I’ll be doing an installation version of the piece for an upcoming show at BRIC Arts in Brooklyn Heights entitled Water Water Everywhere, which will open on 3/16 and run until 4/30.

You can read about the earlier performance here, and also listen to an interview about the piece I did for Art on Air.

A final performance of Uninhabited has been added for this coming Friday, 11/5, at 7pm.  As with the previous two performances, this one will accompany my six-channel sound installation, Moving Parts, and The Fourth Space, Cecilia Dougherty’s fantastic show of video art.

The performers for this final show at Participant are Joshua Modney on violin, Argeo Ascani on saxophone, Kathy Supove on piano, and Mike McCurdy on drum set.  Very excited to hear yet another combination of instruments tackle this score!  (a post with some pictures of and reflections on the score is forthcoming).

Endless thanks to Lia Gangitano, Participant’s founder and director, for allowing me so much freedom to experiment, and to Cecilia for inviting me to what has been a truly enriching collaboration. If you have not yet checked out her work, do so now:  http://www.ceciliadougherty.com.

If you can’t make it on Friday, The Fourth Space and Moving Parts are on view through this Sunday, November 7.

Participant is located at 253 E Houston St., between Norfolk and Suffolk.

I was thrilled to be part of this interview along with composer/sound artists Charles Lindsay and Annea Lockwood.  It was a particular thrill to be on the show with Annea, who is one of the masters of the soundmap form, and in part from whom I drew the inspiration to do this new work (In fact, she’s on to talk about her newest river work, Soundmap of the Housatonic River. Previously, she has mapped the Hudson and the Danube.)

Standing Water is a soundmap in that the recorded material marks locations along a particular route, but it differs from Annea’s work in two important ways: 1) I take slightly more liberty with the material.  Annea’s work is remarkable for how little she does to it – she uses great mics and finds amazing natural sounds.  Standing Water is largely faithful to the original recordings, but a couple of the movements are more edited, and 2) There’s an instrumentalist.  Eleonore Oppenheim is lending her incredible artistry on solo double bass, playing in counterpoint with the recordings.

Standing Water is going to be performed on Saturday, October 30, at 8pm, at White Box.  I curated this particular evening, entitled New York Soundscape, which will also feature works by Paula Matthusen, Miguel Frasconi, and Jennifer Stock.  Four very different types of work on the theme of water in New York City.

More info on New York Soundscape

More info on the complete Ear to the Earth festival

Before I take a little break, though, there are three more events this month, the first of which is tonight, Thursday, October 14, from 7-8pm. It’s the premiere of a new work, Uninhabited, a graphic score to accompany my generative sound installation, Moving Parts, running all month at Participant on the lower East side. Tonight’s show features four amazing and innovative musicians: Eileen Mack (bass clarinet), Jessie Marino (cello), James Moore (electric guitar), and Mike McCurdy (drums). As the installation runs and the players play, you’re invited to walk around the gallery and check out The Fourth Space, a show of video art
by Cecilia Dougherty.

Next Thursday, October 21, we’ll do Uninhabited again with a slightly different lineup.

Finishing out the month, on October 30th, is the premiere of another new
work, Standing Water: A Soundmap of the Gowanus Canal, featuring the incomparable bassist Eleonore Oppenheim. More information on this one coming soon.

Moving Parts, a six-channel generative sound installation based on the rhythms and resonances of the built environment.

being presented with The Fourth Space, a video installation by Cecilia Dougherty

October 3 – November 7, at Participant in New York City’s Lower East Side.
Opening reception October 3, 7-9pm.
Gallery hours: Wednesday – Sunday, 12-7pm

Live musical performances in concert with the installations on Thursdays, October 14 and 21, at 7pm, featuring Eileen Mack (clarinet), Jessie Marino (cello), James Moore (guitar), and Mike McCurdy (percussion).

More information below.

The Blue and White Concert: The Book of Changes is an experimental world music performance, which fuses traditional Korean rhythms with contemporary Western music.  The concept of this concert derived from the ancient Chinese book, the I Ching, which teaches that all aspects of life on earth change through the balance of dynamic opposite, known as the yin and yang.

The show features Vong on a battery of traditional Korean percussion instruments (and wii remotes), Eddy Martinez on electric guitar, Jorge Mesa on bass, Robert Aaron on saxophone, and myself on laptop.

The concert is Saturday, September 25, at 7:30pm in the Kumble Theater at Long Islang University.  For more information, and to purchase tickets, visit http://www.vpstageny.com/.

