2007 SoundExchange Concert Brochure

SoundExcfi an geJ007 [Philadelphia]
Friday, April 20 + Sunday April22,2007
The Studio Theatre at Annenberg Center | 3680 Walnut Street
Horns of Hathor / Roscoe Mitchell I Samir Chatterjee
with Pauline Oliveros, electronics/accordian; lone, voice; Roscoe Mitchell,
reeds; and Samir Chatterjee, tabla
SoundExchange Ensemble / Composers
with Timothy Albro, 12 string guitar; Owen Brown, violin; Scotty Conant, el.
guitar; Matt Davis, guitar; Deekus, marimba; Paula Diehl, comp.; Leo Dugan,
alto saxophone; lan Fraser, electronics; Troy Herion, comp.; Dustin Hurt,
comp.; George Korein, el, bass; Michael McDermott, electronics; John Phillips,
electronics; and Paul Pinto, comp.
PROGRAM
Friday, April20 | 8pm
Four Sides to Everything comp. Pauline Oliveros
I Pauline
Il Roscoe
llllone
IV Samir
performed by Horns of Hathor with Roscoe Mitchell and Samir Chatierjee
Sunday, April22 | 4pm
Underway comp. Paula J. Diehl
Ensemble (2007) comp. Dustin Hurt
hands...my hands comp. Paul Pinto
lntermission
Shimmering Graph: A Meditation on Time comp. Troy Herion
All Sides to Everything comp. Pauline Oliveros
performed by Pauline 0liveros with the SoundExchange Ensemble
The SoundExchange project with Pauline Oliveros is sponsored by the
American Composers Forum, Philadelphia Chapter, and made possible by a
grant from the Philadelphia Music Project, a program of the Philadelphia
Center for Arts and Heritage, funded by The Pew Charitable Trusts and
administered by The University of the Arts. Curatorial and presenting assistance provided by Ars Nova Workshop, For more information call 267-63925 1 8 or email nhi llvcom noserstOcom oosersforum oro
Since the 1960's Pauline 0liveros (b. 1932) has influenced American music
profoundly through her work with improvisation, meditation, electronic music, myth
and ritual. She has been celebrated worldwide, and many credit her as the founder
of present day meditative music, One of the original members of the Tape Music
Center at Mills College (along with Morton Subotnick and Terry Riley), her outstanding body of work includes collaborations with Anthony Braxton, Sonic Youth, Roscoe
Mitchell and Alvin Curran, among many others, She currently serves as Distinguished Research Professor of Music at Rensselaer Polytechnic lnstitute (Troy, NY),
Darius Milhaud Artislin-Residence at Mills College (Oakland, CA), and president of
Deep Listening lnstitute (Kingston, NY).
Pandit Samir Chatterjee is a virtuoso Tabla player originating from lndia. He travels
continuously across the world performing in festivals as a soloist or with other
outstanding musicians from both lndian and western tradiiions. His compositions as
well as his writings are widely acclaimed. Currently residing in New York, Chatterjee
has become a catalyst in the fusion of lndian and Western music, performing with
Pauline Oliveros, Ravi Colkane, Dave Douglas, Myra Melford, Steve Gorn, Glen
Velez, Boby Sanabria, Ben Verdery, William Parker, Dance Theater of Harlem, Ethos
Percussion group, Da Capo Chamber Orchestra, Boston Musica Viva and many
others. He is a member of jazz trios, SYNC with Ned Rothenberg and Jerome Harris
and MANODHARMA with Rudresh Mahanthappa and Vijay lyer, ln addition, he
performed with Sanjay Mishra on his recording "Blue lncantation" featuring Jerry
Garcia.
Roscoe Mitchell's innovaiions as a solo performer, his role in the resurrection of
long neglected woodwind instruments of extreme register, and his reassertion of the
composer in what has traditionally been an improvised form, have placed him at the
forefront of contemporary music for over thirty years. He is a founding member of the
internationally acclaimed Art Ensemble of Chicago and the Association for the
Advancement of Creative Musicians. Mitchell was born August 3rd, 1940 in Chicago,
He started on clarinet and saxophone as a teenager. Laier, while serving in the army
in Germany, he played in a band with Albert Ayler. Upon his return in ihe 60s,
Mitchell began a number of relationships that would last until this day. ln 1966, his
sextet became the first AACM group to record. The resulting album, Sound, is still
recognized as an achievement, and it signaled a change in the music. ln 1969
Mitchell's then group, the Roscoe Mitchell Art Ensemble, traveled to France. After
under-going a lineup change, the band was reborn as the Art Ensemble of Chicago.
