Interpretations:

Ensemble L'art Pour L'art with Thomas Buckner  (8pm)

L'art Pour L'art is internationally known as one of the most innovative ensembles for contemporary music. Based in Germany, L'art Pour L'art was formed in 1983 by Matthias Kaul (percussion), Astrid Schmeling (flute) and Michael Schröder (guitar) as a musical "think tank," seeking to widen the range of contemporary arts through projects with significant consequences. The ensemble represents the original meaning of the concept of "l'art pour l'art" ("art for art's sake.") Following this cultural dialogue, the ensemble focuses on performing works that focus on conceptual innovation and experimentation. The ensemble performs concerts worldwide, many of which featured premiers. They focus on collaborating with composers and nurturing new ideas.

The baritone Thomas Buckner has been recognized as one of the most active vocal performers of new music. Along with his demanding schedule of performances worldwide, Buckner produces the acclaimed annual Interpretations series. He has commissioned new compositions for baritone by such composers as Robert Ashley, Christian Wolff, Roscoe Mitchell, Alvin Lucier, Pauline Oliveros, David Behrman, Annea Lockwood, David Wessel, Leroy Jenkins, Elodie Lauten and many others. More than 70 composers have written works exclusively for him over the last 20 years. Buckner has been featured on over 40 recordings, including 5 of his own solo albums.

Kyoko Kitamura w/ Valeria Vasilevski

ok|ok - Mike McGinnis: reeds, Khabu: guitar, Kyoko Kitamura: voice and laptop.

Several Japanese silent animation from the 1920's and 30's will merge with live performance by ok|ok. ok|ok will honor the original content and add English translation as well as original music both composed and improvised.

Phill Niblock

Composer, filmmaker and photographer Phill Niblock, who runs the Experimental Intermedia Foundation in New York, writes noble, hypnotic, majestic music constituted of sustained sounds for large instrumental ensembles of the same family (e.g. all strings, all flutes, all trombones, etc.) that very gradually change their timbre and pitch characteristics (pieces such as "Four Full Flutes", "Early Winter" for massed strings, "Didjeridoos", and "Five More Strings Quartets").

Oct 18

"Guitar too, for four;Version Three " (1996, 30:20) Rafael Toral, Robert
Poss, Susan Stenger, David First, guitars played with E-bows

"Stosspeng" (59 minutes, 2007) for two guitars in stereo; Susan Stenger and
Robert Poss, electric guitars and electric basses
Susan Stenger and Robert Poss, guitars, live on both pieces

Oct 19

Video / Sound Collaboration - Phill Niblock and Katherine Liberovskaya
Live Video by Katherine Liberovskaya, and Live mixing of audio pieces by
Phill Niblock

In this live set Niblock mixes between audio pieces based on diverse field
recordings which are very different from his music compositions.
Liberovskaya mixes video with Jitter/Max/MSP from a vast personal database
of clips shot over the past fifteen years.

'A new piece for Organ" (World Premier) - Material recorded May 1 2007 at a
baroque church in Kirchberg am Wagram, Austria, Emanuel Schmelzer-Ziringer,
organ

"Three Orchids", for three orchestras (2003, 23 min) - Played by Trio
Scordatura plus one - Alfrun Schmid, voice; Elisabeth Smalt, viola; Bob
Gilmore, synthesizer; plus Guy De Bievre, dobro (recorded at Amplus, in
Aaigem, Belgium, August 13 & 14 2007; world premier of this recording, plus
all players are live)

"4 Chorch +1" (recording from the premier performance at Ostrava New Music
Days in CZ, August 28 2007; 23 minutes)

Oct 20

Six Pieces for Ulrich Krieger, didjeridu and saxophones (UK plays live plus
recorded)

"Didjeridoos and Don'ts" (1992, 13:30), Ulrich Krieger, didjeridu
"Ten Auras Live" (1994, 21:20), Ulrich Krieger, tenor saxophone
"Sea Jelly Yellow" (24 min, 2001) Ulrich Krieger, baritone saxophone
"Parker's Altered Mood, aka, Owed to Bird" (16:25; 2004) Ulrich Krieger,
alto saxophone
"Alto Tune" (25:08; 2004) Ulrich Krieger, alto saxophone
"Sax Mix" (25:08, 2004) Ulrich Krieger, alto, tenor and baritone saxes
(this is a mix of Ten Auras, for tenor sax; Sea Jelly Yellow, for baritone
sax; and Alto Tune, for alto sax. (About 85 channels/tracks.)

