EXPERIMENTAL MUSIC!
Archives

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.)
June 26: Eidolon (7p.m.)
June 27: Ne(x)tworks (7p.m.)

ALL PERFORMANCES (EXCEPT JUNE 25--27) AT 10P.M., DOWNSTAIRS FROM THE ONTOLOGICAL THEATER
131 E. 10th Street (at 2nd Avenue), inside St. Mark's Church

EXPERIMENTAL MUSIC BIOS 2008-2009

SEPTEMBER 4, 2008
Daniel Kötter (b. 1975) is working as a director and video artist with special interest in multiscreening and multiperspective video. Installations: his video and theatre works were shown at various international festivals, concert halls, theatres and galeries in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Belgium, France, Portugal, USA and Mexico, among others: KW- Institute for contemporary art, Staatsoper Dresden, Konzerthaus Wien, maerzmusik, rencontres Paris/Berlin/Madrid. Collaborations with Ensemble Collegium Novum Zürich, Kammerensemble Neue Musik Berlin, Apartment House London, object collection New York, Ensemble Mosaik, aroseis and the choreographers Sasha Waltz, Paul Gazzola and Petra Sabisch. Video directing to music by Luigi Nono, Iannis Xenakis, Franco Evangelisti, Helmut Oehring (UA), Christoph Ogiermann (UA), Iris ter Schiphorst (UA), Jennifer Walshe (UA), Thierry Blondeau, Michael Beil (UA) and many others. Since 2000 he has been Artistic Director of labor für musik:theater, berlin. Starting from April 2008 Daniel Kötter will be resident at Akademie Schloss Solitude.
www.labor-musik-theater.de

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).
myspace.com/mariachavez
mynamelookslikeme.blogspot.com

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:
Andrew Lafkas (doublebass/electronics) and Bryan Eubanks (electronics) have been developing music together since their first meeting in 2001. Since 2005 they have been collaborating as an electro-acoustic duo, an electronics duo, and as part of an acoustic chamber ensemble on a weekly basis, in addition to individual activities with various musicians. Together they have toured most of the US, curate concerts in New York (Seven Concerts, Sigogglin, Three Days), and continually develop their individual approaches to improvisation and musical vocabulary.
http://www.rasbliutto.net/bryaneubanks
http://www.rasbliutto.net/artists/andrewlafkas.html

Duo Tony Buck ( drums) / Magda Mayas (piano):
Magda Mayas is a pianist and curator currently based in Berlin, Germany. Mayas studied jazz and improvisation at Universität der Künste, Conservatorium van Amsterdam in 2001 under Misha Mengelberg and completed a diploma at Hochschule für Musik Hanns Eisler under Georg Graewe in 2005.
During this time she began developing a specific set of techniques for inside-piano performance. Mayas has concentrated her musical investigations on the piano and its sonic possibilities, utilizing extended techniques, amplification and preparations as a process of abstraction, whilst focusing on the physicality of both internal and external parts of the piano. As a continuation of this research Mayas founded the festival Tasten-Berliner Klaviertage featuring contemporary and innovative approaches for the piano. Mayas performs internationally in a variety of roles as interpreter, solo and in collaboration with a large number of musicians and composers: in a duo with Tony Buck, in the trio Phono Phono with Michael Renkel and Sabine Vogel, the Quartet Mayas,/Nutters/ Olsen/Galvez and as part of the Amsterdam based N-Collective. She has appeared in various festivals including "The Total Music Meeting", "Konfrontationen" and Festival of Exiles. Over the years Mayas has performed with many leading figures in improvisation such as Andy Moore, Steve Heather, Annette Krebs, Andrea Neumann, Axel Dörner, Michael Zerang, Johannes Bauer, Christoph Kurzmann, Thomas Lehn,Tristan Honsinger, Frank Gratkowski and Michael Moore. Michael Anton Parker, of Downtown Music Gallery has said, “...Mayas has an ingenious way of using both the inside and keyboard of the piano to create sparse, tiny fragments of motion that are compatible with multiple layers of the musical context... she is definitely a leading light of the next generation of improvisors..."

www.myspace.com/antheacaddyandmagdamayas
www.myspace.com/notriangle
www.n-collective.com/mnog
www.tasten.org

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.

