Stange Music
sTRANGEmUSIC presents
ONE-TWO-THREE-GO! Version 2.0
New Music Series
=======================================================================Monday, JUN 06 - PATRICK GRANT GROUP
doors open at 6:00 PM, concert at 6:30 PM
The Patrick Grant Group (PG w/ Kathleen Supové, Marija Ilic & John Ferrari) reunites for its first performance of 2005. On this program they will be playing new compositions, featuring amongst them Grant's Driving Patterns, Breaking Butterflies Upon the Wheel, & ATF: Alcohol, Tobacco & Firearms as well some older favorites. The music that has "...a driving and rather harsh energy redolent of rock, as well as a clean sense of melodicism ... the music's momentum and intricate cross-rhythms rarely let up, making the occasional infectious tunes that emerge all the more beautiful for surprise." - The Village Voice
Patrick Grant has created musical scores for the theatrical visionary Robert Wilson (three installations and a theatrical piece), the Louvre Museum (an installation for the Musée du Quai Branly), the Cornell Gamelan Ensemble (a tone poem after a scenario by Artaud), the Living Theatre (two theatre pieces, a one-act opera and, most recently, contributed music for the documentary "Resist!" which won the prize for best documentary at the EuropaCinema Festival in Italy, 2003), and the Margaret Jenkins Dance Company in San Francisco (a piece called "the strangest and most ravishing dance of the year" by the SF Chronicle and nominated for Best Dance Score of 2003 by the Isadora Duncan Dance Awards). As a presenter, Mr. Grant has produced literally dozens of concerts of new music in the alternative spaces of New York, in art galleries, theaters, factory lofts and clubs, since 1988. He is founder and artistic director of Strange Music Inc., an organization dedicated to releasing recordings and presenting compelling new work with performances and installations in New York and around the world.
Kathleen Supové is one of the most acclaimed contemporary music pianists of our time, occupying a unique position through her continuous search for what is new and provocative. Kathy has spent the last decade producing a series of solo concerts entitled The Exploding Piano, in which she has performed and premiered countless works by emerging and established composers. The series has received rave reviews and thrilled audiences everywhere. In the last two seasons, Kathy developed The Exploding Piano into a multimedia experience by using theatrical elements, vocal rants, performance art, staging, electronics, and collaboration with artists from other disciplines and director/writer Valeria Vasilevski.
Marija Ilic is an active performer of the traditional repertoire and new music in New York City and has been praised as a "clear and decisive musician...compelling...poetic" by The New York Times. Her performances include recitals at the Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall, Smithsonian Institute in Washington DC, Musica Viva in Belgrade, Clark Studios at Lincoln Center, as well as the Aldeburgh Festival in England, Norfolk Contemporary Music Festival, Bolzano Festival, Trinity Church concert series and the Schumann Festival.
Enjoying an extremely varied career, John Ferrari is a versatile drummer, classical and hand percussionist, conductor, educator and composer/arranger in the New York City area music scene. He is a founding member of the Naumburg Award winning New Millennium Ensemble and long standing member of Meridian Arts Ensemble Brass & Percussion. Frequent recipients of the ASCAP/CMA Award for Adventurous Programming, both groups have collectively released nine critically acclaimed recordings.
===============================================================Monday, JUN 13 - SO PERCUSSION
doors open at 6:00 PM, concert at 6:30 PM
On this performance, So Percussion will perform music from their two CDs: Part One of Steve Reich's "Drumming" and Part Two of David Lang's "The So-Called Laws of Nature."
So Percussion (Douglas Perkins, Adam Sliwinski, Jason Treuting, and Lawson White) is a captivating group, hailed for their "brilliant" and "consistently impressive" performances by the New York Times. Formed in New Haven, CT in 1999, So has already made a name as one of the most exciting young ensembles in the country. Recently, they've been featured at Carnegie Hall, the Bang on a Can Marathon, the BAM Next Wave Festival, the Cleveland Museum of Art, Miller Theatre, Joe's Pub, the Other Minds Festival, Merkin Hall, The Roundtop Festival, and on WNYC's New Sounds and Soundcheck.
So's continuing commissioning project has already produced many new works, including David Lang's groundbreaking the so-called laws of nature, written in 2002. In the near future, this project will yield new pieces by Martin Bresnick, Paul Lansky, Muhal Richard Abrams, and Dennis DeSantis. Recently, So received the Chamber Music America/ASCAP Adventurous Programming award for these efforts.
