Pittsburgh New Music Net

On Friday, July 16, 2010, On Fillmore will bring their unique style of music to the Warhol Museum.  I’m not exactly sure what to call it: extremely slow jazz, soundtrack music, haunting music.  Since I’m hardly a writer, I won’t need to worry about inventing a term for what they do.  But it would be wise for you to check it out.

The duo of percussionist Glenn Kotche (Wilco, Loose Fur) and bassist Darin Gray (Grand Ulena, Jim O’Rourke) have concocted an incredible sound world on their latest record, Extended Vacation, which is full of creeping vibraphone and bass lines, homemade percussion, and man-made bird calls.  While on the record marching bands and dirty percussion blast against the somber vibe/bass lines, the duo will strip it down to pitched and unpitched percussion and upright bass.  Pieces from all three of their records will be performed.

On Fillmore @ The Warhol Museum
July 16, 2010 8pm-10pm
Tickets $12, call 412.237.8300 for more information

I had the pleasure to interview Darin Gray and the audio artifact is below.

On the compositional process, juxtaposed rhythms, and the live set up

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On guest Dede Sampaio and his bird calls

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On homemade instruments and implements

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On soundtracks and recent musical interests

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Watch the video for “Master Moon” from the lp Extended Vacation: “Master Moon” by On Fillmore on Vimeo.

For more information: www.onfillmore.com

For more information on the show at The Warhol: http://www.warhol.org/calendar/events_detail.php?eventID=1934&dateYear=2010&dateMonth=7&dateDate=16

The Andy Warhol Museum’s Sound Series Presents On Fillmore
with special guest, Rachel Grimes


The Andy Warhol Museum (7:30 PM Doors)
Tickets $12 – call 412.237.8300 or visit www.ticketweb.com

Glenn Kotche (drummer for Wilco) and Darin Gray, formed On Fillmore in the Summer of 2000, after performing together with Jim O’Rourke at the Melt Down Festival in London. As a dynamic bass and percussion duo they create atmospheric, original music that incorporates field recordings. They visit the intimate Warhol Theater on a tour supporting their 4th full-length album, Extended Vacation, which covers new territory for the experimental pair. Rachel Grimes, of indie chamber group Rachels, will open with a pastoral solo piano set.

Check it out here.

L-R: Skye Steele (Violin); Greg Heffernan (cello); Ravish Momin (percussion, voice, composition)

Drummer/composer Ravish Momin and Trio Tarana will be playing on the Warhol’s Sound Series on Friday, June 25 in a show that will also feature local artist DJ J. Malls. I got a chance to Skype with Ravish a few days ago and we had a free-wheeling discussion about his musical vision, the positive influence or Pittsburgh and the Warhol, and the challenges of creating innovative music in an ever more conservative industry. As always, I include the full audio below and recommend that, but here are some highlights to pique your curiosity.

Probably the biggest understatement one could make about the sound of Trio Tarana is that it reflects diverse influences. There is clearly strong influence of Indian classical music, of jazz, electronic elements, and rock. And, partly because of the instrumentation (drums, violin and cello), Trio Tarana sounds as much like a chamber music ensemble as a jazz combo. Yet, for all that diversity of influences, the music forms a seamless whole. To Ravish Momin, this develops as an organic and intuitive process which he describes as, “Taking all these influences that were latent inside me and having them come out.”

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Ravish’s official bio starts with his love for poetry, then how he completed a degree in Civil and Environmental Engineering at CMU, and finally about studying classical Indian percussion. He speaks fondly of Pittsburgh and his time at CMU as the place where his passion for music was nurtured.

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Talking about the current configuration of Trio Tarana, Ravish get’s very excited about the band’s integration of technology and why it makes sense to him.

“We’re living in this electronic age, we’re talking on Skype, we have our iPhones, we’re texting—we’re doing all of this electronic stuff, but somehow when we go to music all of a sudden it has be three guys with acoustic instruments, and we leave everything behind, all of this technology, and for me it was like, ‘Wow, why can’t I find a way to bring in all this technology in and organic way that’s not being done?’”

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One of the most compelling aspects of Trio Tarana is that no matter how far afield the players move from each other, one can always sense how it all fits into a groove, even when that groove is based on a complex, asymmetrical time signature. The idea of groove-driven jazz is very significant to Ravish, and he speaks with a lot of energy about its importance to his music.

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One of the biggest problems facing truly innovative musicians is that music industry is wary of anything that cannot be categorized and packaged simply. While this is a source of frustration for Ravish, he had positive things to say about the role the Warhol and Pittsburgh play in helping develop and audience for cutting-edge music.

“Places like the Warhol Museum are very few and far between in the United States.”

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Ravish Momin and Trio Tarana play at the Warhol at 8; doors are at 7:30. Check out the Warhol Web site for more information about the show and about tickets.

Listen to the full interview.