Tony Buck: www.thenecks.com
Magda Mayas: www.myspace.com/antheacaddyandmagdamayas
www.n-collective.com
www.myspace.com/notriangle

NOVEMBER 4, 2008:
Object Collection was founded in 2004 by director/writer/designer Kara Feely and composer/instrumentalist Travis Just as an interdisciplinary experimental performance group dedicated to new artistic work in hybrid forms. Based in New York City, the group presents original interdisciplinary performances, concerts, and curated performance series, collaborating with musicians, actors, and visual artists, and combining techniques and methodologies from different mediums. Their performances have been seen at (among other venues): The Ontological Theater (New York), Podewil/TESLA (Berlin), Loop-Line (Tokyo), Soap Gallery (Kokura), AMBUSH/Chez Bushwick (Brooklyn), Experimental Intermedia, Rattlestick Theater, Brooklyn Fireproof, Issue Project Room, Brooklyn College, KuLe (Berlin), Chop Shop (Berlin), REM Reihe Elektronischer Musik (Bremen), California Institute of the Arts and Kunst-Station Sankt Peter (Cologne). Their work has been praised for its "rich imagery" and "dreamlike intimacy" (nytheatre.com), and has been described as "contemplative...…highly conceptual" (Vital Weekly). Their new opera Problem Radical(s), written and directed by Kara Feely and composed by Travis Just, will premiere at Performance Space 122 in April 2009. www.objectcollection.us / www.object-collection.blogspot.com

NOVEMBER 15, 2008:
JoAnne aka THe jojo EXperiment composed her big band chart, WALKING HOME for the Brooklyn College Big Band this April 2008. October 2007, JoAnne was commissioned by the Brooklyn College Conservatory of Music (CUNY) to compose a new work for their Bi-Annual Electro-Acoustic Music Festival, Spring 2008. Ms. Maffia’s multi-discipline production, KINETIC FORTRESS, ‘a narrative interrupted’, for performer, video and live music, premiered February 2007 at The 78 Street Theatre Lab, New York City. In April 1994, JoAnne originally founded THAT! New Music Group, a collective of musicians and composers dedicated to the promotion and non-traditional presentation of contemporary chamber music. In 1996, THAT! New Music Group became THAT! New Arts Group dedicated to promoting new works that explored the meshing of boundaries between mediums such as music and theatre, dance and theatre or visual art and performance, creating new areas of performance. In its four-year history, the works of THAT! Group and JoAnne ‘jojo’ Maffia were performed at The Mulberry Street Theatre, Synchronicity Space, Accord Theatre, Next Stage Company, Collective Unconscious, Access Theatre Gallery, Context Studios, St. Peter’s Church, Center Stage NY and the late One Dream Theatre. On a bigger scale, THe jojo EXperiment premiered October 2003 at The Flux Factor with Ms. Maffia’s multi-discipline work, MOSAIC MINDS: The Score in five movements. JoAnne has since focused on a series of smaller compositions employing new writing techniques heard recently at The Fusion Arts Museum, Collective Unconscious, The Brooklyn Conservatory of Music and McCarthy’s Pub. April 22nd 2006, The Forecast Music Group performed Ms. Maffia’s eclectic piece, Run On Sentence, for flute, piano, speaker and recorded sound at The Dorothy Jones Theatre at Singers Forum. JoAnne is currently on Faculty at the Brooklyn-Queens Conservatory of Music and The Hudson Guild Creative Arts Therapy Staff. Master of Arts in Music Composition, New York University, May 2002 and Bachelor of Arts in Dramatic Literature with a Minor in Music, Purchase College of the Arts (SUNY), May 1992.
www.thejojoexperiment.com

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).
http://www.maltedmilk.org/brogan

NOVEMBER 22, 2008:
Sara Schoenbeck and Harris Eisenstadt started working as a duo in Los Angeles in 2000. They have toured the US and Europe, and play compositions by both members. All About Jazz New York noted of a recent performance: "Schoenbeck is an impressive player--her attack and articulation, employing circular breathing and pushing into the upper register, were a pleasure to hear. Eisenstadt is a lyrical drummer, quick and precise, which made for a nice pairing... they stood the sax/drum duo on its head."