Tomorrow (Monday, 6/21), Mantra Percussion is performing if when without itself, for 3 drumsets and (wii-controlled) electronics as part of the annual Make Music NY festival (the performance is in the archway under the Manhattan Bridge in DUMBO, and starts at 5pm.  More info here.)  They’ll also be playing their KILLER arrangement for drumsets of Xenakis’s Okho.

Then on Wednesday, 6/23, choreographer Tzveta Kassabova, a frequent collaborator these last few years, is premiering her new dance/multimedia work, Memoria, as part of the Source festival in Washington, DC, for which I composed several 2-4 minute sound pieces.  The piece will play again on Friday, June 25.

Also on Friday is my good friend Barry’s wedding.  Barry was a classmate during my undergrad years at Connecticut College, and is now a lawyer and successful blogger.  Check out his blog, Is it Luck?, where he mixes awe at the natural world and the universe with awe at the stupidity of the American religious right, using equal parts sincerity and humor.  I’m a huge fan of his writing, as are more and more people – if you haven’t clicked, yet, click.  Now.  Anyway, I wrote a string quartet for his wedding ceremony, which I’m thrilled will be performed by Joanna Frankel, Guy Figer, Erin Wight, and Yoed Nir.  Sorry not to be able to invite you all to this one, but I’ll put up a recording later this month.

Lastly, on Sunday, my old friend and classmate from MSM, fellow composer Ronna Na Rong will be playing a short movement for piano which I wrote a couple years ago while in residency at MacDowell.  It’s a small piece of which I’m fond, and which I wrote for no particular occasion (probably why it’s never been performed yet).  This performance will be during the New York Composers Circle monthly salon, in the Symphony Space Thalia Rehearsal Studio on Sunday, 6/27, at 3:30 pm.  I’m curious about this group – seems like an interesting network of musicians, and they invite any and all NY-based composers to present a work at their monthly salons.  Jacob Goodman is the coordinator, and has been great to work with so far.  We’ll see how it goes.  (you can check out their site here)

Looking forward to a busy week of performances, then a short rest, and then diving into three exciting projects that are happening in the fall (which ought to occupy my entire summer).  More on these soon.

I end up rather conspicuous, hunched over large manuscript paper with my automatic pencil and straightedge. I suppose it’s natural that some would be curious and come over and ask me what I’m doing. The first question is usually, “Are you writing music?”.  I’m always tempted to say something snarky like, “No, I’m scrambling eggs,” but I never do. I just say yes, which is in almost every case enough to elicit awe-struck bulging eyes or a “wow….”. It reminds me just how few people there are that actually do this (not composing – but specifically writing notes on staves).   I think, if the guy at the table next to me were sketching designs for a building, I’d feel the same way. It wouldn’t matter whether it were any good. I’d just be amazed to see someone with those faculties at work, because they’re so mysterious to me.

The usual follow-up is, “What kind of music do you write?”. This is a tricky on for me. How do I explain what I do to the (probably) uninitiated? “Classical,” to most people, means Mozart. “Electronic” means Ace of Base. “Experimental” means nothing, except perhaps the vulgar stereotype of the performance artist wearing scuba gear and angel wings and peeing on the American flag while reciting Shakespeare sonnets in binary code. Give me a minute or two, and I can explain it pretty well, but I feel that that’s giving them more than they bargained for. I usually end up just telling them in very broad strokes about the piece I’m currently working on, often no more than the instrumentation. Again, this tiny piece of information is met with wows and impressed expressions. (I wish it was this easy to impress audiences and my peers).

In any case, today, it was an elderly woman who asked me the above questions. I explained that I was working on a piece for 3 drumsets and electonic sounds, to b played in the Make Music NY festival next month.   Her response: “It’s not that metal, is it?”. I assured her it wasn’t metal, and she said, “Good. That stuff’s just too much. No one wants to hear that.” I smiled. She asked when the concert is, and then said she’d try to come. I really hope she does, although if so, I may feel compelled to lower the threshold on my limiter.  No one wants shouts of “Keep it down!” during a premiere.

The premiere will be June 12 at the CD release party for the electric guitar quartet Dither. The party starts at 7 at The Invisible Dog in Brooklyn (map). You must check Dither out – they are incredible.  The lineup for the release party includes a ton of amazing performers, including Mantra, Kathleen Supové, Elliott Sharp, Nick Didkovsky, Loud Objects, Love Like Deloreans, Matthew Welch, Redhooker, and The Deprivation Orchestra of NYC (and, of course, Dither themselves).

Mantra are then playing the piece again 9 days later, June 21, as part of this year’s Make Music NY.  Other works on the program are by Xenakis and Mantra percussionist Mike McCurdy.  I will update shortly with exact time and location and other details.