Neil Rolnick

Neil Rolnick is joined by pianist Kathleen Supove and violinist Jennifer Choi. The program will include Fiddle Faddle for violin & computer, Digits for piano & computer, Hammer & Hair, a large scale acoustic piece for violin and piano, Uptown Jump, with trio MAYA (Sato Moughalian, flute, Jacqueline Kerrod, harp, John Hadfield, percussion) as well as solo laptop pieces.

Since he moved to New York City in 2002, Neil Rolnick’s music has been receiving increasingly
wide recognition and numerous performances both in the US and abroad. A pioneer in the use of
computers in performance, beginning in the late 1970s, Rolnick has often included unexpected
and unusual combinations of materials and media in his music. He has performed around the
world, and his music has appeared on 13 CD’s. Though much of Rolnick’s work has been in areas which connect music and technology, and is therefore considered in the realm of “experimental” music, his music has always been highly melodic and accessible. Whether working with electronic sounds, improvisation, or multimedia, his music has been characterized by critics as “sophisticated,” “hummable and engaging,” and as having “good senses of showmanship and humor.” Works completed in 2007 include Hammer & Hair for violinist Todd Reynolds and pianist
Kathleen Supové; Love Songs for the Albany Symphony, with soloists Theo Bleckmann and
Todd Reynolds; and The Bridge for the Albany Symphony’s Dogs of Desire ensemble. In 2006
Rolnick completed the iFiddle Concerto for the American Composers Orchestra, with soloist
Todd Reynolds, which was premiered in Zankel Hall at Carnegie Hall in New York. In 2006 he
also wrote Uptown Jump for the trio MAYA, and Segal’s Billboard for harpist Jacquiline Kerrod,
and Innova Recordings released his 13th CD, Digits, which received enthusiastic reviews in the
New York Times and in Time Out New York.
Rolnick teaches at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, NY, where he was founding
director of the iEAR Studios

Adam Rudolph: GO Organic Orchestra

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.

Go: Organic Orchestra is an ensemble (with both Los Angeles and New York based groups) and a conducting/performance concept that can be taught and peformed anywhere. The musicians listed below will be appearing in performance with Go: Organic Orchestra on one or all of the Monday evening concerts. Additional musicians will be performing: the exact line-up and instrumentation will be determined the night of the performance.

Kenta Nagai / Jennifer Walshe

Kenta Nagai is a sound and visual artist based in New York City. He works with acoustic and electronic sound, visual media and live performance. After completing undergraduate studies at Berklee College of Music in Boston (BA, 1996) Nagai moved to New York City. He began his NY career as a fretless guitarist playing on the streets, in subway stations and at clubs. His most recent compositional work, entitled Long, Long, Long, is an ensemble piece for traditional Asian instruments. It was presented at Roulette, in NYC, in October 2006. Nagai's fretless guitar playing is featured on Eugene Chadborne's album "Guitar Festival Summer 1999" with Sonic Youth members Thurston Moore, Lee Renaldo and Jim O'Rourke plus Joe Morris, Lauren Mazzacane Connors, David Watson and others. Nagai is also a featured performer on two recordings by the composer Laura Andel, "Somnambulist" (Red Toucan Records, May 2003, RT9322) and "In::tension:" (Rossbin Records, October 2005, RS022). As a performer on the shamisen, a traditional Japanese string instrument, Nagai has appeared in numerous concerts at venues including Sculpture Center in Long Island City and Carnegie Hall. From 1999 until 2002 Nagai was a composer in residence at The Cave Gallery in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. In addition to his work as a guitarist, Nagai is also involved in creating multi-media, interactive performance and installation and has collaborated with artists from various fields. These projects include a long-standing collaborative relationship with choreographer Boaz Barkan documented by filmmaker Miana Grafals in the short film "A Moving Portrait" that features the movement and sound of Barkan and Nagai. "A Moving Portrait" was presented at Dance Theatre Workshop in NYC as part of the 2005 Dance on Camera Festival. More recently, Nagai worked with the photographer Hiroshi Sugimoto on the silent film "The Water Magician" (1933, directed by Kenji Mizoguchi) composing film score and performed at Japan Society, NYC and Hershhorn Museum at Smithsonian Institute. In 2005 and 2006, Nagai performed in "Flight of Mind " with choreographer Jennifer Monson. He continues his collaboration with Monson in 2007 through a multi-season project set in the Highland Park Reservoir in NYC.