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.
myspace.com/saraschoenbeck

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
Scope... Eisenstadt breathes life into the small ensemble." He has performed throughout the US and Canada, in Australia, Japan and West Africa. His 35+ recordings as a leader and collaborator are consistently chosen for year-end top 10 lists.
harriseisenstadt.com

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.

James grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area, received his undergraduate degree in guitar performance and electronic music from The University of California, Santa Cruz, and his MM in guitar performance from the Yale School of Music. His primary teachers have been Mesut Özgen and Benjamin Verdery. He currently resides in Brooklyn, NY.
www.jamesmooreguitar.com

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.
www.erickmclark.com

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.

2007--2008 SEASON:

EXPERIMENTAL MUSIC This series examines text, speech and gesture from the standpoint of music composition. Scores are sought for open and unconventional instrumentation in combination with text/speech/gesture and may be in any style and use any type of notation (improvisation, time-based, graphic, electronic, text-based/verbal, standard notation etc...). New York-based ensemble Object Collection is in residence as the performing ensemble. Additionally, composers are invited to perform with the ensemble. The series is curated by Travis Just (co-artistic director of Object Collection and Ontological resident artist) and will consist of performances that occur approximately once a month beginning in January and running through April 2008. These events will occur downstairs from the Ontological Theater, in the Parish Hall at St. Mark's Church. In May, some artists will participate in the Experimental Music festival, in conjunction with the Noise festival, in the Ontological Theater.

PERFORMANCE DATES:
January 25, 10pm: Michael Pisaro
February 23, 10pm: Jennifer Walshe
March 28, 10pm: Christian Kesten
April 5, 10pm: Douglas Barrett, Joe Kurdirka, James Orsher, Harris Wulfson
May 8, 7pm: O-Ring (Eric KM Clark), Orientalische… (Christoph Ogiermann), Backgrounds and Silences (Craig Shepard)
May 9, 7pm: night sky blue (Gisburg), nacht nach nacht nach nacht nach nacht (Paula Matthusen), Bern, Scenes 5-7 (Aaron Meicht)
May 10, 7pm: Problem Radical(s), part 27 (Travis Just), For a Child, Age 2 (Quentin Tolimieri), Community Choir Drawing 8291: lámh (Turf Boon)

This season of Experimental Music received generous support from the Foundation for Contemporary Arts.

2007--2008 COMPOSER BIOGRAPHIES:
Michael Pisaro was born in Buffalo in 1961. He is a composer and guitarist, a member of the Wandelweiser Composers Ensemble and founder and director of the Experimental Music Workshop. His work is frequently performed in the U.S. and in Europe, in music festivals and in many smaller venues. It has been selected twice by the ISCM jury for performance at World Music Days festivals (Copenhagen,1996; Manchester, 1998) and has also been part of festivals in Hong Kong (ICMC, 1998), Vienna (Wien Modern,1997), Aspen (1991) and Chicago (New Music Chicago, 1990, 1991). He has had extended composer residencies in Germany (Künstlerhof Schreyahn, Dortmund University), Switzerland (Forumclaque/Baden), Israel (Miskenot Sha'ananmim), Greece (EarTalk) and in the U.S. (Birch Creek Music Festival/ Wisconsin). Concert length portraits of his music have been given in Munich, Jerusalem, Los Angeles, Vienna, Merano (Italy), Brussels, New York, Curitiba (Brazil), Amsterdam, London, Tokyo, Berlin, Chicago, Düsseldorf, Zürich, Cologne, Aarau (Switzerland), and elsewhere. He is a Foundation for Contemporary Arts, 2005 and 2006 Grant Recipient. Most of his music of the last several years is published by Timescaper Music (Germany). Several CDs of his work have been released by Edition Wandelweiser Records, most recently "transparent city, volumes 1 — 4" and "harmony series (11 — 16)". His translation of poetry by Oswald Egger ("Room of Rumor") was published in 2004 by Green Integer. He is Co-Chair of Music Composition at the California Institute of the Arts near Los Angeles. He has performed many of his own works and those of close associates Antoine Beuger, Kunsu Shim, Jürg Frey and Manfred Werder, and works from the experimental tradition, especially John Cage, Christian Wolff, James Tenney and George Brecht. www.wandelweiser.de

