At the Roulette in First Half of December

From roulette.org:

For immediate release
ROULETTE presents
20 Greene St (between Canal and Grand St)
8:30 PM Admission $15 Students $10 MEMBERS FREE
TICKETS/RSVP: 212.219.8242

contact: press@roulette.org http://www.roulette.org/

ROULETTE DECEMBER CONCERTS

12/1: Judy Dunaway; Ryoko Mizutani
12/2: Brenda Hutchinson
12/3: Adam Rudolph – GO: Organic Orchestra
12/7: Ben Goldberg
12/8: Christopher McIntyre with Ne(x)tworks, TILT Brass Band and Lotet
12/9: Robert Dick & Ursel Schlicht
12/10: Jennifer Choi with Marco Cappelli & Vongku Pak
12/11: Aaron Siegel & Chris Peck
12/14: Hans Tammen & the Third Eye Orchestra
12/15: Sylvie Courvoisier & Mark Feldman
12/16: Joel Harrison
12/17: Jim Staley, Ikue Mori & John Zorn

Friday, December 1st
Judy Dunaway

³Judy Dunaway: Mother of Balloon Music² CD Release Party
In celebration of her upcoming CD on Innova Records, Roulette presents a
concert featuring Judy Dunaway (balloons) in improvisational duets and trios
with Tom Chiu (violin) and Damian Catera (electronics.) Since 1990, Dunaway
has created over forty compositions for balloons as sound producers and also
has made them her main instrument for improvisation. She has presented her
work throughout North America and Europe at many well-known venues and
festivals including Lincoln Center Out-of-Doors, The Edna and Roy Disney
Center, the Bang On A Can Festival, the Guelph Jazz Festival, Podewil and
ZKM. Her discography includes recordings on the CRI and Outer Realm labels.
Ms. Dunaway holds a M.A. in Music from Wesleyan University and a Ph.D. in
Music Composition from SUNY Stony Brook.

Ryoko Mizutani

Ryuko Mizutani studied both classical and modern koto music under the
world-renowned koto masters Kazue and the late Tadao Sawai. As a member of
the Kazue Sawai Koto Ensemble, she has performed in Europe, South Asia and
the US in festivals of traditional and new music (Bang on a Can, etc.) In
1999 Ryuko received a fellowship from the Japanese Government Overseas Study
Program for Artists to study improvisation and new music with Anthony
Braxton and Alvin Lucier at Wesleyan University.

Saturday, December 2nd
Brenda Hutchinson

Composer/sound artist Brenda Hutchinson performs with her Long Tube, a
self-built, invented instrument that extends the voice FAR beyond the body,
using sculptural, acoustic and electronic means. She also will present
documentation from The Bell Project, a 5-week long cross-country performance
piece involving collaborations and interactions with random strangers. Check
out: http://thebellproject.blogspot.com/

Hutchinson is a composer and sound artist whose work has been presented at
international festivals in New Zealand, Europe, Latin America and Canada.
Venues in the United States include Lincoln Center, Merkin Concert Hall and
The Kitchen (in New York,) New Langton Arts, The Lab and the Exploratorium
(in San Francisco) and “Soundprint” on NPR.

Her works include performance and composition for dance, opera, film, video
and radio and multi-media interactive installations. Her work makes
extensive use of language, stories and ambient and sampled sounds. Brenda
often acts as a catalyst for experiences involving other people, whose
stories and/or performances are recorded and shared with other audiences
through Brenda’s work in performance and radio. She continues to develop a
body of work she refers to as ³Collaborating with Strangers² that is
characterized by large-scale or long-term interactive works with people she
doesn¹t know.

Brenda received the Gracie Allen award from the American Women in Broadcast
Television and Radio. In 2005, she was awarded the Ucross Residency. Other
commissions and awards have come from the American Composers’ Forum,
National Endowment for the Arts, Meet the Composer/Reader’s Digest, the
McKnight foundation, NYSCA, NYFA and California Arts Council.

