Pittsburgh New Music Net

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$8, all ages

The Voltage Spooks

An evening of (mostly) improvised electroacoustic and electronic sounds featuring

The Voltage Spooks

Keith Rowe is an English free improvisation tabletop guitarist and painter. Rowe is a founding member of both the hugely influential AMM in the mid-1960s (though in 2004 he quit that group for the second time) and M.I.M.E.O. Having trained as a visual artist, Rowe’s paintings have been featured on most of his own albums. After years of obscurity, Rowe has achieved a level of relative notoriety, and since the late 1990s has kept up a busy recording and touring schedule. He is seen as a godfather of EAI (electroacoustic improvisation), with many of his recent recordings having been released by Erstwhile
Records.

www.erstwhilerecords.com

Rick Reed (born 1957) has been creating audio compositions since the early 80′s. His works are intuitive studies of electricity, frequency fluctuations, and improvised “on the fly” solutions to symmetry problems in electronic sound. Since 2000, he has centered his live work on using a synthesizer processed with various effects devices to create complex macromal drones with a surface of aesthetic elegance and beauty. Reed, currently based in Austin, Texas, has performed throughout the United States and Europe. Recently, he appeared in 2009 at the UK’s prestigious Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival in ensemble alongside Keith Rowe and former Austinite Bill Thompson. His music has been used by filmmaker Ken Jacobs in three of his experiential films, Spiral Nebula, Mountaineer Spinning, and Capitalism: Child Labor (which won the grand prize at 2006′s Curtas Vila de Conde film festival in Portugal, Spain). He also appeared live with Jacobs at Lincoln Center during the “Views From the Avant Garde” portion of 2007′s New York Film Festival. His audio works are available from the labels Elevator Bath, Ecstatic Peace, Pale Disc Japan, Bremsstrahlung Recordings and Beta Lactam Ring. A new double LP record will be released by Elevator Bath in early 2011, which should coincide with a short tour of the east coast.

www.elevatorbath.com
Michael Haleta (born 1978 in Princeton, NJ) is an intermedia artist living and working in Atlantic Highlands, NJ. He studied the cello from an early age up until the guitar, effects pedals and free form improvisation peaked his interests in the raw generation of sound. “Everything starts from a dot.”-Kandinsky. In terms of visuals, he graduated in 2001 with a BA in information design from the Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA). Recipient of Issue Project Room’s 2011 IPR’s Emerging Artist Grant and a 2009 American Music Center Live Music for Dance Grant for sound production in Yanira Castro’s Center of Sleep. Haleta has worked with numerous composers, artists and musicians, including: Paul Neidhardt, Stephan Moore, Shaun Flynn, 2673 (Kevin Winters), Jason Urick, Jeremy Sigler, Keith Rowe, Kasper Toeplitz, Scott Smallwood, Seth Cluett, Dan Deacon, Zbigniew Karkowski, Jeff Donaldson, Andrya Ambro and more. He has released audio for Alienation, Raw Special Effects (RSE), Carpark, Antiopic and Hoss records. Michael also runs a small edition label by the name of Raw Special Effects (RSE) which is scheduled to release much new and free material in 2011.

www.rawspecialeffects.com
www.backbreakerneckbrace.com
www.futuristictexturesfromthefuture.blogspot.com

Michael Johnsen and Matt Wellins

Drawing on the rich American tradition of experimentation and cobbling, Michael Johnsen has built up an integrated menagerie of devices specifically for live performance, whose idiosyncratic behaviors are revealed through their complex interactions. His work is characterized by a relative lack of ideas per se, and an intense focus on observation, the way a shepherd watches sheep. The extensive patching of large numbers of devices produces teeming chirps, sudden transients and charming failure modes; embracing the dirt in pure electronics.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tx36qq1oEKI

Matt Wellins works in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. His work deals with creating live situations through the design and performance of analog electronic instruments, real-time video systems, and object-based theater. He is most proud of his on-going collaboration with Sarah Halpern, his recordings with Josh Tonies under the name Dutch Masters, and his electronic archive project with Michael Johnsen at http://www.ubu.com/emr.

Host Skull

Host Skull is the duo of David Bernabo and Will Dyar that also utilizes the skills of many others including Brandon Masterman (saxophones, voice) , Liz Adams (voice, double bass), Ben Montgomery (trumpet, percussion), Kerrith Livengood (flutes, piccolo), Jeff Berman (vibraphone, percussion), Herman “Soy Sos” Pearl (modular synthesizer), Jim Siders (trombone), Vince Camut (pedal steel), Josh Verbanets (voice), Christopher James (bass), and Darcy Trunzo (voice).

H/T  Edgar Um

WQED’s Hillman Room

IonSound Project celebrates the release of their first CD, music of Jeremy Beck, at WQED on Sunday, September 18th. The concert will feature music from the new CD as well as other works.

The Hillman Center for the Performing Arts
Tickets

The Microscopic Opera Co. presents Fantastic Mr. Fox and Bon Appetite, two modern chamber operas, each by a celebrated American composer. 

Based on the story by Roald Dahl, and following its incarnation as a major motion picture, Fantastic Mr. Fox (1998) takes its operatic form from the writing of composer, Tobias Picker. Originally commissioned for the Los Angeles Music Center Opera, the piece engages the imaginations of children and adults simultaneously with its tales of animals outwitting humans, set to a sophisticated, yet tuneful and fun score. 

Fantastic Mr. Fox is paired with Lee Hoiby’s short comic culinary extravaganza, Bon Appetite (1989), which playfully and decadently celebrates the television appearances of Julia Child. 

Co-artistic directors Erica Olden and Andres Cladera will respectively stage direct and music direct the double bill. The cast consists of many stellar, local opera singers, including Anna Singer, Daniel Teadt, Mary Beth Sederberg, Gail Novak, Jeffrey Gross, Sean Donaldson and Daphne Alderson to name a few. 

About the Company

The Microscopic Opera Company creates innovative, thoughtful and cutting edge performances of contemporary chamber opera, featuring emerging and professional young musicians in the Pittsburgh area. The organization is unique to the Pittsburgh region and even to the country, as it is only professional opera organization that exclusively presents modern and new chamber opera.

Bellefield Hall Auditorium
Tickets will be available through ProArtsTickets

Music on the Edge kicks off its 2011–12 season with University of Buffalo’s Slee Sinfonietta, professional chamber orchestra in residence at UB and the flagship ensemble of the Robert and Carol Morris Center for 21st Century Music. Slee Sinfonietta will perform Donald Erb’s Sunlit Peaks and Dark Valleys, David Felder’s Another Face, Andrew Rindfleisch’s What Vibes!, and Mathew Rosenblum’s Ancient Eyes.