September 24-26, 2010 – Washington, DC

Audrey Chen & Tomomi Adachi, Myo, Bastard Squid Implant, Ghaphery/Barbiero March 19 @ Pyramid Atlantic

March 1st, 2010

Audrey Chen Myo BSI

Friday March 19
Doors 730pm Music 8pm SHARP
$8
PYRAMID ATLANTIC
8230 Georgia Avenue, Silver Spring MD 20910
301.608.9101
located three blocks south of the silver spring metro station (red line)
Free parking in gated lot out front
DIRECTIONS: www.pyramidatlanticartcenter.org
INFO: dc-soniccircuits.org

AUDREY CHEN is a Chinese-American musician who was born into a family of material scientists, doctors and engineers, outside of Chicago in 1976. Parting ways with the family convention, she turned to the cello at age 8 and voice at 11. After years of classical and conservatory training in both instruments, with a resulting specialization in early and new music, she parted ways again in 2003 to begin new negotiations with sound in order to discover a more individually honest aesthetic.

Now, using the cello, voice and analog electronics, Chen’s work delves deeply into her own version of narrative and non-linear storytelling. A large component of her music is improvised and her approach to this is extremely personal and visceral. Her playing explores the combination and layering of a homemade analog synth, preparations and traditional and extended techniques in both the voice and cello. She works to join these elements into a singular ecstatic personal language.

Recently, her primary focus has been her SOLO project but she is also involved in many various collaborations. Among musicians, she has worked with Phil Minton, Tetuzi Akiyama, Toshimaru Nakamura, Ko Ishikawa, Elliott Sharp, Aki Onda, Phill Niblock, Frederic Blondy, Jerome Noetinger, C. Spencer Yeh, Alessandro Bosetti, Mats Gustafsson, Mazen Kerbaj, Michael Zerang, Tatsuya Nakatani, Le Quan Ninh, Joe Mcphee, Susan Alcorn, Michele Doneda, Paolo Angeli, Gianni Gebbia, plus many more. Some current projects include: duos with Phil Minton, Frederic Blondy, Robert van Heumen, Katt Hernandez, Nate Wooley, and Id M Theft Able. Trio with Nate Wooley and C. Spencer Yeh. Plus three new quartet projects with Jeff Carey/Morten J. Olsen/Raed Yassin, Miya Masaoka/Hans Grusel/Kenta Nagai and also with Frederic Blondy/Michael Johnsen/Jerome Noetinger.

Chen has performed in Europe, Russia, Australia, New Zealand, China, Japan, Taiwan, Canada and the USA. She is currently based in Baltimore, MD USA but primarily maintains an active touring schedule throughout Europe. www.myspace.com/audreychen

ADACHI Tomomi (family name is ADACHI), born in Kanazawa, Japan in 1972, is performer, composer, sound poet, installation artist, occasional theater director. He studied philosophy and aesthetics at Waseda University in Tokyo. He has played improvised music with voice, live electronics and self-made instruments. He had composed works for his own group “Adachi Tomomi Royal Chorus” which is a punk-style choir. He has performed contemporary music: vocal and performance works by John Cage, Cornelius Cardew, Christian Wolff, Tom Johnson, Dieter Schnebel, TAKAHASHI Yuji, YUASA Joji and Fluxus including world premier and Japan premier. He is the only performer of sound poetry in Japan and has performed Kurt Schwitters’s “Ursonate” for the first time in Japan. He has made several sound installations and original instruments (e.g.”Tomomin”, his hand made electric instrument is familiar with many musicians). In the field of theater music, he has collaborated with some experimental theaters and dancers, especially he worked in duo group “VACA” with Un Yamada; contemporary dancer, from 2000. He also has organized many concerts which picks up experimental music, sound art, collaboration work and inter-disciplinary performance in Japan and Germany, include concerts for Chris Mann, Trevor Wishart, Nicolas Collins and STEIM in Japan. He has performed with numerous musicians including Jaap Blonk, Nicolas Collins, Carl Stone, SAKATA Akira, ICHIYANAGI Toshi, TANAKA Yumiko, dj sniff, Jerome Noetinger, FURUDATE Tetsuo, Dickson Dee, Zbigniew Karkowski, Johannes Bergmark, Erhart hirt, MAKIGAMI Koichi, Butch Morris, Jon Rose, OTOMO Yoshihide in Japan, United States and Europe. He has presented his works in many kinds venues include IRCAM/Centre Pompidou, Waker Art Center, STEIM, Experimental Intermedia Foundation, Tonic, The National Museum of Art Osaka, Super Deluxe, Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography, La Mama Theatre Melbourne, Anthology Film Archives, 21th Century Museum of Contemporary Art Kanazawa and Vooruit. As a critic, he has written some articles of visual art, music and performance art on papers and magazines. He had participated in the art theory bulletin “Method” 2000-2001. He started visual art (video and installation) in 2003. He directed Japanese premiere of John Cage’s “Europera5″ in Suntory Summer Festival in 2007. Recently, he is focusing his activities on solo performance (with voice, sensors, computer, self-made instruments), sound poetry (especially to the unknown great Japanese sound poetry tradition), video installation and workshop style big ensemble with non-professional voice and instruments.