Since 2002, Brenda has been on the faculty at the Milton Avery Graduate
School of the Arts at Bard College. She has been an artist in residence at
San Quentin Prison, Headlands Center for the Arts, Harvestworks, the
Exploratorium and Djerassi. Recordings of her work are available through
TELLUS, Deep Listening, the Aerial, O.O. DISCS, Frog Peak Music and Leonardo
Music Magazine.

Sunday, December 3rd
Adam Rudolph
Go: Organic Orchestra

Go: Organic Orchestra is a 25-30 piece ensemble consisting of woodwinds
(flutes, clarinets — B-flat, bass and alto — bansuri flute, bassoon, oboe
and bamboo flutes,) string players and hand drummers/percussionists (udu
drums, congas, drum kit, djembes, riq, frame drums, tabla, dumbek, bata and
gongs.) The Orchestra is made up of many of Los Angeles¹s leading
performers, from both ³jazz² and ³classical² backgrounds as well as young
developing musicians. Guest performers have included Yusef Lateef,
percussionist Big Black, poet Saul Williams, singer Dwight Tribble and
flutist James Newton.

The music of Go: Organic Orchestra is inspired by observing and reflecting
upon the elements and qualities of nature. The invention of the
notation/conducting system grows out of Rudolph’s ongoing desire to
experiment with new creative processes. In concert, the conducting is
performed in service of the moment; that is, listening and imagination
inform the unfolding of musical gestures. The musicians are called upon to
bring forth their ideas and experiences.

The group is the winner of the LA Weekly Music Award for an Outstanding
World Music Artist (2003 & 2005.) The LA Weekly writes: ³This is it.
Percussionist Adam Rudolph has been watering Go: Organic Orchestra for
several years, and it keeps growing. The concept combines Rudolph¹s lush
harmonies and vivid structures as he conducts his large semicircle of
players via cue scores and hand signals to produce a surging, shifting sound
with plenty of room for individual spark.² The music ³is truly organic ­ a
blend of gentle sustained dissonance, heaven-crashing rhythm jams and
individual improvisations. No joke: a startling and involving development in
roots music, with more to follow.² (LA Weekly)

Originally from Chicago, composer and hand drummer/percussionist Adam
Rudolph has appeared at festivals and concerts throughout North & South
America, Europe, Africa and Japan. In 1988 Rudolph began his association
with the legendary Yusef Lateef, which lasts to this day. He has recorded
fourteen albums with Dr. Lateef and has performed worldwide with Dr. Lateef
in ensembles ranging from their acclaimed duo concerts to appearing as guest
soloist with Köln, Atlanta and Detroit symphony orchestras.

Since the 1970s Rudolph has been developing his unique syncretic approach to
hand drums in creative collaborations with many masters of cross-cultural
and improvised music such as Sam Rivers, Pharaoh Sanders, L. Shankar and
Fred Anderson. He especially is known for his innovative small group and duo
collaborations with Don Cherry, Jon Hassel, Wadada Leo Smith and Omar Sosa.
Since 1992 Rudolph has lead his own performing ensemble, ³Adam Rudolph¹s
Moving Pictures,² featuring drummer Hamid Drake, Ralph Jones, and
Venice-based Butoh dance innovator Oguri. The group has performed in both
Europe and the United States, and has released several CDs featuring
Rudolph¹s compositions. In 1995 he premiered The Dreamer, an Opera based on
Friedreich Nietzsche’s Birth of Tragedy.

In 1990 he was commissioned by the LA Festival to create and lead Vashti
Percussion Ensemble with percussionist masters from Bali, Iran, India,
Lebanon and Java. The ensemble still performs annually. In the 1980s Rudolph
was artistic director of ³World of Percussion² under the auspices of World
Music Institute at Symphony Space (NYC.)

In 2001 Rudolph founded Go: Organic Orchestra, a 22-piece woodwind and
percussion ensemble dedicated to developing his unique compositional and
rhythmic concepts in a large group format. In concert, Rudolph
improvisationally conducts the ensemble using his own innovative process.
The group has recorded three CDs to date.

