2011 Sonic Circuits Festival
2011 Schedule
Tuesday September 13 - MiG Bar 8pm | $5
Prefest Fundraiser with
Slut Walk
Lost Civilizations
Immanent Voiceless
Wednesday September 14 - AFI Silver Theatre 8pm | $12
STYLUS presents live soundtracks performed on 10 vintage record players and two cellos to two classic silent experimental films, James Sibley Watson and Melville Webber's Lot In Sodom and Man Ray's Emak-Bakia.
Thursday September 15 - The Mansion at Strathmore 8pm | $12
Okkyung Lee
Annette Krebs+Violet
Unmediated: Movement + Sound - Sharon Mansur & Daniel Burkholder (dance) with Cory O'Brien, Luke Stewart, Paul Neidhardt (music)
Music from the Film
Friday September 16 - Pyramid Atlantic 8:30pm | $12
The Haters
Les Rhinocéros
Valentina Vuksic
Elena Aitzkoa
Infant Factory
Rind (Doug Stailey & Beau Finley)
Saturday September 17 - Veterans Plaza 5pm | FREE
Anthony Pirog conducts Terry Riley's "In C"
Performers:
Jocelyn Frank - oboe
Aaron Martin Jr. - Alto Sax
Rob Muncy - Tenor Sax
Rebecca Steele - Viola
Erin Flynn - Viola
Janel Leppin - Cello
Leo Svirsky - synth
Anthony Pirog - Guitar
Larry Ferguson - Vibraphone
Carrie Ferguson - Glockenspiel
John Steel - Acoustic Bass
Kevin Pace- Acoustic Bass
Daniel Barbiero - Acoustic Bass
Kenny Pirog - Pitched Rhythm
Saturday September 17 - Pyramid Atlantic 7pm | $15
Sudden Infant
N Ensemble -
(Bjornar Habbestad - flute, electronics, noise,
Nicolas Field - drum kit,
Jeff Carey - the usual,
Will Redman - drum kit,
Marc Miller - guitar,
John Dierker - Sax)
Prehistoric Horse
Rinus Van Alebeek
Miguel A. García
nine_strings_trio + movement
Ezramo
Safe, Fast & Effective
Sunday September 18 - Veterans Plaza 3pm | FREE
Silver Spring Sound Machine curated by Layne Garrett
Public collective creation/construction/performance of a large rolling sound sculpture/junk instrument. Bring resonant objects, fishing line, twine, scrap wood, rubber bands, cheap battery powered cassette recorders, hinges, pulleys, percussion mallets, screwdrivers, children, friends, etc. Afterwards we will drive/ride/push/play this thing around the neighborhood. For more info or to help out please email laynegarrett(AT)questionthetruth(DOT)com
Sunday September 18 - Pyramid Atlantic 7pm | $15
The Voltage Spooks (Keith Rowe, Rick Reed, Mike Haleta)
John Butcher
Janel Leppin, Samita Sinha & Julia Ulehla
Jesse Kudler & Ian Fraser
Barn Owl
Festival Pass: $50, $40 students w/ID
Tickets available online at dc-soniccircuits.org and at the door.
All shows start promptly at time indicated. Doors open 30 minutes before showtime. Shows are all ages.
Artists
ANNETTE KREBS [GERMANY]
Annette Krebs studied music and concert guitar in Frankfurt/Main, and now lives and works in Berlin as a freelance composer, improviser and sound artist. She explores the aesthetics and tension between tone and noise, action and silence and the possibilities of a dramaturgic free and abstract music. Since 2003, she has intensified her research in mixing instrumental tones, noises, field recordings and spoken language. In her pieces, all sound is accorded equal importance as musical material: fragments of language are integrated with tonal and rhythmical abstract instrumental sounds, noises and silence.
Krebs is currently exploring music that incorporates loudspeakers, in compositions that combine loudspeakers and performers in improvisation and in multimedia collaborations with video artists. She has participated in many concerts and festivals, among them: Donaueschinger Musiktage, Germany; Vancouver New Music and Musique Actuelle, Canada; What is Music, Australia; Exposition of New Music, Czech Republic; Musique Action, France; the London Musician's Collective (LMC) Festival, UK; no idea festival, USA; Dublin Electronic Arts Festival (DEAF), Ireland; as well as the Nous Sons and Festival International de Música Contemporánea de Alicante, Spain. Annette Krebs has released CDs on several labels, including: Erstwhile (NY): Olof Bright (Sweden): Charhizma (Vienna); Fringes (Italy); Another Timbre (UK); Soseditions (NY); Grob (Cologne); CDR-X (self releases); Potlatch (Paris); and Improvised Music from Japan. Her music has been presented and reviewed in Nutida Music (Stockholm), His Voice (Czech Republic), Positionen (Germany), The Wire (UK), along with Deutschlandradio, Deutschlandfunk and WDR 3 radio (Germany).
ANTHONY PIROG [DC]
A Jazz guitarist by training, having graduated from New York University's music school and having spent time at the Berkelee School of Music, Anthony Pirog has further honed his talents delving into freely improvised music. DCist.com blog called Pirog “technically brilliant and able to take that brilliance into the experimental realm." He has pushed the limits of the guitar to produce this intimate recording which is at times cacophonous, meditative and forcefully brutal, while never losing touch with his signature thoughtful deliberateness. Pirog performs as well with Janel Lappin (cello) as duo, Janel & Anthony, and adds his talents to indie-rock band Skysaw, which features Jimmy Chamberlain (former drummer with Zwan and Smashing Pumpkins) and Mike Reina (main vocals, keyboards/piano and guitar).
