Saturday, August 27, 2011

Neume (Canterbury/Ziefel/Hoskin)

This trio featuring Jesse Canterbury (clarinet, bass clarinet) Jenny Ziefel (clarinet, bass clarinet) and Paul Hoskin (contrabass clarinet) works with spontaneous composition in utterly refreshing ways. The range of sound defies expectation. Movements of passages are completely non-predictable. Conventional trio practice is ignored and/or dismantled. Foreground/background is of more interest than solo with accompaniment standards. All may bring home beauty and fascination...if nothing else.
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Thursday, August 25, 2011

The Box Is Empty plays Andriessen

The Box Is Empty, Seattle’s newest contemporary music ensemble, introduces itself with a performance of two works by the groundbreaking Louis Andriessen. The program offers the rare opportunity to hear Andriessen’s early masterpiece De Volharding (perserverence). The unrelenting Workers Union completes the program for an exciting insight into the music of one the last half-century’s most innovative composers. Come hear these works that helped to launch Andriessen from composer of the Dutch avant-garde to one of international influence and importance.
read moreThe Box Is Empty plays Andriessen

Friday, August 19, 2011

Larry Karush - The Wheel

For composer/pianist Larry Karush, improvisation is integral to the music he creates out of his roots in Jazz, Indian classical, Afro-Caribbean, western classical and 20th century music. This solo concert of his "comprovisations" will feature the northwest premiere of The Wheel, a large-scale piano work commissioned by the City of Los Angeles, and revised in 2009 during an artist-in-residency at the MacDowell Colony for the Arts (NH). Also on the program will be works by contemporary performer/composers (Bloom, Hammer), an unstandard treatment of a jazz standard, and a little 9/8 boogie-woogie.
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Saturday, August 13, 2011

Microdecibel, Horist, Moe!, Pinto/Young, DAIPAN-ha

Microdecibel (Lucio Menegon/Sabrina Siegel), Bill Horist, Moe! Staiano!, and Paul Pinto/Jeff Young will set up in different areas of the space, each playing short sets and handing the music off to the next artist, creating a continuous flow of sound. The butoh dance collective, DAIPAN-ha will provide a meditation/commemoration on the anniversary week of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
read moreMicrodecibel, Horist, Moe!, Pinto/Young, DAIPAN-ha

Friday, August 12, 2011

Neal Kosaly-Meyer: Gradus

Performed in memory of John Cage on the 19th anniversary of his passing, Gradus: for Fux, Tesla, and Milo the Wrestler is Neal Meyer’s piano composition in perennial progress, his systematic attempt to learn to play the piano one piano key at a time. It is also, among other things, a grappling with many core musical ideas either originating or strongly associated with John Cage. Silence, unintended ambient sound, severe compositional constraints, “letting sounds be themselves,” and a militant and purposeful devotion — all these key elements of Gradus derive from Neal Meyer’s long engagement with Cage’s thought and music.

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Thursday, August 11, 2011

Paper Kingdom

Paper Kingdom is the fourth in a series of experimental small press and mixed media events organized by Sharon Alexander. Come see handsome self-published and crafted things; live music in bursts and moments; aural textures; classic, obscure and reputed reads and other nebulous surprises. James Yeary, Portland poet and visual/performance artist will be featured reader, along with David Hrivnak, Traci Eggleston and Andrew Bleeker. Independent publishing projects and zines from Jason T. Miles and Profanity Hill, Nate Orton, James Yeary, Garek Druss, Martine Workman, Sam Lohmann and others. Sound installation by Hart Boyd accompanied by Jacques Shaver and David Hrivnak. Music performances by John Teske and multimedia artist Garek Druss. Visual art and sculpture by Nate Orton, Martine Workman, Kelly Bjork, Karl Seng, Arrington de Dionyso and others.

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Tuesday, August 9, 2011

Resonant Forms West Coast Tour

Four solo sound performances by West Coast artists: Jessika Kenney (Seattle), John Krausbauer (Portland), Ryan Gregory Tallman (Fresno), and Zachary James Watkins (Santa Cruz). Their works are intimate, textures unfold patiently, resonance is holy, and improvisation is unavoidable.

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Saturday, August 6, 2011

Unit Trio (Asplund/Campbell/Canterbury)

Unit Trio (Christian Asplund, electric viola; Greg Campbell, drums; Jesse Canterbury, bass clarinet + sound by Mell Dettmer) perform Asplund's Unit Series, a compendious epic of over 100 micro-movements in rock, funk, jazz, contemporary classical, minimalist, etc. textures that utilize quarter tones, irrational meters, canons of all sorts, polyrhythm, etc.
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Friday, August 5, 2011

Paul Kemmish: Small Sounds Played Quickly

Bassist Paul Kemmish, aka PK, offers four or five new pieces of music performed with Beth Fleenor on clarinet and Olli Klomp on drums, and four more compositions with special guest pianist Dara Quinn.
read morePaul Kemmish: Small Sounds Played Quickly