So's educational initiatives have resulted in residencies at The University of Texas at Austin, Princeton University, Duke University, Williams College, King's College, and performances with the Harvard Group for New Music and Columbia Composers. In 2004-2005, So is the ensemble in residence at The Yellow Barn in Putney, Vermont, participating in both the summer festival and a year-round outreach project. So's first two albums are now available on Cantaloupe Music.
As percussion instruments have become central to our diverse musical culture, the music written for them has reached a new level of excitement and maturity. So Percussion’s goal is to challenge and enable the creation of new music that combines all kinds of musical, theatrical, and artistic elements. We seek composers, collaborators, and audiences who are open to pulling these instruments out of their usual contexts to create new aural and visual experiences. Percussion has a unique ability to thrill and captivate. Its expressive possibilities range far beyond beats and rhythms, speaking to the impact of sound on our very lives.
A So performance seeks to convey this impact. From the pure joy of drumming to the strange beauty of everyday objects, audiences are uniquely moved and entertained by this total immersion in sound and imagination. These shows are presented at many different venues: concert halls. clubs, art museums and more. In addition to these performances, we bring educational programs to universities, public schools, and other locations across the USA. So is a form of the Japanese verb meaning, “to play.” For us, it means sharing the joy and spirit of music making with whomever we can!
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Monday, JUN 20 - EVE BEGLARIAN & COREY DARGEL w/ MARGARET LANCASTER
doors open at 6:00 PM, concert at 6:30 PM
Composer/performers Eve Beglarian & Corey Dargel are joined by flutist Margaret Lancaster for an evening of idiosyncratic art songs and electro-cabaret numbers. The trio combines Lancaster's virtuosic versatility with Beglarian's heartfelt sincerity and Dargel's deadpan delivery as the composers swap lead vocals and take on each other's songs. The program features selections from Beglarian's forthcoming CD "FlamingOs of the New World," Dargel's "Born and Raised" (a Lancaster commission), and some new versions of old favorites.
"One of new music's truly free spirits," and a "remarkable experimentalist," Eve Beglarian is a composer, performer, and audio producer whose music has been described as "an eclectic and wide-open series of enticements." Her chamber and orchestral music has been commissioned and performed by the American Composers Orchestra, the Bang on a Can All-Stars, the California EAR Unit, Relâche, the Paul Dresher Ensemble, Sequitur, Dinosaur Annex, and the Robin Cox Ensemble, among many others.
Her experience in music theater includes music for Mabou Mines' Obie-winning Dollhouse, Animal Magnetism, and Ecco Porco, directed by Lee Breuer; the collaboration Hildegurls' Ordo Virtutum, which premiered at the Lincoln Center Festival; Forgiveness, a collaboration with Chen Shi-Zheng and Noh master Akira Matsui; and the China National Beijing Opera Theater's production of The Bacchae, also directed by Chen Shi-Zheng.
Corey Dargel is a composer, performer, and lyricist whose "elegantly skewed electronic art songs" (Time Out New York) have established his reputation as "a rising master of the postmodern love song." (Artsjournal.com). "A postmodernist looking at the pop song from the outside, he turns irony upside down. Rather than subvert a sincere surface message, he wore all his self-conscious distancing on his sleeve, but underneath you began to suspect he rather heartbreakingly meant what he sang." (Village Voice) His performances have been called "forlornly optimistic," and critics have lauded "how smoothly he slides between sincerity and irony" (Time Out Chicago) in his music. Dargel is currently an Artist-in-Residence at HERE Arts Center.Flutist of choice for hoards of composers, Margaret Lancaster is an artist who hasn't merely 'pushed the envelope' of flute performance and repertoire, she's redefined it with fearless technique, musicianship, wit, and a clear sense of performance values. Hailed as the “leading exponent of the avant-garde flute” (Kyle Gann, Village Voice), she has built a large repertoire of contemporary flute works composed specifically for her, that employ extended techniques, dance, drama, multi-media, and electronics. Recent and upcoming performance highlights include Spoleto Festival USA, Whitney Museum, Ibsen Festival (Oslo), Lincoln Center Festival, and Theater der Welt (Stuttgart). Lancaster plays the role of Helene in the Obie-winning Mabou Mines DOLLHOUSE.
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Monday, JUN 27 - MARTHA MOOKE & SPECIAL GUESTS
doors open at 6:00 PM, concert at 6:30 PMElectric Violist/Composer Martha Mooke is joined by fellow “Bowing” member Randolph A. Hudson III (composer/former guitarist of “Bongwater”) and composer/keyboardist Patrick Grant in a performance of new work inspired by the awesome and enigmatic powers of nature called "B(utterflies) + C(haos) = D(estiny)" inspired by the Butterfly Effect, feedback and the resonance of chaos.