Lois V Vierk (8pm)

Chamber Music

Live taping for Roulette TV

"…the relentless energy of her finely honed pieces can prove thrilling – the musical equivalent of white-water rafting." ~ The New Yorker

Selections and performers for this concert include Ms. Vierk's Manhattan Cascade , with accordionist Guy Klucevsek and 3 recorded accordions, Demon Star , performed by Jody Redhage, cello and Matthew Gold, marimba, Words Fail Me (1st movement), with Jody Redhage, cello and Sachiko Kato, piano and Io , performed by flutist Margaret Lancaster, electric guitarist Larry Polansky and marimbist Matthew Gold. All of these works were written between 1984 and 2005.

Lois V Vierk is known for high energy developmental music, which often reaches a climactic ending. The Village Voice has written of her, “…rare musical intelligence." She is from the generation after the minimalists, both chronologically and artistically. The concentration on sheer sensuous beauty of sound, especially in some of the "long tone" works of minimalist composers in the 70's and 80's, has always been arresting for her. In her own music, this pure sensuous beauty is often a starting point. She works with emotional expressiveness and with many kinds of sound relationships as well, and builds form and structure. She composes music for many kinds of ensembles, from solo piano to chamber group to orchestra, from 18-trombone ensemble to Gagaku (ancient Japanese court music) orchestra to tap dance/live electronics.

Ms. Vierk received her BA (major in piano and ethnomusicology) from UCLA in 1974. She then studied composition at the California Institute of the Arts with Mel Powell, Leonard Stein and Morton Subotnick, receiving her MFA in 1978. For ten years, she studied gagaku (Japanese court music) with Suenobu Togi in Los Angeles, and for two years, in Tokyo with Sukeyasu Shiba, the lead ryuteki flautist of the Imperial Court Orchestra.

Ms. Vierk has spent most of her career in New York City. Her music has achieved an impressive international reputation, and has been performed by the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, the Kronos Quartet, electric guitarists Seth Josel and David Seidel, cellist Ted Mook, the Paul Dresher Ensemble, the Reigakusha Ensemble of Tokyo, and the Relâche Ensemble, among others.

Among the many performers who have commissioned Ms. Vierk are cellist Maya Beiser, accordionist Guy Klucevsek, pianists Ursula Oppens, Frederic Rzewski, Aki Takahashi, and Margaret Leng Tan, and percussionist Steven Schick. The Bang on a Can Festival, Ensemble Modern, l'Art pour l'Art, Music from Japan, and the Paul Dresher Ensemble have also commissioned works from her. Co-creations with tap dance choreographer Anita Feldman have been commissioned by the American Dance Festival, the Mary Flagler Cary Charitable Trust, Meet the Composer, and others.

Ms. Vierk's music has been performed at major venues worldwide, including the Adelaide Festival, Carnegie Hall, Darmstadt, the Edmonton New Music Festival, Glasgow, the Huddersfield Festival, Lincoln Center, Radio Bremen, the Schleswig-Holstein Festival, and the Suntory Festival (Tokyo). Her music is available on CDs from CRI, OOdiscs, Sony Classical, Starkland Records, XI Compact Discs, and most recently, Tzadik.

Interpretations:

Roswell Rudd & Mark Dresser / Wildflowers: Adam Rudolph & Oguri (8pm)

Roswell Rudd, Trombone
Mark Dresser, Bass
Wildflowers: Adam Rudolph, Hand Drums & Percussion; Oguri, Butoh Dance

Please join us for an evening of exceptional duos. First, listen to what happens when two generations of improvised music meet, with the seminal trombonist/composer Roswell Rudd and the innovative bassist Mark Dresser. This duo was formed a few years ago at an informal rehearsal, resulting in a new CD, AirWalkers, with music that is full of spontaneous invention.  Wildflowers, the longstanding duo of jazz & world music drummer/composer Adam Rudolph and Japanese Butoh dancer Oguri, comes from Los Angeles for it’s New York debut. Each performance, created entirely in the moment, is a journey into the darkness of Butoh and the dialogue of percussive dynamics and motion.  

