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EXPERIMENTAL MUSIC!
EXPERIMENTAL MUSIC presents radical, genre-blind music from composers and musicians based in New York City and around the world. The series covers as broad a range of sound art as possible (improvisation, time-based, graphic, electronic, text-based/verbal/performance, new composition, installation, homemade devices etc...). Experimental Music is curated by Travis Just.
2008--2009 SEASON:September 4th: Object Collection presents filmmaker Daniel Kötter (Berlin) with music by New York experimentalists Maria Chavez, Travis Just, Phill Niblock (performed by James Moore), and Alex Waterman September 12th: Bryan Eubanks (New York)/Andrew Lafkas (New York) duo and Magda Mayas (Berlin)/Tony Buck (Australia/Berlin) duo November 4th: Election night show! See a sample of the show here. November 15th: JoAnne Maffia (New York) and JK Brogan (Charleston) November 22nd: Harris Eisenstadt (New York)/Sara Schoenbeck (New York) duo December 11: New Music from the UK presented by New York ensembles Either/Or and Object Collection and curated by Travis Just and Alex Waterman. Visiting composers include Angharad Davies, John Lely and Tim Parkinson. December 13: New Music from the UK presented by New York ensembles Either/Or and Object Collection and curated by Travis Just and Alex Waterman. Visiting composers include Angharad Davies, John Lely, Tim Parkinson. February 21: James Moore (New York)/Eric km Clark (Los Angeles) March 26: Philip Thomas (Huddersfield, UK) June 25: Dither (7p.m.) July 9: Aki Onda ALL PERFORMANCES (EXCEPT JUNE 25--27) AT 10P.M., DOWNSTAIRS FROM THE ONTOLOGICAL THEATER
EXPERIMENTAL MUSIC SUMMER/FALL/WINTER BIOS 2008-2009 Maria Chavez is an avant-turntablist from Peru, living in New York City. She focuses on electro acoustic sound of vinyl and needle and has a collection of needles from immaculate to ruined that she calls her "pencils of sound" and a collection of records that provide the palette. She has toured with Christiina Carter (Charlambides, Scorses), performed with Thurston Moore of Sonic Youth in her New York City debut, and recorded with London-based laptop artist Kaffe Matthews. Chavez has curated and performed in galleries and sound spaces around the world, including STEIM (Amsterdam), El Cervatino (Merida, Yucatan), the Kitchen (NYC), and Issue Project Room (Brooklyn), where she was an artist-in-residence for the fall of 2006. In November, she collaborated with fellow turntablists Otomo Yoshihide, dieb13, and ErikM as part of the Wien Modern festival of contemporary music in Vienna. In June and July 2008, she participated in an artist-in-residency program with the Merce Cunningham Dance Company, Bard College at the Dia Foundation's museum in Beacon, New York. She performed within one of Richard Serra's "Torqued Ellipses" along with David Linton, Newton Armstrong and Stephan Moore. Chavez was recently awarded the Jerome Emerging Artist Grant from Roulette in SOHO, NYC. Currently, she is working on a short film score w/ video artist David Gacs and performing artist Matthew Day entitled "I Run But I Pursue". Chavez will also be included alongside Ikue Mori, Mira Calix, and Marina Rosenfeld in a book entitled "Pink Noises: Women on Electronic Music and Sound," written by Tara Rodgers and due to be published by Duke University Press in 2008. Her sold-out 2005 solo CD "Those Eyes of Hers" "...shows indeed a great love for the way out experimental possibilities of turntablism” (Vital Weekly). Alex Waterman is a founding member of the Plus Minus Ensemble, based in Brussels and London, specializing in avant-garde and experimental music. In New York he performs with the Either/Or Ensemble. Alex has worked with musicians such as Robert Ashley, Richard Barrett, Helmut Lachenmann, Keith Rowe, Marina Rosenfeld, Anthony Coleman, Elliot Sharp, Ned Rothenberg, Gerry Hemingway, David Watson, Chris Mann, Alison Knowles, Thomas Meadowcroft, and Michael Finnissy. He has performed as guest musician with numerous ensembles, including Trio Event (Berlin), Champs d'Action-Antwerp, Q-O2-Brussels, and Magpie Music and Dance Company. Waterman has made music for numerous European ballet and modern dance companies including Freiburg Ballett/Pretty Ugly, Scapino Ballet, Nederland Dans Theater III, and others. As a curator he has organized events at Les Bains:Connective in Brussels, OT301 in Amsterdam, Miguel Abreu Gallery and The Kitchen. His various duo projects with the dancer Michael Schumacher have toured in Switzerland, Italy, Holland, the Opera of Monaco and most recently in all five boroughs of New York in a Joyce Theater production in association with the City Parks Foundation in July of 2008. In 2007 Alex curated two exhibitions in New York, one on experimental music and poetics: Agapê (June 2-July 28th, 2007) at Miguel Abreu Gallery; and the other on graphic notation, Between Thought and Sound: Graphic Notation in Contemporary Music (September 7-October 20, 2007) at The Kitchen in Chelsea. Alex is presently working on his PhD in musicology at NYU as well as writing a book about the composer Robert Ashley with the designer and writer Will Holder. Alex participated in Dexter Sinister's residency at the Armory for the 2008 Whitney Biennial writing a new work based upon Herman Melville's Bartleby the Scrivener. Alex Waterman and Beatrice Gibson's film, A Necessary Music, narrated by Robert Ashley and with original music by Waterman, premiered at the Whitney Museum ISP show and will be shown around the world this fall.
