Pittsburgh New Music Net

Looking for an alternative to getting tanked in your local pub this St. Patrick’s Day? Look no further! Music on the Edge is bringing Boston’s Firebird Ensemble to Bellefield Hall Auditorium on March 17th at 8 p.m. This concert is part of Firebird’s Wild West on Tour project, which will bring the works of Lee Hyla and Pittsburgh-based composer Eric Moe to Boston, Pennsylvania, and California as well as the recording studio. The works featured on the Pittsburgh program include Curtis Hughe’s Danger Garden (2006), Lee Hyla’s My Life on the Plains (2010), and two works by Eric Moe: Frozen Hours Melt Melodiously into the Past (2009) and Meanwhile Back at the Ranch (2011). While on tour, Firebird Ensemble will also undertake educational residencies at the University of Pittsburgh and Chapman University (California) presenting master-classes and readings of student works. The project will culminate in a commercial recording of works by Eric Moe that will be released by New World Records.

Currently celebrating its tenth season, Firebird is becoming recognized as one of the nation’s leading new music ensembles. As early as 2005, the Boston Globe praised Firebird saying, “In the free spirited Firebird Ensemble, Boston has its equivalent to such prominent, genre busting new-music ensembles as Eighth Blackbird and Alarm Will Sound.” Comprised of adventurous young musicians who have the chops to match their enthusiasm and the boldness to take creative risks, Firebird is musically defined by eclectic programming with interdisciplinary influences. They have made it their mission to break down preconceptions about new music, to build enthusiasm for new compositions, and to create a unique concert atmosphere. In their efforts to bring contemporary music to new audiences, Firebird has held concerts in bars and jazz clubs as well as auditoriums. Champions of promising young composers, Firebird has even started a series called “Meat the Composer” that premieres new works and allows audience members to meet new composers while enjoying ribs and beer at popular Boston restaurants.

Firebird also provides educational programs to bring the music of our time to our nation’s youngest audiences. Joel Gordon of Art of the States commends their educational efforts saying, “Since its inception in 2001, I have watched this vibrant ensemble develop into the kind of group truly needed to reach the next generation of serious music audiences. It takes an unusual blend of serious musical technique, creative repertoire selection and a sense of style and fun to reach new audiences and wake them up to the possibilities of our country’s composers.”

Come out to see them live up to all the good reviews on March 17th!

Advance tickets are available through ProArtsTickets at proartsticket.org or by calling 412-394-3353.

Advance: General admission is $15; non-Pitt students and seniors are $10.

At the door : General admission is $20; non-Pitt students and seniors are $15 (cash only)

Pitt students free with valid ID.

So apparently, according to Patrick Burke anyway, once the Singularity emerges, we will be able to copy and paste our consciousness to multiple locations simultaneously. Which would be nice, because we wouldn’t have to choose between so many great new music events happening this weekend. I mean, don’t ask me! Do I look all sciency? In any case, there are once again, several excellent events happening all on Saturday night. You can check out a concert at Future Tenant by Matt Aelmore and Mike Purdue, head over to Garfield to here 8Cylinder et al unleash noise/electroacoustic/improv, or possibly catch the uber-amazing JACK Quartet at the Warhol. (FYI, the JACK concert was nearly sold out at 10 a.m., so emphasis on the possibly.) Is this a great problem to have or what?

Future Tenant Gallery
Free

Improvising percussionist and CMU alum Mike Perdue teams up with Pitt composer Matt Aelmore to present an hour of one or more of the following: arch form, golden arches, the golden ratio, rational choice theory, sophomore music theory, music for percussion and horn, loneliness, music for wine goblets, wine for wine goblets, thick televisions, flam-drags, a meta-piano, John Cage, James Tenney, Iannis Xenakis, Brandon Schantz, didgeridoo, dopamine, drumming.

Gallery 707 Penn Ave.
Free

The Pittsburgh/Santa Fe band, Host Skull, presents their first art installation. “Inhabit Host Skull” invites the viewer to shape a constantly shifting sound environment, leaving a mark that mutates with each generation.

Viewers are invited to enter a structure and record a minute’s worth of sound with voice or instruments. The recordings will then be shot out into the room at random points, eventually bleeding onto new recordings. Also on display will be HS videos, artwork, notes, chord charts, and papers of ideas.

www.hostskull.com

The opening night on March 2 will feature a performance from Host Skull performing two sets, one of songs from Totally Fatalist and a forthcoming album, and a second set of scenarios for movement and sound.

A four part performance series will follow on March 9, 16, 23 and April 7. The lineup is:

March 9:
The Pillow Project (inventive dance company that uses music as its root)
Justin Hopper (renowned writer, poet, and musician)
Host Skull (performing MODULES for movement and sound)

March 16:
Le Rex (jazz from the other side of the ocean)
Host Skull (performing MODULES for movement and sound)

March 23:
Berman/Bernabo/Cacalano (movement and sound)
Pairdown (harmonically exciting finger-picked guitar duo)

April 7:
The Dock Ellis Perforated Head Society presents: MADNESS AND CIVILIZATION (film presentation)
Matt Wellins (performance)

All events are FREE and will be at 707 Penn Avenue, Downtown Pittsburgh. This installation was conceived by David Bernabo, Will Dyar, and Matt Wellins.