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Jennifer Walshe was born in Dublin, Ireland in 1974. She studied composition with John Maxwell Geddes at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama, Kevin Volans in Dublin and graduated from Northwestern University, Chicago, with a doctoral degree in composition in June 2002. Her chief teachers at Northwestern were Amnon Wolman and Michael Pisaro. In 2003-2004 Jennifer was a fellow of Akademie Schloss Solitude, Stuttgart; during 2004-2005 she lived in Berlin as a guest of the DAAD Berliner Künstlerprogramm. From 2006 to 2008 she is the composer-in-residence in South Dublin County for In Context 3. In 2007 she was awarded a grant from the Foundation for Contemporary Arts, New York.

Jennifer’s work has been performed throughout Europe, the U.S. and Canada by ensembles such as Alter Ego, ensemble récherche, Ensemble Resonanz, Apartment House, ensemble Intégrales, Neue Vocalsolisten Stuttgart, Stuttgarter Kammerorchester, Schlagquartett Köln, CrashEnsemble, ensemble ascolta, Champ d’Action, ensemble laboratorium, ensemble surplus, the Rilke Ensemble, the Irish Chamber Orchestra, the Irish Youth Wind Ensemble, Bozzini Quartet, Callino Quartet, Ensemble 2000, Concorde, Kaleidoscop, Black Hair, Continuum, Ensemble Musica Nova, ensemble chronophonie, the Scottish Chamber Orchestra Wind Quintet, the Hebrides Ensemble, Psappha, and Q-02 among others. She has received commissions from organizations including Radio Telefís Éireann (RTÉ), Westdeutscher Rundfunk (WDR), Sudwest Rundfunk (SWR), the Internationale Ferienkurse für Neue Musik, Darmstadt, Maerzmusik, Musik der Jahrhundert, the Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival, Dresdener Tage der zeitgenössischen Musik, Wien Modern, the Dresden Semper Oper, ZKM (Karslruhe), the Irish Chamber Orchestra, CrashEnsemble, the Project Arts Centre and the National Concert Hall, Ireland, as well as commission awards from the New Music Scheme of the Arts Council of Ireland and the Scottish Arts Council. In 2003-04 Jennifer was composer-in-residence at the National Sculpture Factory, Cork. In 2000 Jennifer won the Kranichsteiner Musikpreis at the Internationale Ferienkurse für Neue Musik in Darmstadt, and received first prize in the SCI/ASCAP 2002 Commission Competition. In July 2002 she returned to Darmstadt to lecture in composition at the Internationale Ferienkurse für Neue Musik. Her work been in a room and a room and a room and a room was shortlisted for the 2003 Gaudeamus Foundation composition prize; moving in/love songs/city front garden with old men was shortlisted for the 2002 Gaudeamus Foundation composition prize.

In addition to her activities as a composer, Jennifer frequently performs as a vocalist, specialising in extended techniques. Many of her recent compositions were commissioned for her voice in conjunction with other instruments, and her works have been performed by her and others at festivals such as RTÉ Living Music (Dublin), Kilkenny Arts Festival (Kilkenny), Båstad Kammarmusik Festival (Sweden), Ultraschall (Berlin), Ars Musica (Brussels), Steirischer Herbst, Wien Modern, Wittener Tage für neue Kammermusik, Donaueschinger Musiktagen, the Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival, Late Music Festival (York), Hamburger Klangwerktage, Gaida (Lithuania), BMIC Cutting Edge, Composer’s Choice (Dublin), SoundField (Chicago) the Internationale Ferienkurse für Neue Musik Darmstadt, Stockholm New Music, BELEF (Belgrade), Traiettorie (Parma), Lucerne Festival (Switzerland), SPOR (Denmark), Frau Musica Nova (Cologne), Performa (New York) and Music at the Anthology (New York). Jennifer is also active as an improviser, performing regularly with musicians in Europe and the U.S.

