The Field Guide » LEMUR

One-Man Band – Pat Metheny Upgrades a 19th-Century Concept – NYTimes.com

Holland Hopson — Sun, 31 Jan 2010 19:09:25 +0000

The New York Times has a preview of Pat Metheny’s project with musical robots from LEMUR (and others): One-Man Band – Pat Metheny Upgrades a 19th-Century Concept – NYTimes.com.

I loved my short time working with the LEMURbots (residency, video, photos, Issue Project Room). Someday I hope to get (and share) the footage from my performance at LEMURplex.

LEMUR’s Eric Singer and Leif Krinkle are both quoted in the article. I can’t think of anyone better to work on a project like this.

Best of ReSiDeNt: The First Two Months

Holland Hopson — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 13:28:08 +0000

I’m excited to be playing again with the LEMURbots. This time it’s at Issue Project Room on Thursday, April 10 @ 8pm. I’ll be sharing the bill with Taylor Kuffner and Ben Neill. Here’s the rundown:

LEMUR storms Issue Project Room on Thursday, April 10th, with a night of special collaborations. Best of ReSiDeNt: The First Two Months showcases performances by January/February LEMUR ReSiDeNtS Taylor Kuffner debuting the GamelaTron robotic gamelan and Holland Hopson playing his customized MIDI banjo in an Appalachia-meets-robots performance. Then, Ben Neill presents the NYC premiere of new works for Mutantrumpet and LEMUR robots.

Thursday, April 10 @ 8 pm, $10
Issue Project Room @ The Old American Can Factory
232 3rd Street @ 3rd Avenue
Brooklyn

LEMUR photos

Holland Hopson — Mon, 17 Mar 2008 00:46:58 +0000

Here are a few more photos from the LEMUR show courtesy of Nicole Peyrafitte.

Max Lord playing the Marimba Lumina with the LEMUR’s GuitarBot on the left.

Max Lord, percussion (in the mirror) and Ellen Godena, dancer with LEMUR’s ModBots on the ceiling.

Holland with his extended banjo…gotta hit that pressure sensor just right…

Old Alabama

Holland Hopson — Thu, 13 Mar 2008 17:04:18 +0000

Here’s a video from my recent performance at LEMUR. It’s the first outing for this brand new piece, complete with all the hesitations, misfires, fuzziness and fun of a premiere.

I’ll be playing with the LEMURbots again in early April–details to be announced.Thanks to Nicole Peyrafitte for grabbing this video on-the-fly. Check out Nicole’s new blog, Collectages. (Yum…spÃ¤tzle.)

Monkey vs. Robot

Holland Hopson — Wed, 27 Feb 2008 01:40:22 +0000

This month’s residency at LEMURplex is coming to an end which means the performance is coming up soon! Details are below. It’s been great getting to work with the robotic instruments. I’m looking forward to performing some new pieces for clawhammer banjo and robots, and hearing the other artists’ work, too. Lucky for us we get an extra day this month to work the wrinkles out, or at least to iron our monkey suits.

Friday February 29th, 8pm – 11pm
ReSiDeNt @ LEMUR: New Works, New Instruments, New Artists
461 3rd Avenue (between 9th and 10th streets)
Brooklyn NY
$5 at the door

Holland Hopson will bring Old-Time Appalachia to LEMUR by creating new pieces for the LEMURbots and Tru One, his clawhammer banjo/sensor interface.
Zach Layton will create a new work for improvising live trio plus improvising robots.
Percussionist Max Lord will perform on the Marimba Lumina with choreographer Ellen Godena in a work for robot percussion and spontaneous robot-inspired movement

Hope to see you there!

Cross-blogging at LEMUR’s ReSiDeNtBlOg

Holland Hopson — Sat, 16 Feb 2008 15:29:43 +0000

LEMUR has launched ReSiDeNtBlOg for their artists-in-residence. There’s already some activity there from Zach and Max, and I just posted about reacquainting myself with dear Aunt MIDI. Go check it out.

LEMUR ReSiDeNts for February Announced

Holland Hopson — Fri, 25 Jan 2008 18:08:47 +0000

I’m pleased to have been chosen for a residency at LEMUR in Brooklyn for the month of February. Other artists-in-residence include Zach Layton and Max Lord. We’ll be presenting our work at the end of the month. Look for more information soon. The official announcement is below.

February ReSiDeNts Announced

We are happy to announce our second group of ReSiDeNts, who will be creating new works at LEMUR in February:

Holland Hopson is a composer, improviser, and electronic artist. Holland will bring Old-Time Appalachia to the League of Electronic Musical Urban Robots by creating new pieces for the LEMURbots and Tru One, his clawhammer banjo/sensor interface.

Zach Layton is a composer, improviser, curator and new media artist based in new york with an interest in biofeedback, generative algorithms, experimental music, biomimicry and contemporary architectural practice. His work investigates complex relationships and topologies created through the interaction of simple core elements like sine waves, minimal surfaces and kinetic visual patterns. He is planning to create a new work for guitar, sax, drums plus robots. The piece will be composed using an open score format encouraging improvisation among the human players and neural network software to encourage improvisation among the robots.

Max Lord is a percussionist who will be writing a new piece for the LEMUR robots in collaboration with NYC-based choreographer Ellen Godena. The score will integrate a live performance on the Marimba Lumina with robot percussion and spontaneous robot-inspired movement.

Artists from all performing and installation disciplines are encouraged to apply to ReSiDeNt, including musicians, composers, dancers, choreographers, video artists, interactive installation artists, performance artists, multimedia artists and others. To learn about applying to ReSiDeNt, visit http://lemurbots.org/resident.html. Deadlines are rolling, with March submissions accepted until February 18th.