http://www.adachitomomi.com

Myo – CD Release Party! Myo is the solo project of Cory O’Brien (b. 1980), a self taught hacker, computer musician and electro-acoustic improviser. Contact mics on polycarbonate sheets and feedback networks programmed in Pd and Max/MSP are the preferred tools. His music has been described by Vital Weekly as “louder, dirtier, gritty and angular, but still with ingredients of microsound”. Other projects and collaborations include Never Work (with Kenneth Yates of Harm Stryker, Insects with Tits), Makioki Sisters (with Jeff Surak / Violet) and Clouds-Out (with video artist Jesse Hartgraves). He currently lives and works in Washington, DC. Copies of his new CD on zeromoon will be available. http://myosound.com/

Bastard Squid Implant – Mutant spawn of Blue Sausage Infant, Pilesar, Nine Strings (Chester Hawkins, Jason Mullinax, & Gary Rouzer) all playing things, things, and yet more things. Such breeding is known to happen around these fertile parts.

Ghaphery/Barbiero: Duo of winds and double bass exploring improvisation at the intersection of sound and atmosphere.

Jimmy Ghaphery: Alto & tenor sax & flutes. From Richmond, VA. Original member of punk jazz outfit Hotel X touring and recording through the first 2 releases on SST Records (1992-1994). Since that time an increasing focus on free improvisation and extended techniques. Has performed and/or recorded with Matt Heyner, Coby Batty (Fugs), Pat Best (Pelt), Danny Finney (Rattlemouth/Orthotonics), Fred McGann (Pataphysical Revue), Sam Byrd, Pat Lawrence, Tim Harding, Technical Jed, Ian Davis, Jason Bivins, Michael Thomas Jackson, and Caustic Castle. Active projects include UPPERCASE, nOcAse and lowercase improvisation with New Loft and Ghaphery/Bivins/Davis. Recently completed “Path”, the fifth in an ongoing series of self produced releases of solo improvisations, which can be found on the netlabel, Music is Big Place http://www.archive.org/details/music-is-big-place.

http://www.myspace.com/newloft

http://www.myspace.com/ghapherybivinsdavis

A native of New Haven, CT, double bassist Daniel Barbiero has been active in experimental and improvised music in the Baltimore-Washington area for several years as a performer, composer, and bandleader. His music reflects his long-standing engagement with scalar and free improvisation, aleatory and graphic composition and contemporary extended string technique. In addition to performing with his own ensembles, he has supported Blue Note recording artist Greg Osby and composer Robert Carl. Recent/current projects and collaborations include Nine Strings, The Mindbreath Trio with Perry Conticchio, The Third Object Orchestra, work with pianist Nobu Stowe and electronic sound sculptor Lee Pembleton, and the ambient/surrealist/huh? trio Mercury Fools the Alchemist. In addition, he plays with Nancy Havlik’s Dance Performance Group.

