PAMELA Z PRODUCTIONS presents: room: PIPES Sunday May 17, 2009, 8pm ROYCE GALLERY |
Monday, May 11, 2009
This Sunday night at the Royce Gallery
Friday, May 08, 2009
Another place to read stuff I've written
I'm excited to announce I'm now a Contributing Editor at Sequenza21, the contemporary music blog. I'll be reporting on new music goings-on in the San Francisco Bay Area.
Monday, May 04, 2009
Flower Moon concert Thursday night in SF
My Full Moon Concert Series which I'm curating for Outsound Presents and the Luggage Store Gallery moves on to the Flower Moon concert this Thursday night. Last month's Wind Moon was my favorite so far. Running out of chairs is really, really cool.
The duo of Theresa Wong and Kanoko Nishi goes on at 8 pm , and Vorticella plays at 9 pm. The gallery is located at 1007 Market Street at Sixth Street, San Francisco and admission is $6.00 - $10.00 sliding scale.
THE PROGRAM:
1. Wong & Nishi will perform improvisations on koto and cello/voice.
INTERMISSION
2. Flowers are of many colors and forms, some are conspicuous, some are barely noticeable, but all simultaneously represent both the potential for new life and the fragility of existence. By working with sonic textures that range from the extravagant to the subtle, Vorticella illustrates the vibrancy of rebirth and the ever changing nature of the environment and our relationship to it.
PERFORMER BIOS
Theresa Wong is a cellist and vocalist based in the San Francisco Bay Area. Her current work weaves together the areas of improvisation, composition, song forms, video, performance art and large scale performance pieces. After studying design, she became interested in an art form which would unite the visual arts with sound and performance. Her work has been included in the Unlimited 21 Festival in Wels, Austria, Fondation Cartier in Paris, the Other Minds Brink series in San Francisco, the Radio France broadcast, "A L'improviste", the Seattle Improvised Music Festival and at The Stone in New York City. She has collaborated and performed with such artists as Fred Frith, Joelle Leandre, Gianni Gebbia, Luciano Chessa, ROVA Saxophone Quartet, Ellen Fullman, Carla Kihlstedt and Joan Jeanrenaud. Theresa completed an MFA in performance at Mills College and is currently a resident artist at the Headlands Center for the Arts.
Kanoko Nishi is an improvising performer, currently residing in Oakland, CA. She has received a BA in Classical Piano Performance from Mills College, and beside working as a pianist for performances of new and contemporary compositions for piano, she has also collaborated and performed with various musicians, dancers, poets and visual artists, improvising on her second instrument, koto (Japanese 13-string zither).
Vorticella are inverted bell-shaped ciliates. Each of these single-celled organisms has a separate, anchored stalk. Some are grouped as colonies, but because each Vorticella has its own individual stalk it can detach from the cluster at any time. We are a complex sound generating entity bearing a strong resemblance to the Vorticella.
Krystyna Bobrowski is a sound artist, composer and musician. In addition to French horn she plays acoustic and electronic instruments of her own design. Her collection of original instruments includes bull kelp horns, prepared amplified rocking chairs, leaf speakers, Gliss Glass and the Sliding Speaker Instrument.
Erin Espeland has been an improvisational cellist for over 20 years. She uses unconventional techniques to generate interesting sounds from this instrument. She has played in ensembles throughout northern California, with performances ranging from John Cage festivals to parades.
Brenda Hutchinson, composer and sound artist, has been making sounds and singing into one end of a 9 1/2 foot Long Tube for the past 18 years. She has developed a more bionic, electronically enhanced version of the Long Tube that she uses for both solo performance and to improvise with other musicians.
Karen Stackpole is a drummer/percussionist who specializes in gongs and metals in particular. She has a penchant for subtle sounds and experimental music, playing both solo and in collaboration with others. Over the years she has managed to amass a wide collection of traditional and exotic percussion instruments as well as an arsenal of found objects that she uses to create some truly unique soundscapes.