Adam Rudolph is known as one the early innovators in what is now called
³World Music.² In 1977 he co-founded The Mandingo Griot Society with Gambian
Kora Griot, Foday Musa Suso, one of the first bands to combine African and
American music. In 1988, he recorded the first fusion of American and Gnawa
(Moroccan) music with Sintir player and singer Hassan Hakmoun. From 1998 to
2001 Rudolph performed at the Festival D¹Essaouira in Morocco in
collaboration with many leading Gnawa Maleems (masters.) For two of those
years he was artistic director and curator of ³Calling Across the Water² an
acoustic collaboration between American, Bambara and Gnawa musicians at that
festival.

He has received grants and compositional commissions from the Rockefeller
Foundation, Meet the Composer, Mary Flagler Cary Trust, the NEA, Arts
International, Durfee Foundation and American Composers Forum.

Thursday, December 7th
Ben Goldberg

Clarinetist/composer Ben Goldberg presents new works for quintet and pieces
from his recent CD, the door, the hat, the chair, the fact
(Cryptogramophone.) The recording and tonight¹s program feature a set of
compositions dedicated to Steve Lacy, with whom Goldberg studied and worked
closely. Dubbed ³one of the greatest clarinetists I’ve ever heard” by John
Zorn, Goldberg¹s New Klezmer Trio ³kicked open the door for radical
experiments with Ashkenazi roots music² (San Francisco Chronicle.) He
currently works with the Tin Hat Trio, the Myra Melford Quintet and the
trio, Plays Monk. A leading figure in ³Radical Jewish Music,² Goldberg has
played with everyone from George Lewis to Masada to Alvin Curran. He can be
heard on the recent Nels Cline record New Monastery: A view into the music
of Andrew Hill. Tonight with Carla Kihlstedt (violin,) Rob Sudduth (tenor
saxophone,) Trevor Dunn (bass) and Ches Smith (drums.)

Friday, December 8th
Christopher McIntyre

Composer and trombonist Christopher McIntyre has been developing a number of
large ensemble projects in the past few years, both as a leader and
collaborator. Several of them will fill Roulette’s stage during this event,
including TILT Brass Band, Lotet and Ne(x)tworks. A thread that carries
through each group is both technical and spiritual: mapping the space
between composition and improvisation. In the process of making pieces for
these bands, an immersive and colorful aesthetic has emerged in McIntyre’s
work. Tonight’s program offers a full evening of this repertoire, as well as
new works commissioned by Roulette with support from the Jerome Foundation
and performed by an impressive array of new music¹s heaviest-hitters,
including Joan La Barbara, Cornelius Dufallo, Miguel Frasconi, Peter Evans
and Nate Wooley.

The first half of the performance features scores written for the
composer/performer band Ne(x)tworks. The set includes the premiere of
Herkimer, a hybrid multimedia score of cellular and strategic notation.
Ne(x)tworks is Joan La Barbara (voice,) Stephen Gosling (piano,) Kenji Bunch
(viola,) Yves Dharamraj (cello,) Cornelius Dufallo & Ariana Kim (violins,)
Shelley Burgon (harp,) Miguel Frasconi (glass instruments,) Peter Evans
(trumpet) and McIntyre (trombone.)

Members of the McIntyre-led ensembles TILT Brass Band and Lotet, along with
some very special guests, join forces on the second half to perform a set of
isomorphic musical structures. Grouped in pairs, the instrumentation on hand
fuses the timbral bliss of TILT with the low frequency undulations of
Lotet’s live-electronics. With: Nate Wooley & CJ Camerieri (flugel horn &
trumpet,) Curtis Hasselbring & Joe Fiedler (trombones,) Ron Caswell, Joe
Exely (tubas,) Charles Waters (bass clarinet,) Colin Stetson (bass
saxophone,) Kato Hideki, John King (electronics,) Ryan Sawyer, Mick Rossi
(percussion) and McIntyre (trombone & conductor.) Visit
http://www.cmcintyre.com for more info.

Saturday, December 9th
Robert Dick & Ursel Schlicht

Flutist/composer Robert Dick and internationally acclaimed pianist Ursel
Schlicht, ³two virtuosi whose talent for stretching their instruments and
minds allows them to paint with more colors and textures than flute and
piano have any right to expect” (Gene Santoro) present an evening of music
that integrates composition and improvisation and radically expands the
sound world and expressive possibilities of flute and piano, featuring
piccolo to contrabass flute with inside & out piano.

