. We ended up applying to the Mary Flagler Carey Trust for the commission. We have used that commissioning vehicle in the past. Through this organization we were also able to commission a work for 4 drum sets by Julia Wolfe.

After meeting with Henry, he decided to compose a piece for each individual in Talujon.
We all gave Henry our wishlist of instruments. Henry then used our strengths in his composition. The piece that came out of this process uses four of our members, each with our own set-up. The piece is called “Fate Cues”.

We start rehearsals tomorrow and we are all excited. If you listen to Henry’s works you find that he is a fluid composer. He is continually asking more from the players. The charts are difficult, but that is not the emphasis of his works. He wants the musicians to move through the piece together as a strict unit. Each voice in individually created but maintaining its own presence. The rehearsal process is key.

Talujon is a group that has 18 seasons of unity. We know each other and feel very comfortable with each other. Much like any ensemble, we can feel our musical relationships and know how to support one another. We like to experiment and have practiced improvisation many, many times. Jazz improvisation is different than what we are used to. First, we just need to get past feeling uncomfortable about improvising in front of these great jazz masters in Zooid. I think that part will be ok. All the members have been in these situations before and as a group; Talujon thrives on making the uncomfortable, comfortable.
We like challenges and Henry is open and excited about the challenge.

It should be fun 🙂

*****

Myra Melford Quartet: Happy Whistlings; Henry Threadgill’s Zooid + Talujon: Fate Cues

Thursday October 2, 2008, 8pm at Roulette.

more information / Interpretations

by Michael Lipsey
Contemporary Classical, Electro-Acoustic, Experimental Music

The Long Tail of the Avant Garde

Check this out. (Be patient, it doesn’t really get good until 1:10)

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pmfHHLfbjNQ[/youtube]

This is a remix of Radiohead’s song “Nude” from their recent album “In Rainbows.” Radiohead held a remix contest, selling the individual tracks of the song on iTunes, and this was one of the results. Here’s the instrumentation, as listed by remixer James Houston on the YouTube description:

Sinclair ZX Spectrum – Guitars (rhythm & lead)
Epson LX-81 Dot Matrix Printer – Drums
HP Scanjet 3c – Bass Guitar
Hard Drive array – Act as a collection of bad speakers – Vocals & FX

And as you can see in the video, these aren’t samples he manipulated, they’re the actual hardware hacked together to play the music live. I’m reminded of the early days of electroacoustic music when the composers were coaxing music out of supercomputers and telephone equipment. Houston is a 21 year old recent graduate of the Glasgow School of Art in the UK. As of right now this video has gotten 152,952 views.

[Update 6-12-08: fixed video embed.  Current view count: 161,629]

by Galen H. Brown
Electro-Acoustic, Experimental Music, Festivals

Just Because It’s June in Buffalo

For the past couple of hundred years, David Felder has been running June in Buffalo, the venerable annual music festival that traces its history back to Morton Feldman. Having recently suffered through ‘Savages,’ a small but brutally great film about old people with Laura Linney and Philip Seymour Hoffman set in Buffalo, I have to think that the festival is only justifiable reason to ever set foot there.

This year’s festival is set for June 2-7 and this is one of those year’s when the festival departs from its usual format and explores an overarching theme. This is “Music and Computers” year, drawing in some of the world’s most illustrious and innovative composers, researchers, and teachers of algorithmic, interactive, multimedia, acousmatic, and electroacoustic computer music. Headlining the conference are senior faculty Charles Dodge, Cort Lippe, Roberto Morales, Miller Puckette, Morton Subotnick, Ben Thigpen, and Hans Tutschku, a diverse and international group of composers and pedagogues.

David Felder, currently Birge-Cary Professor of Composition at University of Buffalo, and Director of the Center for 21st Century Music, as well as Founder and Artistic Director of the Slee Sinfonietta, has actually presided as artistic director of June in Buffalo since 1985 (you didn’t really think it was a couple of hundred years, did you), when he resurrected the festival after a five-year hiatus. He has since reshaped the festival, emphasizing the importance of meaningful interaction between the senior composers and students.

This summer’s resident ensembles and soloists include some of the world’s leading performers of contemporary and computer music: the Ensemble for Intuitive Music, a German ensemble founded in 1980 in what was then East Germany for the performance of music considered taboo by the Communist government; members of Germany’s acclaimed experimental chamber music group Ensemble SurPlus; members of the widely-renowned New York New Music Ensemble; and UB’s own professional chamber orchestra-in-residence, the Slee Sinfonietta. Other distinguished performers will include bass-baritone Nicholas Isherwood, the Paris-based early music and new music specialist, and the Swedish classical guitarist and new music pioneer Magnus Andersson.

Joining the faculty and performers will be composition students from around the world, who must first pass through JiB’s fiercely competitive application process (last year there were 100 applicants for 20 spots.) June in Buffalo offers these students the rare opportunity to work and mix with top musicians and world-class faculty in an intimate and casual environment. Under the direction of Felder, more emphasis is now placed on providing opportunities for these emerging composers. For example, each gets to rehearse one of his or her pieces with world-class musicians in a professional setting, resulting in a public performance.