Barn Owl
As Barn Owl, Evan Caminiti and Jon Porras have released nearly 10 albums. Last year’s included Ancestral Star, their Thrill Jockey debut, as well as Headlands, a collaboration with drone instrument builder Ellen Fullman and her Infinite Strings Ensemble. Both Owls fly solo, too, most recently with Caminiti’s When California Falls Into the Sea. Thrill Jockey recently released their Shadowland EP in June, and a new LP is due out in September. They have shared the stage with the likes of OM, Lichens, The Body, and are playing this years Hopscotch Festival in Raleigh, NC.
With glowing reviews on Pitchfork, NME, Mojo, and many more, this young and fast-growing duo bridge the gap between broader, older universe of free improvisers that splattered out of the jazz scene in the late 60s and the german-rock scene in the 70s, and the sound of new school Earth and other drone luminaries. Caminiti and Porras are two guys using the ever-evolving language of guitars and electronics, and have managed to find a few timely frameworks in their drone desert blues and occasionally silvery acoustic flashes.
CORY O’BRIEN [DC]
Cory O'Brien/Myo is a self taught hacker, computer musician and electro-acoustic improviser. Contact mics on polycarbonate sheets and feedback networks programmed in Max/MSP are his preferred tools. His music has been described by Vital Weekly as "louder, dirtier, gritty and angular, but still with ingredients of microsound." Other projects include Never Work (with Kenneth Yates), Makioki Sisters (with Jeff Surak) and Clouds-Out (with video artist Jesse Hartgraves). He currently lives and works in Washington, DC.
DANIEL BURKHOLDER [DC]
Daniel Burkholder is a dancer/choreographer/improviser and director of The PlayGround, co-director of Improv Arts, inc., and serves on the Steering Committee for the West Coast Contact Improvisation Festival. Daniel and his company received a 2006 Metro DC Dance Award for Outstanding Group Performance in a Dance Production. Daniel's work has been presented at John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, Dance Place, Lisner Auditorium, The Warehouse Theater, The H Street Playhouse and numerous other venues throughout the D.C. region as well as in New York City, San Francisco and the Mid-Atlantic states. He holds degrees from Sarah Lawrence College, American University and is a Guild Certified Feldenkrais Practitioner. Daniel currently teaches at George Washington University, Joy of Motion Dance Centers, and CityDance Center at Strathmore. Daniel has also taught at the West Coast Contact Improvisation Festival, at numerous universities, and as guest teacher for Cirque du Soleil. Daniel Burkholder/The PlayGround is a project of Improv Arts, Inc. and in residence at Joe’s Movement Emporium in Mount Rainier, Maryland.
http://web.mac.com/theplayground/Site/Welcome.html
ELENA AITZKOA [SPAIN]
Elena Aitzkoa is a sculptress, painter and poet born in the Basque Country. Physicality is very important in her sculptures, texts and living. In dance she uses her body as image of the earth. Trans
attitude. Feminine posture. As cofounder of Club
L´larraskito (Bilbao), she loves improvising. Currently she is lives and works in Madrid. She has made
exhibitions and performances in places like: Artium, Museum of Contemporary Art in Vitoria;
Azala creation space in Araba; El Tanque Gallery in Santa Cruz de Tenerife; Sala Rekalde, Carreras
Múgica Gallery or Bulegoa in Bilbao; DT scenic space in Madrid.
kreared.com/en/proyectos/elena-aitzkoa
EZRAMO [GERMANY]
Alessandra Ezramo aka EZRAMO (b. 1982, Italy) is a sound artist, composer, and performer who now lives and works in Berlin. Her research is focused upon the hidden archaic memory in music. Working with musiqueconcrète sounds, her own history and identity are intended as part of a collective memory. Her works include compositions, videos, music for theatre and Butoh-dance, live performances and installation in interactive and site-specific forms. Her main instrument is the voice, which she radically extends its technical possibilities and combines with acoustic instruments like prepared zither, piano, percussion, Theremin and with field recordings.
THE HATERS [CALIFORNIA]
Artist/writer GX Jupitter-Larsen is based in Hollywood, California. During the 1990’s he was the sound designer for the performances of Mark Pauline's Survival Research Laboratories, the premiere self-destructing mechanical performance art spectacle of its’ time. His best known work is as the founder and only constant member of the noise act The Haters. The current Haters performance is a piece entitled "Loud Luggage / Booming Baggage", in which amplified suitcases burst, crackle and explode with sound. Underlying much of Jupitter-Larsen's work is a self-created lexicon of personalized units of measurement such as the polywave, the totimorphous and the xylowave. The Loud Luggage performance is a sonic reference to the xylowave, which he defines as “the distance between nothing and something". The Haters have performed all over America and in 15 nations across Europe & Asia, appearing on over 400 CD, vinyl or cassette releases.
INFANT FACTORY [DC]
Insect Factory is music from Silver Spring, Maryland musician Jeff Barsky. Insect Factory generally focuses on texture and mood, building layers of sound that slowly evolve into hypnotic and atmospheric drones. Insect Factory has recently released a split 7-inch with RST (New Zealand). For Sonic Circuits 2011, Jeff will collaborate with Chester Hawkins’s Blue Sausage Infant project, as Infant Factory.