Ursel Schlicht is an internationally active pianist, composer & improviser.
She has played improvised music, jazz, new music and world music throughout
Europe, North America, Russia, Mexico and Australia, and has recorded on
Leo, Cadence, CIMP, Hybrid, Konnex, Muse-Eek and Nemu Records.

Current projects include duos with Robert Dick (Photosphere, Nemu Records
2005,) Reuben Radding (Einstein¹s Dreams, Konnex 2005,) Bruce Arnold (String
Theory, Muse-Eek 2005) and Hans Tammen (celebrating 15 years of
collaboration with a special concert in Germany this fall,) as well as her
ensemble Ex Tempore (Jamie Baum, Kyoko Kitamura, Balla Kouyate, Thomson
Kneeland, Ravish Momin, Take Toriyama,) No Fear Act (Ned Rothenberg, Robert
Dick, Tomas Ulrich, Ken Filiano, Klaus Kugel,) projects with the Laura Andel
Orchestra and more. Schlicht has written for large and small ensembles,
dance theater and improvisational scores for silent film. She holds a
doctorate from the University of Hamburg and is currently teaching courses
on Improvisation and Music & Gender at Ramapo College. Please visit
http://www.urselschlicht.com

Robert Dick — improviser, composer, author, teacher and inventor — is
known worldwide for redefining the flute, creating revolutionary visions of
its musical role. His music is rooted in free improvisation, new jazz and
classical music, contemporary and traditional. Dick has played solo concerts
throughout the Americas, Europe, Asia and Australia. He¹s released numerous
solo recordings and performed and recorded with New Winds, Tambastics,
Oscura Luminosa, the Soldier String Quartet, the A.D.D. Trio, King Chubby,
Ursel Schlicht, Paul Giger, Jaron Lanier, Randy Raine-Reusch, Barry Guy,
Mari Kimura, Klaus Kugel and many others.

Dick¹s many pedagogical works, including the book The Other Flute: A
Performance Manual of Contemporary Techniques, are considered the standard
bearers in their field. Current compositional projects, all commissioned,
include a woodwind quintet, saxophone quartet and a piece for solo piccolo.

For the past quarter century, Dick has contributed to the evolution of the
flute. Emerson Musical Instruments manufactures the Robert Dick Model bass
flute. Brannen Brothers Flutemakers, the leading maker of fine flutes
worldwide, produces his invention, the telescoping Glissando Headjoint®,
which acts as a ³whammy bar² for the flute. Please visit http://www.robertdick.net

Sunday, December 10th
Jennifer Choi, Marco Cappelli & Vongku Pak

Tonight¹s collaboration brings together compelling creations by three
uniquely individual musicians for the first time. The adventurous,
unrelentingly innovative violinist Jennifer Choi, known for her soulful and
direct interpretations of classical new music and improvisations in the
Susie Ibarra Trio, plays alongside the imaginative, ultra-dexterous Marco
Cappelli (Extreme Guitar Project) and fuses their virtuosic string playing
with the dynamic folk rhythms of Vongku Pak (Korean drums) in written and
improvised collaborations in this not to be missed event.

Jennifer Choi has charted a career that breaks through the conventional
boundaries of solo violin, chamber music and creative improvisation.
Dedicated to becoming a master performer of works by her contemporaries, her
playing concentrates on the goal of taking new music to another level of
understanding. For the past ten years, she has performed and recorded over
fifty new compositions, including the World Premiere of Goetia, one of John
Zorn¹s most recent and challenging works for solo violin. Since graduating
from the Juilliard School in 2000, she has daringly ventured into the world
of improvisation, making use of her virtuosic technique in groundbreaking
collaborations with the likes of John Zorn, Ikue Mori, Leo Wadada Smith,
Erik Friedlander and Susie Ibarra.

