Pittsburgh New Music Net

Gia Cacalano presents
THE SPACE UPSTAIRS

This Friday and Saturday, Gia Cacalano will premiere new pieces that combine choreography and improvisation in dance with music by vibraphonist Jeff Berman and (ahem) myself, David Bernabo.  The four dancers will do a few group pieces, some solos, and a very great duo.  We’ll be performing five pieces each night, and (if I can say so) it is turning out very nicely.  There is a nice article in this week’s Pittsburgh City Paper that discusses the motivations for the dance, so I’ll mention a few things about the music.  The first piece, which lasts roughly 30 minutes, combines electronic soundscapes, text, and freely improvised sections for vibraphone and amplified objects.  The electronic score was assembled from closed-circuit electronics that I recorded in 2004.  The text piece is a newer piece where each word is slowed down by 1% until the ending text is deep bass rumbling.  And of course, there is much more…

Hope to see you there.  Details below:

Friday, August 20 and Saturday, August 21, 2010
8PM, $12 students, $15 general admission
@ THE SPACE UPSTAIRS
214 N. Lexington St (above Construction Junction)
Point Breeze, Pittsburgh, PA
$15, $12 Students
More info: 4120758-3265

Gia Cacalano / Movement / Choreography / Concepts
Allie Greene / Movement
Jasmine Hearn / Movement
Beth Ratas / Movement
Jeff Berman / Vibraphone
David Bernabo / Electronics, Percussion

Editor’s note: Many thanks to Patrick Burke and Missy Mazzoli for participating in our first ever (successfully recorded) video chat. We’ve been trying to work this feature into the blog  for a while now  and I can’t think of a better way to introduce it than the conversation that follows. Enjoy!

Missy Mazzoli, a New York composer, comes to Pittsburgh with her group Victoire for their first performance outside of NYC.  I interviewed her via Skype to talk about the group, the music, genre, and women in music, among other things.

Listen to Victoire’s A Door into the Dark

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Check out Matt Marks’s video I Don’t Have Any Fun here.

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
(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.

Update: Just added Duquesne Contemporary Ensemble’s concert titled Thaw: A Reawakening (Friday April 23, PNC Recital Hall at noon) to the Events Calendar. (H/T Patricke Burke).

We have a tremendously diverse array of contemporary music taking place over the next week. It all starts on Monday, April 19 with Dave Bernabo’s DJ Responsibility installation at Carnegie Library Main (the installation runs through May 31st), continues with a performance by The Outer Circle at Morning Glory Coffee House on Friday, April 23, and will finish off with Eclectic Laboratory Chamber Orchestra’s Das Uber-Kabarett at the Grey Box Theater on Sunday, April 25. All the details are in the Events Calendar, so check it out.

Carnegie Library Main Music Department

Free

DAVID BERNABO’s new project, DJ Responsibility, seeks new spaces for music listening and performance. The album FORMALISM is a short work (19 minutes) that is being released in an edition of one copy. The sole copy is only available in the Music Department of the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh in Oakland, setting up a contradiction between publicly-shared and exclusive.

The extremely limited copy is not available for sale, but will be presented as a free installation in the Music Department of the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh in Oakland from April 19 to May 31, 2010. Passers-by are invited to listen to the 19-minute album through headphones. The project aims to set up the contradiction between exclusive and freely-available, placing itself in the middle of special edition and boutique records, art installation, and the growing trend of free music (via Bandcamp, free album streams, illegal downloads).

The music itself spans a number of genres and styles, from the TV-show segways of “Before the Event” and “During the Event” to the electronic time changes in “Nearer, the Twelve Bens”. “As In Form” starts as an interplay between field recordings and glitches, transitions into a clip-filled electric piano dirge, and ends with a race of vibraphone and electronic synths. The closing track, “After the Event”, blends tight drums with harpsichord, electric piano, and the sounds of a lightning storm on Saturn.

Made up of local composers, the vocal quintet Vocal Assembly makes a guest appearance in “Voice, and Then”, which is an attempt to translate the art of Paul Klee into music. Some of the sounds that creep into the piece include streams and abandoned coal plants in Shamokin, PA, gate doors in Point State Park, and piano and vibraphone sessions performed by composer Nathan Hall and Bernabo.

“Nero and His Fire” opens with filmmaker and musician tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE playing chains, bass drum, a bicycle wheel, and the “Wheel-of-Fortune” before erupting into a flurry of stacked instruments and overlapping time signatures.

Starting as a joke during the Vale and Year days, DJ Responsibility has come into existence to spread the word of responsibility in music creation and distribution.

Thanks to the generosity of the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh, the album will be available in the Music Department of the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh in Oakland during normal library hours, Monday through Thursday – 10AM to 8PM, Friday and Saturday – 10AM to 5:30PM, and Sunday 12PM to 5PM.

PERFORMERS

David Bernabo [electronics, drums, wurlitzer, harpsichord, piano, guitar, bass, vocals, synthesizer, rocks, soil]

tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE [bass drum + chain, bicycle wheel, Wheel-of-Fortune (6)]

Nathan Hall [piano and vocals (3)]

Kerrith Livengood [flute (2), vocals (3)]

Ben Harris [vocals (3)]

Brandon Masterman [vocals (3)]

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.

Andy Druckenbrod interviews Mason Bates in anticipation of this weekends PSO concerts.

Heinz Hall
Tickets and Information

Leonard Slatkin leads the PSO in music by American composers. The program includes

Leonard Bernstein’s Three Dance Episodes from On the Town

Mason Bates’s Liquid Interface

Richard Danielpour’s Pastime

George Gershwin’s An American in Paris

Grey Box Theatre
3595 Butler Street, Lawrencville

Tickets: $5 students & artists  $10 all other
Ticket sales are cash only at the door the evening of the performance.

The ever-provocative Eclectic Laboratory Chamber Orchestra is backwith another genre-bending program.  This time ELCO blurs the lines between composer and performer, between composition and improvisation, and between “classical” and “popular” with three exciting, grooving modern classics:  Terry Riley’s In C, Frederic Rzewski’s Les moutons de Panurge, and Elliott Sharp’s SyndaKit.  Meridian Dreams, an ambient/trip-hop electronica project spearheaded by well-known producer/engineer Rae DiLeo, will provide a unique opening set.

The three pieces on ELCO’s set showcase noted American master composers whose work represents three distinct approaches to combining composed music with the influences of rock and jazz.  In C, by Terry Riley, inaugurated the genre known as minimalism with its unabashed tunefulness and relentless pulse.  Les moutons de Panurge, by Frederic Rzewski, takes its title from a novel by the French satirist Rabelais, and is a witty exploration of the limits of virtuosity.  SyndaKit, by Elliott Sharp, explores the relation between the group and the individual musician in a piece that nods equally to the composers studies with Morton Feldman and his days in the punk clubs of New York.

Rae DiLeo, who performs as Meridian Dreams, will be perform an opening set with video artist Hans Jensen.  Rae has performed throughout California and the southwest and has been a studio engineer for artists from Henry Rollins to Filter to Grandmaster Flash.

For additional information or to reserve a ticket contact elco.events@gmail.com or call 412-608-6120.
Visit us on the web at twitter.com/ELCO_concerts or join our Facebook fan page.