MATA Interval 3.1 with Casey Thomas Anderson, G. Douglas Barrett, Anthony Ptak, Charles Stankievech, Jacob Sudol
Every musical event is accompanied by an often unacknowledged and yet not-so-silent partner. The built environment reflects, refracts, and remakes sound, and performer and audience act and listen under the influence of its formal language. Architectures of Sound assembles an evening of unusual performances that attend to this convergence of sound and built space. Artists Casey Thomas Anderson, G. Douglas Barrett, Anthony Ptak, Charles Stankievech, and Jacob Sudol will present new work that interacts with the singularities of the performance space – its materiality, its geometric form, its historical specters and its vanishing present.
About INTERVAL
Started during the 2007-08 season, MATA Interval is a bi-monthly concert series dedicated to small-scale performances by emerging performers and composers based in New York City. Produced in conjunction with ISSUE Project Room, Interval’s programming is developed and produced by selected participants in MATA’s Curatorial Associate program. The intimate and community-based character of Interval encourages risk taking and allows MATA to showcase a wide array of aesthetics from the city’s vibrant musical culture.
MATA Interval 2.4
Play! Music for Toys
Curated by Angelica Negrón
Featuring performances by ensemble TRANSIT, Judy Dunaway, Jenny Walshe, and special guest Margaret Leng Tan
Works by Angelica Negrón, Judy Dunaway, Tristan Perich, Daniel Wohl, Nathan Davis and John Kennedy
MATA Interval 2.4 PLAY! – Composers
Nathan Davis (NYC) makes music as a composer and percussionist. He has received commissions from the International Contemporary Ensemble, the Meehan/Perkins Duo, Ethos Percussion Group, the Jerome Foundation, Concert Artists Guild, and received awards from ASCAP, Meet the Composer, the Look and Listen Festival, and the ISCM. Several of his electroacoustic percussion pieces are available on a solo cd, Memory Spaces, and his acoustic music is published by Frog Peak. As a percussionist, he tours extensively in the cello/percussion duo Odd Appetite and is a member of ICE. He has recorded for Tzadik, New Albion, Bridge, and Cold Blue records. More info is at www.nathandavis.com.
For the past fifteen years Judy Dunaway has been primarily known for her numerous works for latex balloons as sound producers. Her works for balloons include sound installations, multimedia works, improvisational performances, and avant-garde musical compositions. She has presented these works throughout North America and Europe at many important venues, festivals, museums and galleries including the Alternative Museum (NYC), Bang on a Can Festival (NYC), Everson Art Museum (Syracuse), Frau Musica Nova (Germany), the Guelph Jazz Festival (Canada), Lincoln Center Out-of-Doors (NYC), the New Museum of Contemporary Art (NYC), Performance Space 122 (NYC), Podewil (Berlin), Galerie Rachel Haferkamp (Koeln), the Roy and Edna Disney Center (Los Angeles), Seltsame Musik Festival (Austria), the SoHo Arts Festival (NYC), STEIM (Netherlands), Diapason Gallery (NYC) and ZKM (Germany). Her discography includes CDs on the CRI (Composers Recordings Inc.) and Innova labels.
Eclectic Australian-American musician Erik Griswold fuses experimental, jazz and world music traditions to create works of striking originality. Specializing in prepared piano, percussion and toy instruments, he has created a musical universe all his own that is “sincere” (neural.it), “playful” (igloo magazine), “colourful and refreshingly unpretentious” (Paris Transatlantic). Griswold performs as a soloist, in Clocked Out Duo (with percussionist Vanessa Tomlinson), and collaborates with musicians from diverse backgrounds as well as visual artists, and writers.
Composer and conductor John Kennedy is Artistic Associate of Spoleto Festival USA, where he plans and leads many of the festival’s music programs, and is the Artistic Director of Santa Fe New Music. He has composed numerous works for traditional and experimental ensembles, and has been commissioned by the Santa Fe Opera and Sarasota Opera among others. He has guest conducted with many organizations including the Lincoln Center Festival, New York City Ballet, Santa Fe Opera, Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival, and the Merce Cunningham Dance Company. Kennedy also founded the ensemble Essential Music, which was active in New York from 1987. He has been on the board of the American Music Center since 2000 and served as President from 2002-2005.
