Bang on a Can All-Stars – The Audience Calls the Tune

The Times reports how fan funding is allowing Band on a Can to play works of young composers.

When concertgoers think about how music is commissioned, they tend to consider it other people’s business: somehow the money is raised to pay for the works, and presumably the musicians decide what composers to invite. But the composers who run Bang on a Can, the new-music organization, decided that it would be good for the audience to have a stake in the creation of new pieces, and in 1997 they established the People’s Commissioning Fund — a grassroots project through which listeners could make donations toward commissioning works from young composers.

The resulting scores are performed by the Bang on a Can All-Stars in an annual People’s Commissioning Fund concert that is also part of the New Sounds Live series at Merkin Concert Hall.

The composers who benefited from this populist largesse this year were Lok Yin Tang and Kate Moore, whose works were played on Thursday evening.

Reblog this post [with Zemanta]

Wally Shoup On Tour

From Wally Shoup:

Ben Hall/Wally Shoup Duo Tour

Cleveland
Hessler House
wsg/Sam Goldberg
Saturday April 11
8pm

Toledo
Robinwood Concert House
wsg/ KBD
Sunday April 12
8pm

Columbus
Skylab
wsg/ Ben Bennett, John Bennett, Seldom Frequenci
Monday April 13
8pm

Pittsburgh
Most Wanted Fine Art
wsg/ Melissa St. Pierre
Tuesday April 14
8pm

Cincinnati
Art Damage Lodge
wsg/ Rattling Clouds
Wednesday April 15
9pm

St. Louis
Open Lot
Thursday April 16
wsg/ Dave Stone-Danny McClain Duo, Brain Transplant
Thursday April 16
9pm

Chicago
Enemy
Fred Lonberg-Holm, Anton Hatwich and Jaimie Branch
Spam Filter (Ben Boye/Dave Miller/Quin Kirchner)
Friday April 17
9pm

Detroit
2739 Edwin Hamtramck
wsg/ Michigun 16 reed instrument featuring John Olson of Wolf Eyes
Saturday April 18
8pm

Reblog this post [with Zemanta]

Bagatellen Reviews

From Bagatellen:

John Butcher – Resonant Spaces

In the summer of 2006, Arika invited John Butcher – together with Japanese artist Akio Suzuki – to perform in the Resonant Spaces event, an itinerary across several remote regions of Scotland featuring locations which, according to the organizers, would put the artists in the condition of being “informed by the acoustic space they found [...]

The Holy Modal Rounders Live and in the Studio on ESP

When I was first tapping the musical underground as I understood it in the 1990s, the term “folk-punk” flew around the ether, describing politically-charged acoustic music, done with a certain do-it-yourself aesthetic and pressed in very small runs. Of course, this term had very little to do with folk music as it happened in Greenwich [...]

Charles Evans – The King Of All Instruments

A pupil of Bill Zaccagni, David Liebman and Antonio Hart, and currently well known as the companion of adventures of (unrelated) trumpeter Peter Evans and bassist Moppa Eliott in the “microtonal bebop” gang The Language Of, Charles Evans’ artistic mission is focused upon the achievement of near-perfection on the baritone saxophone, which the aforementioned [...]

Reblog this post [with Zemanta]

Musique Machine Reviews

From Musique Machine:

The Idealist – I Am the Fire

The Idealist is Joachim Nordwall, known as a member of the Skull Defekts. This solo excursion may surprise people acquainted with the usually more extroverted, guitar oriented music that the latter band puts forth. I am the Fire consists of what might be termed industrial drone music, but beyond that, it defies description. It’s not clanking industrial noise, nor is it of the ear-piercing feedback variety. It’s quiet, almost silent at times. But underneath it all, there’s a pall which hangs over this music which is hard to shake.

Cisfinitum – Nevmenosis
Cisfinitum sound sits in a wonderful place between chorale and classical based ambience, subtle industrial and electronica elements to make music that’s both haunting & beautiful yet at times edgy and head swimming- but it’s always captivating and deeply atmospheric.

Human Larvae – Home Is Where The Hurt Is
“Thanks to: family and friends for inspiration”, it makes you wonder what inspiration this could be, as Home Is Where The Hurt Is drags you in into a pitchblack pool of noise, dark ambient and power electronics that seems to be an adequate depiction of nothing less than hell.

Jarrod Fowler – Percussion’ as percussion
‘Percussion’ as percussion presents it self as a fairly high brow and scholarly project and is supposable a reading/ performance of John Mowitt’s book Percussion: Drumming, Beating, striking; but in reality it’s an attack on the sonic sensors using wall noise, deeply layered and bewildering spoken word elements and overload sonic collages that take in TV chatter, crowd sounds, all manner of music and other sonic matter.

Reblog this post [with Zemanta]

All About Jazz Reviews

From All About Jazz:

08-Apr-09 Bushman’s Revenge
You Lost Me at Hello (Rune Grammofon)
Reviewed by John Kelman

06-Apr-09 Microscopic Septet
Lobster Leaps In (Cuneiform Records)
Reviewed by Joel Roberts

Reblog this post [with Zemanta]

Jazz Prospecting From Tom Hull

More reviews from Tom Hull

Paul Dunmall Sun Quartet: Ancient and Future Airs (2008 [2009], Clean Feed)
Denman Maroney Quintet: Udentity (2008 [2009], Clean Feed)
Michael Blake/Kresten Osgood: Control This (2006 [2009], Clean Feed)
Trinity: Breaking the Mold (2006 [2009], Clean Feed)
Gypsy Schaeffer: New Album (2008 [2009], PeaceTime)
Rova: The Juke Box Suite (2006 [2007], Not Two)
Larry Ochs/Rova Special Sextet/Orkestrova: The Mirror World (2005 [2007], Metalanguage, 2CD)

Reblog this post [with Zemanta]

New Clean Feed releases for April 21st

From Clean Feed:

CF 140 – Herculaneum “Herculaneum III“
Nick Broste – trombone
John Beard – guitar
Greg Danek – bass
Nate Lepine – flute
David McDonnell – alto saxophone and clarinet
Partick Newbery – trumpet and flugelhorn
Dylan Ryan – drums and vibraphone

cf-1411

CF 141 – Lucky 7’s “Pluto Junkyard“
Jeb Bishop – trombone (guitar on “The Dan Hang”)
Jeff Albert – trombone and bass trombone
Josh Berman – cornet
Keefe Jackson – tenor saxophone
Jason Adasiewicz – vibes
Matthew Golombisky – double bass (electric bass on “The Dan Hang”)
Quin Kirchner – drums

cf-1433

CF 143 – Transit “Quadrologues”
Jeff Arnal – percussion
Seth Misterka – alto saxophone
Reuben Radding – bass
Nate Wooley – trumpet

cf-1441

CF 144 – João Paulo / Dennis González “Scapegrace”
João Paulo – piano
Dennis González – Bb cornet and C trumpet

cf-1451

CF 145 – Avram Fefer / Eric Revis / Chad Taylor “Ritual”
Avram Fefer – alto, tenor and soprano saxophones, bass clarinet
Eric Revis – double bass
Chad Taylor – drums

Reblog this post [with Zemanta]