Pittsburgh New Music Net

…you should really watch America’s Got Talent tonight. Pittsburgh’s own Squonk Opera has made the quarterfinals.

Now Ensemble’s new release, Awake, is shooting to the top of the Amazon Classical charts after a very positive review this past weekend on All Things Considered. We’re particularly excited because Pittsburgh’s own Patrick Burke is a member of the innovative composer-performer collective. Give the review and Awake a listen.

The Consortium presents two great avantgarde concerts on Penn Avenue!

Wed May 25 8 pm $7 all ages welcome
Garfield Artworks, 4931 Penn Avenue

From Phila/NYC, seen here previously a couple times as member of Peeesseye. on Family Vineyard Records.

improvisational duo
CHRIS FORSYTH & PARANOID CAT

http://www.thechrisforsyth.com/

http://www.myspace.com/cforsyth

with special guests Ben Opie & Matt Wellins

Guitarist Chris Forsyth is known for hypnotic compositions that assimilate minimalism and psychedelia with art rock, folk, and blues influences. He has performed all over Europe and the US, having toured with such like-minded artists as Träd Gräs och Stenar, Steve Gunn, Tetuzi Akiyama, Ignatz, and Es and is a founding member (with Jaime Fennelly and Fritz Welch) of junk folk expressionists Peeesseye, and a member of the elusive experimental group Phantom Limb & Bison. Other notable collaborators include Koen Holtkamp, Meg Baird, Nate Wooley, and choreographers Miguel Gutierrez and RoseAnne Spradlin. Paranoid Cat, Forsyth’s next solo LP, features contributions from members of Peeesseye, Mountains, D. Charles Speer & the Helix, and others, and will be released in March 2011 on Family Vineyard. Drummer Mike Pride, bassist Peter Kerlin, organist Don Bruno, and pianist Hans Chew, aka The Paranoid Cat Band, will be backing Forsyth up on a series of shows following the release. Other recent releases include a contribution to the new Imaginational Anthem 4: New Possibilities compilation LP/CD/DL on Tompkins Square, the Dirty Pool LP (Ultramarine) with organist Shawn Edward Hansen, and Peeesseye’s newest studio LP Pestilence & Joy (Evolving Ear). Forsyth is the caretaker of Evolving Ear and lives in the City of Philadelphia.

“It’s enough to signal Forsyth’s arrival as an erudite and farsighted guitar stylist, mapping a path that’s hip and scholarly in equal measure.” – Daniel Spicer, The Wire Magazine

“A destructible charm teetering on violence and elegance” – Eric Weddle, Signal to Noise Magazine

——–

Saturday May 28 8 pm all ages welcome $10 adv/$15 door
Modern Formations Gallery, 4919 Penn Avenue, Garfield
Advance tickets at Paul’s CDs, Caliban Books, Dave’s Music Mine, Exchange Sq Hill, Exchange Downtown,
and from the members of Berman/Bernabo/SoySos.

World music-jazz duo on ObliqSound Records
ABLAYE Cissoko (on kora, from Senegal)
& VOELKER GOETZE (on trumpet, from Germany)

http://www.myspace.com/cissokogoetze

with special guests Dave Bernabo / Jeff Berman / Soy Sos (aka Herman Pearl)

This duo has a podcast on WYEP’s website which Rosemary Welsch hosted:

http://podcasts.wyep.org/WORLD113.MP3

The mutual admiration society that is Volker Goetze and Ablaye Cissoko owes itself to a serendipitous meeting that took place in 2001 at the African-European Jazz Orchestra rehearsals in Saint-Louis, Senegal, where they’d been invited to open for Senegalese legend Youssou N’Dour. Despite any cultural barriers that separated them, the German-born trumpeter and the Senegalese kora player and singer discovered they had much in common, both musically and personally. Their commonalities can be heard on Sira, which is an album that reaffirms the maxim that music is the universal language. The album released on October 2008 on ObliqSound. “He comes from the griot tradition. My grandfathers were highly respected spiritual leaders,” says Goetze. “I learn from him and he learns from me. Our music is very much created in the moment, but we understand each other on a much deeper level.”