Angélica Negrón (b. 1981, Puerto Rico) received an early education in piano and violin at the Conservatory of Music of Puerto Rico where she later studied composition under the guidance of composer Alfonso Fuentes. She was the winner of the scholarship that the Amaury Veray Foundation gives to an outstanding student in the music composition department of the Conservatory of Music of Puerto Rico as well as the Phantomvox Scholarship (2004) and the Roberto I. Ferdman Award (2006). Her music has been performed by the NYU Percussion Ensemble, Astoria Symphony Orchestra, Lumina String Quartet, NYU Symphony Orchestra and the Puerto Rico Symphony Orchestra and she has written music for documentaries, films, theater and modern dance. She also holds a bachelor’s in audiovisual communications from the University of Puerto Rico, and is a founding member of the Puerto Rican electro-acoustic pop outfit Balún where she sings and plays the accordion, violin and keyboard. With her solo project, Arturo en el Barco, she concentrates on working with lo-fi ambient compositions and has released albums on Observatory (Austria) and Carte Postale Records (Belgium).
In 2008, as a recipient of the Lindsay and Brian Shea Fellowship, she participated in the European-American Musical Alliance (EAMA) Summer Music Program at L’Ecole Normale de Musique de Paris where she studied with Dr. Robert Beaser, chair of the Composition department of The Juilliard School, and guest composer Sofia Gubaidulina. Her recent work for toy piano and electronics “Columpio” won second prize on the UnCaged Toy Piano Competition and she is currently a curatorial associate for MATA Interval Series. She recently completed her master’s degree in music composition at New York University where she studied with Portuguese guitarist and composer Pedro Da Silva and film composer Ira Newborn. Angélica is currently part of the Teaching Artists Collaborative from The Weill Music Institute at Carnegie Hall and a member of ASCAP, the International Alliance for Women in Music and New York Women Composers.
In all of his creative activities, Tristan Perich is inspired by the aesthetics of math and physics, and works with simple forms and complex systems. The challenge of elegance provokes his compositions for solo instruments, small ensemble and orchestra. As a visual artist, he works primarily with machines to create pen-on-paper drawings that explore the limits of traditional drawing through randomness and order.
In 2004 he began work on 1-Bit Music, combining his music with primitive, hand-programmed electronics that investigate the foundations of digital sound. The Village Voice, BOMB Magazine, BPM Magazine, Res Magazine, Wired News, Cool Hunting and Spin Magazine covered the release, which has also been featured on television. Surface Magazine called the boxes “profound throwbacks to the traditional album, a response to the intangibility of iTunes and mp3s in the form hand-held artwork.”
Perich’s compositions have been performed by ensembles including Bang on a Can (2008 People’s Commissioning Fund), counter)induction, Calder Quartet, New York Miniaturist Ensemble, Due East, Y Trio and Ensemble Pamplemousse at venues including the Whitney Museum, P.S.1 and Mass MoCA. His recent activities include electroacoustic pieces for 1-Bit Music with instrumental accompaniment. His experimental electronic music group, the Loud Objects, has performed in Germany, Japan, Italy (Screen Music 2), Norway (Piksel), England (Evolution) and the USA (including at the NIME festival). He has spoken twice at Dorkbot. Perich studied math, music and computer science at Columbia University after attending Philips Academy, Andover. More recently, he studied art, music and electronics at the Interactive Telecommunications Program at Tisch School of the Arts, NYU.
Paris born Daniel Wohl (1980) is a composer of electronic and acoustic music based in Brooklyn. His music is played by ensembles and performers such as the American Symphony Orchestra, The Calder Quartet, the Da Capo Chamber Players, TRANSIT, the Nucleus Ensemble, California E.A.R Unit, St Luke’s Chamber Ensemble, the University of Michigan Philharmonic, and performers such as Tara Helen O’Connor and Vicky Ray. Awards, commissions and grants have come from ASCAP, Carlsbad Music Festival, New York Youth Symphony First Music, Society for New Music, the Definiens Project C3 competition, Meet the Composer, and the Brooklyn Arts Council for his work with TRANSIT, an ensemble he cofounded.
