Pittsburgh New Music Net

VIA is a huge multi-date, multi-venue festival of new media for sound and visual artists with workshops/installations. There’s so much stuff going on and so many different artists and presenters, I’m just going to send you here.

Of particular interest to composers might be this event featuring David Borden,

“the creative force behind the world’s first synthesizer ensemble, Mother Mallard’s Portable Masterpiece Co. (1969), and founder of Cornell’s Digital Music Department, will perform with emerging artists Daniel Lopatin (Oneohtrix Point Never, Ford & Lopatin), Laurel Halo, James Ferraro (Skaters), and Samuel Godin. This event marks the international live premier for the ensemble since recording FRKWYS Vol. 7 as part of the Brooklyn label RVNG Intl.’s FRKWYS series, which pairs contemporary artists with those who have preceded them in sound or approach.

“CMU Professor of Music & Computer Science, Roger Dannenberg, will provide an introduction followed by a short lecture from Borden, “The Moog Synthesizer Lecture: The Man I Knew and the Machine I Learned”, revealing inside stories on the development of the Moog Synthesizer and its creator, Bob Moog.”

It’s happening Thursday night, October 6 at CMU’s Kresge Theater.

H/T Marielle Saums

Host Skull, the duo of David Bernabo and Will Dyar, released a new composition on Chicago’s Contraphonic label. The piece, titled “Fourth River”, juxtaposes arrhythmic electronics with lush sections of classical guitar, vibraphone, and percussion. To flesh out the lineup, this instance of Host Skull also includes vibraphonist Jeff Berman, modular synth-ist Herman “Soy Sos” Pearl, and a trio of Ben Harris/Kerrith Livengood/Brandon Masterman. The composition comes as an MP3 along with an essay on Pittsburgh by Contraphonic label owner Ben Schulman and photography by CMU’s Alternative Photo Process class, led by professor Elizabeth Raymer Griffin.

The package can be purchased through Contraphonic here for the very reasonable price of $3.99.

Host Skull’s first official show will this Friday, April 29th at The Frame on Carnegie Mellon’s campus at Forbes and Margaret Morrison. Host Skull will be represented by David Bernabo and Jeff Berman.

Pittsburgh’s Fourth River is the sometimes mythologized, sometimes forgotten river that flows below the surface. More accurately, it is an aquifer that is given the name Wisconsin Glacial Flow. The visible manifestations of the river can be seen in the fountain at Point State Park and in some of the downtown drinking water. When the Fourth River is mentioned, grand notions of a flowing subterranean river come to mind. This is in direct contrast to what is actually is: sand, gravel, and a bit of water running through it.

Watch a video preview of the piece here.

So is this a great weekend for new music in Pittsburgh or a terrible weekend? I think it depends on whether you can bilocate and/or have plenty of time. Here’s the rundown.

Starting tonight (Thursday) and running through March 5, the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra will perform Joan Tower’s Tambor and Stravinsky’s Firebird Suite (1945, not 1911. Go figure.).

On Saturday, March 5, the PSO will read works by student composers from CMU, Duquesne, Pitt, and WVU. This is a great program that really gives our up and coming composers a truly unique experience, so bravo to the PSO and all this year’s composers who had their music selected.

The evening of March 5 brings Ravish Momin and Tarana back to town after a very well received concert at the Warhol this summer. Or you can take in entelechron—Roger Zahab, Rob Frankenberry, and David Russell—at the Andy Warhol Museum performing music of John Cage. See what I mean about bilocating?

The Cage program at the Warhol is the first of three Music on the Edge Programs in 15 days, so as they say in the action movies, buckle up! MOTE continues its highly compressed season on March 13 with New York’s counter)induction and finishes off with the entirely unique Newband playing music by Harry Partch, Dean Drummond, and Mathew Rosenblum on the Harry Partch Instruments.

Check out the events calendar for more details.

This February, performance space Garfield Artworks, with the help of local new music patrons The Consortium,
has scheduled a group of experimental music concerts that happened to congeal into a mini-series. Here’s
the information on the events. All take place at Garfield Artworks, 4931 Penn Avenue, and are open to all ages
with doors opening at 8 p.m. Tickets available at the door only.