The duo of Theresa Wong and Kanoko Nishi goes on at 8 pm , and Vorticella plays at 9 pm. The gallery is located at 1007 Market Street at Sixth Street, San Francisco and admission is $6.00 - $10.00 sliding scale.
THE PROGRAM:
1. Wong & Nishi will perform improvisations on koto and cello/voice.
INTERMISSION
2. Flowers are of many colors and forms, some are conspicuous, some are barely noticeable, but all simultaneously represent both the potential for new life and the fragility of existence. By working with sonic textures that range from the extravagant to the subtle, Vorticella illustrates the vibrancy of rebirth and the ever changing nature of the environment and our relationship to it.
PERFORMER BIOS
Theresa Wong is a cellist and vocalist based in the San Francisco Bay Area. Her current work weaves together the areas of improvisation, composition, song forms, video, performance art and large scale performance pieces. After studying design, she became interested in an art form which would unite the visual arts with sound and performance. Her work has been included in the Unlimited 21 Festival in Wels, Austria, Fondation Cartier in Paris, the Other Minds Brink series in San Francisco, the Radio France broadcast, "A L'improviste", the Seattle Improvised Music Festival and at The Stone in New York City. She has collaborated and performed with such artists as Fred Frith, Joelle Leandre, Gianni Gebbia, Luciano Chessa, ROVA Saxophone Quartet, Ellen Fullman, Carla Kihlstedt and Joan Jeanrenaud. Theresa completed an MFA in performance at Mills College and is currently a resident artist at the Headlands Center for the Arts.
Kanoko Nishi is an improvising performer, currently residing in Oakland, CA. She has received a BA in Classical Piano Performance from Mills College, and beside working as a pianist for performances of new and contemporary compositions for piano, she has also collaborated and performed with various musicians, dancers, poets and visual artists, improvising on her second instrument, koto (Japanese 13-string zither).
Vorticella are inverted bell-shaped ciliates. Each of these single-celled organisms has a separate, anchored stalk. Some are grouped as colonies, but because each Vorticella has its own individual stalk it can detach from the cluster at any time. We are a complex sound generating entity bearing a strong resemblance to the Vorticella.
Krystyna Bobrowski is a sound artist, composer and musician. In addition to French horn she plays acoustic and electronic instruments of her own design. Her collection of original instruments includes bull kelp horns, prepared amplified rocking chairs, leaf speakers, Gliss Glass and the Sliding Speaker Instrument.
Erin Espeland has been an improvisational cellist for over 20 years. She uses unconventional techniques to generate interesting sounds from this instrument. She has played in ensembles throughout northern California, with performances ranging from John Cage festivals to parades.
Brenda Hutchinson, composer and sound artist, has been making sounds and singing into one end of a 9 1/2 foot Long Tube for the past 18 years. She has developed a more bionic, electronically enhanced version of the Long Tube that she uses for both solo performance and to improvise with other musicians.
Karen Stackpole is a drummer/percussionist who specializes in gongs and metals in particular. She has a penchant for subtle sounds and experimental music, playing both solo and in collaboration with others. Over the years she has managed to amass a wide collection of traditional and exotic percussion instruments as well as an arsenal of found objects that she uses to create some truly unique soundscapes.
Monday, April 13, 2009
Now hear this...
Bloom Project: Sudden Aurora
The standard disclaimer applies: Thollem McDonas and Rent Romus are my friends, so this won't be the most objective review ever. But I can vouch personally for their eye-opening technical proficiency and solid inspiration.
Something I particularly like about the CD is the brevity of its tracks. To me it's a sign of thoughtful musicianship when ideas can be stated confidently in a short amount of time.
Since I was present at the October 2008 live performance that forms a lot of Sudden Aurora, I wish it were a DVD so listeners could also see what a sweaty, turbo-charged experience that concert was. I feel that way about a lot of CDs released by Bay Area new music people -- the live dimension just can't be beat.