The round-the-clock festival schedule consists of daily seminars, lectures, master classes, panel discussions, and open rehearsals-capped by first-rate afternoon and evening concerts that are open to the public. Every seminar and concert since the Feldman days of ’75 has been recorded, and remains in the UB library’s extensive archives.

If you’re in the neighborhood, pounce. Send me a postcard if you go.

by Jerry Bowles
Contemporary Classical, Experimental Music, Lost and Found, Recordings

Back from the Brink

At the start of 2007, I told you about my composer/sound-artist pal Chris DeLaurenti’s great new CD release, Favorite Intermissions. A collection of recordings made during symphony concerts around the country, of everything but the concert itself; the warm-ups, noodles and doodles from both pre- and mid-concert, framed to draw our attention to the fun, beauty and serendipity these moments hold. Released on GD Records, it included a wonderfully cheeky cover, a parody/homage to the classic Deutsche Grammophon covers (shown here for illustration only!): 

Response was good, with positive notices in places like the Wire, Signal to Noise and even the New York Times. But an 800-pound fly showed up in the ointment: Universal Music Group, now-parent to Deutsche Grammophon, took a dim view of Chris’ cover-art tribute, demanding that all copies be immediately recalled and destroyed.

After lengthy negotiation, Chris’ CD has been given the green light again, and is once more available, though now with this slightly revised cover. To learn more about the pieces and concept, you can listen to an interview with Chris about this work, and his musical/phonographic work in general.

by Steve Layton
Chamber Music, Concerts, Contemporary Classical, Experimental Music

Incredible Isn’t Even Close…

 

Already mentioned at Bruce Hodges’ Monotonous Forest, and soon should be buzzing all over the new-music web, but this is so absolutely inspired and well-executed that I just have to help spread it around even more: Virgil Moorefield (who was one of my click picks here not so long ago) recently directed the Digital Music Ensemble at the University of Michigan in a miniature version of Karlheinz Stockhausen’s already-audacious Helikopter-Streichquartett. To me this version is every bit as audacious as the original, subversive and absolutely respectful at the same moment… And both visually and aurally stunning, to boot. There are two Quicktime files at the page linked above; the “lo-fi” seems to be just audio, but the “hi-fi” has the full video presentation as well, and is well worth the download.

by Steve Layton
Chamber Music, Concerts, Contemporary Classical, Experimental Music

Happy Almost-Birthday, Chapel!

Steve PetersSteve Peters quietly came to Seattle in 2004, after running the non-profit performance organization Nonsequitur out of Albuquerque for 15 years. After a stint at Jackstraw he was finally ready to get back to what he does best (besides making his own wonderful music/sound-art): creating an inviting and flexible space and then filling it up with vital performances. Very soon after its inaugaration this year, the Chapel became probably the premiere initmate space in Seattle for catching new music.

An actual chapel in the beautiful, old Good Shepherd Center (a former home for young girls), tucked into a great park in Seattle’s Wallingford neighborhood, the Chapel accomodates performances from across the musical spectrum, with nary a miss among the bunch. A glance back at an amazing first year:

The ChapelAnimist Orchestra  // Jessica Catron, cello & Johnny Chang, violin: The Microscores Project // Visual/Sound/Digital Poetry (Subtext Reading Series) // Death Posture butoh // Colin Andrew Sheffield & James Eck Rippie, Phil Hendricks, and Rebreather, electronics // Vanessa Skantze, spoken word/theater performance // Tom Baker Quartet + Sunship // Paul Hoskin, contrabass clarinet // Seattle Composers Salon // Eric Barber, sax & Tom Varner, horn // Duo Juum // Dean Moore, gongs & Bill Horist, guitar // DX ARTS group show // Doug Haire, field recordings // However, poetry + music // Byron Au Yong, voice, piano, percussion & Christopher Blaisdel, shakuhachi // Jeffrey Allport, guitar & Tim Olive, percussion + Cristin Miller, voice & Jason Anderson, electronics // Milind Raikar, Indian violin & tabla + Hell’s Bellows, accordion quartet // Dennis Rea & Stuart Dempster // Lisa Moore, piano // Francisco Lopez & Matt Shoemaker // Piano Christening: Gust Burns, Dawn Clement, Duo Juum, Wayne Horvitz, Julie Ives, Johanna Kunin, Victor Noriega, Amy Rubin, Cristina Valdes // Marathon: 40 artists in 10 hours (Nonsequitur, Jack Straw, Clear Cut Press, Subtext, Phonographers Union, DoubleSharp, WA Composers Forum, Seattle Composers Salon) // Chris Chandler, Paul Benoit, Ela Lamblin, Vishal & Ushwal Nagar // Gust Burns + Julie Ives, piano // Moraine + Snapbite // Gretta Harley, choral/spoken word performance // Duran/Schloss/Mitri Trio + Paul Rucker Quinte // Jim Haynes, sound art + Eric Lanzillotta, analog synth // Gregory Reynolds, sax & Gust Burns, piano // No West Festival of Improvised Music & Dance // Matthew Postle & Derek Terran + Michael Owcharuk Trio // Bling! + Figeater // Yann Novak & Son of Rose // Reptet + Ziggurat Ensemble // Dean Moore & Sha’ari Garfinkel, gongs // Satoko Fujii, piano & Natsuki Tamura, trumpet // Gamelan Pacifica // Diego Piñon butoh // Seattle Latin American Music Festival // Flute Force, flute quartet // Greg Sinibaldi // EQlateral Ensemble // Keith Rowe & friends, improvised guitar etc. // Andrea Parkins, accordion & electronics + Lesli Dalaba, trumpet & Rob Angus, electronics // Gino Robair, improv opera // Trevor Watts & Jamie Harris & Reuben Radding & Jane Rigler // Wally Shoup Quartet & Gust Burns Trio (Earshot) // Tom Baker Quartet // Metal Men, electronics, noise // Malcolm Goldstein, violin // Alexei Pliousnine, guitar // Iva Bittova, violin & voice // October Trio // Margaret Brink, piano + Tom Baker Quartet // Seattle Harmonic Voices // Tiffany Lin & Motoko Honda, piano // Tim Root // Philip Arnautoff, harmonic canon + Christopher Roberts, guqin // Shulamit Kleinerman & friends, medieval violins // Alison Knowles // John Butcher, sax, Torsten Mueller, bass, Dylan van der Schyff, drums // Katsura Yamauchi, sax and Arrington DeDionyso, bass clarinet // Impressions of Romania, chamber music // Paul Rucker Quintet // Sean Osborn, clarinet & Greg Sinibaldi, sax & electronics // Sunship // Wally Shoup Trio // Jhababa & Eric Lanzillotta

Whew! The Seattle scene has always been more-or-less alive-and-well, through places like the plucky Gallery 1412, but the Chapel provides a much-needed venue for new and experimental music that takes it out of the back alley and gives it a place where people can respect the space as much as they already do the music and artists. Even if you’re not a Seattlite, keep an eye on their blog for even more wonders this year (or sign up for the mailing list). Major Kudos to Steve P., and wishes for a wonderfully full year to come.

by Steve Layton
Click Picks, Contemporary Classical, Deaths, Experimental Music

And one more…

Henri ChopinHonest, I swear this is Sequenza21, not the obituaries. But this is otherwise (and unfairly) likely to pass unnoticed in our usual music-blog land: Henri Chopin, one of the pioneering figures in sound poetry, passed away in France on January 3rd.

Born in 1922, he was one of the great explorers of a poetry that favored supremacy of the voice — in all its manifestations — over the “tyranny” of the word. An early adopter of tape recorders and the same electronic studios European composers were at work in, and for many years an active publisher of magazines that disseminated many of the leading voices of the 50’s, 60’s and &70’s, his influence on a whole generation of avant-garde poets and musicians was strong (though largely unheralded over here). Even though officially labeled a poet, Chopin’s work was just as much a kind of music.

A generous free sampling of his recordings are kept on their own page at UBUweb, and a bit more is to be had at Erratum.org.

by Steve Layton
Chamber Music, Classical Music, Contemporary Classical, Downtown, Experimental Music

Sounds Postitively…Anti-Social

Dear Jerry,

You are cordially invited to a program featuring the music of Pat
Muchmore as performed by the erstwhile and talented members of Anti-Social Music. The gala shall be held at the Ukrainian National Home at 2nd Ave between 8th & 9th streets on December the Thirteenth, where the finest beers and vodkas will be available to soothe the savage humours stirred by the oft-acrid tones emanating from the stage. Also available: pierogies and other Ukrainian delicacies–some of which may be forcibly shoved down the gullets of less attentive patrons.

A number of works excreted by Muchmore’s fecund mind will be played, all of which sport titles that are either incomprehensible, not fit to be uttered in polite society, or both. The fine musicians of ASM will then venture into the studio to record these works for an upcoming release on laser-etched binary Audio-Disk, courtesy of the fine folks at the American Music Center and their wondrous Aaron Copland Fund.

Other cool people involved in making this night of pleasure happen include The New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, NYSCA, and the Meet the Composer/JPMorgan Chase Fund for Small Ensembles.

cheers,
Andrea La Rose
Anti-Social Music

Anti-Social Music Presents:
Muchmore Music–Muchmore Pierogies
Thursday, Dec. 13th – 8PM
Ukrainian National Home ( 140 2nd Avenue bet. 8th & 9th Sts)
6 to Astor Place/R-W to 8th St/F-V to 2nd Ave/L to 1st or 3rd Ave
http://antisocialmusic.org

by Jerry Bowles