Elliott Sharp: Composer, multi-instrumentalist, and sound-artist central to the experimental music scene in New York City for over thirty years, Sharp has released over 200 recordings spanning the musical spectrum. He leads the projects Orchestra Carbon, Tectonics, and Terraplane and pioneered ways of applying fractal geometry, chaos theory, and genetic metaphors to musical composition and interaction as well as pioneering use of   computers in live improvisation.   His compositions have been performed by the RadioSinfonie Frankfurt, Ensemble Modern, Ensemble Rezonanz, Kronos Quartet, and Zeitkratzer and collaborators have included qawaali singer Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan,   blues legend Hubert Sumlin; playwright Dael Orlandersmith; cello innovator Frances-Marie Uitti;   and jazz greats Sonny Sharrock, Jack deJohnette, and Oliver Lake.    His "Quarks Swim Free" premiered at the Venice Biennale in September 2003 and his chamber opera "EmPyre" premiered at the 2006 Biennale.    Sharp's most recent CD releases include "Racing Hearts-Calling-Tessalation Row" with the RadioSinfonie Frankfurt which won the 2004 German Critics' Prize; his solo guitar "Quadrature"; the string quartet "Dispersion Of Seeds" and "Forgery" with Terraplane.   He founded the ongoing zOaR Records in 1978 both for his own productions including the critically-acclaimed compilations "Peripheral Vision" and "State Of The Union" and for other radical music.   He has recently completed the feature-film scores "What Sebastian Dreamt" and "Commune". Sharp's sound installations for museums and galleries include "Fluvial", "Chromatine", "Tag",   and "Distressed Vivaldi".

Jim Staley + Sylvie Courvoisier

Jim Staley , trombonist and composer, works primarily with improvisation, crossing genres freely between post-modern classical music and avant-garde jazz. He has collaborated for many years with other highly experienced improvisers, both dancers and musicians. Staley¹s recording projects include Blind Pursuits with Phoebe Legere and Borah Bergman; Mumbo Jumbo , different trio combinations with Wayne Horvitz, Elliott Sharp, Shelley Hirsch, Samm Bennett, Ikue Mori, Bill Frisell, Fred Frith and John Zorn; Jim Staley's Don Giovanni , with Mori, Davey Williams, Zeena Parkins and Tenko, plus several more. Staley also performs and records with the Tone Road Ramblers, a collaborative chamber-improv ensemble, together since 1981.

Composer/pianist, Sylvie Courvoisier was born and raised in Lausanne, Switzerland. She started to play piano at age of six initiated by her father, an amateur jazz pianist. She moved to Brooklyn, New York in 1998, where she currently resides. She has played and recorded with John Zorn, Ikue Mori, Tim Berne, Joey Baron,Mark Feldman, Tony Oxley, Yusef Lateef Dave Douglas, Joëlle Léandre, Herb Robertson, Butch Morris, Tom Rainey, Mark Dresser, Ellery Eskelin, Lotte Anker, Fred Frith, Michel Godard, Mark Nauseef among others. She has been commissioned to write music for concerts, radio, dance and theater. Her works include:” Concerto for electric guitar and chamber orchestra" ; "Balbutiements" for vocal quartet and soprano ;"Ocre de Barbarie", a musical performance for metronomes, automatons, barrel organ, piano, tuba, saxophone, violin and percussion. Commissions include the Vidy Theater of Lausanne, Pro Helvetia and Germany's Donaueschingen Musiktage Festival. Her debut recording "Sauvagerie Courtoise" on Unit Records was released in 1994. Her second recording ''Ocre" on Enja Records (Music for barrel organ, piano, tuba, bass and percussion) led to appearances on concert stages all over Europe. In the following years, Courvoisier released 6 CDs as a leader, and 10 CDs as a Co-leader, and more than 20 recordings as a side person or as a guest. Her latest releases as a leader are: "ABATON” with Mark Feldman and Erik Friedlander on ECM Records (2004), “LONELYVILLE” with her new quintet on Intakt Records (2007) and a solo piano album, SIGNS AND EPIGRAMS, on Tzadik Records (2007). Since 1995, she has been touring widely with her own groups and as a side person in USA, Canada and Europe including Jazz and New Music Festivals such as Berlin, Willisau, Donaueschingen, Banlieue Bleue, Saalfelden, Groningen, Visions NY, Nürnberg, Taktlos, London LMC, Bath Festival, Muenster and Victoriaville Festival, among others. Sylvie is currently the leader of her own quintet "Lonelyville" and the Trio Abaton. She is a member of “Mephista”, an improvising trio with Ikue Mori and Susie Ibarra; "Herb Robertson Quintet” with Tim Berne, Tom Rainey and Mark Dresser; in Trio along with Ellery Eskelin and Vincent Courtois : John Zorn’s Cobra. She also performs regularly in Duo with violinist Mark Feldman. Awards include Switzerland's 1996 Prix des jeunes créateurs and Zonta Club's 2000 Prix de la Création.

Borah Bergman, Adam Lane, Joe McPhee, and Ray Sage

Robert Ashley Roulette Benefit Concert
8:30pm All Tickets $20

"When the 21st Century glances back to see where the future of opera came from, Ashley, like Monteverdi before him, is going to look like a radical new beginning." (Village Voice).   Robert Ashley , a distinguished figure in American contemporary music, holds an international reputation for his work in new forms of opera and multi-disciplinary projects. His recorded works are acknowledged classics of language in a musical setting. He pioneered opera-for-television with such revolutionary pieces as Music with Roots in the Aether , a 14-hour opera/documentary about the work and ideas of seven American composers and Perfect Lives , an opera in seven half-hour episodes commissioned by the Kitchen and broadcast in Britain, Germany, Austria, Spain, and the US.   Distinctly original in style, and distinctly American in their subject matter and use of the American language, Ashley's work is "so vast in their vision that they are comparable only to Wagner's Ring cycle or Stockhausen's seven-evening Licht cycle. In form and content, in musical, vocal, literary and media technique, they are, however, comparable to nothing else." (The Los Angeles Times).   Join us for this Benefit Concert to help keep Roulette running!

