Avant Music News

Some shows this week from the Claudia Quintet:

The Claudia Quintet +1
*with special guest Theo Bleckman

February 27 – Yoshi’s, San Francisco, CA (link)
February 28 – Blue Whale, Los Angeles, CA (link)
February 29 – Cal State Fullerton, CA (link)
March 1 – Cal State Fullerton, CA (link) *
March 2 – 560 Music Center, St. Louis, MO (link)

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From ISSUE Project Room:

02/29 @ 7:00pm
Mivos Quartet Benefit Concert

On the extra day this year Mivos Quartet will be hosting our first fundraising event. Join us for a night of great music, food, drinks, a silent auction, and an after party! We will have three sets of music featuring works by members of Mivos, Annie Gosfield, Patrick Higgins, Alex Mincek, Tristan Perich, Ned Rothenberg, Timucin Sahin, Elliott Sharp, Sasha Siem, and JG Thirwell. MIVOS will be joined by guest artists Ned Rothenberg, Clarinets; Timucin Sahin, Electric Guitar and Sasha Siem, Vocalist/Composer performing with us their own compositions.

03/01 @ 8:00pm
S.E.M. Ensemble
+ Chris Nappi

S.E.M. Ensemble performs music where distance – both physical and symbolic – becomes a compositional factor. The program includes the premiere of new works by Cat Lamb, Andrew C. Smith, Beau Sievers and Petr Kotik, along with works by Natacha Diels, John Zorn and others performed by percussionist Chris Nappi.

03/02 @ 8:00pm
On Silence: Hommage to John Cage

“On Silence,” an event curated by composer Juraj Kojs, marks the centennial year of John Cage’s birth. The program will consist of 13 new compositions, each 4’33” long, referencing Cage’s infamous 1952 opus of the same name in which a pianist sits at the instrument for the assigned duration, occasionally turning score pages and making no intentional sounds.

Related articles

• Jim Jarmusch & Jozef Van Wissem played Issue Project Room, playing LPR w/ a “special guest” (brooklynvegan.com)

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From NYTimes.com:

Stephen Drury (Friday) The brilliant pianist Stephen Drury, an uncompromising artist with a repertory spanning Bach to Ligeti to John Zorn, has been a particular champion of John Cage. On Friday at the Issue Project Room he plays an all-Cage program, including Book III of the mesmerizing “Études Australes,” in which Cage selected pitches for the pieces from star charts of the Atlas Australis. At 8 p.m., Issue Project Room, 110 Livingston Street, with entrance at 22 Boerum Place, downtown Brooklyn, (718) 330-0313, issueprojectroom.org; $15, or $10 members. (Tommasini)

Kronos Quartet (Tuesday) This ever-inventive San Francisco-based quartet is joined by its original cellist, Jean Jeanrenaud, for a program of premieres that includes the first New York performances of Donnacha Dennehy’s “One Hundred Goodbyes,” Vladimir Martynov’s “Schubert-Quintet (Unfinished)” and Nicole Lizée’s “Death to Komische,” and the world premiere of Michael Hearst’s “Secret Word.” At 7:30 p.m., Zankel Hall, Carnegie Hall, (212) 247-7800, carnegiehall.org; $49 to $62. (Kozinn)

Music by Luigi Nono (Sunday through Tuesday) The Electronic Music Foundation mounts a brief but substantial series devoted to this groundbreaking Italian composer, electronic-music pioneer and advocate for social justice. On Sunday the pianist Stefan Litwin offers an illustrated lecture on Nono’s musical activism. Monday’s program includes works for voice, piano and percussion ensemble, and on Tuesday, Conrad Harris performs “La Lontananza Nostalgica Utopica Futura,” a gripping work for a solo violinist moving among eight sound-producing objects. Sunday at 2 p.m., Greenwich House Music School, 46 Barrow Street, West Village; Monday at 8 p.m., Frederick Loewe Theater, 35 West Fourth Street, Greenwich Village; Tuesday at 8 p.m., Judson Church, 55 Washington Square South, Greenwich Village; emfproductions.org. Sunday and Tuesday, $10 suggested contribution; Monday, free with reservations via events@emf.org. (Smith)