Jennifer Walshe was born in Dublin. She studied composition with John Maxwell Geddes at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama, and Kevin Volans in Dublin. She graduated from Northwestern University, Chicago, with a doctoral degree in composition in 2002. While at Northwestern, her chief teachers were Amnon Wolman and Michael Pisaro. In 2003-04 she was a fellow of the Akademie Schloss Solitude, Stuttgart, and from 2004-05 she lived in Berlin as a guest of the DAAD Berliner Künstlerprogramm. From 2006 to 2008 she is the composer-in-residence for the In Context 3 project in South Dublin. In 2007 she was awarded a grant from the Foundation for Contemporary Arts, New York.

Her works have been performed throughout Europe, the US, and Canada by groups such as Alter Ego, Ensemble Récherche, Ensemble Resonanz, Apartment House, Ensemble Intégrales, Neue Vocalisten Stuttgart, the Crash Ensemble, ensemble ascolta, Champ d’Action, the Rilke Ensemble, the Irish Chamber Orchestra, the Irish Youth Wind Ensemble, the Bozzini Quartet, Concorde, 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 RTÉ, Westdeutscher Rundfunk (WDR), Sudwest Rundfunk (SWR), Internationale Ferienkurse für Neue Musik, Darmstadt, Musik der Jahrhundert, the Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival, Dresdener Tage der zeitgenössischen Musik, Wien Modern, the Dresden Semper Oper, ZKM (Karlsruhe), the Irish Chamber Orchestra, Crash Ensemble, 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. From 2003-04, she was composer-in-residence at the National Sculpture Factory, Cork. In 2000 she 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 Music. Her works moving in/love songs/city front garden with old men and been in a room and a room and a room and a room were shortlisted for the 2002 and 2003 Gaudeamus Foundation compositions respectively.

THE ANDREW LAMB QUARTET

ANDREW LAMB - TENOR SAXOPHONE, FLUTE, CLARINET, WOODWINDS
TOM ABBB - BASS, VIOLIN, DIDJERIDO, TUBA
MICHEAL WIMBERLY - DRUMS & PERCUSSION
GUILERMO BROWN - DRUMS & PERCUSSION

Andrew Lamb (born August 26, 1958, Clinton, North Carolina) is a jazz saxophonist and flautist. Lamb was raised in Chicago and South Jamaica, Queens. Having studied with AACM charter member Kalaparusha Maurice McIntyre, Lamb came into New York City's avant-garde community during the 1970s, becoming an active presence in the Bedford-Stuyvesant arts world and winning a Brooklyn Arts Council grant.

In 1994, he led a session for Delmark, composing all the pieces on Portrait in the Mist, which featured vibraphonist Warren Smith, bassist Wilber Morris, and drummer Andrei Strobert. Lamb has since recorded duets with Warren Smith (Duet, WISland, 1999, and Dance of the Prophet), made a trio recording with Eugene Cooper and Andrei Strobert (Kiki Records), and in 2003 released Pilgrimage on CIMP with Tom Abbs and Andrei Strobert, as well as a later release with his group The Moving Form, Year of the Endless Moment (Engine Studios). Lamb has also recorded with Henry Grimes’s Sublime Communication trio Live from WKCR (2004) and Live at Edgefest in Ann Arbor (2005), both on the JazzNewYork Productions label.