Since the 90's, Barsky has continuously played in bands and improvisational collectives, and has performed frequently on the east coast of the U.S., as well as in Canada, throughout Europe, and Japan. His first proper release, Air Traffic Control Sleep, was released on Insect Fields in the late summer of 2007, to acclaim from the likes of The Washington Post, The Wire (UK), and Terrascope. Barsky’s various projects have shared the stage with acts as diverse as Bardo Pond, Richard Pinhas, Nels Cline, Acid Mothers Temple, and Carla Bozulich, and he has performed at Suoni Il Per Popolo festival in Montreal, previous Sonic Circuits festivals/events, and Terrastock 7 in Louisville, Kentucky. Insect Factory has recently released a split 7-inch with RST (New Zealand), and also recorded a follow-up full-length for release in later 2011.
JANEL LEPPIN [DC]
Since early childhood, Janel has been playing the cello. She has a music degree in cello performance, with a focus on classical and world music. She has studied North Indian classical music in India and the Netherlands and she also performs with the Chakavak Ensemble specializing in Persian Classical Music. For the last several years, she has been experimenting with free improvisation and has applied effects pedals to her instrument. The duo Janel & Anthony is an experimental group that tours the US for whom she writes and collaborates with electric guitarist Anthony Pirog. Currently she has immersed herself in Jazz and is improvising with groups in the Washington area. For the 2011 Sonic Circuits festival, Janel will perform as part of the STYLUS turntable ensemble and with Samita Sinha and Julia Ulehla in a trio of two voices and cello.
Jesse Kudler and Ian M. Fraser [Philadelphia]
Jesse Kudler and Ian Fraser have been intensely focusing on their duo project for the past 18 months, after working together in various groupings for several years. Combining Fraser's digital laptop programming and Kudler's analog, instrumental, and mechanical devices, the duo creates busy, detailed pieces that are informed by computer music aesthetics, electro-acoustic improvisation, noise, contemporary composed music, field recordings and silence. Kudler studied music at Wesleyan University and is the co-founder (with Fraser) of the Philadelphia Sound Forum. He creates improvised music on guitar, synthesizer, electronics, radios and tapes, and has performed with Toshimaru Nakamura, Christine Sehnaoui, Jason Soliday, Jack Wright, Bonnie Jones, Jason Kahn, Mike Shiflet, and many others. Ian M. Fraser is a computer musician working in free improvisation and algorithmic based composition. His primary focus has been on generative structures, pseudo-artificial intelligence, stochastic processes and networking systems for audio/visual output. Current projects include Keroaän, a computer music duo with Reed Evan Rosenberg, an improvised duo with Jesse Kudler as well as his own solo material. He is the co-founder of the Philadelphia Sound Forum.
http://ianmfraser.wordpress.com/
www.jessekudler.com
JOHN BUTCHER [ENGLAND]
Tenor and soprano saxophone player John Butcher's work ranges through improvisation, original compositions, multi-tracked saxophone pieces and explorations of feedback and extreme acoustics. Originally a physicist, Butcher left academia in 1982, and has since collaborated with hundreds of musicians – including Derek Bailey, The EX, Gino Robair, Rhodri Davies, John Edwards, Toshimaru Nakamura, Eddie Prevost, John Russell, John Tilbury, Christian Marclay, Paal Nilssen-Love, Phil Minton and Steve Beresford. A well known soloist, he's released seven CDs of solo saxophone music, recently exploring unusual site-specific acoustics. He has toured and been broadcast in Europe, Japan, North America and Australia, and was featured playing on the BBC program Date with an Artist.
"English saxophonist John Butcher is without question the most jaw-dropping technician we’ve ever heard wielding a tenor, equally capable of brawny assault and textural meditations at the very edge of audibility. What makes him so compelling, though, is the taste and poetry behind everything he does; lately he’s been involved in detailed investigations of unusual acoustics, close-miking and amplification to further extend his aural palette." Time Out - New York
"In the hands of improvisor John Butcher, the saxophone can sound like anything, from a piece of hollowed out brass baubled with pads and valves to a hermetically sealed feedback system, a miniature sound environment teeming with ever-evolving note-forms, or a huge echo chamber inflicting dub scale damage on every breath." The Wire
http://www.johnbutcher.org.uk/
JULIA ULEHLA [NEW YORK]
Vocalist Julia Ulehla was born in Tennessee and grew up all over America and in Germany and the Marshall Islands. She holds a BA in Music from Stanford University and a Masters of Music from the Eastman School of Music. On the operatic stage, Julia appeared as Dorabella (Cosi fan tutte), Nancy (Martha), Pauline and Daphnis (Queen of Spades), Mercedes (Carmen), Zweite Dame (Die Zauberflöte), Messaggiera (Orfeo), La Ciesca and Zita (Gianni Schicchi). In oratorio, she appeared as the Alto soloist in Bach’s St. Matthäus Passion and Monteverdi’s Vespro della Beata Vergine, as the Mezzo soloist in Copland’s In the Beginning and the Durufle Requiem, and as Soprano soloist in Mendelssohn’s Lobgesang Symphony no.2. For the 2011 Sonic Circuits festival, Julia will perform with Samita Sinha and Janel Leppin in a trio of two voices and cello.