It was their willingness to absorb new ideas that attracted them to each other. Although Cissoko is wellversed in the traditional music of West Africa, passed along from generation to generation, he has always been a seeker, keeping his ears open for new experiences. Despite his ties to West African traditional music, Cissoko is also a huge fan of jazz, and worked with pianist/composer Randy Weston and others prior to the project with Goetze. “My early influences,” he says, “come from Keith Jarrett, French saxophonist François Jeanneau, Asian and Senegalese music and, of course, Mandingue music, the music of my ancestors.”

His immersion in jazz, and Goetze’s fascination with African music, made them natural candidates for collaboration. “I was fortunate to have experienced some of the greatest innovators of jazz live in concert,” says Goetze, “like Miles Davis, Ornette Coleman, Don Cherry, Wayne Shorter, the Gil Evans Big Band and Joe Henderson. They touched and moved me. That is what I am looking for in music, which is one reason I had to go to Africa. I also am a huge fan of Youssou N’Dour.”

Goetze, who has collaborated with some of the most important figures of the contemporary music scene, including Naná Vasconcelos, Craig Handy and Lenny Pickett, sees similarities between Cissoko’s griot tradition and that of jazz: “[Griot music] is not written; it changes with the epoch and the performance, which is similar to jazz and improvisation.”

“It is our differences that become real strength,” adds Cissoko, who has released two previous solo albums, 2000′s Diam and 2006′s Le Griot Rouge, prior to the duo album Sira. “I adapt myself to the context. I have in myself this ancient tradition of communication. It’s like the branches of a baobab tree, which can touch those of another tree. I’m one of these branches. Volker and I are two musicians of the same generation with different sensibilities, who become one indivisible entity by speaking with our instruments.”

Fri May 20     8 pm     all ages welcome     $5 admission
Kiva Han Coffeehouse, Forbes & Craig, Oakland

avant-garde chamber music in a coffeehouse setting
TUPLE BASSOON DUO

http://www.myspace.com/tuplemusic

http://tuplemusic.org/

Tuple is two bassoons: Rachael Elliott and Lynn Hileman. Since 2006 they have performed new music in styles ranging from mystical to funk-inspired, absurdist to minimalist, and electronic to static. The duo has staged concerts and master classes at venues across the United States, including The Stone (NYC), A|V Space (Rochester), Catamount Arts Center (Vermont), [SCENE] MetroSpace (East Lansing), Eyedrum (Atlanta), Flood Fine Art Center (Asheville), University of North Carolina School of the Arts, Northwestern University, the Eastman School of Music and the University of Michigan, among others. Other appearances include recitals at the 2008 International Double Reed Society and College Music Society Conventions, as well as numerous outreach programs for high school and college students. Tuple has premiered new works by Australian composer Padma Newsome and American Max Grafe, as well as the first bassoon duo version of Marc Mellits’ “Black,” originally for two bass clarinets. New pieces underway for the 2011-2012 season include music by Tawnie Olson and Beth Wiemann.

Rachael Elliott is the bassoonist/improviser with Clogs, Heliand Trio, Tuple, and the Vermont Contemporary Music Ensemble. She has also been a guest player with indie artists such as The National, Sufjan Stevens, and My Brightest Diamond. She has performed throughout the U.S., Europe, and Australia, and has premiered a number of new works for bassoon. With Clogs, she has performed at the Sydney Festival, London Jazz Festival, Warhol Museum, Wexner Center for the Arts, Cincinnati’s MusicNOW Festival and Bang on a Can Marathon. Rachael teaches bassoon at the University of Vermont, Middlebury College and Kinhaven Music School.