Andrew Lamb and his own ensembles remain a regular presence in the New York area, and have frequently performed at the annual Vision Festival since 1996. Lamb has been part of Alan Silva's big band project, the Sound Visions Orchestra, and has also been a member of the Cecil Taylor big band. In 2005, Lamb played in the Sublime Communication trio in Berlin and in the Henry Grimes Quartet with Marshall Allen and Hamid Drake at the tenth annual Vision Festival, and he has also toured with the Grimes-led quartet Spaceship on the Highway. Steven Loewy of the All Music Guide writes that Andrew Lamb is "a serious musician seeking to uplift his soul through art, and, like John Coltrane and his progeny, Lamb's vehicle is the psalm-like expression of his tenor saxophone. The results reflect his quest, testifying to his musical abilities, enormous potential, and depth of character."

GLOORF! Dafna Naphtali & Steve Horowitz Children's concert, with Hans Tammen and Michael Evans

Gloorf! Also seeks to express universal musical ideas in a fun & interactive way. Style, form, the role of the conductor and the performer are all examined in a fun & engaging way.

Dafna Naphtali is a singer/guitarist/electronic-musician from an eclectic background of music-making. As sound-artist/performer/composer she creates custom Max/MSP/Jitter programs for audio processing of voice and other instruments in her performances. She co-leads the digital chamber punk ensemble, What is it Like to be a Bat? with Kitty Brazelton (www.whatbat.org <http://www.whatbat.org> ). and has collaborated / performed with Lukas Ligeti, David First, Joshua Fried, Ras Moshe, Kathleen Supovê, Hans Tammen LEMURbots and others. She's received commissions and awards from NYFA, NYSCA, Meet the Composer, Experimental TV Center, American Composers Forum, and residencies at STEIM (Holland), LEMUR and Create@ iEAR. She teaches at NYU (Music Technology), and gives workshops at universities in the US and Europe. She teaches, programs and consults about Max/MSP for Harvestworks and freelance -- and done sound design or programming work for the projects of Jin Hi Kim, Shelley Hirsch, Pamela Z, Phoebe Legere, Fred Frith, Jim Staley, Henry Threadgill, Steve Coleman, Chico Freeman and others. Dafna can be heard on Mechanique(s) on a new release on Acheulian Handaxe, Hans Tammen's Third Eye Orchestra (Innova) and Josê Halac's CD 'Dance of 1000 Heads' (Tellus), and What is it Like to be a Bat? on Tzadik/Oracles (4 Stars, All Music Guide).

Steve Horowitz is a creator of odd but highly accessible sounds and a diverse and prolific musician, with an output spanning the worlds of film, television, games, concerts, and recordings. In addition to his ground breaking work with Nickelodeon Digital and his film and television scores (Super Size Me, Casino Cinema, I Bet You Will, Nickelodeon), he also records and tours with his band The Code International. Steve won a Grammy award for engineering the multi-artist True Life Blues: The Songs of Bill Monroe [Sugar Hill], 1996's winner for best bluegrass album. Steve studied composition at the California Institute and has received performance underwriting and commissions from numerous organizations. For more information on Steve Horowitz, visit www.thecodeinternational.com

photo by Jill Peltzmann

Clocked Out Duo "Foreign Objects"

Erik Griswold - prepared piano
Vanessa Tomlinson - percussion

Piano and percussion become sculptural installation in the newest works by Clocked Out Duo. Erik Griswold and Vanessa Tomlinson use bowls, bottles, tiles, recycled materials, grand piano and toy instruments to create intricate sound textures that pay homage to two of their musical heroes: Terry Riley and Morton Feldman, both masters of intricate pattern and expanded space. In perhaps the most striking visual and sonic work of the program, Lavender Mist, an array of objects litter the floor. Approaching the performance like an action painter, Tomlinson whips two nylon ropes in a chaotic dance, striking an array of plates, bowls and other detritus. Accompanied by Griswold’s prepared piano, the result is “an absorbing and satisfying composition—a detailed orchestration of percussive and resonant sounds, using musical and non-musical objects, within an overall musical structure, but which has aleatoric and improvisatory aspects as well as a visual quality.” – Realtime Magazine

Clocked Out Duo use traditional and modified instruments alongside a bewildering array of toys, found objects, and sound sculptures to create carefully designed sonic and visual experiences. Their music embraces a wide variety of influences from experimental, jazz and world music sources. Studies of Sichuan percussion music, in particular, have been an important source of inspiration, and have lead to the project The Wide Alley, a collaboration of 5 Sichuan and 5 Australian musicians. Since meeting at the University of California, San Diego in the mid 1990s, the duo have based themselves in Australia, where they have become central players in the vibrant new music community. Most recently they have created a series of environmental recordings with Richard Nunns in locations around Brisbane.