Red Light New Music (Monday) This enterprising new-music ensemble fashions an appealing program around two selections from “The Viola in My Life,” a splendid cycle by Morton Feldman, featuring the violist Erin Wight. Surrounding those works are newly commissioned pieces by Scott Wollschleger and Ted Hearne, and “Mercury Songbirds” by the consistently stimulating Keeril Makan. At 8 p.m., Symphony Space, 2537 Broadway, at 95th Street, (212) 864-5400, symphonyspace.org; $15, or $12 for members, students, 65+ and children. (Smith)

Tune-In Music Festival (Friday through Sunday) Returning for its second year, this ambitious festival at the Park Avenue Armory salutes the composer Philip Glass for his 75th birthday. On Friday Mr. Glass accompanies the rock singer Patti Smith in an evening of poetry, including selections by Blake and Ginsberg. Saturday evening’s program is devoted to Mr. Glass’s milestone composition “Music in 12 Parts.” A full day on Sunday includes a genre-flouting matinee at 2 p.m., a composers’ conversation at 5 p.m. and a rare performance of “Another Look at Harmony — Part IV,” featuring the Brooklyn Youth Chorus, the Collegiate Chorale and the organist Michael Riesman. Friday at 7:30 p.m., Saturday at 5 p.m. and Sunday at 2, 5 and 7:30 p.m., Park Avenue Armory, 643 Park Avenue, at 67th Street, (212) 933-5812, armoryonpark.org; Friday and Saturday sold out; Sunday $15 and $35 at 2 and 7:30 p.m., $10 at 5 p.m. (Smith)

Related articles

• Miscellany: Rouse, Clyne, Polignac, etc. (therestisnoise.com)
• John Cage turns 100; lots of shows & other ways to celebrate (brooklynvegan.com)

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From NYTimes.com:

Myra Melford’s Snowy Egret (Saturday) Revisiting compositional forms she first developed a handful of years ago — in homage to the “Memory of Fire” trilogy, by the Uruguayan writer Eduardo Galeano — Ms. Melford, a fearless pianist and harmonium player, leads an ensemble made up of fellow explorers. Its lineup notably includes Oguri, an accomplished Butoh dancer-choreographer; also aboard are the trumpeter Ron Miles, the guitarist Liberty Ellman, the bass guitarist Stomu Takeishi and the drummer Tyshawn Sorey. At 9 and 10:30 p.m., Jazz Gallery, 290 Hudson Street, at Spring Street, South Village, (212) 242-1063, jazzgallery.org; $20 cover, or $10 for members. (Chinen)

Mario Pavone Mythos Sextet (Friday) Drawing partly from “Mythos,” an album released a decade ago, and partly from “Arc Suite,” a more recent entry in the discography, the venturesome bassist and composer Mario Pavone leads a band well stocked with assertive improvisers: Dave Ballou on cornet, Tony Malaby on tenor saxophone, Philippe Crettien on soprano and tenor saxophone, Craig Taborn on piano and Gerald Cleaver on drums. At 9 and 10:30 p.m., Cornelia Street Café, 29 Cornelia Street, Greenwich Village, (212) 989-9319, corneliastreetcafe.com; $15, with a $10 minimum. (Chinen)

Matthew Shipp Trio (Tuesday and Wednesday) A restive, probing pianist, Matthew Shipp has toggled between trio and solo settings lately, featuring both on his 2011 album “The Art of the Improviser” (Thirsty Ear). He surfaces here in advance of a new release entirely for trio: “Elastic Aspects” (Thirsty Ear), a suite of sorts featuring the bassist Michael Bisio and the drummer Whit Dickey. At 7:30 and 9:30 p.m., Jazz Standard, 116 East 27th Street, Manhattan, (212) 576-2232, jazzstandard.net; $20 cover. (Chinen)