Lynn Hileman is in demand throughout the US as a recitalist specializing in contemporary music, appearing most recently at the Washington State University Festival of Contemporary Art Music and the Florida Electroacoustic Music Festival. She is Assistant Professor of Bassoon at West Virginia University, principal bassoonist of the Binghamton Philharmonic Orchestra and a member of the Laureate Quintet. Lynn is also co-founder and former president of A|V Space, a gallery and performance space in Rochester, NY specializing in interdisciplinary and multimedia works.

Two upcoming experimental and new music concerts at Garfield Artworks, 4931 Penn Avenue. All ages welcome.

Mon Apr 25 8 pm $10

KAGEL NACHT

http://kagelnacht.blogspot.com/

with Antithesis (CAPA’s new music ensemble)

Kagel Nacht is a performance event featuring new interpretations of works by the seminal avant-garde composer Mauricio Kagel. Interwoven into a melange of inter-connected and overlapping pieces, this show highlights the most absurd and engaging of Kagel’s prolific output. From the disconnected political ramblings of Der Tribune, to the meticulous puppetry/theater of Repetoire, to the squealing and scratching of Acustica, Kagel Nacht connects to listeners in a way rarely found in the classical music world.

Despite being one of the most radical and revolutionary 20th century European avant-garde composers, Mauricio Kagel’s music has remained relatively obscure, especially here in the US. In an attempt to change this, two musicians from New York City have spent the last 3 years researching Kagel’s massive body of work, seeking out rare scores, recordings, and videos of his bizarre, often hysterically theatrical compositions. Joining them will be a stacked deck of musicians from Brooklyn’s artistic multiverse, performers deeply situated in the theater, performance art, classical, and experimental music worlds. They will be performing a very diverse selection from Kagel’s grand oeuvre, including “classical” works (Music For Rennaissance Instruments), electro-acoustic compositions (Acustica), absurdist ballet (Kontra->Danse), radio plays (Der Tribun), and some of his most daring and hilarious works of “instrumental theater” (Staatstheater, Con Voce).

With interpretations ranging from strict to fully recontextualized, Kagel Nacht breaths new life into these important and underperformed works by joining them into one, multi-stage, panoramic, evening-length event that brings a new meaning to “musical theater.” Kagel Nacht is currently touring the North-East, performing for universities as well as underground venues, art spaces, and other communities, giving people access to the world of classical and avant-garde music through the universal appeal of Kagel’s profound and absurd compositions. In order to limit costs and emissions, they are traveling on a school bus turned tour bus that runs on waste vegetable oil.

Kagel Nacht will feature the musical and theatrical artistry of Rick Burkhardt – orator, accordion; Stephen Cooper – producer, glockenspiel, guitar ; Sam Kulik – trombone;
Jordan Mclean – trumpet, conductor, arranger ; Jason Mears – clarinet, saxophone ; Roberta Michel – flute, piccolo ; Geoff Nosach – lighting, set design ; Sam Sowyrda – producer, conductor, percussion ; Dennis Sullivan – percussion.

Sat Apr 30 8 pm $7

WILL McEVOY’S MUTASM

http://www.myspace.com/willmcevoysmutasm

with Bernabo & Fleming, and Satyr/Elfheim

Improvising chamber-jazz sextet from Brooklyn featuring
Will McEvoy – bass and composition; Cody Brown – drums ;
Dustin Carlson – guitar ; Brad Henkel – trumpet ; Nathaniel Morgan – alto saxophone; Patrick Breiner – tenor saxophone (Madison, Wisconsin).

As a performer McEvoy has played in many settings from contemporary jazz and classical orchestras to improvised duets with dancers. In New York City, he has performed at Carnegie Hall, Symphony Space, Lincoln Center, and numerous house parties, artist lofts and small clubs. What sets McEvoy apart from other bassists of his generation is his focus on solo repertoire and performance practice, with particular influence from Dadaism, Surrealism, and modernist composition. His current projects include Mutasm, a revolving cast that performs extended works, duets with dancer Hadar Ahuvia, the New York Jazz Band, and other freelancing performances.