LAYNE GARRETT [DC]
Layne Garrett works with found objects, found sounds and guitars, among other instruments. His recorded output ranges from songs drenched in sound collage to a new CD of improvisations on guitar and prepared guitar. His activities have included organizing a large-scale tape-loop intervention in Rock Creek Park and completing several construction projects, including a version of Glenn Branca's harmonics guitar, a set of hanging car-metal gongs in the shape of the US map, and a large, freestanding playable structure. “Layne Garrett is one of Washington, DC's most creative artists. He is consistently pushing the boundaries of instrumentation and approaches sound in ways that are always fresh." Socket Records.
http://www.questionthetruth.com/
Les Rhinocéros [DC]
“Hailing from the Washington, DC area, the young band Les Rhinocéros delivers a crazy world in sound, blending aspects of rock, world music, noise, ambient and jazz. The trio of teenagers was formed in 2008 while the players were still in high school, and has developed since then into an intense and wildly imaginative group that takes music to its extremes. Emotional, minimalistic, intense and grooving, this is music that goes beyond imagination to the edges of sanity. The group continues their sonic experiments by adding unusual instruments into the traditional rock band setting." (Tzadik)
https://www.facebook.com/LesRhinoceros
LUKE STEWART [DC]
Luke Stewart is a multi-instrumentalist and improviser who plays saxophones, acoustic and electric bass, guitar, drums and electronics. Luke has performed in an array of genres and with a wide range of musicians. He is also a radio programmer on WPFW 89.3FM as the host of Late Night Jazz and avant-music editor for Capital Bop website.
Miguel A. García
Basque artist Miguel A. García (also known as XEDH ) focuses on sound and its formal organization, just between improvisation and electro-acoustic composition. His concerts put on show a combination of electronic sounds, field recordings and “real” instruments, aiming to get an intimate, immersive and intense experience, that is always considerate with the audience.
Miguel A. García studied Fine Arts and Audiovisual Technology. He is also involved in projects like Mubles, Baba Llaga or Válvula Antirretorno. Besides his considerable production of CDs (in labels like Zeromoon, Homophoni or White Line) and numerous live performances in Spain (Museo Vostell, Arteleku, MACUF, Museum Chillida-Leku, Guggenheim Bilbao, Tabacalera, etc.) he has performed in the United States, Norway, Poland, Portugal and France. Since 2006 he has managed and directed the Zarata-Fest Festival in Bilbao, and runs two netlabels (Larraskito and Doministiku).
MUSIC FROM THE FILM [DC]
"I found the entire CD to be quite unlistenable. With no sense of melody, at least none that I could detect, and an apparent lack of song structure, there is little that holds the album together. I thought bands like Pere Ubu were weird but this one takes the proverbial cake." Jon Neudorf, Sea of Tranquility
reverbnation.com/musicfromthefilm
N ENSEMBLE [NORWAY]
The N Ensemble began in 2002 based in Amsterdam as a large group of improvisors performing pieces that integrate composition and improvisation coming from idioms like free jazz, contemporary composition, noise, electro-acoustic, and electronic music. Currently based in Norway the ensemble continues this mission, has expanded its roster, and performs pieces by Burkhard Beins (Adapt/Oppose), Morten J Olsen (Conditions for a Piece of Music), Koen Nutters (Liquid Compositions), and Jeff Carey (Untitled Structure for Seven) to name a few. Of the N Ensemble Bjørnar Habbestad (flutes/electronics), Nicolas Field (drums), and Jeff Carey (electronics) are joined by fantastic Baltimore improvisors Will Redman (drums), Marc Miller (guitar), and John Dierker (sax) for a high energy collision of improvised electro-acoustic, jazz, and noise music.
nine_strings_trio + movement [DC/RICHMOND]
The nine_strings_trio (Daniel Barbiero, double bass & preparations; Gary Rouzer, cello, preparations & amplified textures; Jimmy Ghaphery, alto saxophone, flutes and small objects) combines acoustic and/or amplified strings, conventional and extended techniques, electronics, discreet noise and thick silences into a stimulating and coherent whole. Their sound has been described by NPR’s blogsupreme as “quiet, intimate, and altogether lovely." For Sonic Circuits nine_strings_trio will be joined by dancers Ken Manheimer and Page Ghaphery for a set of improvisations sited in the borderland where sound, silence and the movement of bodies converge and diverge.
http://soundcloud.com/ninestrings
Daniel Barbiero (double bass) is a native of New Haven, Connecticut, who has been active in improvised and experimental music in the Baltimore-Washington area for several years as a performer, composer, and ensemble leader. His music reflects his long-standing engagement with scalar and free improvisation, aleatory composition, and alternative methods of scoring for mixed ensembles. His creative activities have included leading and composing for the ensembles Shape Memory Alloy, Third Object Orchestra, and The Subtle Body Transmission Orchestra; he has released work with pianist Nobu Stowe and electronic sound sculptor Lee Pembleton, as well as with Ictus Records percussionist Andrea Centazzo and Blue Note recording artist Greg Osby. In addition to his ongoing work with the Nancy Havlik Dance Performance Group, he currently plays in nine_strings, Colla Parte, and the ambient/surrealist/improvisational trio Mercury Fools the Alchemist.
http://soundcloud.com/garisenda2000
Jimmy Ghaphery (alto & tenor sax & flutes) hails from Richmond, Virginia and is an original member of punk jazz outfit Hotel X, touring and recording through their first 2 releases on SST Records (1992-1994). Since that time he has increasingly focused on free improvisation and extended techniques. Ghaphery 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 nine_strings_trio. He 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
Page Ghaphery has been exploring movement for the past 25 years though various forms including traditional American and English dance as well as modern. She has performed extensively with the More or Less Morris Dance Troupe. For the past nine years she has focused on contact improvisation and is one of the organizers for the Spring East Coast Contact Jam.
For Ken Manheimer, dance is an antidote to the static of every-day life. He is particularly interested in the art of finding what works in each dance. He has studied with Contact Improvisation (CI) with Nancy Stark Smith, Andrew Harwood, Chris Aiken, Martin Keogh, Angie Hauser, Daniel Lepkoff, and other central CI guides, as well as improvisation with Katie Duck and others. Just as important, he has regularly explored, learned, and guided CI with myriad dance partners in and around jams over more than 25 years, centrally tending to the maintenance of the Washington, DC jam for much of that time. Ken teaches CI workshops and courses, conducts movement improvisation labs, and writes about his fascination with Contact Improv at http://myriadicity.net/Sundry/ContactImprovisation. From 2008 through 2011 Ken joined director Nancy Havlik and other members of the Havlik Performance Group to develop performances based on dance choreography, improvisation, spoken text and theater elements, performing in various venues in the District and New York.