Joseph Kubera & Sarah Cahill
perform premieres of four-hand works by Terry Riley

JOSEPH KUBERA has been a leading interpreter of contemporary music for the past twenty-five years. In 2007, he was a featured performer with the Orchestra of the S.E.M. Ensemble at Zankel Hall, premiered and recorded Michael Byron’s Dreamers of Pearl in New York, and directed a performance of Julius Eastman’s multiple-piano music in Newcastle, England.  Among the composers who have written works for him are Michael Byron, Anthony Coleman, David First, Alvin Lucier, Roscoe Mitchell, and “Blue” Gene Tyranny.  A longtime Cage performer, he recorded the Music of Changes and Piano Concert, and toured with the Cunningham Dance Company at Cage’s invitation.   He is a core member of S.E.M. Ensemble, the DownTown Ensemble and Ostravska Banda, and he has performed with a wide range of New York ensembles, from Steve Reich and Musicians to the Brooklyn Philharmonic.  Mr. Kubera’s solo playing may be heard on the Wergo, Albany, New Albion, New World, Lovely Music, O.O. Discs, Mutable Music, Cold Blue, and Opus One labels.  His website is www.josephkubera.com.

Hailed as “that golden-haired Valkyrie of new music” in the Charleston City Paper, SARAH CAHILL has commissioned, premiered, and recorded numerous compositions for solo piano. Composers who have dedicated works to her include John Adams, Frederic Rzewski, Pauline Oliveros, Kyle Gann, and Evan Ziporyn, and she has also premiered pieces by Lou Harrison, Julia Wolfe, Ingram Marshall, Toshi Ichiyanagi, Ursula Mamlok, George Lewis, Leo Ornstein, and many others. She has performed at the Tokyo Summer Festival, the Other Minds Festival in San Francisco, and at the Spoleto Festival USA. Recent appearances include the Santa Fe New Music series, a Cold Blue festival at REDCAT Theater in Los Angeles, and the Nuovi Spazi Musicali festival in Rome. For a “new music séance” produced by Other Minds, she performed three separate concert programs back to back, spanning music from the early 20th century to the present day. Sarah has recorded for the New Albion, Tzadik, CRI, New World, Albany, Artifact, and Cold Blue labels. She is currently preparing recordings of music by Leo Ornstein, Kyle Gann, and Mamoru Fujieda.

FAST FORWARD
ROULETTE CHILDRENS CONCERT
2pm
$5

"Fast Forward is a New York based english composer and performer who makes music with almost anything.  In his solo performances, he adopts a sculptural approach to creating sound.  He examines the sensual, tactile qualities of the objects, then ties the sound of the objects to the physical gesture that creates the sound. The result is a stage presence that integrates the visual element of the performance with the music. " Forward is the first musician to combine the sweet repetitions of Reich, the raw decibel power of Branca, the randomness of Cage and Wolff, and even the stochastic textures of Xenakis. It's a potent combination,carried out with irresistible momentum. " - Kyle Gann, the Village Voice.

Fast Forward lived in Northern England until he emigrated to the U.S. in 1976. Strongly influenced by his surroundings, he chooses to use an empirical approach towards pursuing a musical outcome. He is best known for his musical explorations of the Trinidadian steel pan and his music-theater works for diverse instrumentation. His culinary concert Feeding Frenzy for five musicians, five cooks, five waiters, and the audience was first performed in New York in 1994 and continues to be performed worldwide. Producing 500 plates of amplified food in 90 minutes, it uses local performers and has been staged for many occasions, including the 15-year celebration of Freunde Guter Musik at The National Gallery in Berlin and the Time of Music Festival in Finland. It also ran for three seasons at The Kitchen in New York. Trommelfeuer, an ensemble work produced by the DAAD in Berlin, includes the use of stainless steel oil drums, sewer pipes, truck suspension springs, explosive-hammers, and multiple drummers. The metal walls of a ferryboat in the Sea of Japan were once used as musical collaborators. In solo performances, Fast Forward adopts a sculptural approach to creating sound. He examines the sensual, tactile qualities of the objects, then ties the sound of the objects to the physical gesture that creates the sound. He attended art colleges in Leeds and Newcastle in England, where he studied with Stuart Marshall. From there, he studied electronic music with Robert Ashley and David Behrman at Mills College and moved to New York City in 1981. In conjunction with The Wooster Group, he curated "The Accident," nine evenings of performance music at The Performing Garage in New York City. Fast Forward toured with the Merce Cunningham Dance Company from 1994 to 1997. 

Uchihashi Kazuhisa / Shelley Hirsch

"One of the best pairing of personalities that one could imagine, Hirsch and Kazuhisa show all their magnificent talent in a flawless live recording. The American vocalist is her usual self, her interpretation ranging from one genre to another with a fantasy and an intelligence that are rare to see nowadays; her technical ability is well known, so is the sense of humour that she always puts in front of us, a trademark for which Shelley is recognizable at the first note she hits. Uchihashi Kazuhisa complements her in stunningly perfect fashion, accompanying and counterpointing through a fresh sense of technical abandon that never cancels the simple beauty of the "gesture of playing". His use of delays and effects to reach different timbral zones is a perfect balance to Shelley's crazy yet lucid evolutions. And when they try to subvert "In a sentimental mood" with their cross between anarchy and loving homage, well - I think that the circle is closed. This is a masterpiece."