The standard disclaimer applies: Thollem McDonas and Rent Romus are my friends, so this won't be the most objective review ever. But I can vouch personally for their eye-opening technical proficiency and solid inspiration.
Something I particularly like about the CD is the brevity of its tracks. To me it's a sign of thoughtful musicianship when ideas can be stated confidently in a short amount of time.
Since I was present at the October 2008 live performance that forms a lot of Sudden Aurora, I wish it were a DVD so listeners could also see what a sweaty, turbo-charged experience that concert was. I feel that way about a lot of CDs released by Bay Area new music people -- the live dimension just can't be beat.
Friday, April 10, 2009
If you like my body art...
...you can vote for Diving Swallow Custom Tattoo in SFGate's Best of Mind & Body.
Monday, April 06, 2009
Wind Moon concert Thursday night in SF
My Full Moon Concert Series which I'm curating for Outsound Presents and the Luggage Store Gallery continues this Thursday night with the Wind Moon. At 8 pm we have Three Trapped Tigers, the recorder duo of Tom Bickley and David Barnett. Then there's Dynosoar featuring Tom Djll, Ron Heglin, and Karen Stackpole. Finally we get treated to Edmund Welles: the bass clarinet quartet performing their classic, Opium & Absinthe. The gallery is located at 1007 Market Street at Sixth Street, San Francisco and admission is $6.00 - $10.00 sliding scale.
THE PROGRAM:
1. Three Trapped Tigers approach the Wind Moon using a new setting by Tom Bickley of haiku titled Wind Moon: haiku spoken in Japanese provides sonic material for the recorder parts. Along with this new work will be pieces by Italian 14th c. composer Francesco Landini and 20th/21st c. Japanese composer Ryohei Hirose.
2. Dynosoar: Welding together circles inside circles of brass and bronze, drawing deep for breath then ringing outward in concentric vastness. Vibrating air-energy drills inside and sparks dynamos of synaptic complexity. Can’t be heard in a vacuum.
3. Edmund Welles: Opium & Absinthe
I. Divination
II. Lucid Impression
III. Inertia
IV. Plasmosis
Vaguely inspired by a theta state, dream, half conscious and in between worlds kind of feeling, historically achieved through potent substances, but possibly achieved as well through sonic means and intention.
PERFORMER BIOS
Tom Bickley and David Barnett formed the recorder duo Three Trapped Tigers to perform 14th century music with 21st century sensibilities and vice versa. They have performed on the Trinity Chamber Concerts, the Berkeley Festival Fringe, and for the San Francisco Early Music Society. They use instrument appropriate to the repertory: cylindrical medieval recorders, wide-bore renaissance-style recorders, and ones of modern design.
David Barnett was a very bad boy while a student in the New York City public school system. His punishment was to play the recorder for the principal once a week. While this did not necessarily solve his behavior problems, he did find that he enjoyed the recorder. About the same time he took up the clarinet and has been playing music on both instruments ever since in one form or another. A long time Bay area resident, he now lives in southern California. He has recently been a visiting artist at the California Institute for the Arts. He currently performs on recorder and chalumeau with the Los Angeles based ensemble, Jealous Nightingale. In a past life, he was the music director for the notorious San Francisco arts group, the Noh Oratorio Society. He has recorded for the Earthbeat, Pacific Artist and Centaur labels
Tom Bickley is a recorder player/composer/improviser/teacher in Berkeley, CA. He grew up in Houston, studied in Washington, DC (recorder with Scott Reiss, musicology with Ruth Steiner, and listening/composition with Pauline Oliveros) and came to California as a composer in residence at Mills College. He teaches recorder privately and at the Bay Area Center for Waldorf Teacher Training, and is on the library faculty as music librarian at Cal State University East Bay. He curates the Meridian Music: Composers in Performance series. He plays with shakuhachi player Nancy Beckman as Gusty Winds May Exist, with recorder player David Barnett as Three Trapped Tigers and directs the Cornelius Cardew Choir. His work is available on CD on Quarterstick and Metatron Press.