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UPDATE: There’s lot’s of good audio and video on on Ravish Momin’s Web site, but I thought this clip summed up nicely a lot of the things we were talking about in the interview.

The Andy Warhol Museum
(Doors at 7:30)
Tickets $12 – call 412-237-8300 or visit www.ticketweb.com

The Warhol welcomes percussionist and composer Ravish Momin’s Trio Tarana, including Skye Steele (violin) and Greg Heffernan (cello and electronics). The trio’s latest release on Clean Fed Records, features a unique, genre-blending mix of live electronics, jazz and classical music (including Indian and Middle-eastern scales) with inspirations ranging from Flying Lotus to Penderecki to Sun Ra. Momin began his career performing with progressive jazz musicians from the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM), whose initial membership included the likes of Anthony Braxton and Lester Bowie. More recently his trio has been sharing festival stages with likes of Akron/Family, Xiu Xiu and Sufjan Stevens. Pittsburgh-based jazz aficionado DJ J. Malls opens the show.

On the Saturday morning that Snowmageddon unleashed its fury on the region I had the pleasure of video chatting with flutist extraordinaire Lindsey J. Goodman about her upcoming Music on the Edge recital at the Warhol. Well known to local new music audiences for her exquisite performances with the Pittsburgh New Music Ensemble, Lindsey will share a recital with Anthony Coleman on February 27. She’ll perform three pieces for flute and electroacoustics—by Mathew Rosenblum, Jacob Ter Veldhuis and Russell Pinkston—and the world premiere of a solo flute piece by Grant Cooper. In the following audio interview, Lindsey talks about the different pieces on the program, her love for electroacoustic elements, and what she looks for when she’s thinking about tackling a new piece. She also gives a little preview on the upcoming PNME season.

As always, I encourage you to listen to the whole interview.

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And here are some excerpts from the full interview. First of all, I asked Lindsey to describe what was on her program.

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When I asked Lindsey about how her affinity for electroacoustic elements developed, her thoughts ranged from being able to perform “chamber music for one person” to how this genre is particularly relevant to our technological society.

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Russell Pinkston’s Lizamander is for flute and MaxMSP and Lindsey discussed both the intense satisfaction and the risks of working with live signal processing.

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Finally, Lindesy gave us a preview of the upcoming PNME season as well as some her new projects which include concerto performances and (maybe, possibly) recording projects.

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For details about the concert visit Music on the Edge at www.music.pitt.edu/mote.

PSO bassonist David Sogg asked me to post the following announcement about the Music Narratives concert at the Warhol tonight, which I am more than happy to do.

The Concert is ON!

Tonight at 8:00 pm at The Andy Warhol Museum, members of the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra WILL present…

Musical Narratives

The music—Stravinsky & Kander—is hot. Kurt Vonnegut’s words are searing. Electrifying performances by Martin Giles and fellow actors bring you a hilarious black comedy that places Stravinsky’s music in an entirely new light.

The snow may go on, … the SHOW definitely WILL go on.

Tickets are $15 at the door, cash or check. To place your name on the reserved tickets list, send an email to sogg@duq.edu with the word “tickets” in the subject line. In the message text, specify number of tickets requested (limit 2, please), along with your name. They will be held for you at the door until 10 minutes before the concert. For further information, call 412-361-5704.

See you there!

Sadly, this concert has been postponed until the 2010–11 season.

Music on the Edge presents ICE (International Contemporary Ensemble) this Saturday night at the Warhol and the crack new music group’s program has attracted a lot of attention from local media. You can see Mark Kanny’s preview in today’s Pittsburgh Tribune Review and another by Aaron Jentzen in this week’s Pittsburgh City Paper.

ICE performs on Saturday, January 9 at The Andy Warhol Museum at 8 p.m. Tickets are available through ProArts and at the door. Find out more about the concert here.

Cross-posted at music.pitt.edu.

Happy New Year to all of you who faithfully read this blog!

If it seems as though the new music scene has been a little feast or famine this season, well then prepare to feast! 2010 gets underway in grand style starting this Saturday night at the Warhol when Music on the Edge hosts ICE (the International Contemporary Ensemble). And to make things just perfect, the high on Saturday is supposed to be a whopping 16º! (Is it too late for them to change their name to BALMY?)

The following week includes concerts by the Polish Cultural Council presenting Zygmunt Krauze at Frick Fine Arts Auditorium (January 13), Alia Musica Pittsburgh’s winter chamber music concert at Chatham University (January 14), and on January 18, the Emerson Quartet performing music by Ives, Janacek, Barber, and Shostokovich. While the Emerson concert isn’t new music per se, it’s hard for me to imagine anyone appreciating this program more than the new music community.

That’s what I know of for January; you can find more details at the Events Calendar. I’ll begin posting events for the rest of the winter and spring soon, so as always, if you have info about an upcoming performance, do tell.