Salvatore Sciarrino premiere at Monday Evening Concerts

December 9, 2009 — Mike
Salvatore Sciarrino, Italian composer, at the ...
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From the Los Angeles Times:

Though laudable, the Los Angeles Philharmonic’s West Coast, Left Coast festival left out a lot. It told the story of California music from John Adams’ angle — our pioneer spirit, our vital connection with Latin American and Asia, our remove from Europe’s high Modernism and its avant garde. Pierre Boulez, for instance, was viewed through the distorting lens of Frank Zappa rather than as an influential mother of invention who made his first big impact on America at the Monday Evening Concerts.

That crucial series, begun 70 years ago in a rooftop studio in Silver Lake, has had its ups and downs. Now it is up again and riding high, and the first concert of the season on Monday night did what the series has been doing especially well of late at the Colburn School’s Zipper Concert Hall. It made us less provincial by presenting the U.S. premiere of a major work by Salvatore Sciarrino.

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Interview: The multi-faceted Douglas Ewart

December 9, 2009 — Mike

From the Independent Ear:

The group photo of modern day renaissance men should include Douglas Ewart. A saxophonist & all-round woodwind specialist and composer from Jamaica who emigrated to Chicago as a young man and currently splits his time between the Windy City and Minneapolis, is an intrepid instrument maker, award-winning visual artist, teacher, soothsayer, and all-around seeker in the truest sense of the word. The former president of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM), Ewart is one member of that famed musicians’ collective who chose to stay in the midwest and ply his craft, though he is a world traveler whose musical exploits may actually be more familiar to overseas audiences than even in his own backyard. A man of many and varied — often unusual and unprecedented — projects, commissions, and boundless ideas, when I heard about one of his latest projects I had to ask questions.

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Upcoming Seattle Shows

December 9, 2009 — Mike

From Wayward Music:

FRI. 12/11, 8 PM – Seattle Phonographers Union CD release concert + Perri Lynch solo set, field recordings
SAT. 12/12, 8 PM – Seattle Phongraphers Union (different line up than above) + Christopher DeLaurenti solo set, more field recordings
THU. 12/17 – Eye Music performs graphic scores by Mieko Shiomi, William Hellerman, Cornelius Cardew, Boguslaw Schaffer, Greg Bright , and Earle Brown
SAT. 12/19 – Vance Galloway & Rafael Irisarri, ambient/drone for guitar, piano, electronics
WED. 12/23 – Marc Smason, trombone & Perry Robinson, clarinet + friends, out jazz
FRI. 1/8 – Seattle Composers Salon, artists TBA
SAT. 1/9 – Seattle Pianist Collective
FRI. 1/15 – Seattle Percussion Collective
FRI. 1/22 – Is That Jazz? Festival, artists TBA
FRI. 1/23 – Is That Jazz? Festival, artists TBA
FRI. 1/29 – Is That Jazz? Festival, artists TBA
FRI. 1/30 – Is That Jazz? Festival, artists TBA
SAT. 2/5 – Laura DeLuca, clarinet
FRI. 2/12 – Seattle Improvised Music Festival, artists TBA
FRI. 2/13 – Seattle Improvised Music Festival, artists TBA
FRI. 2/19 – Seattle Improvised Music Festival, artists TBA
FRI. 2/20 – Seattle Improvised Music Festival, artists TBA
FRI. 2/26 – Garrett Fisher Ensemble, new chamber opera
FRI. 2/27 – Garrett Fisher Ensemble, new chamber opera

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Sonomu Reviews

December 9, 2009 — Mike

From Sonomu:

Various Artists, A Selection of Drones Past: Singles 1993-2000 (2 CD tUMULt)
“Singles released by a single minded label.” Clever. But Drone Records is indeed what it is. A primarily vinyl conduit for one of artiface´s most misunderstood genres, the drone. The drone, as this grand, double disc showcase reveals, can be so many things, from floatation tank bliss to… [read]
Posted by Stephen Fruitman at 04:30, 09 Dec 2009

Celer, Brittle (Low Point)
Brittle is one of Celer´s most modest works, what in its rough state might have been the relative cacophony of an array of acoustic instruments and field recordings, now rendered smooth by its hands, one long unbroken drone that is anything but brittle. Shifts occur occur constantly and subtly,… [read]
Posted by Stephen Fruitman at 04:22, 09 Dec 2009

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Musique Machine Reviews

December 9, 2009 — Mike

From Musique Machine:

Nundata – Inundata
Nundata is a rather mysterious noise project I’ve seemingly been able to find little about…it’s even unclear were the project comes from some sources claim Japan others Serbia. Inundata is the first of a trilogy of concept albums, but like the project it’s self’s it’s difficult to find any info on what the story is behind the album the only clue we have is the track titles “Last Iceberg collapse” & “Tsunami Warrior” -which don’t really help much.Anyway as well as all it’s mystery Nundata builds a rather original & distinctive sound here which is through is certainly grounded in noise mangers to take influence from wider experimental music forms & genres too

L’Acephale – Malefeasance
L’Acephale are a Portland Oregon based project who brew up a damned & blacken mixture of: dark ambience, darken folk matter, rhythmic military industrial tendencies, sampled vocal elements that go from monk wail to folky chants, field recordings & black mettlics.

Action Beat – The Noise Band from Bletchley
This is Action Beat’s second album & they offer up with it twelve slices of memorable, big sounding, riff based instrumental music that is a mixture of punk, spiky metallic’s, tuneful hardcore & the odd touches of jazz horn honks.

Terra Sancta – Disintegration
Terra Sancta are a Australian project who has been involved in the creation of the most arid and desolate soundscapes since the mid 90´s. “Disintegration”, their latest effort, is a full lenght CD release on US Malignant Records and is a monument of cinematic wasteland and deeply buried mysticism.

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