Originally from Chicago, composer and handrummer/percussionist Adam Rudolph has been hailed as “a pioneer in world music” by the New York Times and "a master percussionist” by Musician magazine. For the past three decades Rudolph has appeared at festivals and concerts throughout North & South America, Europe, Africa, and Japan,
In 1988 Rudolph began his association with the legendary Yusef Lateef, which lasts to this day. He has recorded 14 albums with Dr. Lateef including their large ensemble collaborations:  “The World at Peace” (1995), “Beyond the Sky” (2000) and 2003’s “In The Garden” with Rudolph conducting his Go: Organic Orchestra. He has performed worldwide with Dr. Lateef in ensembles ranging from their acclaimed duo concerts to appearing as guest soloist with Koln, Atlanta and Detroit symphony orchestras. Since the 1970’s Rudolph has been developing his unique syncretic approach to hand drums in creative collaborations with many masters of cross-cultural and improvised music such as Sam Rivers, Pharaoh Sanders, L. Shankar, and Fred Anderson. He is known especially for his innovative duo collaborations with Don Cherry, Jon Hassel, Wadada Leo Smith, and Omar Sosa. In 1992 Rudolph created his own performing ensemble, Adam Rudolph’s Moving Pictures as a vehicle to explore his compositional concepts. The group has performed in both Europe and the United States and has released several CD’s featuring Rudolph’s compositions.  In October 2006, his Moving Pictures Quartet, featuring Hamid Drake, Ralph Jones and Joseph Bowie, toured Scandinavia including a performance at the Tampere Jazz Festival in Finland. Rudolph’s new Moving Pictures Octet toured the East Coast in November 2006, including a performance at New York’s Symphony Space, before recording a new CD set for January 2008 release on Justin Time Records. In 2001 Rudolph founded Go: Organic Orchestra a 20-30-piece woodwind, strings and percussion ensemble dedicated to developing his compositional and rhythm concepts in a large group format. In concert, Rudolph improvisationally conducts the ensemble using his own innovative process. The group has recorded four CDs to date. For the past twelve years Rudolph has performed as half of the Wildflowers Duo with Butoh dancer innovator, Oguri. He also tours internationally with his trio Hu: Vibrational featuring Hamid Drake and Brahim Fribgane. They have released three CDs to date, and have just returned from a tour of Japan. Adam Rudolph is known as one the early innovators in what is now called “World Music”. In 1977 he co-founded, with Gambian Kora Griot Foday Musa Suso, The Mandingo Griot Society,one of the first bands to combine African and American music. In 1988, he recorded the first fusion of American and Gnawa (Moroccan) music with the Gnawa Sintir player and singer Hassan Hakmoun.
In 1990 he was commissioned by the LA Festival to create and lead Vashti Percussion Ensemble with percussionist masters from Bali, Iran, India, Lebanon and Java. The ensemble still performs annually.  In the 1980’s, under the auspices of World Music Institute Rudolph was artistic director of the annual concert event  “World of Percussion” In 1995 he premiered The Dreamer, an Opera based on Friedreich Nietzsche's "Birth of Tragedy". From 1998 to 2001 and in 2005 Rudolph performed at the Festival D’Essaouira in Morocco in collaboration with many leading Gnawa Maleems (masters). For 2 of those years he was artistic director and curator of “Calling Across the Water” an acoustic collaboration between American, Bambara and Gnawa musicians at that festival. Active as a performer in the Los Angeles creative music scene since 1979, Rudolph has also contributed by producing concerts and running his own Meta Records label. In 1998 he organized the three-day Bootstrap Festival, Los Angeles, presenting over 75 artists from many local and national cultural backgrounds. From 1992 –97 he organized and performed a free weekly concert series of improvised music for children at the Jazz Bakery which featured guitarist Kevin Eubanks and Ralph Jones. He has received grants and compositional commissions from the Rockefeller Foundation, Meet the Composer, Mary Flagler Cary Trust, the NEA, Arts International, the Durfee Foundation, Phaedrus Foundation and American Composers Forum. In June of 2007 Rudolph received a “New Works” grant from Chamber Music America to compose for his Moving Pictures Octet.   Adam Rudolph’s website is:  www.metarecords.com.
 

Oguri, a native of Japan, studied radical visual arts, which led to his career as a performer and dancer.  He studied with Tatsumi Hijikata, the creator/inventor of Butoh dance.  He joined famed dancer Min Tanaka's company, Mai-Juku, in 1985.  For five years Oguri lived, worked, and helped establish Tanaka's farm outside of Tokyo.   
  

A resident of Southern California since 1990 he conducts Body Weather Laboratory. Oguri received the Irvine Fellowship in Dance for the research and development of Height of Sky, a site-specific dance project that took place in the deserts of Joshua Tree.  It was an investigation of the relationship between dancer and environment, and explored the development of his identity as a Japanese dancer in America.  Oguri received the Dance: Creation to Performance grants from The James Irvine Foundation and administered by Dance/USA for his William Faulkner Project "Caddy! Caddy! Caddy!"

