DARMSTADT presents ESSENTIAL REPERTOIRE at

ISSUE PROJECT ROOM, October 22-26, 2008

Darmstadt "Classics of the Avant Garde" music series is proud to announce its first-ever multi-performance curation at ISSUE Project Room from October 22 through the 26th. Entitled "Essential Repertoire," its six performances are an initial attempt to accumulate a unique and expanding collection of cherished experimental music: from the New York School through the Minimalists, European approaches, and a number of electronic practices, alongside music's connectivity to art, performance, and multimedia. Darmstadt's curators encourage vivid interpretations of their favorite avant-garde works from the city's liveliest composers and musicians. Our final day of programming focuses on new work by emerging artists.

 

Wednesday, October 22 at 8:00 pm
Ne(x)tworks ensemble performs music of the New York School

John Cage: Variations II (1962)

Earle Brown: selections from Folio (1953-54)

Morton Feldman: Extensions 1 (1951)

Christian Wolff: selections from Exercises (1973-)

Ne(x)tworks

Joan La Barbara - voice, Shelley Burgon - harp, Miguel Frasconi - glass/electronics, Ariana Kim - violin, Chris McIntyre - trombone/electronics, Cornelius Dufallo - director

Joined by special guests Anthony Coleman (keyboards) and Alex Waterman (cello)

Ne(x)tworks is a collaborative ensemble of musicians creating and interpreting work that features a dynamic relationship between composition and improvisation. In performance and recordings, the group locates pathways into various types of notation systems and interfaces, striving for a meaningful dialogue with the past, present, and future of creative music. Formed in 2002 in New York City, Ne(x)tworks advances the tradition of the 'performing composer' ensemble by frequently presenting full programs of compositions created by its members. The group's repertoire also extends beyond its ranks to encompass the open scores of New York School composers, work by the their European counterparts, further experiments by the composer performers of the AACM and SoHo Scene of the 1970's, the so-called Downtown composers of the 80's, and commissioned works by like-minded contemporary colleagues.

http://www.nextworksmusic.net/

Thursday, October 23 at 8:00 pm
Fluxus and Sound Event scores interpreted by Bradley Eros, Lary 7, MV Carbon and others

Tony Conrad: Three Loops for Performers and Tape Recorders (1961) interpreted by Lary 7

Yoko Ono: Cut Piece (1964) interpreted by Bradley Eros

Nam June Paik: Concerto for TV Cello and Videotapes (1971) interpreted by M.V. Carbon

Emmett Williams: Duet for Performer and Audience (1961) interpreted by Ryan Tracy

Joseph Byrd: Fish: A Ballet for Woodwinds (1961) interpreted by Natacha Diels, Evan Rapport, Josh Rubin, and Katie Young

Other performances TBA


Bradley Eros's art practice includes expanded cinema, sound collage, performance, photography, writing, curating, mediamystics, subterranean science, and archival investigation. He is the co-founder of the Robert/a Beck Memorial Cinema and has presented work at the Whitney, MoMA, The Kitchen, Millennium, and Anthology Film Archives among countless others.
Lary 7 is an audio explorer using self-invented sound-producing objects involving the detritus of the twentieth century. He founded the Analog Society and was co-founder of the legendary Directart Productions Ltd. He has released work on Touch, Diskono, Ectoplasm, and his own Plastikville and Plastiktray imprints.


M.V. Carbon is a cellist, composer and improviser who plays and sings through tape loops, pedals and circuits. She occasionally incorporates film imagery into her performances. She is part of the electronic duo, Metalux. Her work has been released on 5RC, Load, No-Fi, and Atavistic, among others.

Ryan Tracy is a composer, writer, and performer with degrees in conducting and composition. He has fulfilled residencies at Yaddo and The Edward Albee Foundation. He is the founder of Collective Opera Company and blogs at CounterCritic.com.