Karen Stackpole performs and records with metals/gongs duo Euphonics, Dean Santomieri, Ron Thompson, Myles Boisen, Moe Staiano, and John Schott’s Ensemble Diglossia as well as collaborating on various other projects. Gongs and resonance are the calling. Small distinct sounds (a la insect music) and use of silence and space rank high also. She is the drummer for Cactus Motel and has played with Malcolm Mooney and The Tenth Planet, Moxie, Bolshoi Rodeo, and Rare Thing. She is the percussionist for the improvising quartet, Vorticella. Her percussive efforts include work with the Onsite Dance Company and the San Francisco Shin Taido group. Karen also operates Stray Dog Recording Services and works as a freelance writer for DRUM! and Electronic Musician magazines.
Ron Heglin is a Trombonist and Vocalist working with extended technique on the Trombone and with spoken and sung imaginary languages as a Vocalist. His vocal music has been influenced by his study of North Indian vocal music. He works both compositionally and in an improvisational mode and is a member of the Bay Area music context as well as performing internationally. He is a founding member of the groups MUSIC FOR ALL OCCASIONS, ROTODOTI, and BRASSIOSAURUS, and has performed with the Merce Cunningham Dance Company, Leo Smith, Henry Brant, Logos Duo, Tim Perkis, John Bischoff, Tom Djll, and Toyoji Tomita.
Tom Djll studied music at Berklee School of Music, the Colorado College, the Creative Music Studio, and Mills College with Anthony Braxton, Roscoe Mitchell, Karl Berger, Lester Bowie, Leo Smith, George Lewis, Pauline Oliveros, and many others. He is the recipient of an MFA from Mills College in Electronic Music (1995) as well as a Deeploma from the Deep Listening Organization (1991), and was awarded the Paul Merrit Henry Prize for Composition while at Mills. Current projects include the orchestra-media satire project, Mockracy, and the international improvising ensemble Grosse Abfahrt. A player in the SF Bay improvised/etc. scene since 1985, Tom’s words about music have appeared in The Wire, Signal To Noise, Musicworks, One Final Note, Open Space and the SF Transbay Calendar.
Edmund Welles: the bass clarinet quartet has the distinction of being the world's only original, composing band of four bass clarinetists -- they invent and perform heavy chamber music. The bass clarinet has a 5-octave range and a huge span of tonal, melodic, and rhythmic capabilities. Drawing virtuosic precision from the classical realm; innovation and texture from jazz; and power, rhythm and overall perspective from rock and metal, the quartet's sound is characterized by a thickness of tone, a density of texture, absolute rhythmic precision, and the extreme use of dynamic contrasts: a dense, pulsing sound capable of expressing and reflecting the full range of human emotions. Since 1996, Cornelius Boots has led and composed for Edmund Welles, which received a Chamber Music America Grant in 2004 for the creation of Agrippa's 3 Books, a multi-movement work inspired by occult philosophy and heavy metal music. This piece is featured on their debut album of the same title [mixed and mastered by Grammy-award winning sound alchemist Oz Fritz]. The album made the Top Ten Albums of 2005, and the New York premiere of the piece made the Top Ten Performances of 2005 in All About Jazz NYC. The title track of their second album, Tooth & Claw, placed 2nd out of thousands of entries in the "Instrumental" category of the 2006 International Songwriting Competition. In 2007, The Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco commissioned the group to compose and perform 2012: A Requiem for Baktun 12 [the 13th and Final Cycle]. Most recently, in 2008, the quartet was a featured ensemble at the International Clarinet Convention in Kansas City in addition to sharing a bill with the innovative "rock against rock" power-ensemble Sleepytime Gorilla Museum at several California venues. As their influence grows, Edmund Welles continues to be sought out for cutting edge music festivals and series including Three Drops of Blood (Installments II and IX), Switchboard Music Festival, and Hornucopia. There have also been several acolyte bass clarinet quartets (such as Acid Bass in New York) crop up around the globe over the last 3 years, playing both Edmund Welles arrangements and innovative pieces of their own. Engendering enthusiasm and expanding the musical horizons of both clarinetists and the general non-clarinet-playing public is at the core of the ensemble's existence.
