The Post & Beam CD Release Party will be
Monday June 13, 8pm
The Arts Center of the Capital Region
265 River Street
Troy NY
I’m very pleased to have Century Plants and Matthew Carefully joining in on the fun.
Admission is $10 and includes one Post & Beam CD!
One from the archives: James Keepnews taking us to school in 2002. Photo: Chris Funkhauser
I’m super excited to reunite with partner James Keepnews for this duo show at Backstage Productions in Kingston on Friday June 3. We’ll be performing duets for saxophone, guitar and lots o’ electronics. There may be a banjo piece in there, too.
Our hosts for the night are the Woodstock Quantum Ensemble featuring Johnny Asia (guitar), Damon Banks (electric bass), Joakim Lartey (percussion) and Gus Mancini (reeds).
Fri, June 3, 2011 7:30 pm
The Woodstock Quantum Ensemble &
Holland Hopson/James Keepnews
Backstage Productions
Kingston, NY
$15
$10 students/seniors
Find all the info at AllAboutJazz.com
Jackie Goss’s film “The Observers” is being given its New York premiere at Anthology Film Archives as part of the Migrating Forms festival. The screening will be Sunday, May 22 at 2pm.
Jackie describes the “The Observers”:
The land and sky of Mt. Washington, New Hampshire form a frame for a meteorologist as she goes about the solitary and steadfast work of measuring and recording the weather. Inspired by the Nathaniel Hawthorne story “The Great Carbuncle,” this film features the extreme and varying beauty of the windiest mountain in the world.
Shot on 16mm film over the course of a year, “The Observers” is based on the actual work of the crew of the Mount Washington Weather Observatory — one of the oldest weather stations in North America where staff members have taken hourly readings of the wind speed, visibility, barometric pressure, and temperature since May 1932. In 1934, the staff measured a wind gust of 231 mph, which remains a world record for a surface station.
I’ve been privileged to be part of the production of “The Observers” along with Jesse Cain, Dani Leventhal, and Katya Gorker. I posted here, here, here and here about our experiences shooting at the top of beautiful Mt. Washington, NH. Since then I’ve composed music for the film, assisted Jackie with recording foley and worked on sound design. This has been a great project!
“The Observers” screened on the closing night of the Crossroads Festival in San Francisco, and will be shown again in early June at the Chicago Underground Film Festival. I’ll post details when I get them.
Hot off the letterpress… Here’s a sneak peek at the cover art for my forthcoming CD of music for banjo and electronics titled Post & Beam.
Many thanks to Travis Weller–composer, designer, letterpress operator, more–for all he’s done for this project. (Especially in light of the Austin New Music Co-op’s upcoming concerts of Cardew’s “The Great Learning”. Wish I could be there!)
Photo: Diana Cooper
Here’s a recording of a new piece called Everyone Looks to the Sky.
[audio:everyone_looks_to_the_sky.mp3]I made the piece and the recording during my recent residency with David Behrman at the Atlantic Center for the Arts. The work is for any sustaining instrument with computer (here, I’m playing the soprano saxophone). The computer produces a gradually rising tone that matches the first note of each gesture (see the score below). The result is–yes, more glissando music–and a curious kind of interactive piece that always ends the same way.
Here are the juicy bits from the score:
Gesture 1
• Play 5 notes in an ascending series, beginning near the lowest note on your instrument.
For a performance lasting 10 mintues, each note should last 7 or many more seconds. Each note should be separated by a rest of approximately 7 or many more seconds–at a minimum, allow enough time between notes to perceive the computer’s pitch rising. For longer performances, adjust the durations appropriately.Gesture 2
• Play 4 notes in an ascending series, beginning on any pitch lower than the last pitch of Gesture 1.
Durations of notes and rests are as in Gesture 1.Gesture 3
• Play 3 notes in an ascending series, beginning on any pitch lower than the last pitch of Gesture 2.
Durations of notes and rests are as in Gesture 1.Gesture 4
• Play 2 notes in an ascending series, beginning on any pitch lower than the last pitch of Gesture 3.
Durations of notes and rests are as in Gesture 1.Gesture 5
• Play 5 or more notes in an ascending series, beginning on any pitch lower than the last pitch of Gesture 4.
Durations of notes and rests are as in Gesture 1, with a few notes or rests lasting shorter than 7 seconds, if desired.
Repeat as needed until the piece ends. The last 4 or more pitches played should be near the highest note on your instrument.
The view of the Florida scrub outside my window
I’ve just returned from an energizing and productive residency at the Atlantic Center for the Arts where I worked with David Behrman and an inspiring group of fellow composers and performers. We shared our time there with an outstanding group of visual artists led by Diana Cooper and a delightful gathering of writers led by Victoria Redel.
Here are some signs found around the beautiful ACA campus. I’ll post recordings (and hopefully video) of the work I did there soon.
The Albany Sonic Arts Collective presents their first concert of 2011 with performances by some of the Capital Region’s most exciting experimental musicians including Century Plants with Matt Weston, Holland Hopson, SoundBarn and Insect Posse.
DEEP FREEZE: Experimental Music for Snowy Times
Saturday, February 19
8:00 pm
Upstate Artists Guild
247 Lark St.
Albany NY
$5 suggested donation
This will be my first Albany show of 2011 and my last performance before heading to the Atlantic Center for the Arts for a residency with David Behrman (more on that later…). I’ll be performing a set of music for soprano sax and computer. My current plan includes a piece using a DIY plate reverb as the primary electronic sound source.
More about the artists after the jump…
Tara Fracalossi and Thomas Lail slide up the neck during Swallowtail. Photo: Larissa Tapler
Here are recordings from last week’s soundBarn and Albany Sonic Arts Collective performance at the Arts Center Saratoga Springs. It was a great show all around: a good space, enthusiastic audience and focused performances. This is the definitive version of Swallowtail, and I think we’re all pleased with the performance of Rhys Chatham’s Guitar Trio.
[audio:01_swallowtail.mp3] [audio:02_guitar_trio_pt1.mp3] [audio:03_guitar_trio_pt2.mp3]
I’m excited to play with members of Albany Sonic Arts Collective‘s Century Plants and Insect Posse for a performance dubbed Plants and Insects. The event is part of Troy Night Out so it’s free and drop-in friendly (how else do you say “come on by and stay as long or little as you’d like?”).
Friday, August 26, 5-9pm
The Arts Center of the Capital Region
256 River St.
Troy, NY
Free!
Here are some photos of the sunset during the recent Mt. Washington shoot. Sounds will be coming soon!
Sunset light on the Tip Top House
For information about the film go to: http://observatoryfilm.com/