From Portland Eye and Ear Control:

3/7/12: Demolition Duo & Daniel Menche
The Outset Series at Revival Drum Shop with Daniel Menche & Demolition Duo
1465 NE Prescott
8pm -10pm (the show ends by 10pm so don’t be late)
$5 – 100%of the door goes to the musicians

3/2/12: Tim Berne‘s Snakeoil & Blue Cranes
Tim Berne / Snakeoil
Blue Cranes
Friday, March 2
Alberta Rose Theater (3000 NE Alberta St., Portland)
$12 advance here, $15 day of show

2/28/12: The Rich Halley 4
The Rich Halley 4, with Rich on tenor sax, Los Angeles trombonist Michael Vlatkovich, Canadian bassist Clyde Reed and drummer Carson Halley will perform on Saturday, February 25 at 9:00 PM at The Camellia Lounge, 510
NW 11th Ave. Cover is $5.

2/27/12: Portland Eye and Ear
Recess Gallery
1127 SE 10th ave
8:30-11:30pm

Join us for the second installment of Portland Eye and Ear, a monthly experiment presenting a series of abbreviated small group improvisations.

2/23/12: Wally Shoup & John Niekrasz
Wally Shoup
John Niekrasz
8:30-11:30
Laughing Horse Books – 12 NE 10th AVe
Shoup will read from his new book and play a duo with Niekrasz

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From Tuscaloosa’s Creative Campus:

Harris Eisenstadt and his critically acclaimed quintet Canada Day will lead off Sonic Frontiers, a cutting-edge avant-garde jazz series on The University of Alabama campus. The first concert will be at 7:30 p.m. Monday, Feb. 27, 2012 at UA’s Ferguson Center Theater. The concert is free and open to the public. The Sonic Frontiers series is designed to further artistic diversity on the UA campus, says series organizer Dr. Andrew Raffo Dewar, assistant professor in New College and the School of Music. The concerts will foster creative exchange among between music professionals, UA students, faculty and staff, and the greater community through performances and class visits by world-class performers of avant-garde jazz.

Subsequent concerts and events:

Wednesday, March 21: Saxophonist Jack Wright, the “Johnny Appleseed of free improvisation,” will visit a New College seminar and perform a community-outreach solo concert in a venue to be determined. For details, to go http://soundcloud.com/jackwright

Friday, April 6: Bassist and composer Trevor Dunn‘s Endangered Blood quartet from New York will perform at 7:30 p.m. in the Ferguson Center Theater. Dunn is known for his work with the rock band Mr. Bungle, but Endangered Blood is his avant-jazz project featuring internationally acclaimed musicians Jim Black on drums and Chris Speed and Oscar Noriega on saxophone. Endangered Blood on YouTube

Monday, April 23: A public screening of eminent ethnomusicologist Steven Feld’s 2009 documentary film about Ghanaian musician, inventor and visual artist Nii Noi Nortey, “Accra Trane Station: The Music and Art of Nii Noi Nortey,” will be at 5:30 p.m. in 132 Lloyd Hall.

Wednesday, April 25: Nii Noi Nortey, the acclaimed saxophonist and saxophone inventor from Accra, Ghana, will offer a two-day residency involving a concert of solos, duos and trios with Dewar and renowned Japanese-American percussionist Tatsuya Nakatani at 7:30pm on April 25th at the Ferguson Center Theater. Nortey’s visit includes four class visits at UA on April 25 and 26 in the School of Music and New College.

Related articles

• Sam Rivers, Pioneering Jazz Saxophonist/Composer, Has Died (current.com)
• Sam Rivers: Saxophonist at the cutting edge of jazz’s avant garde (independent.co.uk)
• Harris Eisenstadt’s Canada Day at Timucua white house- Sunday, February 26th (thecm5.com)