"a striking and original fusion of minimalist and jazz (and other) impulses" - Keith Gallasch, RealTime (Australia)

"Clocked Out Duo are ready and willing to expand your musical horizons. - Brett McCallon, Splendid E-zine (USA)

www.clockedout.org

Adam Rudolph's Go Organic Orchestra

See November 10th...

INTERPRETATIONS: JB Floyd: New Music for Yamaha Disklavier™
Raphael Mostel: Intimate, Acoustic

JB Floyd is a masterful pianist in his own right, but this concert features his works for the Yamaha Disklavier™, a MIDI-powered player-piano, which enables Floyd to take his pianistic virtuosity to new compositional and improvisational heights. This program will feature a piece with the setting of a new poem by Daniel Abdul-Hayy Moore. Working exclusively with acoustic and deliberately spare means.

Raphael Mostel has been described as “one of New York’s original composers”. Mostel will present a rare solo performance of intimate works for piano and spoken word, featuring previews of his "Letter to Benoit Mandelbrot" and "Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Black Bela."
Thomas Buckner, baritone

Rolf Julius "Music for a longer Time"

" The surface of a sound interests me. Is it round or angled? Grinding and raw? Or smooth, etc... I am interested in the distance of a sound. Does it sound different closer than further away? And I am interested in the interval, the space between the sounds. How far can this space be expanded, I mean, does stillness emerge or does stillness require a sound beforehand and afterward.

I am interested in time, in time that circles around an object and so to say around the presence, and for the concert, I like to give an extract of this endlessness.

The instruments I am using are simple and the same way complex, precomposed music parts, stored on several ipod players, are played back and mixed live, trying to understand the space and the situation of the audience …"

Born in Wilhelmshaven, Germany in 1939,Rolf Julius studied Art in Bremen and Berlin/Master Student at the Hochschule der Kunste in the 1960s. Since1979 he has produced works in the borderline region between music and art. 1983-84 lived in New York PS-1 studio and presented a lot of performances and installations. Lived in Tokyo in 1990 by the grant of Japan Foundation Fellowship. Lives and works in Berlin.

Stephen Gauci's Basso Continuo / E.R.A

Stephen Gauci - tenor saxophone
Nate Wooley- trumpet
Ken Filiano - bass
Mike Bisio - bass

Stephen Gauci's “Basso Continuo”
The name “Basso Continuo” refers not to early music but rather to the double double bass backbone Mike Bisio and Ken Filiano (Ingebrigt Haker-Flaten on the CD) provide to Stephen Gauci’s quartet. On this remarkable group these sub-sonic kindred spirits interweave to form a lattice work that supports the multitude of sounds that tenor saxophonist Stephen Gauci and trumpeter Nate Wooley draw from their instruments and imaginations. Somehow the pair squeeze their oversized axes into every nook and cranny the music creates. They are here, then there, lurking, then striking. In sharp contrast to the faux-baroque name of Gauci’s quartet, the title of the album and each of the tracks have Indian overtones,perhaps bringing to mind John Coltrane’s late spiritual works. And of course Gauci plays the tenor saxophone, and so, like all who followed Coltrane, owes a debt to the tenor’s great master. Gauci’s more immediate indebtedness, however, is to his former teachers,“mainstream” greats Joe Lovano and George Garzone. His front-line running mate, Wooley, is one of the most daring experimentalists of present day improvisation and a brass master in his own right. These two teams —the pair of provocative horn players and the contemporary basso continuo — make a fantastic and unexpected combination.

