Program:
8:00 - Pre-concert talk regarding Music and Dance, the work of John Cage, David Tudor and the current musical practice of the MCDC
8:30 - Concert featuring Music for a MinEvent, Blues99, composed by John King, for two performers (commissioned by MCDC for the dance “CRWDSPCR”).
Stephan Moore is a composer, performer, audio artist, and sound designer in New York City. His creative work centers around the collection and use of real-world sound, the creation and perception of sonic environments, and technological manifestations of improvisation and interactivity. Many of his performances and installation artworks make use of large, multi-channel arrays of his Hemisphere speakers. He performs regularly with Scott Smallwood in the electronic duo Evidence, and with a variety of musicians, live-video artists, and dancers. He has created custom music software for a number of composers and artists, and has taught college-level courses in composition, sound art and electronic music at several schools. He is currently the Sound Engineer and Music Coordinator of the Merce Cunningham Dance Company, and one of its core musicians.
John King, composer and guitarist, has had his music presented in many major festivals, including the tba/Time-Based Arts Festival (Portland, OR); Fronteras Festival (London); Next Wave Festival (NY); Schleswig Holstein Musik Festival (Hamburg); Intermedium 1 Festival (Berlin); Creative Time’s “Music in the Anchorage” (NY); Warsaw Autumn and Bang On A Can (NY). Mr. King’s experimental opera, “La Belle Captive”, based on texts by Alain Robbe-Grillet, was premiered in Buenos Aires at the Centro Experimental de Teatro Colon in April 2003, receiving further performances in London and NYC.
He has had many working bands over the years, including ELECTRIC WORLD (with Abe Speller and Jean Chaine), VIBROVERB (with Nioka Workman and Michael Wimberly), and KING KORTETTE (Jonathan Kane, Nicki Parrott and Christopher McIntyre), all blues/funk/jazz based. He plays lead guitar with the avant-blues group Deep Blue Sea, led by French avant-noise guitarist Jean-Francois Pauvros and art rock drummer extraordinaire Jonathan Kane; and also performed with : William Parker’s “Little Huey Creative Orchestra”, Butch Morris’ “Conduction #115 E-Mission”; Guy Klucevsek’s “Ain’t Nothin’ But A Polka” band; and Rhys Chatham’s 6-guitar band.
His commissions and collaborations include those for the Kronos Quartet; Red {an orchestra}, Ethel; the Albany Symphony/”Dogs of Desire”, Bang On A Can All-Stars; Mannheim Ballet; the Royal Danish Ballet; New York City Ballet/Diamond Project, Stuttgart Ballet, Ballets de Monte Carlo; SüdWestRundfunk (Baden-Baden), Pennsylvania Ballet, Les Grands Ballets Canadiens, and the Merce Cunningham Dance Company. He has written music for the Clussgarten Theater in Ludwigsburg, Germany (Shakespeare’s “Tempest”, Goethe’s “Faust” and Hesse’s “Steppenwolf”) as well as Target Margin, in NYC and the Children’s Theater Company, in Mpls., MN.
He has received grants from the NEA/Music in Motion, New York State Council on the Arts, Jerome Foundation, Asian Cultural Council, Meet The Composer/Readers Digest Dance Commissioning Program, Minnesota Composers Forum, the Fund for US Artists at International Festivals, and New York Foundation for the Arts.
Mr. King curated the music for the Merce Cunningham Dance Company’s events at the Joyce Theater and at The Barbican Center in London. He was Music Curator at The Kitchen from 1999-2003 and is currently a co-director of the Music Committee at MCDC.
His radioplay “TORN/zerrisen” was commissioned by SüdWestRundfunk radio, Baden-Baden, Germany. His music can also be heard on HBO promoting the series “Deadwood”.