Wednesday February 2 $8.00
free-improvisational trio from New York City
ACID BIRDS (http://www.facebook.com/pages/Acid-Birds/130746556939449)
Jaime Fennelly, harmonium + electronics
Charles Waters, alto saxophone + bass clarinet
Andrew Barker, drums
with special guests Ben Opie (celebrate the release of his duet CD with Anthony Braxton!),
Riley Harmon (electronic musician from Carnegie Mellon), and Matt Wellins (local sound artist).

Acid Birds is an exciting trio fusing free jazz improvisation, noise and drone that “falls somewhere between [Anthony] Braxton and [Cornelius] Cardew.” Formed in 2004 in Brooklyn, NY, Barker & Waters are both founding members of Gold Sparkle Band, and Fennelly, who recently relocated to Chicago from the Pacific Northwest, is 1/3 of Peeesseye. Their first self-titled LP came out on the Italian label QBICO in 2009. Their second LP, Acid Birds II, was released in January 2011 on Sagitarrius A-Star, and the new Brooklyn label Electric Temple Records will be releasing their first cassette, entitled Mock Load, to coincide with their Midwest / East Coast tour in February 2011.

Monday February 14 $7.00
experimental electronic group from Sydney, Australia
that plays entirely circuit-bent toy instruments
TOYDEATH (http://www.toydeath.com)
with special guests Half Nelson (new LP on Wolf Eyes’ American Tapes label), Robot Cowboy (electronic
musician from Carnegie Mellon), and Bureau of Nonstandards (local circuit-bending duo)

Formed in 1995, Sydney band Toydeath coerce all their music from tortured electronic toys! They have collected an arsenal of toys to make any kindergarten green with envy. You will hear talking dolls, Speak and Spells, Rock Guitars, Hulk Hands, telephones and lots of other fantastic toys! Toydeath use circuit bending to hand-modify the toys allowing them to be amplified and also extending their sonic capabilities. They assume toy-like characters with colourful costumes as part of our stage show. On stage you will see G.I. Joe, Big Judy and Super Dad. Toydeath have both major rock festivals and art biennales (such as Ars Electronica) and toured Germany, Holland, Belgium, Italy, Portugal, Austria, Japan, Korea and China. Bring your kids to this one and let them stay up late for a change!

Friday February 18 $7.00
experimental electroacoustic duo from Trondheim, Norway
above the Arctic Circle!
VERTEX (http://www.myspace.com/vertexmusic)
with special guests Radic Sun’til (tribal electronic postrock ensemble) and Dreamweapon (local electronic artist)
:
Vertex spontaneously composes electroacoustic music that is both immediate and enticing to listen to. From lowercase drones through beautiful melodic passages to assaulting industrial walls of sound, Vertex creates a plausible yet otherwordly soundscape with its own set of natural laws. Their debut album, “shapes & phases” has been released on the renowned label SOFA, mixed and mastered by the talented Giuseppe Ielasi. Petter Vågan uses guitars, lapsteels and prepared guitars with an array of effects in a delicate manner to mangle and distort reality in his own way. Tor Haugerud has developed a unique playing style with his unorthodox drumset, electronics and unconventional instruments like fans, drills, singing bowls, bows, and stones.

Saturday February 26 $10.00
renowned New York City percussionist and poet
WILLIAM HOOKER (http://www.williamhooker.com)
with special guests Matta Gawa (drums/guitar improv duo from Washington, D.C.), Michael Johnsen (local
electronic improvisor on self-built instruments) and Abram Taber (solo experimental guitar from Boston)

William Hooker is an American jazz drummer and composer. Early in his career, he played with the Isley Brothers and Dionne Warwick. In college, Hooker began broadening his musical vision, writing a paper on Alban Berg and befriending members of Funkadelic. A move to New York City led him to the “loft scene” of adventurous free jazz performers. While most of Hooker’s output is rooted in free jazz, critic Neil Strauss has written, “William Hooker is a man determined to get his music ‘out there’, and he’ll cross any genre to do it.” His work has also crossed over into noise rock and free improvisation, working with Glenn Spearman, Christian Marclay, DJ Olive, William Parker, Sabir Mateen, Dave Soldier, and Sonic Youth founders Thurston Moore and Lee Ranaldo. He has releases on the following labels: Table of the Elements, Alien 8, Atavistic, Knitting Factory, Homestead, Silkheart, and Ecstatic Peace.