Uchihashi Kazuhisa was born in Osaka, Japan in 1959. Plays guitar since his twelfth years, mainly "Pop'n Roll" thoroughout his teens. Later he became involved in jazz. Since 1983 he has devoted himself intensively to free improvised music. He experimented thouroughly with many different kinds of machines and sound-devices to expand the expression possibilities of the electric guitar. He also composed music for films, theatre plays, dance. Among them, he has been working with Japanese Therter group "ISHINHA" for more than 20 years. He made a name for himself in Japan in concerts with such improvising musicians as Hans Reichel, Fred Frith,Tom Cora, Ned Rothenberg, Barre Phillips, Kan Tae Fwan, Peter Brotzman, Derek Bailey , Samm Bennett , Steve Beresford , Jon Rose , Zeena Parkins, Elliott Sharp ,Eugene Chadbourne,Henry Kaiser,Chris Cutler , Charles Hayward ,Han Bennink, Shelley Hirsch, Fred Frith, Gene Coleman ,Roger Turner, Franz
Hautzinger, Mani Neumeier, Bobby Previte, Chiristian Marclay,Mark Feldman, Carl Stone, Burkhard Stangle and others. He has been conducting his rock-oriented powerful improvised band
"Altered States" for 18years and continues to create his own new guitar music in solo as well as in "Altered States". He is also known by excellent player of "electroharmonics 16 second delay"

Since 1996 he has also been organizing the New Music festival
"BEYOND INNOCENCE" in Japan every year.
Since 1998 he started to play and make a music with daxophone(Hans Reichel's invention).
Now he moved to vienna from Tokyo.

http://homepage.mac.com/innocentrecords/

Shelley Hirsch is "an unorthodox, extraordinary fusion of vocalist, composer, and performance artist " (Anne LeBaron) whose work encompasses story telling pieces, staged performances, compositions, improvisations, collaborations, installations, and radioplays, which have been presented on 5 continents...

Hirsch has performed hundreds of concerts of improvised music with great musicians including Anthony Coleman, Christian Marclay, Ikue Mori, Toshio Kajiwara, Hans Reichel, Min Xiao Fen, Tony Buck, David Simons, Johannes, Connie and Matthias Bauer, Paul Lovens, David Watson, Marina Rosenfeld, Jim Staley, DJ Olive, Denman Maroney, Joey Baron, Mark Dresser, Ned Rothenberg, Marc Ribot, Cyro Baptista, Butch Morris, Elliot Sharp, Uchihashi Kasuhisa, Joe Williamson, etc, etc.

She can be heard on dozens of CDs including her just released CDs "The Far In, Far Out Worlds of Shelley Hirsch" (Tzadik) and "Duets" with gutarist Uchihashi Kasuhisa (Innocence Records), and on her solo CD "States" (Tellus); her storytelling CD "O Little Town of East New York" (Tzadik); "Haiku Lingo" (No Mans Land) last two co-composed with longtime collaborator keyboardist David Weinstein- and the LP "Singing" (Apollo).

Adam Rudolph/Organic Orchestra

(Also March 17th and 31st)

Since 2001 Adam Rudolph has conducted both Los Angeles and New York based versions of Go: Organic Orchestra a 15 to 30 piece woodwind, brass, strings and percussion group including concerts with special guest performers Yusef Lateef, poet Saul Williams and hand drum legend, Big Black. The group was chosen by the LA Weekly as "Outstanding World Music Group" in both 2003 and 2005. He has also conducted the Go: Organic Orchestra concept with locally based musicians in both Europe and South America.

About the music Rudolph says: "My overall concept in music is concerned with the evolution of improvisational art. The music I compose is thematic material which provides context and inspiration for improvisational dialogue: it is designed to structure creative landscapes of syncretic and multi-arts disciplines. My music materials consist, among other things, of original melodies, textural gestures, music languages, tone rows, traditional and synthetic scales, diadic and intervalic harmonies, call and response, polyphony, dynamics, and the coloration of silences. Forms are generated through my concept of "Cyclic Verticalism", whereby polyrhythms, as used in African music, are combined with rhythm cycles, as used in Indian music.

In concert, I conduct the musicians in a spontaneous way, using music/letter grids, language themes, Indian ragas and original song forms to create moods, motion, and sonic gestures. The orchestral concept is to generate unusual relationships of sound against sound, form against form, and rhythm against rhythm in a non-linear, ever shifting kaleidoscope of music images, weaving what I call an "audio syncretic music fabric".

The music is "organic" in the sense that the compositions and conducting exist as an inspiration and context for the musicians to express themselves by using their instruments as an amplifier for their inner voice. Performers are given the freedom to use their imagination and listening ability to develop the compositions within their own individual motion and timing, while still relating to the overall form and their aesthetic and musical functions."  

Composer and Artistic Director Adam Rudolph has constructed music using innovative and experimental means without the use of western music notation. Rudolph will conduct the woodwind players through music/letter grids, language themes, Indian Ragas and song forms to create the moods, movement  and sonic gestures.
  
The percussionists have been learning Rudolph's rhythm concept:"Cyclic Verticalism", whereby polyrhythms (used in African music) are combined with rhythms cycles (used in Indian music). Utilizing these elements in an spontaneous way, elements will weave what Rudolph calls  an "audio syncretic music fabric" that serves as a platform for improvisation  and self expression.  About this approach Rudolph states:

The Orchestra is made up of many of leading performers as well as young developing musicians. "I conceived of the Organic Orchestra as an opportunity to work with many musicians I have not had a chance to perform with before, as well as a workshop environment where I can share with younger musicians some of the knowledge I have received over the years from my mentors." says Rudolph.