Friday, October 24 at 8:00 pm
Either/Or ensemble plays early Minimalist Works


Philip Glass: Music in Similar Motion (1973)

Steve Reich: Four Organs (1970)

Rhys Chatham: Two Gongs (1971)

Either/Or

Anthony Burr - clarinet, organ, Richard Carrick - piano, organ, Jennifer Choi - violin, organ,

David Shively - percussion, Alex Waterman - cello, organ, percussion


Recently praised by the New York Times as a "new and first-rate new music ensemble," Either/Or is a chamber ensemble based in New York City, directed by pianist/composer Richard Carrick and percussionist David Shively. Either/Or draws on a pool of collaborating musicians, all of whom are active soloists in the field of new and experimental music. This mobile structure allows Either/Or to present works ranging from soloists to chamber ensembles and beyond, including unconventional formations and works with electronics. Either/Or has performed at New York's leading venues for experimental music, including The Kitchen, MATA Festival, The Stone, the Goethe Institut, the Austrian Cultural Forum, and others. Members of Either/Or have worked closely with American composers such as Robert Ashley, Anthony Coleman, Alvin Lucier, Elliott Sharp, and John Zorn, and the ensemble has presented New York premieres of works by Karlheinz Essl, Georg Friedrich Haas, György Kurtàg, Helmut Lachenmann, Thomas Meadowcroft, and many other artists. Either/Or is a not-for-profit corporation registered in New York State and is supported by private sponsors as well as by grants from BMI Foundation, Eiler Foundation, Landecker Foundation, Meet the Composer, Ernst von Siemens Musikstiftung, and other organizations
http://www.eitherormusic.org/

Saturday, October 25 at 8 pm
Stars Like Fleas with special guests perform Cornelius Cardew's Treatise

Cornelius Cardew: Treatise (1963-67)

Stars Like Fleas

Shannon Fields - guitar, electronics, glockenspiel, voice, Ryan Smith - keyboards, electronics, voice, Montgomery Knott - voice, electronics, Laura Ortman - violin, bowed saw, voice, Matt Lavelle - bass clarinet, trumpet, cuica, voice, Shayna Dulberger - bass, voice, Shelley Burgon - harp, electronics, voice, Tianna Kennedy - cello, voice

Begun in the early aughts as a recording project, by 2005 Stars Like Fleas had already gained cultish worldwide attention with a couple of perplexing Internet- and hand-traded releases. Stars Like Fleas emerged physically, unmasked, and began playing shows in unmarked spaces across Brooklyn in 2006 …very soon after they were asked to perform higher profile shows with the likes of Grizzly Bear, Beirut, Dirty Projectors, Deerhoof, Gang Gang Dance, and Akron/Family. The North American release of their new LP, The Ken Burns Effect (mixed in Iceland in late 2007) on Hometapes in June 2008, is causing a slowly-but-surely boiling stir with what the New York Times described as an “eerie power” and Nylon Magazine called “a new kind of energy”. Pitchfork wrote “The Ken Burns Effect is one of the year's most ambitious and daring records…Sometimes, I think The Ken Burns Effect deserves a 10.0. Sometimes, it feels like a 2.0. You might hate it. You might love it. But you need to hear it.” The live band brings together an average of 8-11 musicians from musical communities diverse and even antagonist toward one another. Stars Like Fleas has no programmatic agenda, no common inspiration, has thrown out the road map, embraces pretention, incoherence, is as conflicted and confused as any teenager’s base emotions and believe that humane music is fraught with contradiction, posturing, sentiment, mistrust and introspection, like believers trying mightily to disbelieve. Stars Like Fleas music makes some giggle nervously, some angry and disgusted, others moved to tears – ordinarily at the same show, sometimes from the kids onstage behind the instruments.

http://slf.praemedia.com/

Sunday, October 26 at 4:00 pm
Contemporary Extended Vocal Technique: Jennifer Walshe with Object Collection

Jennifer Walshe: i: same person/ii: not the same person (2007)

Jennifer Walshe: nature data (2004)

The Dowager Marchylove: the wasistas of thereswhere (2008)