Gary Rouzer was born in Washington, DC and started playing electric bass at the age of 16. He studied double bass at Berklee College of Music in Boston and played locally in the Alexandria Symphony. He is an active member of the DC experimental music scene and has appeared at Sonic Circuits, Artomatic and Electric Possible with several groups and projects such as Vector Trio, Nine Strings, Bastard Squid Implant, and Nancy Havlik's Dance Performance Group in addition to playing solo. Electro-acoustic composition serves as his approach to music performance. http://amptext.wordpress.com/
Okkyung Lee [NEW YORK]
After confinement in music schools from ages 3 to 25, Korean cellist/improviser/composer Okkyung Lee finally found her artistic freedom in New York's Lower East Side, where she moved in 2000. Since then, she has performed and recorded with artists such as Laurie Anderson, Derek Bailey, Carla Bozulich, John Butcher, Nels Cline, Chris Corsano, Carlos Giffoni, Christian Marclay, Thurston Moore, Ikue Mori, Lawrence D. "Butch" Morris, Jim O'Rourke, Evan Parker, Keith Rowe, Wadada Leo Smith, C. Spencer Yeh and John Zorn. Okkyung holds dual bachelor's degrees in Film Scoring/Contemporary Writing & Production from Berklee College of Music, and master's degree in Contemporary Improvisation from New England Conservatory of Music.
Okkyung holds dual bachelor's degrees in Film Scoring/Contemporary Writing & Production from Berklee College of Music, and master's degree in Contemporary Improvisation from New England Conservatory of Music. She has received a composer commission from New York State Council on the Arts in 2007 and Foundation for Contemporary Arts grant in 2010. Okkyung has released the following albums: Nihm and Noisy Love Songs on Tzadik; duo LP Anicca with Phil Minton on Dancing Wayang; a duo recording with Christian Marclay, Rubbings, on My Cat is an Alien (LP)/A Silnet place (CD); solo cello album I saw the Ghost of an Unknown Soul and it Said... on Ecstatic Peace!; Check for Monsters with Steve Beresford and Peter Evans on Emanem. Recently Okkyung has recorded a trio album with Evan Parker and Peter Evans and a duo with Paul Lytton, both to be released on Psi label later in 2011.
Prehistoric Horse [NEW YORK]
Prehistoric Horse is the modern improvised music trio of David Grollman, Valerie Kuehne and Lucio Menegon. Prehistoric Horse plays a very intense and dynamic form of improvisational music that incorporates the dramatic and absurd and sometimes borders on sheer noise.
"Prehistoric Horse are an improv trio from NYC who generate spasmodic bursts of clatter and skree via cello, drums, and guitar, typically played in ways that would make conventional music teachers shudder in horror." (Seattle Stranger)
http://kingtone.com/2009/06/23/prehistoric-horse/
RIND [DC]
Rind is the ambient, melodic, brash and occasionally noisy collaboration between cellist Doug Stailey (Sansyou, Field Shaman, The Plums) and guitarist Beau Finley (Destroyer of Worlds, Monitor), who also runs Fuzzy Panda Recording Company.
RINUS VAN ALEBEEK [Netherlands]
Rinus van Alebeek (b. 1956) is a writer who uses his own environmental/field recordings on tape to narrate a story. During the nineties he published two books under the pseudonym Philip Markus in his native country. The first novel (De Weg naar Oude God) won the prestigious Geert Jan Lubberhuizen Prijs, a yearly award for the best first novel. An accidental encounter with electronic and avant garde music in the year 2000 at the Lem festival in Barcelona, and an introduction to the cassette culture gave way to his further artistic development. After a thorough research on how to make or manipulate recordings and a great number of concerts, sometimes an average of ten in a month, van Alebeek became very confident in mixing his recordings to a result of which people say is ‘"between noise and pure poetry."
"Rinus Van Alebeek is a peculiar observer of reality and an artist who instinctively transforms lo-fi tape recordings into evocative sound poems, being able to create a "détachement" towards the used media, which is a characteristic of the most original artists." Luis Costa, president of Binaural and Associação Cultural de Nodar
http://rinus.zeromoon.com / http://rinusvanalebeek.wordpress.com/biography/
SAFE FAST AND EFFECTIVE [DC]
The metro area trio of Dave Vosh (Safe), Keith Sinzinger (Fast Forty) and Chris Videll (Tag Cloud) debuted at Off the Grid 3 in June 2011. Their off-label prescription combines doses of live sampling with found sounds, custom electronics, thrift store finds and tubular bells.
http://districtofnoise.org/safe-fast-and-effective-pyramid-atlantic-06-04-11/
Dave Vosh has been experimenting with electronic music since the 1970s and live performance since 2005 in various solo, duo and trio projects involving modular synthesizers and other devices. http://myspace.com/safe00
Keith Sinzinger builds and plays electronic and percussion instruments. A lifelong newsman, he aims to integrate contemporary conflict into his compositions. Previous collaborations include No Serviceable Parts and Liquid Friction Assemblage.
http://myspace.com/fastforty/music
Chris Videll plays electroacoustic drone under the name Tag Cloud and to date has released compilation tracks on Front & Follow (the 14 Versions of the Same EP remix project) and Zeromoon, as well as collaborations with Dan Barbiero and Gary Rouzer (nine_strings, Vector Trio).
http://soundcloud.com/tag-cloud
SAMITA SINHA [NEW YORK]
Vocalist/composer Samita Sinha combines tradition with experiment to create new forms, drawing from a deep grounding in North Indian classical music, a contemporary vocabulary, folk and ritual music, and songs and texts in several languages. Her work reconfigures given inheritances, and combines raw, visceral energy with knowledge garnered from classical tradition. As a composer/ performer and improviser, Sinha uses her voice as her primary instrument, along with tanpura and analog and digital electronics. For the 2011 Sonic Circuits festival, Samita will perform with Janel Leppin and Julia Ulehla in a trio of two voices and cello.