Most recently, he was a featured composer in both Da Capo’s Sonic Youth at Symphony Space concert, and St Luke’s Chamber Ensemble 2nd Helpings series at the Chelsea Art Museum and DIA, Beacon. In 2008 he was awarded an ASCAP Morton Gould prize for his orchestra piece Helium, an ASCAP Plus award, and a New York Youth Symphony commission, which will be premiered at Carnegie’s Weill Recital Hall in 2009. He is also the winner of the 2009 Carlsbad Music Festival / Calder quartet commission.
Daniel completed his Master’s Degree at the University of Michigan School of Music, studying with Bright Sheng and William Bolcom, and Bard College with Joan Tower. He has also studied with Julia Wolfe, David Lang, and Michael Gordon at the Bang on a Can Summer Institute. Daniel teaches composition at Sarah Lawrence College in New York.
MATA Interval – Dither Electric Guitar Quartet
Brooklyn, NY – On January 21st at Issue Project Room, MATA presents a gloriously loud and eclectic program featuring Dither, a versatile electric guitar quartet and a rising force in New York. Curated by guitarists James Moore and Taylor Levine, MATA will showcase six exciting new works by young composers for electric guitars in duos, quartets, and finally a 10-piece hearing-deprived electric guitar orchestra!
Program Info
James Moore and Taylor Levine are accomplished guitarists and chamber musicians who actively perform new and experimental music in New York. The two share a common approach to the guitar as a unique electro-acoustic instrument with extensive capabilities for electronic manipulation, a rich history of improvisation, wide ranges of timbre and style, and endless popular and cultural roots. Forming Dither in 2007, they have found an outlet to explore some of their favorite guitar music, and to work with composers to create an exciting new repertoire.
As Curators for MATA 2.3, James and Taylor will present an entire show of new electric guitar works, many of which are world premieres, including pieces by Eric km Clark, Lisa R. Coons, Bryce Dessner, Florent Ghys, Joshua Lopes, Paula Matthusen, and Wil Smith. These works represent a wide variety of approaches: from clean pop textures to heavily processed noise, from tight rhythmic unity to cacophonous sound mass. What unifies them all is that they utilize and wholeheartedly embrace the beautiful and engulfing sound of electric guitars.
Closing the show will be an exciting large ensemble piece by Eric km Clark, Canadian experimental composer and violinist for the California EAR Unit. The curious and captivating feature of this piece is Eric’s compositional technique of “Hearing Deprivation.” In this practice, the performers are deprived of hearing through the use of earplugs and cup-headphones, which playback white noise at a high volume. This makes it nearly impossible for an individual player to effectively coordinate with the ensemble or to judge his or her own sound. As the performers attempt to play their parts accurately, new soundscapes emerge ranging from hypnotizing hermetic canons, to driving sections of controlled chaos, to beautiful pointillistic textures. Though it may be a frightening idea, hearing deprivation proves to be a highly effective musical tool, and a powerful dramatic gesture.
About MATA Interval
Started during the 2007-08 season, MATA Interval is a bi-monthly concert series dedicated to small-scale performances by emerging performers and composers based in New York City. Produced in conjunction with Issue Project Room, Interval’s programming is developed and produced by selected participants in MATA’s Curatorial Associate program. The intimate and community-based character of Interval encourages risk taking and allows MATA to showcase a wide array of aesthetics from the city’s vibrant musical culture.
In its first season Interval debuted to great acclaim, selling out nearly every concert event. Highlights included a night of video and electronic works curated by composer Zach Layton, a performance by Flux Quartet curated by cellist Ha-Yang Kim, and a night of electro-acoustic performances by members of the performance collective Symbol, curated by composer Mario Diaz de Leon. The 2008-2009 season features the initial set of programs selected from MATA’s first Interval call for proposals.
The Curatorial Associate Program is a ten-week paid internship that mentors and educates young artists interested in concert production. Each year young composers and performers are selected from a competitive pool of applicants to our open call for proposals, and are invited to work closely with MATA‘’s directors, staff and publicists to curate a series event. The Curatorial Associate Program is one of the few internships that provides real-world experience in the area of producing and curating, distinguishing Interval as the only concert series in New York designed and executed wholly by emerging artists.