http://www.myspace.com/dbarbiero

Zbigniew Karkowski, Michael Haleta, Liz Meredith & Travis Johns

February 20th, 2010

February 27

Saturday February 27
Doors 730pm Music 8pm SHARP
$8
PYRAMID ATLANTIC
8230 Georgia Avenue, Silver Spring MD 20910
301.608.9101
located three blocks south of the silver spring metro station (red line)
Free parking in gated lot out front
DIRECTIONS: www.pyramidatlanticartcenter.org
INFO: dc-soniccircuits.org

zbigniewZbigniew Karkowski was born in 1958 in Krakow, Poland. He studied composition at the State College of Music in Gothenburg, Sweden, aesthetics of modern music at the University of Gothenburg’s Department of Musicology, and computer music at the Chalmers University of Technology. After completing his studies in Sweden, he studied sonology for a year at the Royal Conservatory of Music in Den Haag, Netherlands. During his education, he also attended many summer composition master courses arranged by Centre Acanthes in Avignon and Aix-en-Provence, France, studying with Iannis Xenakis, Olivier Messiaen, Pierre Boulez, and Georges Aperghis, among others. He works actively as a composer of both acoustic and electroacoustic music. He has written pieces for large orchestra (commissioned and performed by the Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra), plus an opera and several chamber music pieces that were performed by professional ensembles in Sweden, Poland, and Germany. He is a founding member of the electroacoustic music performance trio “Sensorband.” Zbigniew has lived and worked in Tokyo, Japan for the past eight years, and is active in the underground noise scene there. Karkowski is currently on a residency at UC Santa Barbara in California.
http://www.myspace.com/zbigniewkarkowski

Michael Haleta
Michael Haleta (born in 1978 in Princeton, NJ) is an intermedia artist living and working in Atlantic Highlands, NJ. He studied the cello from an early age up until the guitar, effects pedals and free form improvisation peaked his interests in the generation of sound. “Everything starts from a dot.”-Kandinsky. Haleta is interested in individual sounds and bits rather than complete things. In terms of visuals, he graduated in 2001 with a BA in information design from the Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA). Haleta has worked and/or played together with numerous composers, artists and musicians, including: Paul Neidhardt, Stephan Moore, Shaun Flynn, 2673 (Kevin Winters), Rick Reed, Jeremy Sigler, Keith Rowe, Jason Urick, Kasper Toeplitz, Dawn Bendick-Haleta, Scott Smallwood, Seth Cluett, Dan Deacon, Zbigniew Karkowski, Jeff Donaldson, Andrya Ambro and more. A small portion of Haleta’s visual research can be viewed here: http://rse.sevcom.com/

Liz Meredith (b.1981) is a violinist, violinist, improviser, and composer originally from Baltimore, Maryland. Her music frequently moves toward the outer limits of musical genres, being influenced by rock, electronic, and contemporary instrumental music.

Liz has collaborated with an assortment of individuals, including songwriters, rock bands, electronic musicians, improvisers, and composers. She has composed concert music for The Esterhazy String Quartet, The Opabinia Quartet, and has composed various solo instrumental pieces as well. Other creative work includes making electro-acoustic music as both a soloist and collaborator, ambient music projects, and writing song-based pieces.

Liz received her Bachelor’s Degree in String Performance and Film Music from The Berklee College of Music (Boston, MA), and her Master’s Degree in Music Composition from Mills College (Oakland, CA).

Liz studied viola performance with Hank Dutt of The Kronos Quartet and music composition with Fred Frith.

Liz’s music can be listened to here: www.lizmeredith.com www.myspace.com/lizmeredith

Travis Johns (b. 1983) is a composer and sound artist from San Francisco, Ca. Using a combination of processed field recordings, sine wave oscillators and analog electronics, he attempts to weave textural tapestries of gestures, thoughts and experiences into a singular mass of infinite sonic possibilities, often nested somewhere between the stylistic footholds of free improvisation, dark ambient and harsh noise – sounding something like the distant swarming of well oiled mechanical bees woven with fissures of dark tones and noise rips.

He holds a B.M. in Technology in Music and Related Arts from the Oberlin Conservatory of Music, as well as an MFA in Electronic Music and Recording Media from Mills College, studies conducted with Chris Brown, Les Stuck and Hilda Paredes. To date, Johns has participated in residencies at such places as the Atlantic Center for the Arts and RPI’s Create @ iEar and is also a founding member of the Thinktank Collective, a new media arts organization and record label founded in 2004 in Oberlin, Oh.

His music has been performed extensively throughout the United States and abroad to a wide variety of audiences, including the Santa Fe International Electronic Music Festival (2005 & 2006), The 2007 Los Angeles Bent Festival and the 2009 International Live Looping Festival. Recordings of Johns are available from Thinktank Media, Vox Novus and Shinkoyo Records, among others. For more sounds and more information, please go to www.think-tankmedia.net, as well as myspace.com/thoughtcollection001.