On Thursday, March 31, free improvising avantjazz/folk hero Eugene Chadbourne makes a long awaited return from his home base in Greensboro, N.C. to play in duo with his touring partner, percussionist Tatsuya Nakatani from Philadelphia. Local artists Darryl Fleming (on guitar, with
guest accompanist) and Michael Johnsen (electronics)
open the show. The concert is at Garfield Artworks, 4931 Penn Avenue, and is open to all ages. Admission is $10.

Chadbourne has dozens of records out, and has collaborated
with the likes of John Zorn, Fred Frith, Derek Bailey, Han Bennink and Carla Bley as well punk/rockers such as Camper Van Beethoven, Jello Biafra, Turbonegro, They Might Be Giants, Sun City Girls and Violent Femmes. He also did a tour with Jimmy Carl Black of Frank Zappa’s Mothers of Invention.

http://www.eugenechadbourne.com/

http://www.myspace.com/eugenechadbourne

Tatsuya Nakatani has worked with dozens of experimental musicians in the United States (Assif Tsahar, Mary Halvorson, Joe Morris, Joe McPhee, Marc Ribot, Sabir Mateen, Cooper-Moore, Ken Vandermark, Billy Bang, Frank Lowe, Joe Maneri, LaDonna Smith), in Europe (Peter Kowald, Peter Brotzmann, Michel Doneda, Barre Phillips, Le Quan Ninh, Joelle Leandre, Phil Minton, Alessandro Bosetti, Giani Gebbia, Frank Gratkowski, Rafael Toral) and in Japan (Otomo Yoshihide, Satoko Fujii, Seiichi Yamamoto of the Boredoms), and tons more.

http://www.hhproduction.org/TATSUYA_NAKATANI_WORKS.html

If you happen to be in New York this Sunday, the best possible Super Bowl pre-game show will be with Eva Rainforth, Lindsey Goodman, and Rob Frankenberry reprising the recital they gave two weeks ago at Duquesne. The program features works by Roger Zahab, Jeff Nytch, Eli Tamar, Gilda Lyons, Joseph Schwantner, and Amy Williams.

The concert takes place Sunday, February 6, 4 p.m. at

St. Peter’s Episcopal Church
346 W. 20 St. (8-9 Aves)
New York City, NY

MOTE’s next concert takes place on Friday night at Bellefield when Cellist Dave Eggar takes the stage with Chuck Palmer (percussion), Mary Moser (violin), Rob Frankenberry (piano), and Attack Theatre Dancers. Here’s the complete program:

Seize Seas Seeth Seen (2003), Elliott Sharp

Trapped (2008), Somei Satoh

commissioned by and featuring Attack Theatre dancers

Switches, for Dave Eggar (2007), Sam Pluta

Child’s Song (1983) arr. Deoro, Fred Hersch

INTERMISSION

Durations (1953), Morton Feldman

Evocations no. 3, Ralph Shapey

II.

III.

Circadian Rhythms (1989), Mathew Rosenblum

Sweet! Be there!

NOTE: In case you didn’t see it, CAPA’s Antithesis program has been rescheduled for February 18.

As many of you have no doubt heard, Milton Babbitt passed away yesterday. Here’s a report form NPR.

Two great concerts this weekend: Third Coast Percussion, featuring Pittsburgh New Music Ensemble’s own David Skidmore, plays at the Carnegie Lecture Hall on Saturday night at 8; Alia Music Pittsburgh gives its Winter Concert on Sunday night at 7 p.m. at Chatham’s James Laughlin Music Hall. Complete details on the Events Calendar.

Can’t wait for all the new music goodness? Don’t!

And in case you missed them, some nice articles in the Post-Gazette recently covering the adventurous end of the local music spectrum. Check out Andy Druckenbrod’s article on Music on the Edge at 20, as well as Manny Theiner’s write-up of Ben Opie’s recent CD release of duets with Anthony Braxton.

And finally, for your reading and listening pleasure, Kerrith Livengood has a blog.