Recent projects of note include Physics for the Girl in the Street, a music theatre work commissioned by the Maerzmusik Festival, Berlin, performed by Jennifer Walshe and the Schlagquartett Köln in Berlin, Wiesbaden and Cologne; My Extensive Relationship with Mr. Stephen Patrick M., a piece for ensemble commissioned by Wien Modern, performed by Jennifer Walshe and Apartment House in the Sammlung Essl, Austria; and Grove of Drift, a sound installation commissioned by the Project Arts Centre, Dublin, exhibited in the Sirius Arts Centre, Cobh, and the Project Arts Centre. Upcoming performances include solo performances at the Museum of Arts and Design, New York; Ultrasound Festival, Tel Aviv, and a performance of the chamber opera for Barbie dolls XXX_LIVE_NUDE_GIRLS!!! in the Auditorium Parco Della Musica, Rome.

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Christian Kesten was born in 1966 and works as composer, performance artist, vocalist and stage director. He lives in Berlin, Germany.His interest lies in the „space in-between“: between music and theatre, music and language, between music and the visual arts. His pieces work with the space which opens up between the sound of language and the parallel, non-illustrative action (-cycling 1990; des Kleinen Übergewicht 1995; 45 seconds 2006). They make use of everyday spaces and their sounds, including works made for train stations, in which minimal sounds of winds and brass are spread over the station and mixed with sounds of trains and passers-by (nordbahnhof 1996, bahnhof westend 1996, bahnhof zoo 1997). welcome home is written for the squeaking doors of the Nordbahnhof station in Berlin and two violins which mirror the door sounds: the passers-by experience the music while on the move. In (o.T.) für klarinette in einem raum mit langem nachhall 1(1999) and 2(2000) [(without title) for clarinet in a space with a long reverberation time] the clarinet plays to its own reverberation as a second voice, microtonally, and thus refers to the presence of space. parochial (1998) – for the group „Maulwerker“ (4 female voices, trumpet/voice, clarinet/voice, alto saxophone + additional instruments) – was written especially for the space of the Parochialkirche in Berlin: sculptural shaped sounds are moved in space, while trumpet, clarinet and sax move mostly outside the space and so extending acoustic perception beyond the walls of the church.

LIFT (2005) for four performers (voices, trumpet, saxophone) in three elevators work with vertically moving single sounds and silent, visual actions: a temporary sculpture.

zunge lösen [releasing the tongue] (solo version 1999/ ensemble version 2001/ trio version 2002) - for tongue and breath - works with the root of articulation and is both a work for voice and a scenic composition, music-theatre in a compact form.

His works unter umständen verabschieden wir uns behalten etwas in erinnerung was wesentlicher erscheint als das gegenwärtige fragen aber nicht mehr [possibly we take leave keep remembering something which seems more essential than the present but don't ask anymore] (2004) for water, paper, voice; tongue, breath, larynx; trumpet (trio) and o.T. (atem zunge lippen) [without title (breath tongue lips)] (2005) for voice solo analyze the vocal production and understand breath, tongue, larynx and lips as separate layers in 'counterpoint'.

Recently he developed the „video audio field recording“, by recording field sounds with a video camera, composing dense and light sound textures of field recordings and live instruments. The projected images are always fixed camera angles, filming spaces in-between, the incidental, the mundane: the Los Angeles catalogue; dodger stadium; cypress park; urban cafe restroom (all 2007).

Kesten studied at the University of Arts (UdK) Berlin (Music: guitar, piano, voice; counterpoint/twelvetone-technique with H.Fladt; musicological thesis on „Silence in the works of John Cage and Morton Feldman“; Experimental music and music-theatre with Dieter Schnebel | Performance Art | Projects with the stage design class of Achim Freyer) and TU Berlin (German literature and linguistics).

1989-91 he studied privately with Michael Vetter (overtone singing, vocal improvisation, calligraphy/notation etc.). Movement studies with various teachers (Amos Hetz a.o.).

Since 1987, he has been performing new vocal music and experimental music-theatre throughout Europe and in New York, Rio de Janeiro, Israel, Moscow and Tokyo. He currently works with the ensemble „Maulwerker“ and as soloist. In a long collaboration with Dieter Schnebel he premiered most of his music theatre works since 1987. He has recently worked with Alessandro Bosetti, Jacques Demierre, Chico Mello, Makiko Nishikaze, Iris ter Schiphorst, who wrote solo works or operas for him.