MATA recently awarded CA internships for the 2008-09 season to several promising young musicians. They include Judd Greenstein and New Amsterdam Records (Nov. 19), James Moore and Taylor Levine of Dither Guitar Quartet (Jan. 21), Angelica Negron with Transit (Mar. 18).
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BIOGRAPHIES
Dither is a quartet of electric guitarists who play an energetic mix of composed music and improvisation, all orchestrated through a galaxy of stomp boxes and effects. Guitarists Simon Kafka, Taylor Levine, Josh Lopes, and James Moore combined forces in 2007 with varied backgrounds in jazz, classical, and popular music. Since their debut concert at John Zorn’s experimental music venue The Stone, the group has been gaining recognition as both an eclectic improvising group and a skilled chamber ensemble.
Dither frequently performs original compositions, arrangements, new commissions, and the works of Fred Frith and Nick Didkovsky. Their performances have brought them to a number of venues including Roulette, Princeton University, the Extensible Electric Guitar Festival at Clark University, and most recently to the Fringe Theater in Hong Kong, where they premiered Samson Young’s multimedia theater piece “Hong Kong Explodes!” Upcoming shows include a showcase of orginal works for the Flea Theater’s “Music with a View” series.
James Moore is a versatile guitarist with many musical personalities. Performing on a wide variety of acoustic and electric guitars, banjos, and home-made instruments, James combines the sensitivity and lyricism from his classical training with a healthy dose of improvisation, theatrics, and experimentation. His chamber performances have brought him to concert halls and experimental music venues across the country, including shows with Bang on a Can, Other Minds, Princeton University, The Electronic Music Foundation, Anti-Social Music, the Merkin Hall Ear Department Series, and The Kitchen. As a soloist, he has been heard at the Chelsea Art museum playing music for amplified banjo and just-intonation steel string guitar, at Northwestern University performing on prepared classical guitar, and with the Astoria Symphony premiering a concerto for the Greek bouzouki. James also performs with several unconventional groups, including William Brittelle’s pop-art-concept ensemble Mohair Time Warp, and Jacob Cooper’s slowed-down pop-tragedy Timberbrit. James’s own projects include the new folk-noise group Oliphant and the mischievous rock band Passenger Fish. In addition to collaborating with gifted musicians and composers from his own generation, James has worked with many of today’s leading artists, including David Lang, Steve Reich, Ingram Marshall, and Meredith Monk. James grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area, received degrees in guitar performance from The University of California, Santa Cruz, and the Yale School of Music. He currently resides in Brooklyn, NY.
Taylor Levine is a guitarist in the NYC area. He is the co-founder/co-director of Kyklos, a fantastically raucous sextet and the founder/co-director of Dither. He also performs regularly with Newspeak and Yes is a World. He has worked with Meredith Monk, Theo Bleckmann, Ridge Theater, The New York Soundpainting Orchestra, Newband (A Harry Partch Ensemble), Bang on a Can, including the October 2006 UK production of The Carbon Copy Building, the Obie-winning opera co-composed by Michael Gordon, David Lang, and Julia Wolfe, and with the Dutch dance company Emio Greco | PC in a new work which premiered at the Holland Dance Festival in June of 2008. Recent events include five performances of Harry Partch’s Delusion of the Fury with Newband at the New York Japan Society and an Artist In Residence at the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art with Emio Greco | PC. His performances have opened him to an international community, which includes the United Kingdom, Italy, Netherlands and France. Taylor also pursues an active role as an educator in the NYC area. He studied at The Manhattan School of Music and The Amsterdam Conservatory. Taylor currently resides in Manhattan.
ISSUE Project Room provides an open and versatile environment where both established and emerging artists can conduct, exhibit and perform new and site-specific work according to their respective visions. Through an evolving collaboration with curators, artists and educators, ISSUE Project Room fosters a wide-range of artistic projects that challenge and expand conventional practices in art. ISSUE Project Room fulfills its mission through a series of innovative programs, events, exhibitions, performances, talks and concerts.