SEPTEMBER 12, 2008: Duo Tony Buck ( drums) / Magda Mayas (piano): www.myspace.com/antheacaddyandmagdamayas Tony Buck was born in Sydney in 1962, and is regarded as one of Australia's most creative and adventurous exports, with vast experience across the globe. He has been involved in a highly diverse array of projects. Apart from The Necks, he is probably best known as leader of hardcore/impro band PERIL.
Early in his musical life, after having graduated from the New South Wales Conservatorium of Music, he became very involved in the jazz scene in Australia, often touring with visiting international artists such as Vincent Herring, Clifford Jordan, Mickey Tucker, Branford Marsalis and Ernie Watts, as well as Australians Mark Simmonds, Paul Grabowsky, The Catholics, Sandy Evans and Dale Barlow.
Following time spent in Japan, where he formed PERIL with Otomo Yoshihide and Kato Hideki, Tony moved to Europe, and has involved himself in many projects there, including the development of new "virtual" MIDI controllers at STEIM in Amsterdam.
Tony has played, toured or recorded with, among others, Jon Rose, Nicolas Collins, Tenko, John Zorn, Tom Cora, Phil Minton, Haino, Switchbox, The Machine for Making Sense, Ne Zhdall, The EX, Peter Brotzmann, Hans Reichel, The Little Red Spiders, Subrito Roy Chowdury, Clifford Jordan, Kletka Red, Han Bennink, Shelley Hirsch, Wayne Horvitz, Palinckx, and Ground Zero. NOVEMBER 4, 2008:
NOVEMBER 15, 2008: Jason Brogan was born in the United States in 1983. He is a composer and guitarist currently residing in Charleston, South Carolina. At the College of Charleston, he studied music theory and composition with David Maves and Trevor Weston. He is actively involved in the Charleston contemporary music community, organizing concerts of his own work and that of others. He frequently participates as both a composer, organizer and performer with the New Music Collective of Charleston. He has curated two concert series, "New Directions in Rock Music" and "Silent Music: 4'33'' and Beyond," both taking place in Charleston in 2008. As a performing musician, Brogan has performed alongside renowned Japanese percussionist Tatsuya Nakatani and as part of the Sigogglin Series of Improvised, Experimental and Contemporary Music in New York (2008) and the first annual Festival of Improvised Music in Charleston (2007). He has performed many of his own works as well as those by composers such as Antoine Beuger, John Cage, Eva-Maria Houben and Mark So. His music has been presented throughout the United States, including the Simons Center for the Arts at the College of Charleston and Redux Contemporary Art Center, Charleston, South Carolina; The Knitting Factory and Monkeytown, New York and Brooklyn, New York; the Roy O. Disney Music Hall at the California Institute of the Arts, Valencia, California. His music has been performed by various ensembles, including the New Music Collective (Charleston) and the Dog Star Orchestra (Los Angeles).