Department of Hearts

presents The Violin Music of Stuart Saunders Smith

Sylvia Smith: Percussion
Airi Yoshioka: Violin

The Department of Hearts (Airi Yoshioka and Sylvia Smith) performs a retrospective concert of the violin music of Stuart Saunders Smith, a composer associated with rhythmically complex, finely wrought music.  Our program features Hearts, a seven-movement work for unaccompanied violin, commissioned by Airi Yoshioka.  Each movement creates a poetic expression of the ambivalent, deep regions of the heart.  Hearts combines subtle theatrical elements with a hyper-expressive use of the violin and voice. 

Violinist Airi Yoshioka has performed throughout North America, Europe, and Asia as a recitalist, soloist and chamber musician.  An enthusiastic performer of new music, she was one of the original members and concertmasters of the New Juilliard Ensemble and has performed annually in Juilliard’s FOCUS! Festival and is currently a member of Continuum, ModernWorks!, Son Sonora, and Azure Ensemble.  A graduate of Yale University and the Juilliard School, she is currently Assistant Professor of Music at the University of Maryland Baltimore County.

Dr. Yoshioka has been actively commissioning new works for solo violin.  Hearts, a highly virtuosic solo in seven movements by Stuart Saunders Smith, was written for her.  In recent years she has been interested in exploring the different ways in which violin can be combined with other mediums and sounds while retaining the independent quality of the instrument.  “The Violin Music of Stuart Saunders Smith” is a program that pursues this idea through the interactions of violin and voice and violin with percussion.

Sylvia Smith is the founder, owner and editor of Smith Publications/Sonic Art Editions, publishers of serious American art music.  She is extremely rigorous in her selection of music and therefore her publishing house is looked to as a leading source of new American music.  The recipient of six Paul Revere Awards for graphic excellence, her publications are thought of as particularly handsome editions.  Her scholarship includes publishing several articles on music notation, and curating many concerts of John Cage’s music. 

As a percussionist, Sylvia Smith is active as a new music specialist, performing at Merkin Hall in New York, and with the Merce Cunningham Dance Company, and has received repeated invitations to appear at the Percussive Arts Society International Convention.  She tours North America with the Sylvia Smith Percussion Duo, specializing in percussion with spoken text and percussion theater.  Her performances are recorded on oodiscs and 11 West Records.  The recipient of numerous honors, Dr. Smith was awarded the American Music Center Letter of Distinction in 1988.

Stuart Saunders Smith (born 1948 in Portland, Maine, USA) is a confessional composer who focuses on revealing in his music the most personal aspects of his life, in the belief that the revelations of the particular speak to the universal.

Stuart Saunders Smith’s music is performed regularly on an international basis.  He has been awarded grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Maryland State Arts Council, and the Pittsburgh Film Forum, as well as the Hartt College of Music Distinguished Alumni Award, and a Percussive Arts Society Citation for Distinguished Editorship.

Stuart Saunders Smith’s music is recorded on 11 West Records, Centaur Records, oodiscs, Cadenza, BV Haast, and GAC Sweden.  He has authored two books: Twentieth Century Scores, Prentice-Hall; Words and Spaces, University Press of America; as well as many articles published in Perspectives of New Music, Percussionist, IS Journal, Percussive Notes, Ear Magazine, etc. 

Stuart Saunders Smith has been on the faculty of the Atlantic Center for the Arts, the Darmstadt Musikinstitut (Germany), and Percussion Workshop Poland.  Residencies include University of California -San Diego, Yale University, Documenta 1992 (Kassel, Germany), and the University of Gothenberg (Sweden).

Roulette Children's Concert: Joseph C. Phillips & Numinous    

2:00PM, $5

Joe Phillips and his music have been praised or performed by such notable artists as Maria Schneider, Jim McNeely, Mike Abene, and Manny Albam. By arranger/performers Rufus Reid, Kate McGarry, John Hollenbeck, Tom Varner, John McNeil, John Abercrombie, Howard Johnson, Christian Howes, Steve Bernstein, Chris Vadala, Grady Tate, Bob Curnow, John Ruocco, and jazz writers Dan Morgenstern and Burt Korall, Wouter Turkenburg of the Royal Conservatory, Jan van Kranenburg of the Jazz Center, choreographer JoLea Maffei and many other musicians and listeners.