Samita has performed her solo and ensemble work at PS 1, Roulette, Carnegie Hall Neighborhood Concerts, Blue Note, and Issue Project Room, at universities such as UC Berkeley, NYU, Macalaster College, and St. Olaf, as well as abroad in India and the Middle East. Sinha also performs with ANATOMY, a duo Hindustani/ jazz groove-heavy electronic music project with Marc Cary, and uses her voice as an improvising instrument in jazz ensembles including Marc Cary’s FOCUS and Sunny Jain Collective. She has received awards from NYSCA and Urban Artists Initiative to create and compose new works, from Queens Council on the Arts for community music work, and from the Fulbright Foundation to study Hindustani music in India.
SHARON MANSUR [DC]
Sharon Mansur is a Washington, DC area based contemporary dance artist and her experimental multi-media projects have been seen in theaters, galleries, parks, street corners, apartments, train stations, empty storefronts, parking lots, fields, rivers and other unique venues throughout the East Coast, in Minnesota and California as well as in England and Argentina. Improvisation as a performance form is a particular focus as well as the melding of visual and visceral landscapes while examining aspects of identity. Her creative work has been supported by the Virginia Commission for the Arts, the Maryland State Arts Council and The Bossak-Heilbron Charitable Foundation, among others. Since 2002 Sharon has directed the performance project mansurdance in collaboration with several near and far flung movement, sound, light design and visual media artists. She has been fortunate enough to perform in the work of BodyCartography, Jess Curtis/Stephanie Maher, David Dorfman, David Rousseve, and Sara Rudner, and collaborate with Daniel Burkholder, Clare Byrne, Maré Hieronimus, Cyrus Khambatta, Marcy Schlissel, Ginger Wagg and other adventurous artistic types. She received an Individual Artist Award for solo dance performance from the Maryland State Arts Council in 2010. Currently she has been commissioned by the Reston Community Center in Virginia to create a site-specific performance/installation in collaboration with architect/visual artist Ronit Eisenbach for fall 2012. Her current artistic practices include Improvisation, Laban Movement Analysis/Bartenieff Fundamentals, visual arts, yoga, and reiki, and she is on the dance faculty at the University of Maryland. Sharon and Daniel Burkholder co-directed Quiescence, a dance/performance group in residence at Dance Place from 1992-98. They have been performing together for almost 20 years, and Dance Place will be presenting them February 18-19, 2012 in a shared evening of dance improvisation.
STYLUS [DC]
STYLUS performs exclusively on vintage institutional record players using locked groove and prepared vinyl. This year the turntable ensemble will present live soundtracks to two classic silent experimental films, James Sibley Watson and Melville Webber's Lot In Sodom and Man Ray's Emak-Bakia. They will be joined by cellists Janel Leppin and Doug Poplin.
STYLUS warmly embraces modern compositional elements of turntablism and the contemporary sound-art of Christian Marclay, James Leyland Kirby (The Caretaker) and Philip Jeck, while championing historic constructs such as the Futurist manifesto L'arte dei Rumori, Milan Knížák's Broken Music, the non-linear scores of Cornelius Cardew, Fluxus performance, and the prepared instrumentation and happenstance of John Cage. Performers to date include mainstays of the Washington, DC avant-guard, improv, modern composition, noise and electronic music scene: Janel Leppin and Anthony Pirog (Janel & Anthony/21st Century Ensemble); Chester Hawkins (Blue Sausage Infant); Jeff Bagato (Tone Ghosting/Mercury Fools the Alchemist); Matt Boettke and Andrew McCarry (Borborites); Layne Garrett (Weed Tree); Keith Sinzinger (Fast Forty/Safe Fast and Effective); Gary Rouzer (amptext/nine_strings); and JS Adams (BLK w/BEAR). For the Sonic Circuits 2011 Festival opener at the AFI Silver Theatre, STYLUS will perform live soundtracks to two classic silent films, Lot in Sodom (James Sibley Watson and Melville Webber, 1933) and Emak-Bakia (Man Ray, 1926). For Lot in Sodom, the turntable ensemble will be augmented by cellists Janel Leppin and Doug Poplin (Bach Sinfonia; BLK w/BEAR). Eschewing their locked-groove vinyl for this festival opener, STYLUS will in place use prepared Jazz and Classical 78rpm recordings altered in homage to Man Ray’s own readymade Cadeau (1921), itself a gift to composer Erik Satie.
SUDDEN INFANT [GERMANY]
Joke Lanz aka Sudden Infant creates a unique blend of physical sound-poetry and Dada vocals, using contact microphones, prerecorded soundloops and noises. The result is an abrupt Musique Concrète juxtaposition of spasmodic gibbering with a battery of disorienting electronics creating a fragmented, yet self-organizing, soundfield. Born in Switzerland and now based in Berlin, Joke Lanz has presented his work for more than 20 years all over the world.