NOVEMBER 22, 2008: Sara Schoenbeck is a bassoonist who dedicates herself to expanding the sound and role of the bassoon in the worlds of contemporary notated and improvised music. The Wire places her in the "tiny club of bassoon pioneers" at work in contemporary music today and the New York Times has called her "riveting, mixing textural experiments with a big, confident sound." A recent transplant from Los Angeles, she spent a portion of her time there recording and also as adjunct faculty at California Institute of the Arts. Feature films she has played on include the Matrix Trilogy, Spanglish and Dahmer. Notable regular employers include Anthony Braxton and Wayne Horvitz. She performs regularly at jazz festivals and venues throughout North America and Europe. Drummer/composer Harris Eisenstadt (b. Toronto 1975) lives in Brooklyn. He is consistently singled out in the New York Times as a "venturesome drummer" and All Music Guide called his work as a bandleader "Ellingtonian in
FEBRUARY 21, 2009 James Moore is a versatile guitarist with many musical personalities. Performing on a wide variety of acoustic and electric guitars, banjos, and home-made instruments, James combines the sensitivity and lyricism from his classical training with a healthy dose of improvisation, theatrics, and experimentation. Whether as a soloist, in a rock band, or in a classical ensemble, he aims for all of his music to be unique and personal. James’s chamber performances have brought him to concert halls and experimental music venues across the country, including shows with Bang on a Can, Other Minds, Princeton University, The Electronic Music Foundation, Anti-Social Music, the Merkin Hall Ear Department Series, and The Kitchen. He has been heard as a soloist at the Chelsea Art museum playing music for amplified banjo and just-intonation steel string guitar, at Northwestern University performing on prepared classical guitar, and with the Astoria Symphony premiering a concerto for the Greek bouzouki. As an orchestral guitarist, James has performed with Ridge Theater Productions’ run of Michael Gordon’s “Decasia,” The Julliard School’s “New Music/New Dance” and FOCUS! Festivals, and the Bang on a Can Marathon. In addition to collaborating with gifted musicians and composers from his own generation, James has worked with many of today’s leading artists, including David Lang, Steve Reich, Ingram Marshall, and Meredith Monk. James also performs with several exciting and unconventional groups. His electric guitar quartet Dither made its debut at The Stone last year, and has upcoming performances with the MATA festival and Roulette. Dither will also be performing “Hong Kong Explodes!” a new multimedia piece by Samson Young to premiere in New York and Hong Kong this Fall. James is the guitarist for William Brittelle’s Mohair Time Warp, a pop-art-concept ensemble which was recently praised by Time Out NY as “completely electrifying,” and for Jacob Cooper’s electronic pop-tragedyTimberbrit, which earned a high ranking on the Hot-O-Meter of the New York Post’s “Page Six” gossip section. James also performs regularly with Object Collection, resident artists at the Ontological-Hysteric Theater, which will be presenting “Problem Radicals” at PS122 this coming spring. James’s own projects include the new folk-noise group Oliphant, and the experimental band Passenger Fish, which recently premiered selections from their upcoming multimedia opera at the Flea Theater’s “Music with a View” series.
Accomplished violinist, composer, and improviser Eric km Clark has performed throughout the world, with the majority of his shows taking place in Los Angeles, Toronto, and New York City. Originally from Victoria, Canada, Mr. Clark first moved to the US in 2004 to study at the California Institute of the Arts and with the late James Tenney. He spent the last two years in Brooklyn performing in various ensembles before relocating to LA this past summer. Mr. Clark has collaborated in performance with many of the world's most innovative artists and ensembles, including Han Bennink, Michael Gordon, Guy Maddin, Ensemble Sospeso, and the Silver Orchestra. He is a member of the California EAR Unit, Red Light New Music, Object Collection, Passenger Fish, Skakk Rocket, and the newest member of the Kadima String Quartet. His playing has been released on Innova, New World, Tonehole Music, and Sundialtech. A regular contributor to the new music scenes around North America, Mr. Clark’s compositions have been performed in many renowned venues, such as RedCat, Mass MoCA, the Music Gallery in Toronto, the Berkshire Fringe Festival, Theatre La Chapelle in Montreal, and the Ontological-Hysteric Incubator in New York City. Mr. Clark is also excited to have recently co-founded with composer Michael Winter “The Wulf," an experimental concert venue located in downtown LA.