For the next two decades they remained one of the most celebrated groups in music.
ln the time since, Mitchell has developed his solo music, as well as forming and
composing for the Trio Space, the Sound Ensemble and the Note Factory as well as
various configurations of trio, quartet, and sextet groups.
lone is a noted author, playwright and poet whose works include the critically
acclaimed memoir, Pride of Family; Four Generations of American Women of Color,
Listening in Dreams and This is a Dreaml She is the playwright and director of
Njinga the Queen King and the dance opera lo and Her and the Trouble with Him. A
dedicated educator and counselor who specializes in dreams and the creative
process, she conducts seminars and rekeats throughout the world. She is also a
spoken word performer and sound ariist who performs with Pauline Oliveros and
other artists in the United Siates and internationally, lone is the Director of the
Ministry of MaAt, lnc a spiritual organization specializing in women and community
with goals of world harmony and balance, She is also the Artistic Director of the
Deep Listening lnstitute.
nOUIlUtrIgrlange trllselllple allq rrOlllpUger Erl{JgraPllys
Born in Worcester, MA in 1980, cunently based in Philadelphia, Tim Albro received a
BA in English at Wesleyan University. Since Wesleyan, he has done ethnographic work
on gospel music in West Philadelphia, composed music for a dance ensemble, as well
as participaied in the vibrant improvised/creative music community growing in Philadelphia, This work as an improvising/creative musician includes performing on the 12-string
eleckic guitar with electronics, on the prepared guitarielectronicskadio in the duo HZL,
and recent solo work with home built radio transmitters. Current research interests
include: the life of milarepa, green anarchism, and good advice.
Born in London, and raised in New York, Owen "Fiddle" Brown's career began as a
member of the Sun Ra Arkestra (19e7-1994). A frequent concert performer his vocal
and violin pedormances have constantly been featured in many of the tri-state jazz
festivals, performing with Stanley Jordon, George Duke, and many others. Following
earning his Masters in Jazz Performance at lndiana University of Pennsylvania, he
returned to Philadelphia to start his string-based ensemble Chocolate Wireworks.
Scotty Conant is a guitarist and composer who has performed and toured in a variety
of contexts performing in theatrical productions, avantgarde ensembles, jazz
ensembles, punk rock bands, duo and solo acoustic singerlsongwriter situations and
other musical events. ln addition to performance and composition, Conant is teaching
music full time and is thrilled to share all that he has leamed through the years with
whomever seeks to know more about music and the guitar. He has studied with Woody
Mann, Charles Chapman, John Thomas, John Stowell and Steve Giordano, among
others, and is an alumnus of Berklee College of Music, He has studied at the New
School for Social Research and the American lnstitute of Guitar.
Guitarist and composer, Matt Davis has been playing and composing music since
childhood. A graduate of Temple University in 2001, Matt cunently records, composes
for and performs with many groups around Philadelphia including his 12-piece original
project Aerial Photograph. He has performed with musicians such as Odean Pope, Dave
Burrell, Bobby Zankel (of the Cecil Taylor big band), saxophonist Billy Harper, The
Jefferson University Chorus and Orchestra, Calvin Weston, members of the Sun Ra
Arkestra (Tyrone Hill, Marshall Allen, Elliott Levin), Terell Stafford, and Dave Liebman.
Matt can also be heard on the recent CIMP release of the Odean Pope Quarlet entitled
"To the Roach".
Ashley Deekus is a Philadelphia native who continues to study and express the
marimba in nonconforming musical situations. Unsatisfied by the conventional practices
of mallet instruments, she continues to attract the influence of improvised new music in
her performances and writings. She is appreciative of working with Khan Jamal, Katt
Hernandez, Pauline 0liveros, Neil Feather, Matthew Welch, Jeremiah Cymerman, Peter
Evans, Sam Kulik, Dan Blacksberg, Dustin Hud, Evan Lipson, and Dave Smolen, and
performs with Canadian group Do Make Say Think.
0n
Friday afternoons you can
sometimes find her weeping over her favorite scores in the music department of the
Philadelphia Library.
"My early relationship to music was confused, lt thrilled me as a child to hear opera 0n
the radio, my father sing in church, and my uncle sing Danish W.W.l. songs, yet I came
to hate passionately'making'music myself, as in piano lessons. As a teen I was allowed
to stop taking them. Thereafter, 'making' music gradually became as thrilling as hearing
it. Academic kaining in music led to a desire to compose experimental music, which led
to a new total music composition sysiem, Separation Music, which lent itself to prestructured improvisations." -Paula Diehl
SaxophonisUcomposer Leonardo Dugan is a soon-to-be graduate (as of May 2007) of
the University of Pennsylvania doctoral program in composition, as well as a professor
of music theory and composition at West Chester University. As a jazz saxophonist, he
has been performing professionally in the Philadelphia area for over ten years as both a
leader and a sideman in a number of different groups. His principal saxophone teachers
include Ben Schachter and Robert Landham. Dugan's latest composition is a concerto
for jazz saxophone, which he recently performed with the Curtis orchestra.
lan M, Fraser (b.1980)is an artisiworking both visually and aurally. He was formall
trained on alto saxophone at the School for Creative and Performing Arts in Cincinnal
Ohio, studying Jazz, lmprovisation and Music Theory. He currently plays bast
saxophone and "treated" clarinet for Philadelphia rock group Relay. He regularl
improvises with various ad hoc groups using sine waves, short wave radios, cassette
and computer. When playing solo he tends io test the audience's patience
an
endurance, mixing barely audible high end frequencies with indeterminate periods t
silence.
