On Saturday, February 9, 2019 the Southland Ensemble presented New Experimental Works at Automata in downtown Los Angeles. This concert was the result of Southland’s inaugural Call for Scores issued last year. With more than 200 responses, seven pieces utilizing graphic and text scores were ultimately chosen for this performance. Automata was completely filled while outside the Chinese New Year celebrations were in full swing with lanterns, firecrackers and enthusiastic crowds. The concert opened with all are above us (2017), by Nomi Epstein the noted Chicago-based composer and educator. The program notes state that “Her music centers around her interest
Read moreUnlike those big-media favorites lists that appear in mid-December to grease the skids of the Great Shopping Season, my year-end reckonings dawdle until the last moment and don’t claim to define the best of anything. But with audio streaming, social media and other factors pushing the contemporary music landscape into an increasingly variegated but fragmented state, some measure of thoughtful inventorying seems both prudent and practical. In that spirit, here’s a biased and opinionated survey of albums and other media released in 2018 that made an impact on me. Stage to screen New music theater was a recurring theme during
Read moreThe Santa Barbara Museum of Art hosted the violin section of wild Up on Thursday, September 27, 2018, for a concert of new music titled Gradient. A good crowd materialized, despite the fact that the outside of the museum was cloaked in scaffolding and fencing for an extensive renovation. The Davidson Gallery was the venue, and this space also contained TV Clock, the video installation by Nam June Paik, inspiring wild Up violinist Andrew McIntosh to program four innovative contemporary works. During the museum’s renovation, ensuring the building was safe and free from any environmental hazards was crucial. This included
Read moreSupersilent 14 Smalltown Supersound 2018 On Friday September 28th, Supersilent – the experimental trio of Arve Henriksen (trumpet, voice and electronics), Helge Sten (Electronics), and Ståle Storløkken (keyboards and electronics) – released a fourteenth album, their second for the label Smalltown Supersound. The group is best known for performances of “slow jazz:” avant jazz that unfurls at a gradual rate. Supersilent 14 revels in slow tempos, as the track “14.7” (embedded below) demonstrates. However, this time out there are a few other components shifted t0 make for a different listening experience. The recording’s dozen tracks – labeled with numbers and
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Composers, Contemporary Classical, Experimental Music, Flute, Music Instruments, Performers, Resources
The Glissando Headjoint for flute was invented by performer, composer, improviser, and inventor Robert Dick. Essentially, it adds a carrier tube to the standard C flute headjoint. The lip plate can be moved along the carrier tube to create true glissandi. Much of Dick’s work with the headjoint is in an improvisatory style; most of my work with it has been largely through commissioning works. One of the most rewarding things about this activity as a performer is seeing the variety of sounds composers require from the headjoint in their works. The minimal repertoire for glissando flute compared to the
Read moreOn October 25th, Constellation Records will release Entanglement, the second solo release by Jessica Moss. A violinist and vocalist who is one of the central members of Thee Silver Mt. Zion Memorial Orchestra and co-founder of Black Ox Orchestar, Moss draws upon a prodigious range of influences: from the post-rock and avant-klezmer of the aforementioned groups, to drones and loops reminiscent of post-minimalism. Over the past year, she has honed the material of Entanglement at over eighty concerts, developing a side-long piece, “Particles,” and a suite of four “Fractals.” Impassioned, moody, and slow-burning, her compositions are some of the most compelling
Read moreOne year ago the Pacific Northwest’s new music community was stunned by the suicide of Matt Shoemaker: painter and musician, enthusiastic traveler, frequent performer with Gamelan Pacifica, and accomplished creator in the genre of dark ambient. Shoemaker’s “electroacoustic soundscapes” have been released in a variety of formats by Elevator Bath, Helen Scarsdale Agency and other labels, and I offer an overview of this work in the Second Inversion article Mutable Depths: Remembering Matt Shoemaker. Shoemaker was a veteran of Seattle’s formidable electronic music scene, and he often performed his music at the Chapel Performance Space, the workhorse venue for experimental music
Read moreOn June 19, 2018, Coaxial Arts was the venue for a program of noise, experimental music and sound. The snug downtown Los Angeles location filled up with a congenial crowd of the knowledgeable and the curious for a concert presented by the wulf titled Open Source: Anderson, Hutson, Shiroishi, Smith. An impressive array of cables, synthesizers, mixing boards, computers and radios was spread over several tables, including a large reel-to-reel tape loop. Casey Anderson, William Hutson, Stephanie Cheng Smith and Patrick Shiroishi were on hand to bring it all to life. The evening began with Duo by Anderson and Smith,
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CD Review, Chamber Music, Contemporary Classical, Experimental Music, File Under?, New York, Recordings, Review
We Who Walk Again Ghost Ensemble Indexical LP/Download Since 2012, New York’s Ghost Ensemble has pursued a deep listening ethos that incorporates a range of repertoire, both pieces by ensemble members and works by composers such as David Bird, Kyle Gann, Giacinto Scelsi, and Gerard Grisey. Any ensemble in the US that references “deep listening” invariably is also interested in Deep Listening, the piece that evolved into a discipline and subsequent body of musical and theoretical work from sound artist Pauline Oliveros. Since its inception Ghost Ensemble has been associated with Oliveros’ work, both her compositions and sound practices. It
Read moreThe much-anticipated premiere of Daniel Corral’s new multimedia piece, Polytope, was staged in the snug spaces of Automata in the Los Angeles Chinatown district on March 18, 2018. Presented by Microfest LA and performed by the composer along with Erin Barnes, Cory Beers and Andrew Lessman, every seat in Automata was occupied. A year in the making, and built on previous Corral solo works such as Diamond Pulses and Comma, Polytope extends the same techniques to an ensemble format. Polytope is described in the program notes as “a multimedia musical performance for microtonal MIDI quartet, fitting somewhere between a string
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