MARCH 26, 2009 Philip Thomas specializes in performing new and experimental music, including both notated and improvised music. His most recent solo projects have included a survey of the piano music of Christian Wolff, including the European premiere of his latest work for solo piano ‘Long Piano (Peace March 11)’ at the 2007 Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival, alongside premieres of new works by Stephen Chase, Tim Parkinson and Michael Parsons; concerts of music composed by improvisers; premiere performances of major new works by Richard Emsley and Christopher Fox; and multi-concert portraits of Feldman and Cage. Philip’s debut solo CD ‘Comprovisation’ was released in 2007 on the Bruce’s Fingers label (BF66). Based upon his recent series of concerts featuring music exploring improvisation and notation, it features music by Mick Beck, Chris Burn, John Cage, Simon H Fell, Michael Finnissy and Paul Obermayer. Philip is a regular pianist with leading experimental music group Apartment House. Recent performances with them have included a concert of American music, performing with (and music by) David Behrman, as part of the British Library series ‘After Cage’ in London; organizing and performing in a re-creation of the 1958 New York Town Hall John Cage retrospective, culminating in a major performance of John Cage’s Concert for Solo and Orchestra at the 2008 Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival (subsequently broadcast on BBC Radio 3); premieres of new works by Rytis Mazulis together with works by George Maciunas at the 2008 ISCM New Music Days, Vilnius, Lithuania; and Christian Wolff portrait concerts with the composer and others (Conway Hall, London; Kettles Yard, Cambridge). Since 2005 Philip has worked with the renowned pianist Ian Pace in programs of experimental music for two pianos, including music by Cage, Brown, Wolff, Feldman, and Fox. In 2006 he formed a piano and electronics duo with composer James Saunders which performed at the 2007 Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival and was subsequently broadcast on BBC Radio 3. Philip was also the pianist in residence for the 2008 International Computer Music Conference/Sonorities festival, Belfast, performing with the ‘Roots Ensemble.' Philip is currently on a sabbatical year from his role as Senior Lecturer at the University of Huddersfield, during which he is recording the piano music of Christian Wolff and co-editing a book about the music of Wolff for Ashgate Publications. www.philip-thomas.co.uk
JUNE 25: Dither, a New York based electric guitar quartet, is dedicated to an eclectic mix of experimental repertoire, embracing composed music, improvisation, and electronic manipulation. Formed in 2007, the quartet has performed in the United States and abroad, presenting new commissions, original compositions, multimedia works and large guitar ensemble pieces. With sounds ranging from clean pop textures to heavily processed noise, from tight rhythmic unity to cacophonous sound mass, all of Dither's music utilizes the beautiful, engulfing, and often gloriously loud sound of electric guitars. The quartet’s members are Taylor Levine, David Linaburg, Josh Lopes, and James Moore. Among Dither's recent collaborators are downtown bagpiper Matthew Welch, composer David Lang, guitar innovator Nick Didkovsky, Mark Stewart of the Bang on a Can All-Stars, and Bryce Dessner of the indie-rock band The National. In Fall of 2008, the quartet traveled to Hong Kong to premiere an evening-length theatrical work by Samson Young, “Hong Kong Explodes!” funded by the Hong Kong Council for the Arts. Dither has also performed at The Stone, Taplin Hall at Princeton University, the Extensible Electric Guitar Festival at Clark University, and the MATA Interval series. Upcoming events include shows at Issue Project Room, Roulette, and a monstrous performance of Eric km Clark's "exPAT" on the Bang on a Can Marathon, a Dither commission for "hearing deprived" electric guitar orchestra.
JUNE 26: Eidolon is an acoustic music ensemble consisting of ten dedicated members, all of whom engage in either professional practices or regular concert performances within the experimental music community in and out of New York City. Eidolon performs original compositions written by its members. Its focus is not only the performance of the pieces, but more importantly, on the development of each piece through workshop-style rehearsals in which musicians exchange ideas and information on technique of the instrument. In effect, the pieces are performed differently each time depending on each musician’s artistic choices and the ensemble’s ongoing molding of the overall interpretation. Since its first rehearsal in May 2007, the group has been meeting for bi-weekly rehearsals and performing monthly since March 2008 at the Lutheran Church of the Messiah in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. Current participants in Eidolon are Tucker Dulin (trombone), Ann Adachi (flute), Bryan Eubanks (s. saxophone), Dave Ruder (clarinet), Maria Mykolenko (violin), Andrew Lafkas (bass), Adam Diller (t. saxophone), Dave Kaden (oboe), Katie Young (bassoon), Jim Altieri (violin), and Kenny Wang (viola).
JUNE 27: Ne(x)tworks is a collaborative ensemble of musicians creating and interpreting work that features a dynamic relationship between composition and improvisation. In performance and recordings, the group locates pathways into various types of notation systems and interfaces, striving for a meaningful dialogue with the past, present, and future of creative music. Formed in 2002 in New York City, Ne(x)tworks advances the tradition of the 'performing composer' ensemble by frequently presenting full programs of compositions created by its members. The group's repertoire also extends beyond its ranks to encompass the open scores of New York School composers, work by their European counterparts, further experiments by the composer performers of the AACM and SoHo scene of the 1970's, the so-called Downtown composers of the 80's, and commissioned works by like-minded contemporary colleagues.
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