Oakland reed renegade Cornelius Boots is a progressive rock composer, bass clarinet performance specialist, wu wei woodwind instructor and Zen flute adept. In 1996 he founded Edmund Welles, the world's only bass clarinet quartet, for which he has composed and arranged over 60 pieces including recent pieces commissioned by Chamber Music America and Yerba Buena Center for the Arts.
THE PROGRAM:
1. Three Trapped Tigers approach the Wind Moon using a new setting by Tom Bickley of haiku titled Wind Moon: haiku spoken in Japanese provides sonic material for the recorder parts. Along with this new work will be pieces by Italian 14th c. composer Francesco Landini and 20th/21st c. Japanese composer Ryohei Hirose.
2. Dynosoar: Welding together circles inside circles of brass and bronze, drawing deep for breath then ringing outward in concentric vastness. Vibrating air-energy drills inside and sparks dynamos of synaptic complexity. Can’t be heard in a vacuum.
3. Edmund Welles: Opium & Absinthe
I. Divination
II. Lucid Impression
III. Inertia
IV. Plasmosis
Vaguely inspired by a theta state, dream, half conscious and in between worlds kind of feeling, historically achieved through potent substances, but possibly achieved as well through sonic means and intention.
PERFORMER BIOS
Tom Bickley and David Barnett formed the recorder duo Three Trapped Tigers to perform 14th century music with 21st century sensibilities and vice versa. They have performed on the Trinity Chamber Concerts, the Berkeley Festival Fringe, and for the San Francisco Early Music Society. They use instrument appropriate to the repertory: cylindrical medieval recorders, wide-bore renaissance-style recorders, and ones of modern design.
David Barnett was a very bad boy while a student in the New York City public school system. His punishment was to play the recorder for the principal once a week. While this did not necessarily solve his behavior problems, he did find that he enjoyed the recorder. About the same time he took up the clarinet and has been playing music on both instruments ever since in one form or another. A long time Bay area resident, he now lives in southern California. He has recently been a visiting artist at the California Institute for the Arts. He currently performs on recorder and chalumeau with the Los Angeles based ensemble, Jealous Nightingale. In a past life, he was the music director for the notorious San Francisco arts group, the Noh Oratorio Society. He has recorded for the Earthbeat, Pacific Artist and Centaur labels
Tom Bickley is a recorder player/composer/improviser/teacher in Berkeley, CA. He grew up in Houston, studied in Washington, DC (recorder with Scott Reiss, musicology with Ruth Steiner, and listening/composition with Pauline Oliveros) and came to California as a composer in residence at Mills College. He teaches recorder privately and at the Bay Area Center for Waldorf Teacher Training, and is on the library faculty as music librarian at Cal State University East Bay. He curates the Meridian Music: Composers in Performance series. He plays with shakuhachi player Nancy Beckman as Gusty Winds May Exist, with recorder player David Barnett as Three Trapped Tigers and directs the Cornelius Cardew Choir. His work is available on CD on Quarterstick and Metatron Press.
Karen Stackpole performs and records with metals/gongs duo Euphonics, Dean Santomieri, Ron Thompson, Myles Boisen, Moe Staiano, and John Schott’s Ensemble Diglossia as well as collaborating on various other projects. Gongs and resonance are the calling. Small distinct sounds (a la insect music) and use of silence and space rank high also. She is the drummer for Cactus Motel and has played with Malcolm Mooney and The Tenth Planet, Moxie, Bolshoi Rodeo, and Rare Thing. She is the percussionist for the improvising quartet, Vorticella. Her percussive efforts include work with the Onsite Dance Company and the San Francisco Shin Taido group. Karen also operates Stray Dog Recording Services and works as a freelance writer for DRUM! and Electronic Musician magazines.
