Things are slowly coming back to normal.  The concerts and installations that kept me so incredibly busy between May and November are all finished.  All my stuff is back home (I try not to think about the total value of everything I left in a gallery for 5 weeks – a laptop, a MOTU interface, 7 speakers, cabling…), my studio is set up again, and cleaned up a bit, Ben is in school 3 mornings a week… the dust is clearing.

One thing I finally have a chance to turn my attention to is the 60+ photos I took with my iPhone while I was out recording the Gowanus.  One was published on the Times site. But there’s a bunch of others I think are kind of interesting.  I had given some thought to doing a slide show during the performance of Standing Water a couple weekends ago at White Box, but decided ultimately that I wanted that night to just be about music.

Here’s a few of the photos.

Just a quick announcement:

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.

A friend just pointed out to me an addition that was made to Friday’s post in the City Room blog about my new piece, Standing Water: A Soundmap of the Gowanus Canal.  I knew I couldn’t be the first person to create work using the sounds of the Canal, and early in the process of putting the piece together, I even looked around online for precedents, but I came up empty.  Apparently, I’m a substandard googler, as Andy Newman now points out in his post: “Mr. Stevens is not the first sound artist to visit the [Union Street] bridge. An installation, “Gowanus Phonoscope,” at the Hall of the Gowanus mini-museum nearby includes three-dimensional images and sounds from the bridge.”

I am going to head over there next chance I get to check out the installation, but in the meantime, I was able to find another piece by the same artist, Kevin. T. Allen, on his website, a work called Gowanus Over/Under-Water.  Take a listen – it’s really breathtaking.  Makes me realize how much I have to learn about field recording.

Mr. Allen’s site is fabulous.  I love what I’ve listened to so far, and I love his ideas.  Do go and check it out!

Andy Newman did a very nice piece for the New York Times City Room blog about tonight’s Ear to the Earth concert at White Box.  The post includes excerpts from works by Paula Matthusen, Jen Stock, and me.  More info on the concert here and here.

Here’s my interview with David Weinstein for Art on AIR, about my upcoming premiere, Standing Water: A Soundmap of the Gowanus Canal, to be performed this Saturday as part of the 2010 Ear to the Earth festival.

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

Coming toward the end of one of my busiest periods I’ve had. It’s been a wonderful couple months, working with some of my favorite musicians and artists.

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.

Announcing the premiere of:

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.

I’m excited to be taking part this coming Saturday, September 25, in the premiere of The Blue and White Concert: The Book of Changes, the latest creation of my friend and frequent collaborator, traditional Korean Drummer Vongku Pak.

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/.

Here’s a video of Mantra Percussion performing my new work, if when without itself, under the Manhattan Bridge during the Make Music NY festival back in June.

(note: the video is missing the first 30-40 seconds of the piece)

here’s the link: http://www.vimeo.com/13870266

This coming week is a really interesting one.  Four performances, all very different.

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.