“I was fortunate to have attended two nights with Adam Rudolph's Go
Organic Orchestra at Roulette a few months back
and was blown away by Adam's distinctive blend of
jazz and world music as well as his conducting. “
-BLG for DMG NEWSLETTER FOR JANUARY 25th, 2008

Graham Haynes. Martin Loyato, Stephen Haynes, Amir Eisaffar, – Trumpet and Cornet
Steve Swell, Peter Zummo– Trombone
Ned Rothenberg, J.D. Parran, Pablo Calgolero, Charles Waters, David Rothenberg, Avram Fefer- Clarinets
Alex Waterman, Tomas Ulrich, Daniel Levin, Kirsten Jerme - Cello
Charles Burnham, Sarah Bernstein, , Gwen Laster – Violin
Stephanie Griffin, Miguel Atwood Ferguson, - Viola
Sylvain Leroux, Ze Luis, Michel Gentile, Jane Rigler, Kaoru Watanabe, Salim Washington – Flutes, Bamboo Flutes
Batya Sobel – Oboe
Sara Schoenbeck - Bassoon
Jerome Harris, Leni Stern, Kenny Wessel, Marco Cappelli - Guitar
Harris Eisenstadt, Brahim Fribgane, Gustavo Aguilar, Michael Lipsey– Drums and Percussion
Lindsey Horner, Stuart Popejoy – Acoustic Bass
Alex Marcelo – Acoustic Piano
Chris Dingman – Vibraphone

Sound Vision Orchestra and Roulette present Tribute to Jeff Hoyer, an evening long concert event paying tribute to the remarkable work of the late composer, trombonist and pianist Jeff Hoyer. A longtime denizen of the New York music scene, Hoyer combined a singularly virtuosic extended brass technique with an ability to compose for improvising musicians. His early work revolved around Bill Dixon, who Hoyer first studied with and later taught for as a member of the Black Music Division faculty at Bennington College. Hoyer was an essential member of many signature improvising orchestras, working for years as a low brass lynchpin in the ensembles of Cecil Taylor. A dynamic organizer, Hoyer played a key role in the Musicians of Brooklyn Initiative, Lester Bowie’s brain child and, most recently, as a lead member of the Sound Vision Orchestra. His work as an improviser can be heard on any of the five acclaimed recordings with the Collective 4tet on Leo Records alongside bass wunderkind William Parker.

The Tribute to Jeff Hoyer concert event will take place at 8:30 PM on Wednesday, March 12 at Roulette, 20 Greene Street. The program will feature readings of three works composed by Hoyer and performed by members of nHarmonic Brass and a new quartet convened for this event. The evening will feature a world premiere of a new work for chamber ensemble by composer Bunita Marcus, longtime friend to Jeff Hoyer. Kyle Gann of the Village Voice has called Bunita Marcus one of his favorite women composers of all time.

Look forward to dynamic performances by three ensembles, including a brass octet, and a cast of
eighteen musicians paying tribute to an unsung hero of New York’s creative music scene.

***

Interpretations: Al Margolis / Denman Maroney

Al Margolis
“New works for vocals and prerecorded sounds; trombone and prerecorded sounds; flute, electronics and tape; and electronics, flute, trombone, vocals, and prerecorded sounds. I continue to use sound palettes as the basic structure of my works; the instrumentalists then create their parts over these sound palettes. Other prerecorded and sampled sounds are then added to the live mix; the result is multi-layered works that are never twice the same.” — Al Margolis

Featuring: Al Margolis manipulating prerecorded sounds and sampling; Lisa Barnard, vocals; Monique Buzzarté, trombone; Tom Hamilton, electronics; Jacqueline Martelle, flute; and Katherine Liberovskaya, video.

Denman Maroney
Denman Maroney will give a solo piano concert of improvisations in his trademark “hyperpiano” style: playing the keys with one hand and the strings with the other, using bows and slides of metal, plastic and rubber. He also employs a system of temporal harmony based on the undertone series to compose and improvise in several tempos at once. His music is inspired by natural sounds and the music of Cage, Coleman, Cowell, Ellington, Ives, Joplin, Messiaen, Monk, Nancarrow and Stockhausen, among others.

“Pianists have been tinkering with the guts of their instruments for nearly a century now, but it’s altogether likely that no one has explored the art of prepared piano as diligently or creatively as ‘hyperpianist’ Denman Maroney.” TimeOut NY, Aug. 2006.

Steve Beresford w/ Okkyung Lee & Peter Evans

Steve Beresford (Wellington, Shropshire, 1950) is a composer, musician and arranger, a veteran of countless bands from the Slits to the Melody Four. He has been a central figure in the British improvising scene for over thirty years working with the likes of Derek Bailey, Evan Parker and Han Bennink. For the past decade he has concentrated most of his compositional efforts on tracks for independent British film and television. Strange sambas, jittery jazz, melancholy moods and more from one of the most consistently imaginative and creative musicians in Europe. During the 1970s, Beresford was a co-founder and co-editor of the magazine Musics, which dealt mainly with free improvisation, whilst during the early 1980s he helped to set up the somewhat glossier publication Collusion, which had a wider musical remit, covering fields such as rap, heavy metal, classical music, film music, pop music as well as the avant-garde and free improvisation. Along with David Toop, Beresford was also a prime mover of the London Musicians Collective.