Lanz has performed at festivals around the globe and has collaborated with such performers as Z'EV, Christian Marclay, Voice Crack, GX Jupitter-Larsen, Daniel Menche, Aube, C.C.C.C., DJ Olive, Strotter Inst among others. Sudden Infant have release vinyl, cassettes and compact discs on labels such as Terminal, Nihilist, RRRecords and Blossoming Noise. The career-spanning four-vinyl album set, My Life’s a Gunshot (Retrospective 1989-2009), was released on Hrönir (Berlin) in 2010.
Valentina Vuksic [Switzerland]
Valentina Vuksic is a computer artist and programmer based in Zürich. Her work is a personal exploration of the possibilities afforded by articulated hard- and software mediation. She approaches computer systems via inductive microphones for magnetic fields, so-called “telephone adapters." With choreographies for software and computer elements, she utilizes these as actors in software/noise pieces for, and in, computers.
Vuksic considers time and space of computer processor and memory as levels of reality. Software being processed creates own temporal and spatial dimensions, which are staged for a public. She aims for a sensual experience of the analytical sphere becoming concrete, where logic encounters the physical world. The mechanic noises serve as mediators to a public. They reveal in an immediate way the activities taking place between computer processes in the widest sense and the computer electronics they are running on.
THE VOLTAGE SPOOKS (Keith Rowe, Rick Reed and Mike Haleta) [ENGLAND/US]
The Voltage Spooks is a newly formed, all-star trio of improv luminaries. Keith Rowe (b. 1940) is an English free improvisation tabletop guitarist and painter. Rowe is a founding member of both the hugely influential AMM in the mid-1960s and M.I.M.E.O. Rick Reed (b. 1957) has been creating audio compositions since the early 80's. His works are intuitive studies of electricity, frequency fluctuations, and improvised solutions to symmetry problems in electronic sound. Michael Haleta (b. 1978) is an intermedia artist living and working in Atlantic Highlands, NJ. He studied the cello from an early age until guitar, effects pedals and free form improvisation piqued his interest in the raw generation of sound.
www.rawspecialeffects.com
www.backbreakerneckbrace.com
http://futuristictexturesfromthefuture.blogspot.com
Keith Rowe is an English free improvisation tabletop guitarist and painter. Rowe is a founding member of both the hugely influential AMM in the mid-1960s (though in 2004 he quit that group for the second time) and M.I.M.E.O. Having trained as a visual artist, Rowe’s paintings have been featured on most of his own albums. After years of obscurity, Rowe has achieved a level of relative notoriety, and since the late 1990s has kept up a busy recording and touring schedule. He is seen as a godfather of EAI (electro-acoustic improvisation), with many of his recent recordings having been released by Erstwhile Records.
Rick Reed has been creating audio compositions since the early 80's. His works are intuitive studies of electricity, frequency fluctuations, and improvised "on the fly" solutions to symmetry problems in electronic sound. Since 2000, he has centered his live work on using a synthesizer processed with various effects devices to create complex macromal drones with a surface of aesthetic elegance and beauty. Reed, currently based in Austin, Texas, has performed throughout the United States and Europe. Recently, he appeared in 2009 at the UK's prestigious Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival in ensemble alongside Keith Rowe and former Austinite Bill Thompson. His music has been used by filmmaker Ken Jacobs in three of his experiential films, Spiral Nebula, Mountaineer Spinning, and Capitalism: Child Labor (which won the grand prize at 2006's Curtas Vila de Conde film festival in Portugal, Spain). He also appeared live with Jacobs at Lincoln Center during the "Views From the Avant Garde" portion of 2007's New York Film Festival. His audio works are available from the labels Elevator Bath, Ecstatic Peace, Pale Disc Japan, Bremsstrahlung Recordings and Beta Lactam Ring. A new double LP record will be released by Elevator Bath in 2011.
Michael Haleta 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 raw generation of sound. “Everything starts from a dot."-Kandinsky. 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 with numerous composers, artists and musicians, including: Paul Neidhardt, Stephan Moore, Shaun Flynn, 2673 (Kevin Winters), Jason Urick, Jeremy Sigler, Kasper Toeplitz, Scott Smallwood, Seth Cluett, Dan Deacon, Zbigniew Karkowski, Jeff Donaldson, Andrya Ambro and more. He has released audio for Alienation, Raw Special Effects (RSE), Carpark, Antiopic and Hoss records. Michael also runs a small edition label by the name of Raw Special Effects (RSE) which is scheduled to release much new and free material in 2011.
Sept 13 Benefit show at Bella
Slut Walk
Erica Fallin is a multi-instrumentalist whose tools includes flute, guitar (classical and electric), electric bass, and piano. Erica is a veteran of the Bay Area music scene, where she played with Vacuum Tree Head for almost two decades and also regularly participated in Moe! Staiano's Moe!Kestra!. Erica has appeared on dozens of recordings, including the double LP Live From the Afterworld [Recordings from the Afterworld Lounge 1991 - 1993] and Wavelength Infinity, a Sun Ra tribute album.
Alex Braden's guitar-centered sound explores intricacy on both the tonal and rhythmic planes. His rhythms go well beyond western, obvious, or symmetrical patterns, delving into the mysterious realms of unconventional syncopation, intriguing juxtapositions of odd-numbered sequences, and swirling layers of pleasant melodic confusion.
