Pittsburgh New Music Net

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.

Full Interview

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

“…some of my favorite pieces…”

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.

“Electroacoustic music is completely relevant to our society”

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.

“…the world’s most perfect flute section…”

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.

Preview of Coming Attractions

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.

FRIDAY OCT 23 09
MOST WANTED FINE ART GALLERY
5015 Penn Avenue
8 CLOCK
6 DOLLARS

See the City Paper Article

JASON STEIN
Chicago bass clarinetist (of Locksmith
Isadore and Bridge 61 (with Ken Vandermark)).
Performing solo with a new amazing solo disc
on Leo Records. Outstanding player!

JASON STEIN with VOCAL ASSEMBLY VOCAL QUINTET
Vocal Assembly will perform new pieces with Jason
Stein on reeds. A one-off performance that should not be missed.

MICHAEL JOHNSEN
Ever-interesting combinations of homemade
electronics and genuine wit.

THE NARWHAL FIVE
A new Pittsburgh-based improvising trio. See what the new is.

*Garfield Artworks*

Doors open at 10 pm. Admission is $7. The concert is open to all ages.

Brooklyn world-fusion group Loop 2.4.3 returns to Pittsburgh, showcasing music from *Zodiac Dust *(their Independent Music Award-Nominated New CD) at , 4931 Penn Avenue, immediately after October’s First Friday art gallery crawl.

Find out more about this show.

Brooklyn world-fusion group *Loop 2.4.3* returns to Pittsburgh, showcasing music from *Zodiac Dust *(their Independent Music Award-Nominated New CD) at *Garfield Artworks*, 4931 Penn Avenue, immediately after October’s First Friday art gallery crawl – on Fri., Oct. 2. Doors open at 10 pm. Admission is $7. The concert is open to all ages.

In the tradition of sonic innovators like Steve Reich, Konono N°1, Moondog, and Radiohead, Loop 2.4.3’s new album flows through a vast array of sounds and rhythms across the nine tracks on *Zodiac Dust*. Their first CD, Batterie, was said to “reinvent percussion” (Fresh Air, NPR). Their new CD, nominated for album of the year at the Independent Music Awards, adds piano, voice, strings and two instruments of their invention, the Rose Echo and eLog, both to be featured at the upcoming performance.

Well known for their live shows, recent Loop 2.4.3 performances have been described as “Transportive” (Boston Phoenix), “Intricate and energetic” (The New York Times), “Mesmerizing…stunning” (Time Out Chicago), “a hard driving set” (Alex Ross, the New Yorker), and “a mind-blowing show” (Sean Boyd, Art Farm Recordings). The intimate space at Garfield Artworks is ideal for the group’s percussion-centric, visually exciting performances.

Hailing from Michigan and arriving in Brooklyn via New Haven and Seattle, Loop 2.4.3 has spent the last five years alternately traveling and working in a Bed-Stuy loft space, focused on writing, improvising and creating their own style. They have performed with Clogs, Newband (Harry Partch Ensemble), Daphnis Prieto, Belle Orchestre, the Books, Evan Ziporyn, Sufjan Stevens, Shara Worden (My Brightest Diamond, the Decemberists), Joe Morello, their late mentor Robert Hohner, dancer/choreographer Alan Good, director John Jeserun, as soloists with the Brooklyn Philharmonic at the BAM Opera House, and at Times Square as a collaboration with Robert Indiana, Michael McKenzie and Teresa Smith. The group has toured internationally and performed for radio, theater, and television, including footage for The Learning Channel and MTV, and appearances at the Sydney Festival, the London Jazz Festival, Merkin Hall, and the Japan Society (NYC) among others. Please visit http://www.loop243.com.

Wanted to get this post up sooner, but my idealized image of blogging from the coffee shop where I was working ran afoul of phone lines damaged by last night’s storms rendering the shop free wi-fi-free. But here goes anyway. Lots of new music to be heard this weekend with some classics mixed in too.

Tonight (Thursday), 10 p.m. at Remedy: All-star avant-jazz trio Lisle Ellis, M.C. Schmidt, and Jason Willet, aka Instant Coffee, will play at Remedy, starting promptly at 10 p.m.  and the group will be joined by local improv heroes Josh Beyer (micro-set on homebuilt guitar & electronics), David Bernabo Vocal Assembly (all vocal ensemble + laptop), Plainswalkers (Mike Kasunic, Ryan Emmett, Reeves Smith doing things),  and Michael Johnsen + Margaret Cox (electronics, etc.) Cover charge is $5-$10 or whatever you can afford. All proceeds go to the Trio. (H/T to Edgar Um for heads-up on the local acts)

Saturday, 2 p.m. at Frick Fine Arts Auditorium: Eugene Phillips and friends play Schoenberg’s Trio, Haydn and Schubert, free.

Saturday, 8 p.m. (also) at Frick Fine Arts Auditorium: Dutch Jazz Trio Bram-DeJoode-Vatcher, $10 at the door.

Details about all these shows on the Events Calendar, and don’t forget your Life Tiles…

Remedy

$5–$10 (What you can afford, all proceeds will go to the trio)

A bizarre love triangle strung between the Baltimore noise scene, contemporary electronics and the New York jazz world, Instant Coffee play improvised music which spontaneously assembles itself into ‘song’ shapes that blossom, catch fire, explode and distort in ways that are unpredictable and disorienting. It’s all good fun– until someone loses an eye. A trio comprised of Lisle Ellis, M. C. Schmidt and Jason Willett, the band members boast some unusually chequered pasts:

Lisle Ellis is one of the foremost bassists in modern jazz, and having played with the likes of Cecil Taylor, Fred Frith, Marilynn Crispell and John Zorn, he’s now exploring the electroacoustic combination of traditional jazz techniques with realtime computer processing.

M. C. Schmidt has been one half of the conceptually oriented electronic provocateurs Matmos since 1997, and has made music with Bjork, the Kronos Quartet, Terry Riley and Zeena Parkins; in this band he plays a perverse array of percussive objects and many recalcitrant synthesizers.

Jason Willett is a Baltimore veteran of avant and “out” music both on the fringes of rock and noise; he has been in too many bands to mention, but was a longtime member of Half Japanese and collaborator with Jad Fair, and also plays in harsh free jazz/noise ensembles such as Leprechaun Catering. In these sessions, Jason plays contact-mic-ed rubber band and an improbable cluster of custom electronics created by noted Baltimore instrument maker Peter B.

You would expect the results to fall into a Bermuda Triangle between jazz, electronic music and noise, but in fact Instant Coffee’s sound ranges further afield: unexpectedly lovely ambience, murky Italian movie soundtracks, humid mirages of drone that take sharp turns towards rhythm, and a closing brush with mittel-European mournful lyricism. There are no noodly solos and no tedious, predictably looped “grooves”: this music stakes itself on a casually surreal series of “dissolves” from one form to another.

HT M.C. Schmidt, Instant Coffee

This one got by me last week, but if you haven’t done so, stop by Andy Druckenbrod’s blog for coverage of NIME. The post includes an excellent video montage from the conference featuring CMU’s Roger Dannenberg.