A native of Korea, Okkyung Lee has been developing her own voice in a contemporary cello performance, improvisation and composition. using her solid classical training as a springboard, she incorporates jazz, sounds, korean traditional music, noise with extended techniques and create her unique blend of music. Since moving to new york in 2000, she has performed and recorded with numerous artists such as laurie anderson, derek bailey, steve beresford, carla bozulich, nels cline, chris corsano, sylvie courvoisier, mark dresser, fred frith, shelley hirsch, john hollenbeck, susie ibarra, lindha kallerdahl, eyvind kang, miya masaoka, raz mesinai, min xiao-fen, thurston moore, lawrence D. "butch" morris, larry ochs, jim o'rourke, beth orton, zeena parkins, marc ribot, marina rosenfeld, saadet türköz and john zorn to name a few.

in addition to frequent solo performances and leading her own ensembles, she frequently collaborates with the following ensembles: Still Life with Commentator with pianist/composer vijay iyer, poet/hip hop artist mike ladd; duo with tunrtablist/video artist christian marclay: billy martin's IOOI with ikue mori and dj olive, and artist guy richards smit's rock band Maxi Geil! and Playcolt. Okkyung has released the following albums under her name: her debut album, Nihm on Tzadik; a duo recording with christian marclay on My Cat is an Alien label's split LP series; 30-minute companion cd of her own compositions in collaboration with artist colin stinson for his art book Dust to Dust, and a solo cello album I saw the Ghost of an Unknown Soul and it Said... to be releassed on thurston moore's Ecstatic Peace labe in 2007.

Peter Evans has been a member of the New York musical community since 2003, when he moved to the city after graduating Oberlin Conservatory. Peter currently works in a wide variety of areas, including solo performance, chamber orchestras, performance art, free improvised settings, electro-acoustic music and composition. As a performer, Evans has been working to break through the technical barriers of his instrument and enjoys playing with steady configurations of improvisers; each band explores a specific concept or style as much as possible. Current bands include the Peter Evans Quartet (with Brandon Seabrook, Tom Blancarte, & Kevin Shea), Moppa Elliott's terrorist bebop band Mostly Other People Do the Killing, the hyperactive free-improvisation duo Sparks (with Tom Blancarte), the free-jazz quintet Carnivalskin (with Klaus Kugel and Bruce Eisenbeil), the Language Of with Charles Evans, duos with trumpeter Nate Wooley and saxophonist Dave Reminick, the New York Trumpet Ensemble, as well as a sustained interest in solo performance. In New York, Peter also performs contemporary notated music with groups such as the International Contemporary Ensemble, Alarm Will Sound, Contiuum, and Ensemble 21. He has continued to perform on piccolo trumpet in Baroque settings, performing Brandenburg Concerto No. 2 at the Bargemusic series, and in Bach’s Mass in B Minor at St Peter’s Church. Other collaborators have included: Mary Halvorson, Dave Taylor, John Zorn, Okkyung Lee, Taylor Ho Bynum, Perry Robinson, Jim Black, Evan Parker, Ned Rothenberg, Mark Gould, Jack Wright, Luka Ivanovic, Brian Chase, and Alan Kay. Recent travels have brought Peter to venues and festivals in the U.S., Canada, Europe, the UK, and Southeast Asia. Recordings include "More is More", a solo trumpet album on psi, the self-titled first album of the Peter Evans Quartet (on firehouse12), and Shamokin!, the second album by MOPDTK, on HotCup Records.

"A re-enactment of a spontaneous moment that happened on the Queensboro Bridge in November of 2007.
Thomas Dexter- visuals, Maria Chavez- sound. "

Maria Chavez is an avant-turntablist from Peru who focuses on electro acoustic sound of vinyl and needle. She 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, with whom she will collaborate on a live sound installation in London in the summer of 2008.

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 will participate in an artist-in-residency program with the Merce Cunningham Dance Company at the Dia Foundation's museum in Beacon, New York.

She was recently awarded the Jerome Emerging Artist Grant from Roulette International in SOHO, NYC, as well as a Meet the Composer grant for a Deep Listening Institute performance at SOHO's Emily Harvey Gallery in April.

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.Tara's website

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).

Thomas Dexter is an experimental media artist and performer based in Brooklyn NY. His work with audio/visual performance attempts to draw from (and quite literally draw on) film and the histories of expanded cinema and electronic sound. In his performances, part exorcism, part analysis, Thomas employs abstract mark-making and _expressionistic erasure on 16mm film as a way to dramatize the life-cycle of creative praxis; loudly celebrating the interpenetration of creation and destruction. The resulting images are both traditionally projected and sonified through an array of homemade audio synthesizers.

Thomas has damaged projectors at performance venues and galleries throughout Brooklyn and Manhattan including Issue Project Room, Monkey Town, Third Ward, and The Tank, alongside artists such as Phil Niblock, Luke Dubois, Bradley Eros, Zach Layton, Lucio Pozzi and many others. Most recently he was a featured performer in Material Matter; a retrospective sponsored by American Abstract Artists at Side Show gallery in Williamsburg was an artist in residency at The General Store gallery in Elkhorn Iowa.

ROBERT EEN

performs from his Obie Award winning score for Hiroshima Maiden, the puppet/theater piece by Dan Hurlin.    Just released on the Innova label, the music features the composer on cello and voice, joined by Bill Ruyle on hammer dulcimer and percussion, and Jeff Berman on vibraphone, marimba, lap dulcimer and percussion.

"The incredible music by Robert Een mixes jazz, Asian, vocal and instrumental music in moving and melodious ways."

         -- Paulanne Simmons, Brooklyn Papers

Robert Een is an acclaimed composer, cellist and singer.   In addition to the 2004 Obie Award, he received a 2000 New York Dance and Performance Award for sustained achievement in music composition and performance, and has created numerous scores for film, television, dance and theater, as well as for the concert stage.   He has recorded eight albums of his music.   His long-time collaboration with Meredith Monk culminated in the evening-length performance, Facing North .

Adam Rudolph GO: Organic Orchestra

SEE 10TH OF MARCH FOR DETAILS

BUFFALO COLLISION

Buffalo Collision is comprised of two generations of improvisors. Long-time collaborators Tim Berne and Hank Roberts are legends of the NYC Downtown music scene; Ethan Iverson and Dave King are members of The Bad Plus who grew up listening to Berne on Roberts on some of their favorite records.   These two philosophies collide like buffalo, resulting in uncompromising free improvisations with accessible structure.