Thomas Stanley (a/k/a Bushmeat) is an assistant professor of Sound Art and Consciousness in the School of Art at George Mason University. Stanley has attempted to exploit the capacity of sound and music for anchoring, framing, and energizing our subjective experience of macrotemporal texture (history). Stanley is a founding member of Transparent Productions, a non-profit volunteer collective that has produced 100s of improvised jazz and experimental music concerts throughout the DC metro area since 1997. He has played music with Seif Abdoun, Marshall Allen, Jean-Paul Bourelly, Joe Bowie, Vattel Cherry, William Hooker, Susie Ibarra, Elliott Levin, Magpie, Shu-ni Tsou, Leo Svirsky, and Tom Wisner.
Lost Civilizations [DC]
The Lost Civilizations experimental music project is a collaboration between Mike Sebastian (tenor sax, saxello and bass clarinet) and T. A. Zook (bass cello and miscellaneous instruments). The project began in 2008, and has since performed widely in the D.C. and Baltimore area, often with noted artists such as Doug Kallmeyer (bass), Larry Gomez (percussion), Susan Alcorn (pedal steel), Janel Leppin (cello), Anthony Piorg (guitar), Aaron Martin (alto sax), Mark Merella (percussion), Emre Katari (percussion), Jason Mullinax (percussion), Andrea Centazzo (percussion) and Randy Ward (cello). All of the performances of the Lost Civilizations experimental music project are unscored, unrehearsed and extemporaneously improvised on the spot. Special guest: Angela Morrish
http://www.soundclick.com/lostcivilizations
A free, full-length recording of a Lost Civilizations experimental music project performance is posted at http://www.archive.org/details/oz033.
Immanent Voiceless [DC]
Immanent Voiceless is the audiovisual project of Ivan Khilko., combining various sound sources (guitar, field recordings, vinyl samples, etc.) into fragile, immersive drones that are often complemented by the playing of like-minded collaborators. In a logical extension of working with video artists in performance, Khilko has recently begun producing visuals himself, capturing images through an innovative filming technique and arranging them in structures similar to the audio.
http://soundcloud.com/amethystdeceiver
http://www.myspace.com/immanentvoiceless
Venues
The Mansion at Strathmore
10701 Rockville Pike
North Bethesda, MD 20852 (map)
http://www.strathmore.org
By Metro:
Strathmore is located immediately adjacent to the Grosvenor-Strathmore Metro station, on the Red Line. Follow the walkway out of the metro station to the left entrance of the Metro Garage. Take the stairs or elevators to the 4th level, and walk across the sky bridge into the Music Center's main entrance. Walk across the Mansion parking lot to the Mansion entrance.
By Bus:
Metro Bus Routes: J5
Ride-On Bus Routes:
Route 6 To Wheaton Metro Station, Parkside and Rockspring Park
Route 37 To Potomac (Potomac Community Center)-Tuckerman Lane
Route 46 To Medical Center Metro Station and Montgomery College
Route 96 To Montgomery Mall/Rock Spring Park
All Buses stop at the Grosvenor-Strathmore Metro station, follow the Metro directions above.
By Car:
Strathmore Mansion is conveniently located North right off the Capital Beltway (I-495). Parking for events at the Mansion is free in the Mansion lot on a space available basis. Enter the Mansion lot at 10701 Rockville Pike.
AFI Silver Theatre
The AFI Silver Theatre is located at 8633 Colesville Road (map)— at the intersection of Colesville Road and Georgia Avenue — in the heart of the new downtown Silver Spring.
By Car: The AFI Silver Theatre is less than two miles south of Beltway exit 30 (Colesville Road) and exit 31 (Georgia Avenue). The theatre is also convenient to the Bethesda area via East-West Highway, and a short drive from downtown Washington via 16th Street, NW.
By Metro: The AFI Silver Theatre is located on Colesville Road, just two blocks north of Metro's Red Line station in Silver Spring.
By Ride-On Bus: The Silver Spring station is served by Ride-On routes 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 8, 9, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 22, 28.
By Metrobus: The Silver Spring station is served by Metrobus routes 70, 71, J5, F4, F6, JH1, J2, J3, J4, Q2, S2, S4, Y8, Z5.
PARKING
The Wayne Avenue parking garage provides convenient and easy access to downtown Silver Spring. This garage entrance is located on Wayne Avenue between Georgia Avenue and Fenton Street; walk out across Ellsworth Plaza and AFI Silver is just around the corner! The Wayne Avenue garage offers FREE PARKING on weekends and after 8:00 p.m. on weekdays.
Additional nearby parking may be found at:
- Town Square parking garage, located at the corner of Ellsworth Drive and Fenton Street
- Gateway Plaza parking lot, at the intersection of Georgia Avenue and Colesville Road
- Parking garage at Fenton Street and Cameron Street
Pyramid Atlantic
8230 Georgia Avenue
Silver Spring, MD (map)
http://www.pyramidatlanticartcenter.org/
By Metro:
Silver Spring on the Red Line.
Parking:
On street parking and lot out front and on the side
Veterans Plaza
1 Veterans Place
Silver Spring, MD
(map)
By Metro:
Silver Spring on the Red Line.
Parking:
The Wayne Avenue parking garage provides convenient and easy access to downtown Silver Spring. This garage entrance is located on Wayne Avenue between Georgia Avenue and Fenton Street; walk out across Ellsworth Plaza and AFI Silver is just around the corner! The Wayne Avenue garage offers FREE PARKING on weekends and after 8:00 p.m. on weekdays.
Additional nearby parking may be found at:
- Town Square parking garage, located at the corner of Ellsworth Drive and Fenton Street
- Gateway Plaza parking lot, at the intersection of Georgia Avenue and Colesville Road
- Parking garage at Fenton Street and Cameron Street
Sponsors
If you are interested in becoming a sponsor please contact us via email.