Ron Heglin is a Trombonist and Vocalist working with extended technique on the Trombone and with spoken and sung imaginary languages as a Vocalist. His vocal music has been influenced by his study of North Indian vocal music. He works both compositionally and in an improvisational mode and is a member of the Bay Area music context as well as performing internationally. He is a founding member of the groups MUSIC FOR ALL OCCASIONS, ROTODOTI, and BRASSIOSAURUS, and has performed with the Merce Cunningham Dance Company, Leo Smith, Henry Brant, Logos Duo, Tim Perkis, John Bischoff, Tom Djll, and Toyoji Tomita.
Tom Djll studied music at Berklee School of Music, the Colorado College, the Creative Music Studio, and Mills College with Anthony Braxton, Roscoe Mitchell, Karl Berger, Lester Bowie, Leo Smith, George Lewis, Pauline Oliveros, and many others. He is the recipient of an MFA from Mills College in Electronic Music (1995) as well as a Deeploma from the Deep Listening Organization (1991), and was awarded the Paul Merrit Henry Prize for Composition while at Mills. Current projects include the orchestra-media satire project, Mockracy, and the international improvising ensemble Grosse Abfahrt. A player in the SF Bay improvised/etc. scene since 1985, Tom’s words about music have appeared in The Wire, Signal To Noise, Musicworks, One Final Note, Open Space and the SF Transbay Calendar.
Edmund Welles: the bass clarinet quartet has the distinction of being the world's only original, composing band of four bass clarinetists -- they invent and perform heavy chamber music. The bass clarinet has a 5-octave range and a huge span of tonal, melodic, and rhythmic capabilities. Drawing virtuosic precision from the classical realm; innovation and texture from jazz; and power, rhythm and overall perspective from rock and metal, the quartet's sound is characterized by a thickness of tone, a density of texture, absolute rhythmic precision, and the extreme use of dynamic contrasts: a dense, pulsing sound capable of expressing and reflecting the full range of human emotions. Since 1996, Cornelius Boots has led and composed for Edmund Welles, which received a Chamber Music America Grant in 2004 for the creation of Agrippa's 3 Books, a multi-movement work inspired by occult philosophy and heavy metal music. This piece is featured on their debut album of the same title [mixed and mastered by Grammy-award winning sound alchemist Oz Fritz]. The album made the Top Ten Albums of 2005, and the New York premiere of the piece made the Top Ten Performances of 2005 in All About Jazz NYC. The title track of their second album, Tooth & Claw, placed 2nd out of thousands of entries in the "Instrumental" category of the 2006 International Songwriting Competition. In 2007, The Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco commissioned the group to compose and perform 2012: A Requiem for Baktun 12 [the 13th and Final Cycle]. Most recently, in 2008, the quartet was a featured ensemble at the International Clarinet Convention in Kansas City in addition to sharing a bill with the innovative "rock against rock" power-ensemble Sleepytime Gorilla Museum at several California venues. As their influence grows, Edmund Welles continues to be sought out for cutting edge music festivals and series including Three Drops of Blood (Installments II and IX), Switchboard Music Festival, and Hornucopia. There have also been several acolyte bass clarinet quartets (such as Acid Bass in New York) crop up around the globe over the last 3 years, playing both Edmund Welles arrangements and innovative pieces of their own. Engendering enthusiasm and expanding the musical horizons of both clarinetists and the general non-clarinet-playing public is at the core of the ensemble's existence.
Oakland reed renegade Cornelius Boots is a progressive rock composer, bass clarinet performance specialist, wu wei woodwind instructor and Zen flute adept. In 1996 he founded Edmund Welles, the world's only bass clarinet quartet, for which he has composed and arranged over 60 pieces including recent pieces commissioned by Chamber Music America and Yerba Buena Center for the Arts.
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