Kesten conceives and curates the series „maulwerker performing music“ (since 2005) in Berlin with programs like „poems for feet“, „pro cedere. Music as Process“, „Situationen. Interpenetrations of art and life“ or „Halt’s Maul. Screaming pieces from four decades“, with World Premieres by Antonia Baehr, Alessandro Bosetti, Bill Dietz, Jürg Frey, Robin Hayward, David Helbich, Michael Hirsch, Sven-Åke Johansson, Travis Just, Christian Kesten, Andrea Neumann, Pauline Oliveros, Dieter Schnebel, Emmett Williams, István Zelenka, a.o.

Since 2006, he is co-curator of the experimental music concert series Labor Sonor at KULE Berlin www.christiankesten.de

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G. Douglas Barrett is a composer whose recent work involves experimental transcriptions of recorded material—field recordings made on Hollywood street corners, a friend playing in front of a camera, recordings of other pieces…Performers of his music include The Barton Workshop, The S.E.M. Ensemble, The Sonar Streich Quartett, Tobias Liebezeit, Seth Josel, and Mark So. He studied with James Tenney, Michael Pisaro, and Sara Roberts at CalArts and is currently a Ph.D. student at SUNY at Buffalo.

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Joe Kurdirka was born in Grand Rapids, Michigan in 1978. He studied composition with Michael Pisaro, Alan Stout, James Tenney and Bryn Harrison, at Northwestern University, CalArts, and The University of Huddersfield (where he is currently a postgraduate researcher). Along with composing, he also performs experimental music, usually on the ukulele.

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James Orsher is a composer, performer and curator. Many of his works derive their content and material from found sources and chance procedures. He particularly enjoys cooking, borders and intersections, the process of getting to know a place, and short text scores. He studied at CalArts with Michael Pisaro, Stephen "Lucky" Mosko and Sara Roberts, and Amherst College with Lewis Spratlan. He currently purses doctoral studies with Clarence Barlow at UCSB. www.myspace.com/jamesorsher

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Harris Wulfson is a composer and multi-instrumentalist in New York City. He holds an MFA in Music Composition from the California Institute of the Arts. www.wulfson.com

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Craig Shepard was born in 1975 in Connecticut. Performances of his compositions have been called "touchingly beautiful" (Wolfgang Fuhrmann, Berliner Zeitung) and "ab-original" (Tanja Hell, Westdeutch Zeitung). On the trombone, he has performed with Christian Wolff, the Merce Cunningham Dance Company, Jürg Frey, and Collegium Novum Zürich. On the sacbut, he has recorded with the Münchner Vokal Ensemble. He lives in Weehawken, New Jersey. www.wandelweiser.de

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Eric km Clark: One of the younger generation's most genre-defying musicians, Canadian violinist, composer, and improviser Eric km Clark splits his time between LA and New York City. He has appeared in concert with many of today's leading interpreters of new music, and performs regularly with the California EAR Unit. Compositionally, Mr. Clark employs many styles, including the use of Hearing Deprivation as a medium to explore hermetic, or individualized, canons; and Simplified Instruments [i.e. Instruments with all of the same string <eg. 4 E-strings on a violin>].

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Christoph Ogiermann was born in 1967. He started composing by animation of Erwin Koch-Raphael. Since this time he is writing music. He was engaged in several theatre and dance-theatre projects in Bremen, Berlin and Düsseldorf. He works as a reciter, singer, violinist, pianist, live-electronicist and conductor in the fields of free improvisation (e.g with Dror Feiler, Bernhard Lang, Torsten Müller, Serge Baghdassarians, John Hughes), medieval music and new music.

1998 he got a scholarship of the Künstlerhäuser Worpswede. In winter 1999/2000 he got his diploma as a composer in the Hochschule für Künste Bremen, studying with Younghi Pagh-Paan. Important musical and philosophical studies with Georges Nicolas Wolff and Nicolas Schalz. He was one of the founders of the ensemble x-pol-batterie for researches in experimental music and performance.