Tim Berne (alto saxophone)
Dave King (drums)
Ethan Iverson (piano)
Hank Roberts (cello)

Taylor Ho Bynum – cornet, flugelhorn, Andrew Drury – drum set, Ken Filiano - string bass,
Jason Kao Hwang – composer/ violin, viola

CELEBRATING THE RELEASE OF
STORIES BEFORE WITHIN (Innova Records)

Jason Kao Hwang’s quartet EDGE is nested in the urban mountains of New York City where he created Stories Before Within, personal tales celebrating both life and loss.  Over the past three years EDGE has embraced both past and future with musical offerings resonant with human and animal overtones.  Their instruments sing through sharp lines vibrating between history, cultures and genres.

In 2006, EDGE’s first CD (Asian Improv Records) scaled the college radio charts at  #14 for CMJ and #4 for Canada’s EARSHOT. EDGE was ranked #3 on a Top Ten CDs of 2006 list for ALL ABOUT JAZZ. They have performed Vision Festival XI, Tonic, Brooklyn College, the Living Theater, and the Stone, all in NYC. EDGE also performed at Sangha (Washington, D.C.), An die Musik (Baltimore), the Deep Listening Institute (Kingston, NY), and the Sanctuary for Independent Media (Troy, NY). In the fall of 2008, EDGE will tour Syracuse, Rochester and Buffalo.  They will also perform in EDGEFEST (name has no prior relation) at the Kerrytown Concert House in Ann Arbour, Michigan.

The four manage to meld their individual experiences into a group that can swing hard, evoke the pentatonics and timbres of Asian music traditions or blues edge and push toward freedom. 
Michael Rosenstein, SIGNAL TO NOISE, 2006

Jason Kao Hwang (composer, violinist) has created works ranging from jazz, classical, “new” and world music. As violinist, he has worked with Reggie Workman, William Parker, Pheeroan akLaff, Anthony Braxton, Vladamir Tarasov, Butch Morris and Henry Threadgill. As composer he has received support from the National Endowment for the Arts and New Jersey State Council on the Arts and others. His duo with Sang Won Park(kayagum, ajeng, voice), Local Lingo (Euonymus Records), recently broke into the CMJ charts at #36. His chamber opera, The Floating Box, A Story in Chinatown (New World Records), was named one of the top ten opera recordings of 2005 by Opera News. Music From China recently commissioned his string quartet, In the Garden of Morning Glories (violin, erhu, pipa, yanqin), which premiered at Symphony Space.

Taylor Ho Bynum (coronet, various brass) is a composer and bandleader born in 1975, raised in Boston, and presently residing in Brooklyn. Bynum has established a reputation as a unique musical voice willing to take chances in a wide variety of artistic contexts. Projects range from ensembles in the jazz tradition, to work with DJs, contemporary classical composers, and world music ensembles, to composing for film and theater, to collaborations with dancers and visual artists. He leads a variety of small groups and the large ensemble SpiderMonkey Strings, and works with Anthony Braxton, Cecil Taylor, and the Fully Celebrated Orchestra.

Andrew Drury (drum set) is a drummer/composer whose work has been noted for its lyricism and expansive approach to form and technique.  Drury can be heard on fifteen CDs (two as a bandleader) and he has performed in Europe and the Americas with Michel Doneda, Mark Dresser, Briggan Krauss, Myra Melford, Chris Speed, Jack Wright, Kenny Wolleson's Marching Band with Butch Morris, and others.  A former student of Ed Blackwell, he photographs drum solos in desert and prairie settings, collaborates frequently with dancers, and has led over 700 junk percussion workshops across the U.S.

Ken Filiano (string bass), has fused the rich traditions of the double bass, bringing out the many voices inherent to the instrument.  His solo bass CD, Subvenire (NineWinds), received unanimous critical praise, and was chosen by Cadence Magazine as one of the top ten CDs of 2003.    Ken tours widely, performing at the DuMaurier International Jazz Festival, Banlieues Bleues Festival (Paris, France); and on many concert stages including Carnegie Hall.  He was principal bassist with the Cascade Festival Orchestra from 1985 - 2002. Ken has also played and/or recorded with artists and orchestras including Bobby Bradford, Nels Cline, Vinnie Golia, Dom Minasi, Alex Cline, Ted Dunbar, and Joseph Jarman.

Choreographer/Improvisor and songwriter Patricia Nicholson will presents an evening featuring her latest creative endeavor, the Celestial Moonbeams Funk Group. Full of surprises, Ms Nicholson has started her own avantFunk group, featuring some of the top musicians on the avantJazz scene.interacting with classically trained dancers and cappoeristas. It redefines what it means to be modern.  The group has already proved its worth at its premier performance as the official loser for this year’s HOWL festival on the South Stage at Tompkins Square Park. The idea for this group came out of Ms. Nicholson’s other recent undertaking, Rise Up Creative Music and Art. The songs, their lyrics and rhythms; and the dancers’ movements express the ideas and sentiments of this new movement in the arts.

"Living Cinema" is the creation of Quebecois filmmaker Pierre Hébert and San Francisco composer Bob Ostertag . This innovative project brings the creation of cinema out of the movie and recording studios and on to the stage. Ostertag has created custom software that allows the two artists to actually perform an animated movie with soundtrack, live on stage. They will perform their newest work Special Forces , which premiered last May in Beirut and San Francisco. Like their earlier works, it incorporates events from the world news; in this case, it begins with the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in the summer of 2006.