His music has been performed in New York City at the Merkin Concert Hall, the Renee Weiler Concert Hall at the Greenwich House Music, the Merce Cunningham Dance Studios, the John Birks “Dizzy” Gillespie Auditorium, the Cutting Room, Triad, the Pink Pony Cafe, and the Brooklyn Spring Jazz and Pop Festival. In addition his music has been performed at the 2003 Steve Reich Festival at the Royal Conservatory in The Hague, Netherlands, the Bimhuis in Amsterdam, Netherlands, the International Association of Jazz Educators (IAJE) convention in New York City, the Monterey Jazz Festival in California, Jazz Alley, Tula’s, and Patty Summers in Seattle and by ensembles at St. Olaf College, Eastman School of Music, and University of Wisconsin-Eau-Claire.

Joe founded and has conducted Numinous since the fall of 2000. In September 2003 Numinous released its’ first CD-The Music of Joseph C. Phillips Jr. (Numen Records) to critical and popular praise. A unique ensemble of some of New York City’s finest jazz and classical musicians, Numinous has performed Joe's music throughout New York City in various music venues and clubs and has been featured on numerous radio programs around the country, including WNYC’s New Sounds. Joe and Numinous are also featured in Gary Evans’ book Music Inspired by Art: A Guide to Recordings (Scarecrow Press; 2nd edition).

Joe was a composer and performer with Seattle’s Young Composer’s Collective and the prestigious BMI Jazz Composer’s Workshop in New York City, where he was a BMI Foundation Charlie Parker Composition Award Finalist. He has also been a music archivist for the manuscripts of composers Gil Evans and Manny Albam and a lecturer at the Royal Conservatory (Koninklijk Conservatorium) in The Hague, Netherlands and at the St. Olaf College of Music in Northfield, Minnesota. Presently he is the founder and artistic director of the New York City composer’s federation, Pulse.

New West Electronic Arts & Music Organization - International Festival of Electro-Acoustic Music

October 27th, 9pm
October 28th, 3pm

Founded in 1998, NWEAMO is an all volunteer, non-profit 501-c-3 organization dedicated to the promotion of music and inter-related arts that involve the creative use of computers and electronics, and to building a diverse community among electro-acoustic composers amd media artists throughout the world. We embrace all styles of electronic music, from works which involve turntables and "bent" electronics to those utilizing cutting-edge composition and synthesis programs such as Max/MSP, Super Collider, and Csound; Rock and Pop music; Ritual Dance Music, Music Concrete and Sound Collage; Performance Art and Multimedia Events; Ambient Music and Sound Installations; and Improvised and Process Music.

With these goals in mind, NWEAMO hosts annual international festivals of electro-acoustic music. These festivals distinctly seek to establish and showcase the similar modern-day evolutions of "art" and "popular" music, and do so by consistently calling for technology-based music. NWEAMO's festivals feature different nightly concerts in several cities (these have included Boulder (Colorado, USA), Morelia (Mexico), Portland (Oregon, USA), San Diego (California, USA), New York City (New York, USA), Mexico City (Mexico), Berlin (Germany) and Venice (Italy). Concerts feature electro-acoustic compositions involving live performance or a compelling visual element. This encompasses works for acoustic instrument and electronics, live electronic performance and loudspeaker orchestra, as well as electro-acoustic works featuring video, installations, dance and performance art.

Saturday, Oct. 27, 2007 — 9:00 PM

• Freida Abtan: "Yellow Flowers" - projected moving image + audio (DVD)
• Geneviève Favre: "Electra" - clothing as musical instrument and movie screen
• SWARMIUS: "Grand Larceny" - violin, sax, snare drum, laptop – classical speed metal
• Charles Nichols: "De Grijze Boom" - metasaxophone
• Jack Vees: "I Want You (She's So Heavy)" - extended electric bass
• Hitoshi Akayama, Jonathon F. Lee, Akira Takaoka, Keiichi Tanaka: "Ambient Tide" - live projected image, lasers & electro music
• The Fearsome Sparrow: Experimental Rock

Sunday, Oct. 28, 2007 — 3:00 PM

• Kinesthetech Sense – "The Color of Waiting" -  interactive dance & projection
• Noah Keesecker: "Tonegoblin"
• Sonreel: "Emerge" - violin, percussion, laptop
• Angela Veomett : "Eve Song" - with Jessica Petrus, sporano, projected images, electro music
• Andres Subercaseaux: "Exit" live electronics & Video
• Paul Rudy "Vastly Shrinking Space" – with Madeleine Shapiro, cello/laptop
• Build: "Drivin'" indie-classical band