So between Cikada performing Eivind Buene’s Possible Cities/Essential Landscapes in October, and Duquesne Contemporary Ensemble’s multimedia production Invisible Patterns (tonight at PNC Recital Hall), I feel like the cosmos is telling me it’s time to read Italo Calvino’s Invisible Cities, the novel that inspired both Buene’s composition and Duquesne’s production. Or at least Duquesne director Patrick “The Cosmos” Burke is telling me to read it. Either one.

In any case, new music groups at both Duquesne and CMU will present programs this week. Duquesne goes tonight (Thursday at 8 p.m.) and CMU is on Saturday at 5. You can find the details, as always, on the Events Calendar.

Kresge Theatre
Free

Ronald Zollman, music director
Jan Pellant, Keun Oh, and Daniel Nesta Curtis, assistant conductors

Program:

Igor Stravinsky - Septet for mixed ensemble
Roberto Gerhard – Leo
Oliver Knussen – Songs without Voices op. 26
Toshio Hosokawa – Im Fruhlingsgarten
Kenneth Hesketh – Fra Duri Scogli
Igor Stravinsky – Concertino

Pianist Donna Amato, new music champion on the faculty of both CMU and Pitt, performed Geir Tveitt’s Piano Concerto No. 4, Northern Lights, with Musica Nova in Scottsdale on October 17. Musica Nova produced a very nice video of the performance as well. Check it aht.

A busy weekend for lovers of contemporary music starting tonight with the PSO playing Joan Tower’s Uncommon Woman and Made in America (they’ll repeat the program on Saturday as well), Carnegie Mellon Contemporary Ensemble giving a 5 p.m. performance on Saturday at Kresge (see the previous post), and Music on the Edge presenting Norway’s Cikada Ensemble with guitarist Magnus Andersson on Saturday at 8. And don’t forget to check out Andy Druckenbrod’s article on Joan Tower in Thursday’s P-G.

Music made fresh! Come out to CMU’s Kresge Theatre this Saturday at 5pm for the Contemporary Ensemble’s fall 2010 debut, featuring a lively program (see below!) and a variety of guest student conductors, in addition to music director Ronald Zollman.

Roberto Sancasto Calvo – E-Octet
Gavin Bryars – Creamer Etudes
Keun Oh, conductor
Benoit Mernier – Les Niais de Solophe
Maestro Ronald Zollman, conductor
Sofia Gubaidulina – Concordanza for Chamber Ensemble
Jan Pellant, conductor
Hans Werner Henze – Quattro Fantasie
Daniel Nesta Curtis, conductor

Carnegie Music Hall

Tickets: $5 for adults, $4 for seniors,
free for Carnegie Mellon students with ID

The Carnegie Mellon Wind Ensemble will perform a concert featuring the premiere of Christian Kriegeskotte’s new work Tycho’s Machine. The program will also include Kathryn Salfelder’s 2007 work Cathedrals, Leonardo Ballada’s Cumbres, and Vincent Persichetti’s Divertimento for Band.

About Tycho’s Machine Kriegeskotte says,

The work is inspired by the movement of the planets through the Zodiac as demonstrated by one of the fabulous wonders of mechanico-scientific art we have inherited from the Renaissance; the Armillary Sphere. While astronomical instruments of this nature have existed for millennia (let us not deny credit to the Astrolabe and the wondrous Antikythera Mechanism), it is the fabulous splendor and esotericism of Renaissance pseudo-alchemical scientific investigation that I am most influenced by.

The title, “Tycho’s Machine” is in reference to one of the Armillary Sphere’s creators, the 16th century astronomer and mathematician Tycho Brahe. Indeed, growing up I knew the device by its more common moniker, the Brahe Sphere. While the Brahe Sphere is mechanical, I am also implying that the motion of the planets across the ecliptic plane and how we perceive their motion is no less than a form of great cosmic clockwork, finely tuned and ever advancing as we hurdle through space. In my piece, which I am considering a sort of static theme and variations, I present the listener with twelve sonorities (based upon instrumentation and articulation more so than harmonic structure) that each represent a sign in the Zodiac. As we travel through the Zodiac, unique musical events fade in and out representing the planets passing through each sign. These events are ultimately dominated by a constant eighth-note pulse throughout, representing the mechanism itself as it ticks and booms behind the scenes. It is this constant pulse I am considering a sort of abstract “theme” and each of the planets and signs are the variations.