Sonodendron is a fully immersive work that explores the sonic potentials of cello and electronics on both the microscopic and macroscopic scale. With a 5.1 Surround Sound score by Mem1 ( Laura Thomas-Merino , cello & M. Cera , electronics) and video by media artist Liora Belford ,  Sonodendron is a visceral tour through the bowels and ephemera of the cello.

Bob Ostertag is a composer, performer, historian, instrument builder, journalist, activist and kayak instructor. He has performed at music, film, and multi-media festivals around the globe and his collaborators include the Kronos Quartet, John Zorn, Mike Patton, Anthony Braxton, Lynn Breedlove, and Justin Bond. He is currently Professor of Technocultural Studies and Music at the University of California at Davis.

Pierre Hébert , born in 1944 in Montreal, is a self-taugt filmmaker strongly influenced by animation film makers Norman McLaren and Len Lye. He worked for The National Film Board of Canada from 1965 until the end of 1999 and has since pursued a career as an independent artist and filmmaker. Since 1983, he has taken part in live performances with musicians such as Jean Derome, Robert M. Lepage and René Lussier, Fred Frith and Bob Ostertag.

Mem1 is an electroacoustic duo that seamlessly blends the sounds of cello (Laura Thomas-Merino) and electronics (M. Cera) to create a subtle evolution of textures that moves beyond melody, lyricism, and traditional structural confines, resulting in an organically revealed narrative.

Laura Thomas-Merino is a professional cellist originally from Los Angeles, currently residing in Providence, RI.   An active orchestral and chamber musician, she has performed in the U.S., Canada, Mexico, Peru, and Italy with such artists as Pamela Z, the Robin Cox Ensemble, the group OXO as part of the Sonic Boom Festival in Vancouver, with the Providence String Quartet.

M. Cera is a media artist who is interested in exploring audio/visual control systems that are intuitive as well as experimental in nature. He is a member of the experimental media art group Redux, and the electroacoustic duo Mem1 alongside cellist Laura Thomas-Merino.

Liora Belford is a Tel-Aviv based video artist and a filmmaker. Her works have been featured at numerous worldwide festivals and art exhibitions including Art Film Festival (Slovakia), Tel-Aviv Museum of Art (Israel), Vancouver Film Festival (Canada), Washington Jewish Film Festival (USA), and many others.

Messages, a duo comprising Tres Warren of Psychic Ills and visual artist Taketo Shimada. Their psychedelic sound explores raga, drone, techno - mashing guitar, homemade tanpura, voice, percussion, turntables and everything else they can get their hands on. On their first EP from The Social Registry, Dusted Magazine proclaimed "This is some heavy, humid drone, pregnant with 4am electricity and, in the end, thick fuzzy beats. A beautiful surprise, engaging even in its abstract tendencies. Best record in the Social Registry's singles series to date."

Messages' apprearance at Roulette will be a continutation of their recent live sets, the 'Brain Damage On Broadway' show at the Emily Harvey Foundation and their appearance at the 'Evas Arche Und Der Feminist' party at Gavin Brown's Passerby. Expect an evening of
hypnosis, experimentaion and improvised psychedelia.

Jeff Perkins (Single Wing Turquoise Bird, who provided light shows to Velvet Underground, Grateful Dead and Dr. John to name a few) provides his minimal psychedelic light show with four slide projectors and motorized fly wheels.

Messages are preparing their first LP, due out later this year.

Tres Warren is an artist and musician living and working in New York City. He’s involved in various music collaborations including Messages and recently performed as part of Damo Suzuki’s Network, in addition to recording and touring internationally with his band Psychic Ills. He also puts forth visual work of various media.

Taketo Shimada is a visual artist and musician from Tokyo. He has lived and worked in NYC since the mid 80s. Taketo paints everyday and makes the most of instruments and sound systems for his music. He has worked with a variety of figures such as Henry Flynt, Alison Knowles and Rammellzee to name a few.

Jeff Perkins is a visual artist and filmmaker. While serving in the U.S. Air Force stationed in Tokyo, he met Yoko Ono and her husband Anthony Cox. Through them he was exposed to the works of Cage, Duchamp, LaMonte Young and others and began participating in events, performances and concerts. He a co-founder of 'Single Wing Turquoise Bird', a multimedia group doing light shows for Velvet Underground, Grateful Dead and Dr. John to name a few. Jeff currently exhibits at the Emily Harvey Gallery and is now finishing up his new film 'The Painter Sam Francis'.

Violinist and composer Rebecca Cherry will present a new multi-media Surround-Sound installation exploring the relationship between sound an imagery. Juxtaposing original sound samples of stringed instruments employing extended techniques with video footage from popular music videos, the work seeks to generate new and unexpected connections between seemingly unrelated materials. Audience members will have the opportunity to interact with the installation through a computer interface provided by the artist.

Violinist Rebecca Cherry is a graduate of the Peabody Conservatory and has performed in the Baltimore, Annapolis and Vancouver Symphony Orchestras, the London and Bergen Philharmonic, and with pop music performers including Jay-Z, Kanye West, Stevie Wonder, and more.

A collaboration between guitarist Vernon Reid and multi-instrumentalist Leon Gruenbaum, gReid and Ruen is a kaleidoscopic conglomeration of field hollers, space sounds and general mayhem. Exploring instrumental groove-based futuristic improvisations, tonight is a rare opportunity to hear these virtuoso musicians in their most experimental mode. Yuko Sueta will be providing visuals via video projection.

Best known as the founder and primary songwriter of the hard rock/heavy metal band Living Colour, guitarist Vernon Reid was named #66 on Rolling Stone's 100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time. Reid first came to prominence in the 1980s in the band of drummer Ronald Shannon Jackson. While he is perhaps best known for his work with Living Colour, Reid has had an active solo career that includes collaborations with Bill T. Jones, Salif Keita and James "Blood" Ulmer; performances with the Roots, Mick Jagger, Rollins Band, Spearhead, Public Enemy, Mariah Carey, and Tracey Chapman; and various original scores for film and television.