After years of intense studies (first at Conservatorio di S. Cecilia in Rome
and then konzert-klasse at the Musik Akademie in Basel with Oscar Ghiglia,)
Marco Cappelli has been the protagonist of an extraordinary artistic path,
along which he smoothly oscillates from the most rigorous music writing to
the practice of improvisation. Among the founders of the acclaimed Italian
contemporary music group Ensemble Dissonanzen, Cappelli currently lives in
New York, where he is involved with the contemporary and avant-garde music
scenes. His projects include his solo project, EGP – Extreme Guitar Project
– Music from Downtown New York (ten original compositions dedicated to him,)
as well as his collaborations with Jim Pugliese¹s Phase 3, with Butch
Morris¹ Nublu Orchestra and with bassist Kato Hideki, with whom Marco
co-leads the Tremolo of Joy quartet. Cappelli has recorded for the Italian
label TDS as well as the prestigious American label Mode Records.

Traditional Korean dance and drumming are artistic and expressive art forms,
with roots drawing from and combining the traditions of shamanistic ritual,
farmers’ music and folk storytelling. Trained by master drummers in Korea in
various styles of poongmul and samulnori, Vongku Pak brings to us this
dynamic and dramatic music. Pak’s music tonight brings to fruition his
visionary ideas about performing traditional Korean folk music along with
various other world music styles. Pak is the artistic director of VP
Performing Arts Production Co. and has been featured in international tours
across fifteen different European countries, the Brooklyn Academy of Music,
Carnegie Hall, the Out-of-Doors Festival at Lincoln Center and on Fox TV’s
Good Day New York. He can be heard on recordings on the Xtatica and Ishle Yi
Park labels.

Check out: http://www.jenniferchoi.com, http://www.marcocappelli.com &
http://www.koreandrum.org/

Monday, December 11th
Aaron Siegel & Chris Peck

Composers Aaron Siegel and Chris Peck share an interest in methodical,
process-based compositions that unfold over an extended period of time. Both
artists work with unconventional acoustic sound sources, including plastic
recorders, undisciplined singing, resonant metals and ceramic bowls. The two
new works presented this evening are the result of their collaborative
effort to deal with a large ensemble of performers from a variety of
disciplines and backgrounds, including untrained musicians and
self-described ³non-artists.²

Aaron Siegel is a Brooklyn-based composer and percussionist. His most recent
concert of new works was a collaboration with composer Sabrina Schroeder at
the Chocolate Factory in Long Island City in May 2006. He is currently at
work on a new composition for the chamber ensemble Till by Turning that will
be presented in a series of concerts in March 2007. A forthcoming recording
of recent works entitled Every Morning, A History will be released in
February 2006 on Peacock Recordings. Check out: http://www.aaronsiegel.net

Chris Peck is a Michigan-born, Brooklyn-based composer primarily concerned
with listening, field recording, live performance and improvisation with the
computer, collaboration with visual and dance artists and organizing large
ensembles. He makes music with Manpack Variant (with Jaime Fennelly) and
x2764 the band and directs the Brooklyn Adult Recorder Choir, a
thirty-member acoustic noise ensemble, with choreographer Beth Gill. His
collaborative work includes commissioned scores for choreographers John
Jasperse, David Dorfman and Ming Yang/Dance Forum Taipei, installations with
Fritz Welch and The Intensity Police Are Working My Last Gay Nerve with
video artist Charles Atlas. Check out: http://www.intermittentmusic.com

Thursday, December 14th
Hans Tammen & Third Eye Orchestra – Available Forms for Jazz

Hans Tammen’s latest project, the Third Eye Orchestra, is inspired by Earle
Brown’s Available Forms. In tonight’s performance, various sections of
musicians are given scores with modules from 2-36 bars in length, but the
conductor is free to choose which modules to play next. Combining
improvisational aspects with open form composition, the conductor uses the
orchestra as an instrument, while each performer shapes the music through
virtuosic improvisation and the individual stylization of musical
performance.

The music focuses on polyrhythmic/polymetric structures, by playing several
meters at once, or adding lines of rhythms on top of each other. Soloists
experiment with all kinds of sounds, or microployphonic structures, wherein
a layer of sound is created through carefully crafted small events. The
music reminds us of Miles Davis’s Bitches Brew period or of Steve Coleman,
juxtaposed with Györgyi Ligeti’s micropolyphonic works or Steve Reich’s
phase pieces.