The E.R.A. is a New York City based project that was formed in June of 2007. The E.R.A. is a septet with the power of a trio dealing with a subtle sensibiliy, silence, harmony and texture. Since 2005, these seven musicians have each performed and recorded in various duos, trios, and quartets. Inspired by these smaller combinations, Chris Welcome, Johnathan Moritz, John McLellan and Shayna Dulberger composed and arranged music for this unique instrumentation. They released their first album, 'Introducing...The E.R.A.' in may of 2008. It is available at Downtown Music Gallery and emptyroommusic.net.

Sarah Weaver & Mark Dresser: Spectral Syn

Sarah Weaver, composer/conductor
Mark Dresser, composer/contrabass

Jen Shyu - voice, Robert Dick - flute, Jane Ira Bloom - soprano saxophone, Marty Ehrlich - saxophone, Julie Ferrara - oboe, Sara Schoenbeck - bassoon, Dave Taylor - bass trombone, Ursel Schlicht - piano, Gerry Hemingway - percussion

Spectral Syn for large ensemble, explores multiplicity, distributive resonance, and musical expression. Sarah Weaver and Mark Dresser have developed a form, that translates metaphor into specific musical materials. These materials are modulated through the conducted language, Soundpainting.

Mark Dresser (1952) is an internationally acclaimed bass player, improviser, composer, and interdisciplinary collaborator.He has appeared in over one hundred recordings including nearly thirty CDs as a soloist, band-leader or collaborator. His band leading and composing are featured on the CDs "Aquifer" and "Time Changes" (Cryptogramophone). His current collaborations include Trio M with Myra Melford and Matt Wilson and their acclaimed CD "Big Picture" (Cyptogramophone), a duo with Roswell Rudd, a trio with Rudresh Mahanthappa and Gerry Hemingway, and trio, Jones Jones with Larry Ochs and Vladimir Tarasov. For eighteen years he lived and worked in New York City where he recorded and performed with some of the strongest personalities in contemporary music and jazz including nine years with Anthony Braxton's quartet as well as groups led by Ray Anderson, Jane Ira Bloom, Tim Berne, Anthony Davis, Satoko Fujii, Osvaldo Golijov, Gerry Hemingway, Bob Osertag, Joe Lovano, Henry Threadgill, Dawn Upshaw, John Zorn.... A major focus has been extending the sonic and musical possibilities of the double bass through the use of unconventional amplification. A chapter on his extended techniques for contrabass, "A Personal Pedagogy," appears in the book, ARCANA. In 2001 he was nominated for a Grammy. He is Professor of Music at University of California, San Diego. He has also been a lecturer at Princeton University, faculty at the New School University, and Hampshire College. He is on the board of directors of the International Society of Bassists and the advisory board of International Society of Improvised Music.

Composer/conductor Sarah Weaver works internationally with experimental music forms for large ensembles. A specialist in the conducted language Soundpainting for over 10 years, Weaver utilizes this language to process composed palettes through structured improvisation. A graduate of the University of Michigan and based in New York, her work has been heard at venues including Roulette (NYC), The Stone (NYC), Lincoln Center (NYC), Now Lounge (Toronto), Museum of Contemporary Art (Chicago), Triskel Arts Centre (Cork), Austin Lyric Opera House (Austin), The Banff Centre (Banff), Directors Lounge (Berlin), and iMAL Center for Digital Cultures and Technology (Brussels). Weaver is a researcher and performer of telematic music - co-located ensembles via the internet - with primary collaborators Mark Dresser (University of California San Diego), Pauline Oliveros (Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy NY), and Chris Chafe (Stanford University, CA). Performances with other contemporary music figures include Walter Thompson (originator of Soundpainting), Marilyn Crispell, Karl Berger, David Liebman, and Stuart Dempster, among others. Weaver has given workshops at University of Michigan, University of Iowa, Northwestern University, The New School, Rennselaer Polytechnic Institute, New Jersey Performing Arts Center, Association for Improvising Musicians Toronto, ANET II High Quality Audio over Networks Summit, Illinois Music Educators Conference, and New York State School Music Association Conference. Weaver is an apprentice of Deep Listening - the sound practice of composer Pauline Oliveros, and Executive Director of the International Society for Improvised Music.