Troy Herion as born in Philadelphia and studied Philosophy and Physics at Bar
College before completing his degree in composition at Temple University. 1n th
summer of 2005, he premiered his first full-length opera, ll Racconto d'lnverno for th
lnternational Opera Theatre in Citta della Pieve, ltaly. The following year, he compose
La Tempesia, an operatic adaptation of the Shakespearean play, which opened at th
Teatro Awaloranti in Umbria in 2006. ln 2004, he co-founded Mad Man's Laughter, a
audio-visualexperiment in collaborative improvisation, with Sean Mattio. The group wa
subsequently commissioned to write and perform music for Pig lron Theake Company'
dance{heater meditation, Love Unpunished. Philadelphia Weekly named their wor
Best Sound Design of 2006 Most recently he has composed the score for The Wilm
Theater's production of Brecht's "The Life of Galileo."
Called Philadelphia's "Best Facilitator of Unnatural Noise" by the CityPaper (Nov. 2006
composer, improvisor, and organizer Dustin Hurt has emerged as a key element t
Philadelphia 's experimental and new music scene, An active trumpeter and accordior
ist, Dustin's frequent collaborators include Jack Wright, Gene Coleman, Andy Haylecl
Paul Neidhardt, Alban Bailly, Dan Blacksberg, Katt Hernandez, Jesse Kudler, and Tir
Albro. Dustin's diverse catalogue of composed works have been performed by member
of the Philadelphia Orchestra, the Pennsylvania Ballet Orchestra, and regularly by ih
Philadelphia based avantsupergroup, Normal Love. Dustin is also the founding directr
of bowerbird, a Philadelphia based experimental music presenting organization.
Mikronesia (Michael McDermott) is a producer, composer, musician and sound artis
Since 1999 he has been playing theaters, clubs, parties and galleries along the Eal
Coast as a multi-instrumentalist, laptop based performer and DJ. Mikronesia has bee
doing collaborative production and performance, concentraiing on lending his ambier
and DSP skills to adists from all musicalgenres. His main group, Gemini Wolf, is a seve
piece electo-acoustic rock band in which Mikronesia plays keyboards, laptop an
arranges allthe music including traditional rock instrumentation and a string trio. ln lat
2006 Mikronesia co{ounded a multi-disciplinary improvisation music and danc
ensemble called Perpetual Mvmt< >Snd. He has released several albums that fall in th
ambienVglitch category - his most recent was 'Tissue Paper Ghosts' released on Gear
of Sand Recordings in 2006.
John Phillips is a sound artist and audiovisualist. His work (often collaborating wit
sculptor Carolyn Healy) includes sound and video installations at Suyama Spact
Seattle Washington, Dartmouth College, lnstitute of Contemporary Art in Philadelphii
lntemational Computer Music Conference in Beijing China, University of Michigar
Eastern State Penitentiary in Philadelphia, as well as many non-traditional sites on th
East Coast of the US. He has been commissioned several times by New American Radi
for nation broadcast. Other venues for his music have been compositions for choreogn
phers in New York, New York, and Philadelphia as well as tape or live pedormances i
Philadelphia, New York New York, Venice ltaly, San Francisco and Helsinki, Finland.
New York native Paul Pinto's works have been performed in Europe, North America an
perhaps maybe once in Australia, but we can't be sure. With an ardent interest
i
collaboration and multi-media, Paul's aitraction to composing grew out of his training a
an artist, writer and vocalist. The majority of his work - on and off-stage - has involve
creating art with dancers, painters, sculptors, directors and writers. His ballet collabora
tion with ihe Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama and the Reid Kerr Colleg
Dance Department, Miseke, has been distributed on DVD throughout the UK. Pat
currently teaches music in New Jersey and New York and is currently working on severi
projects for his new music ensemble, thingNY.
Deep Listeninq@ is listening in every possible way to everything possible to hear no
matt'enrvhat yoir are doing. Such int6nse listening includes the sounds of daily life, of
nature, or bne's own [houghts as well as musical sounds. Deep Listening@
reoresents a heiqhtened staf of awareness and connects to all that there is. As a
composer I make-my music through Deep Listening@.," -Pauline Oliveros
Buildinq a visible presence for new music and supporting local composers and
performers, the American Composers Forum Phiiadelphia Chapter dedicates its
bctivities to the spirit of collaboration and connection. lt connects composers to other
composers and artists, to the resources available in the community, and with new
audibnces in a fresh and innovative fashion. ACF Philadelphia programs continue to
have a substantial impact on the City's musical community. For information, visit
www.composersforum.org or e-mail [email protected].
Founded in 2000, Ars Nova Workshop (ANW) is a Philadelphia non'profit iazz and
experimental music presenting organization. ANW intentionally programs events and
cohcerts
in alternative spaces, showcasing divergent and challenging
musical
traditions and perspectives, working to inform, inspire, and challenge listeners while
elevaiing the rble ol jazzand experimental music in contemporary culture. Fervently
upholding the iazlFree Jazz continuums by supporting its musicians, other 20th
cbntury compo-sers and improvisers as well as the work of emerging artists, ANW
events are a iorum for discourse and new trends in contemporary music theories and
practices, For more information, visit www.arsnovaworkshop.com.