With Mari Kimura (violin,) Jason Hwang (violin,) Stephanie Griffin (viola,)
Tomas Ullrich (cello,) Briggan Kraus (alto sax, baritone sax,) Marty Ehrlich
(bass clarinet, alto sax,) Robert Dick (flute, contrabass flute,) Detlef
Landeck (tuba,) Dafna Naphtali (voice, live sound processing,) Ursel
Schlicht (piano,) Deman Maroney (piano,) Stomu Takeishi (bass,) Satoshi
Takeishi (percussion) and Hans Tammen (conduction/concept.)

Friday December 15th
Sylvie Courvoisier & Mark Feldman

Pianist Sylvie Courvoisier, known for her work with John Zorn, Ikue Mori,
Yusef Lateef, Tim Berne & her own group, Abaton or Mephista, performs with
violinist Mark Feldman for an evening of exciting improvisations and new
compositions. Feldman has performed with John Zorn, John Abercrombie & Dave
Douglas, among others, and is known for his entirely original and self-made
approach to violin improvisation. Courvoisier and Feldman have been
performing together internationally since 1996, with regular appearances
throughout the USA and Canada. Check out:
http://www.sylviecourvoisier.com/e/doc/form_co_leader_c.htm#.

Saturday, December 16th
Joel Harrison – The Wheel

Hailed ³the music of the future² (Irish Times,) composer/guitarist Joel
Harrison¹s compositions blend Appalachian, African and modern classical
sensibilities. Praised as a ³brilliant, take-it-anywhere guitarist² (Village
Voice,) Harrison¹s new work, The Wheel, comes from a longstanding
determination to make music that equally represents improvisation and
notation, balancing the joy of spontaneity with the structural rigor of
composition, as realized by two classic ensembles from their respective
worlds, string quartet and jazz quartet. The improvisation stems from a
bedrock of notation, and comes in a variety of forms, allowing for seamless
transitions between the soul and spontaneity of improvising and the
structure of written notes, resulting in a kind of music that truly is its
own new world.

Guitarist/composer/singer/arranger Harrison occupies a musical space between
many worlds. His medium is primarily jazz, but Harrison’s music has various
influences that cover the entire musical spectrum and each have a place in
his unique voice. He has recorded seven CDs as a leader since 1996, most of
which feature his own compositions. His CD, Free Country (creative Jazz
renditions of old Country and Appalachian tunes) received worldwide acclaim
and was chosen as one of the top 50 CDs of 2003 by Jazz Times magazine. He
is a two-time winner of the Jazz Composer’s Alliance Julius Hemphill
Composition Competition and has written numerous film scores for HBO, A&E
and others. He is a recipient of grants from Meet the Composer, Arts
International, NYSCA and the American Music Center and is a MacDowell Colony
and VCCA Fellow. In 2006 he received two composition grants from Chamber
Music America. Harrison’s latest CD is Harrison on Harrison (Highnote
Records,) an album of jazz explorations of George Harrison’s music.

With: Christian Howes (violin,) Caleb Burhans (viola,) Wendy Sutter
(‘cello,) David Binney (alto sax,) Ralph Alessi (trumpet,) Lindsey Horner
(bass) and Dan Weiss (drums)

Check out: http://www.joelharrison.com

Sunday, December 17th
Jim Staley, Ikue Mori & John Zorn

Playing together for twenty-six years, and still not out of breathÅ 

Roulette rounds up its fall season with a night of stellar ear-bending,
mind-altering and earth-shattering improvisations by a trio of downtown¹s
most innovative and invigorating musicians/creators. With their individual
work and as a trio, Staley, Zorn and Mori have been challenging and
reinventing our ideas about music for over a quarter-century Å  and tonight
should be no different. Each of these three boasts a virtuosic musicianship,
a true vision and a tireless commitment to furthering the most far a-field
forays into the improvised and experimental music traditions. Staley
(trombone,) Zorn (sax) and Mori (percussion/electronics/visuals) are
tried-and-true, award winning, effortlessly impressive and, most
importantly, endlessly adventurous.