Beginning of the year 2000 he worked in the Archivio Luigi Nono in Venezia/italy by a scholarship of the DAAD.
In 2002/03 he is a guest-composer in the Institut für Elektronische Musik at the university of Graz/Austria.
In 2003 he is guest -composer of Studio of electronic music of Technische Universität Berlin
2004 he was comissioned to work in the Experimentalstudio of Heinrich-Strobel-Stiftung des SWR.
2005/06 half years stay in the Cité des Arts, Paris
2007 his twins Paul and Marie were born

He is member of collective artists association TONTO in Graz / Austria and of the PGNM (projektgruppe neue musik bremen), organizing concerts and a biannual festival for contemporary music, and he is founder and curator of the REM concerts of electronic music in the museum of contemporary art and in the Gesellschaft für Aktuelle Kunst (GAK) in Bremen.

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Gisburg is a singer and composer who composes cinematographic music and melody minimalism.She performed and toured Classical New Music extensively with Dieter Schnebel's "maulwerker" ensemble from Berlin. She recorded several CDs for Tzadik and an experimental trip-hop soundtrack for "High Life". She sings chinese Pop Music of the 30's and 50's and is a member of the Hai-Tien Choir with Mrs. Pi-Chu Hsiao. As a sound and music editor for film she has worked with Abigail Child, Ethan Coen, Robert Duvall and Rob Marshall (a.m.o.). Currently she is working on the film sound and music for Amie Siegel's documentary DDR/DDR.

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Paula Matthusen is a composer, currently living between New York and Miami. She writes both electroacoustic and acoustic music and realizes sound installations. Her work often considers discrepancies in musical space—real, imagined, and remembered and has been described as "entrancing" by Alex Ross of The New Yorker. Her music has been performed by Alarm Will Sound, International Contemporary Ensemble, orchest de ereprijs, Ballett Frankfurt, noranewdanceco, Kathryn Woodard, Diesel Lounge Boys, and Jody Redhage. Her work has been featured at venues and festivals through America and Europe, including Merkin Concert Hall, WAX, The Stone, Judson Dance, Joyce SoHo, the Construction Company, Das TAT, the Aspen Music Festival, Bang on a Can Summer Institute of Music at MassMoCA, Aural Tick Festival, the Gaudeamus New Music Week, SEAMUS, and the Florida Electroacoustic Music Festival. She performs with the electroacoustic duo ouisaudei, the oktoschlocks, Groundwave New Music Collective, Gamelan Dharma Swara, Object Collection and recently she has performed alongside Pauline Oliveros, Lukas Ligeti, and amoebazoid.

Awards include a Fulbright Grant to work at the Universität der Künste—Berlin with Martin Supper, an ASCAP Morton Gould Young Composers' Award, First Prize in the Young Composers' Meeting Composition Competition, the MacCracken and Langley Ryan Fellowship. Matthusen has also held residencies at create@iEar at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (USA), STEIM (Netherlands), and the Atlantic Center for the Arts (USA). Matthusen currently teaches electronic music at Florida International University, where she is the Coordinator for Music Technology.

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Aaron Meicht: trumpet, computer, improvisation, composition. Aaron has released several albums on Scrapple Records with AB Duo and The Meicht Group. Venues where his music has been featured include ABC No Rio, Knitting Factory, Munich Experimental Music Festival, Kulturhaus Mitte (Berlin), Falaises (Paris). He curates the Rattlestick New Music Series. Aaron has composed music for theater productions at The Flea, Rattlestick Theater, SPF, Keen Company and Prospect Theater, among others. Education: University of the Arts (Philadelphia) and CCMIX (Paris). www.meichtgroup.com/aaronmeicht/

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Radu Malfatti was born in 1943 in Innsbruck, Austria. In 1970 he studied music at “akademie für angewandte kunst und musik“ in Graz [trombone with Eje Thelin, piano and composition]. Since 1997 he has lived in Vienna, toured in Europe, North America, Canada, Japan. Numerous lp’s – and cd’s [incus records, ogun, fmp, hat hut, splash, in’n’out, edition wandelweiser etc.] Since 1995 he has been a member of the composer’s collective ”wandelweiser.” Malfatti’s compositions have been performed in Europe, US and Japan. In 2006 he started his own record label “b-boim records”.

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