So what’s happening tonight in the world of experimental music in Pittsburgh? Pretty much everything. You can head downtown to take in CAPA’s Antithesis group performing graphic scores, or hear Hunted Creatures present the work they’ve created in their weeklong residency at Future Tenant Gallery. Meanwhile in Oakland, Andrea Parkins and Iris Quartet will play a concert at the William Pitt Union. Can you go wrong? I don’t think so. But for those of you who are going to try to quantum time shift and get to all of these events (cue Dr. Who music), please don’t drink and drive. To the Events Calendar!

Most Wanted Fine Art Gallery
$5, all ages
Doors at 7:30

Ready for an evening of solid-state slugde, noise, dark ambient, space beach minaret, hard-to-hear sounds, finally-found sounds, and born-to-be-bad sounds like freezes, stutters, lags, crashes, slips, a variety of other sound mistakes, and junk noise metal? We knew you were. All to be found at Most Wanted Fine Art Gallery when Toronto’s Notaform joins Pittsburgh artists 8Cylinder, Maenads (Amy Hoffmann’s solo venture), Margaret Cox, and RJ Myato in a concert of experimental music encompassing all of the aforementioned descriptors. And more. Be there.

There will be no lasers at this event. And no alcohol (unless you sneak in a flask). But here will be world-class experimental electroacoustic music which Pittsburgh rarely gets to hear.

On Fri,. Feb 17, respected NYC-based laptop & keyboard improvisor
Andrea Parkins (yes, the cousin of electric harpist Zeena) will perform
along with her German/French quartet Iris, featuring ‘endangered guitar’ by Hans Tammen, drummer Edward Perraud and cellist Didier
Petit. Opening the show is the duo of Ben Opie and Matt Wellins.

The concert is at 8 pm in the Lower Lounge of the William Pitt
Union (the glass atrium facing Bigelow), University of Pittsburgh in Oakland. Admission is $10 advance, $15 door. Tickets are on sale
now at Sound Cat (formerly Paul’s CDs), Caliban Books, Dave’s Music
Mine, Exchange Squirrel Hill, Exchange Downtown, and at the William Pitt Union Box Office. The show is presented by The Consortium, WPTS-FM, and the French-American Cultural Exchange,

Years ago, Andrea Parkins appeared here at Public Health Auditorium with her iconic free-jazz group led by Ellery Eskelin and Jim Black. Since then, she’s been involved in a huge variety of projects around the world involving sound art, museums, dance and film. She’s received support from the American Composers Forum and Meet The Composer, and collaborated with the likes of Nels Cline, Otomo Yoshihide, Marc Ribot and Fred Frith, and released albums on Atavistic, Creative Sources, Henceforth and Hatology. Her latest release, “Faulty (Broken Orbit)” is an electroacoustic opus on the famed label Important Records (see link below).

http://www.andreaparkins.com

http://importantrecords.com/imprec/imprec199

http://tammen.org/

http://www.edwardperraud.com

The Shop
Tickets: $8 in advance and $10 at the door. Pre-sales available at Sound Cat Records and Mind Cure Records.
ALL AGES

DYNAMO SOUND COLLECTIVE AND tcrps PRESENT:

Cut Hands

The newest project of William Bennett of UK noise/industrial legends Whitehouse.

“William Bennett, with or without Whitehouse, is a complicated man. Cut Hands, his latest project, might initially seem like a departure from the harassing Noise-critique of Whitehouse, but there are continuities….Cut Hands is one of the only truly thoughtful responses to the question of where Noise can go next, because it at once breaks with and continues it so profoundly. Afro Noise I is a remarkable record, whichever way you look at it, and it will be interesting to see how Bennett’s dedicated fans react to it. If he no longer says anything out loud, it’s because he doesn’t need to. Menacing, intricate and every bit as cerebrally scarring as any viciously dark synthpolemic, the sound does the work for him.”

— The Wire Magazine, June 2011

with

TM Eye  and Trogpite

sets between acts from:

DJs Slinky and Tesco Jane

The Cut Hands US Tour is a project of Tesco USA

Future Tenant Gallery, $5

Hunted Creatures will unveil what they created during the their week-long Trespass Residency at Future Tenant Gallery. Hunted Creatures features Ryan Emmett, Micah Pacileo, and Amy Hoffmann and the performance will include a variety of guest performers. Future Tenant has provided Hunted Creatures with a week to pretty much produce whatever they see fit, so come out and see what the noise/industrial/electronica band comes up with.

With the Stillers safely tucked into preparations for next season and rumors swirling around whether Mike Tomlin will tap Noah Bendix-Balgley to be his next Offensive Coordinator, Pittsburghers have already forgotten that this Sunday there will be a festival of advertising with some sort of football game interspersed. And that’s just as well, since there are some fine concerts to attend this weekend. Mezzo-soprano and composer Eva Rainforth is going to give a recital of original art songs on Saturday, violinist Monique Mead’s Sunday afternoon recital will include Lutoslawski’s Subito, and Alia Musica Pittsburgh will present a program of new percussion works on Sunday evening. Don’t forget to bring the guacamole!

Here’s some more info…