Leon Gruenbaum has been a vital force in the New York music scene for the last 20 years. After early classical training on piano and woodwinds, Mr. Gruenbaum developed an interest in jazz, funk and avant-garde music. Mr. Gruenbaum conceived of the world's first relativistic music keyboard, a patented MIDI controller called the Samchillian Tip Tip Tip Cheeepeeeee. He has recorded and performed internationally with this instrument with guitarist Vernon Reid, and demonstrated it last year at the academic conference "NIME" (New Interfaces for Musical Expression).

Yuko Sueta is an interactive video artist who presents landscapes to live music. She creates sensual textures and stories into visuals by using chaotic mixtures of manipulated 16mm films and digital images. Her work has been performed live with rock, experimental, electro musicians such as Ifwhen, Apollo Heights, Costanza, Kayo Dot and played all around U.S, Europe and Japan.

Robert Madler is a composer and performer who has focused on experimental media since 1998, specializing in electroacoustic composition (both stereo diffusion and octophonic), compositions utilizing multiple video projections, and programming in Max/MSP and Reaktor.

Listen and watch in amazement as inventor and virtuosic musician Ken Butler plays his hammer violin and "guitars" made from a broom, snow shovel, and toothbrush! Children learn how instruments were invented, how they produce sounds, and how those sounds can be combined live with modern technology, stimulating imagination and creativity.  

Ken Butler is an artist and musician whose Hybrid musical instruments, performances, collage drawings, and installations explore the interaction and transformation of common and uncommon objects, altered images, sounds and silence. His works have been featured in numerous exhibitions and performances throughout the USA, Canada, and Europe including The Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, Mass MoCA, and The Kitchen, The Brooklyn Museum, The Queens Museum, Lincoln Center and The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City as well as in South America, Thailand, and Japan. His works have been reviewed in The New York Times, The Village Voice, Artforum, Smithsonian, and Sculpture Magazine and have been featured on PBS, CNN, MTV, and NBC, including a live appearance on The Tonight Show. Awards include fellowships from the Oregon Arts Commission, the New York Foundation for the Arts, and the National Endowment for the Arts. Ken Butler studied viola as a child and maintained an interest in music while studying visual arts in France, at Colorado College, and Portland State University where he completed his MFA in painting in 1977. He has performed with John Zorn, Laurie Anderson, Butch Morris, The Soldier String Quartet, Matt Darriau's Paradox Trio, The Tonight Show Band, and The Master Gnawa musicians of Morocco. His CD, Voices of Anxious Objects is on Zorn’s Tzadik label.
     
Works by Ken Butler are represented in public and private collections in Portland, Seattle, Vail, Los Angeles, Toronto, Montreal, Washington, and New York City including the permanent collection of The Metropolitan Museum of Art.  

Jason Kao Hwang, violin; Jessica Pavone, viola; Tomas Ulrich, cello; Pete Fitzpatrick, guitar; Joseph Daley, tuba; Luther Gray, drums; Kyoko Kitamura, voice and electronics; and Taylor Ho Bynum, cornet and composition.

Taylor Ho Bynum & SpiderMonkey Strings Premiere of Madeleine Dreams (music by THB, text by Sarah Shun-lien Bynum)

Madeleine Dreams is a secular oratorio for female vocalist and improvising chamber ensemble , written especially for SpiderMonkey Strings with special guest vocalist Kyoko Kitamura. The composition uses text and draws inspiration from the highly acclaimed and award winning novel Madeleine is Sleeping , by the composer's sister, Sarah Shun-lien Bynum, a magical-realist fable of a girl's coming of age that moves between dreams and reality in 19th century France.

Dreams (and the literature of dreaming, including such authors as Borges, Murakami, Calvino, etc) have long been as a compositional inspiration for Bynum. The logic of dreams shows how radically yet naturally one's own subconscious can transform known elements into the surreal, seamlessly moving between the mundane and the fantastic. This kind of logic offers a template for creating long-form pieces that incorporate composition and improvisation but in unusual and surprising ways. The music can draw the listener in with something they might recognize or immediately relate to, and bring the listener along as those materials organically evolve into something completely unexpected.

The composition will be dedicated to the sublime vocalist Lorraine Hunt-Lieberson. Lorraine was a dear friend, mentor, and inspiration to both the Bynum siblings. The composer hopes in some small way this music will honor and reflect the incredible intensity, conviction, and beauty of Lorraine's artistry and person.

SpiderMonkey Strings is an ensemble of unique instrumentation and powerful musicianship led by cornettist and composer Taylor Ho Bynum, and featuring some of the finest improvising musicians from the jazz, rock, and new music worlds. Named after Anase the Spider (of West Africa) and the Monkey King (China), the music attempts to be as subversively humorous and surprisingly beautiful as those mythic tricksters. The ensemble's debut CD, Other Stories (Three Suites) , was released in 2005 by 482 Music. Critics have called it "the best album of the year" (Paul Olson, AllAboutJazz ), "subtle magic...so much beauty in one hour, it's exceptional" (Didier Wijnants, De Morgen ), and "beautiful music and challenging throughout" (Brian Morton, The Wire ). "Stretching from strident Ivesian classicism and loft jazz inspired melting-pot rhythmic variations to raucous rock riffing, SpiderMonkey Strings spans not only genre, but time. Bynum is not only a meticulous craftsman in regards to complex structures, but he is also, at heart, a gorgeous tunesmith. Other Stories (Three Suites) is a genre eradicating statement of intent from an up and coming composer." Troy Collins, One Final Note