Mooke, a composer/performer/producer, is a pioneer in the field of the electric five string viola who transcends musical boundaries with her unique musical voice by synthesizing classical music training with extended techniques, digital effects processing and improvisation. She is a Yamaha Artist and leading clinician on electric and alternative approaches to string playing.
Founder and violist of the electro-acoustic Scorchio Quartet, Mooke has performed and recorded with David Bowie, Philip Glass, David Byrne, Moby, Lou Reed, Ziggy Marley, Enya, John Cale, Al Di Meola, The Dance Theatre of Harlem and The Orchestra of St. Luke’s to name a few.
Her genre-defying recordings, Enharmonic Vision for solo electric viola and Bowing's Café Mars with former Bongwater electric guitarist Randolph A. Hudson III, have attracted wide critical acclaim. The Alternative Press noted that "Mooke shows off both an impressive dynamic range and a drop-dead-gorgeous tone on her custom five-string electric viola. In her hands, the instrument can sound like a keyboard synthesizer, a guitar, or even a saxophone...she seems to be able to translate almost any musical impulse into sound."
===============================================================Monday, JUL 11 - THE THREE GUNAS IN HISTORY - featuring DAVID FIRST
(guitar & audio/video laptop), TOM CHIU (violin/electronics),
and WILLIAM HOOKER (drums/poetry)
The Three Gunas in History is a new project featuring David First (Notekillers) on guitar & laptop, legendary drummer/poet William Hooker (Moore/Ranaldo, Wm Parker, DJ Spooky), and violinist/madman Tom Chiu (Flux Quartet, Ornette Coleman). "Guna" is a Sanskrit word referring to one of three elemental "qualities or characteristics" of the phenomenological world. The three powerful instrumentalists in TGIH will attempt to represent, shake up & transcend the whole of this world in a special evening of intense, disorienting, swinging/pulsing, sub-atomic and beautiful drone noise & visuals.
It seems reasonable to say that David First has had a fairly eclectic musical career. At age 19 he played guitar with renowned jazz innovator/pianist Cecil Taylor in an ensemble that performed a legendary concert at Carnegie Hall He followed that with electronic music studies at Princeton University while at the same time leading a Mummer’s String Band in bicentennial parades. First has survived raucous, drunken bar bands and concert halls with classical music ensembles. As a composer he has created everything from finely crafted pop songs to long, severely minimalist soundscapes. He has been called "a fascinating artist with a singular technique" in The New York Times, and "a bizarre cross between Hendrix and La Monte Young" in The Village Voice. Recently, a 45rpm single - The Zipper - by First’s punk-era rock band, The Notekillers, was cited by Sonic Youth’s Thurston Moore as one of the songs he played for the rest of the band when they were starting out. Moore recently called it a "mind-blowing instrumental single" in Mojo magazine. Now reunited, a recent Notekillers performance was called "so ungodly potent that we're beside ourselves at the chance to see them do it again!" in Time Out NY.
Tom Chiu is the founder of the FLUX Quartet, an ensemble dedicated to the performance of contemporary music. Educated at Juilliard and Yale, Tom Chiu has worked closely with distinguished composers and has pursued collaborations with such unconventional artists as balloon virtuoso Judy Dunaway, avant choreographer Eun-Me Ahn, and puppeteer Basil Twist. He has also worked closely with Ornette Coleman, with whom Mr. Chiu appeared in the 2000 New York Bell Atlantic Jazz Festival. His discography includes recordings for the Asphodel, Cambria, Koch, Mode, Sombient, and Tzadik labels. His own compositions have been performed in numerous countries, including Mongolia and Uzbekistan. He also performed, as a child, in the feature film The Man With One Red Shoe with Tom Hanks.
William Hooker has released over twenty critically acclaimed CDs with numerous record labels, including Knitting Factory, Victo, Silkheart, Homestead and Cadence. As a composer, he has received commissions from Meet the Composer, New York State Council on the Arts, Real Art Ways and others. Mr. Hooker has led many creative ensembles with outstanding musicians from highly diverse backgrounds, including Billy Bang,Thurston Moore, David Murray, David S. Ware, William Parker, DJ Spooky and Lee Renaldo. Mr. Hooker often reads his poetry within his music, with an original and dramatic delivery. He has performed at the Jimi Hendrix Tribute Tour, Lincoln Center, JVC Jazz Festival, Columbia University and many other stages, both here and abroad.
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