and a new composition by O'Brien Industries

Object Collection
Jennifer Walshe was born in Dublin. 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, and the Rilke Ensemble. She has received commissions from RTÉ, Westdeutscher Rundfunk (WDR), Sudwest Rundfunk (SWR), Internationale Ferienkurse für Neue Musik, Darmstadt, the Project Arts Centre and the National Concert Hall, Ireland, as well as commission awards from the New Music Scheme of the Arts Council of Ireland and the Scottish Arts Council. In 2000 she won the Kranichsteiner Musikpreis at the Internationale Ferienkurse für Neue Musik in Darmstadt; in July 2002 she returned to Darmstadt to lecture in composition. During 2004-2005 she lived in Berlin as a guest of the DAAD Berliner Künstlerprogramm . In 2007 she was awarded a grant from the Foundation for Contemporary Arts, New York. In addition to her activities as a composer, Jennifer Walshe frequently performs as a vocalist, specializing in extended techniques.
Object Collection was founded in 2004 by director/writer/designer Kara Feely and composer/instrumentalist Travis Just as an interdisciplinary experimental performance group dedicated to new artistic work in hybrid forms. Based in New York City, the group presents original interdisciplinary performances, concerts, and curated performance series, collaborating with musicians, actors, and visual artists, and combining techniques and methodologies from different mediums. Their performances have been seen at the Ontological Theater, AMBUSH/Chez Bushwick, Experimental Intermedia, Brooklyn Fireproof, Issue Project Room, Brooklyn College, California Institute of the Arts among other venues in New York and abroad. Their work has been praised for its "rich imagery" and "dreamlike intimacy" (nytheatre.com), and has been described as "contemplative...…highly conceptual" (Vital Weekly). Their new opera Problem Radical(s), written and directed by Kara Feely and composed by Travis Just, will premiere at Performance Space 122 in April 2009.

http://www.milker.org/personnel/walshe/walshe_bio.html

http://www.objectcollection.us

Presented in part by the Contemporary Music Centre, Ireland in association with Culture Ireland

Sunday, October 26 at 8:00 pm
New Electro-Acoustic Practices: Tristan Perich and Ensemble Pamplemousse

Tristan Perich: new compositions for nine strings and nine-channel 1-bit music

In 2004, Tristan Perich began work on 1-Bit Music, combining simple, rhythm-based compositions with primitive, hand-programmed electronics that investigate the foundations of digital sound. The Village Voice, BOMB Magazine, BPM Magazine, Res Magazine, Wired News, Cool Hunting, and Spin Magazine covered the release. Surface Magazine called the boxes "profound throwbacks to the traditional album, a response to the intangibility of iTunes and mp3s in the form hand-held artwork." Since then, Perich's compositions have connected his electronic impulses with acoustic instruments in the context of more traditional chamber music forms. Collaborations with Bang on a Can (2008 People's Commissioning Fund), counter)induction, Calder Quartet, New York Miniaturist Ensemble, Due East, Y Trio and Ensemble Pamplemousse have been performed recently at venues including the Whitney Museum, PS1 and Mass MoCA. His experimental electronic music group, the Loud Objects, has performed in Germany, Japan, Italy (Screen Music 2), Norway (Piksel), England (Evolution) and the USA (including at the NIME festival). He has spoken twice at Dorkbot. Perich studied math, music and computer science at Columbia University after attending Philips Academy, Andover. More recently, he studied art, music and electronics at the Interactive Telecommunications Program at Tisch School of the Arts, NYU.

http://www.1bitmusic.com/

Ensemble Pamblemousse


Scott Wollschleger: Secret Machines (2008)

Natacha Diels: butterfly effect (2008)

Chiyoko Szlavnics: Autonomous Gardens (2008)

Andrew Greenwald: Valve 2.0 (2008)

Ensemble Pamplemousse

Natacha Diels - flute, electronics, Kiku Enomoto - violin, Jessie Marino - cello, Andrew Greenwald - percussion, David Broome - piano


Founded in 2002 as a musical exploration vehicle, Pamplemousse presents concerts of extraordinary focus and clarity. Comprised of virtuosic musicians trained in classical, electronic and improvisational realms, the group consistently delivers fresh, exhilarating new concepts in sound. The members’ eagerness for aural discovery has allowed for ample experimentation processes, where boundaries are non-existent, and from which a strong dialogue has emerged. Among the group’s vernacular resides formerly unfathomable sound landscapes formed by the acute relationships the performers have forged with each other, and with the composers who are an intrinsic part of the ensemble. The product, uncompromising and resolutely beautiful, is created by incredibly innovative, yet-to-be-named approaches to performance and composition.

http://www.ensemblepamplemousse.org/

DARMSTADT "ESSENTIAL REPERTOIRE"

October 22 - 26

ISSUE Project Room

in the (OA) Can Factory

232 3rd Street (at 3rd Ave), Brooklyn

performances at 8pm unless noted otherwise

tickets: $10 advance (available at Other Music and online) / $15 at door

F, M, R to 9th Street-4th Ave
http://www.darmstadtnewmusic.org

http://www.issueprojectroom.org

http://www.othermusic.com

ESENTIAL REPERTOIRE

is funded in part by the New York CIty Department of Cultural Affairs and Culture Ireland


Contact Nick Hallett (nick@harknessav.org) or Zach Layton (zachlayton@gmail.com)