Process and Apparitions of The Four Pillars
In a week, we will be presenting the world premiere of my latest piece, Apparitions of The Four Pillars, as part of the Avant Music Festival - I wanted to share a bit about my process on what has turned into the most radical work I've written in a long time.
Ever since I got my first toy organ in early 2009 I've been brewing a piece that would involve a number of organs, sine waves, and performers. Something modular, and maybe a little tiny bit more portable than the behemoth that is Doleo Æternus.
It’s been a Big week
On Tuesday I released my first album. Voices + Sine Waves is a collection of my short works from the last 10 years. With a beautiful cover and minisite/booklet designed by Oscar Henriquez, and exquisite mastering by Mike Rugnetta and Bailey Math, It’s a package I’m extremely proud of. I’m so glad to be able to share my work with a larger audience, and I think these pieces provide a great intro to the work I’m doing.
Also on Tuesday, we launched the brand new Avant Media website. A monumental achievement for us, this new site represents a new direction, and a fresh start. Completely rebuilt from the ground up, the site provides a much more in depth experience of the work that we do over there.
Of course, rehearsals have been progressing spectacularly for Doleo Æternus which is set to premiere in NYC on November 21st. Yesterday was the first rehearsal with our new guitarist, and it went spectacularly. I’m getting very excited about the wildly talented group of people we’ve put together for this concert. Plus we’ve just confirmed dates for our spring performance of Mémoir-en-Ciel in Los Angeles – those will be announced shortly.
Like I said,
A Big Week.
Voices + Sine Waves
On October 6th, Avant Media will be releasing my first solo record, Voices + Sine Waves.
This album represents key moments from my last 10 years of work. From one of my earliest pieces, Julia, to my most recent, Shiver, these works run the gamut from quiet and serene to intense and visceral with a healthy dose of raga and just intonation just for good measure.
These are some of my favorite short pieces in my collection, and I am really looking forward to sharing them with the world.
a long day of eating amongst the angels
I’ve been in Los Angeles all week and yesterday turned out to be a particularly food-centric and decidedly LA type of day.
I started my day at Hugo’s in Studio City meeting with Paul Bailey, a composer friend of mine and fellow tweeter who recently organized a midnight performance of In C that I really wish I could have been here for. It was a lovely breakfast and took place at one of those decidedly Californian (and also, extremely Boulder) places where pretty much everything can be ordered vegan and gluten-free and in every other possible micro-diet-specific variation. This was, naturally enough, followed by coffee at the original Whole Foods where I also spotted this wine abomination that, I’m pretty sure, signals the end of civilization.
In the afternoon, Jess Fagre and I tracked down the Kogi taco truck (as a part of our ongoing quest to have the best damn tacos anywhere). The pork taco was especially delicious. I can’t think of a more LA activity than eating Korean tacos out of the back of a Prius across the street from LACMA. Delightful.
In the evening I finally got a chance to eat at Animal with fellow Avant Media principal artist Dani Beauchamp. A truly spectacular meal. It doesn’t get much better than toast with stunning, shimmering Lardo, a shockingly delicious chicken liver crostini. The crispy pig’s ears is one of the best things I’ve ever eaten. Our meal was really just fantastic. Enlightening food, beautiful wine, and delightful company. A perfect evening in my opinion.
After dinner I went to a pub that, for reasons I still do not understand, specializes in turtle racing. As in: racing actual turtles. I did not get to see any of these racing turtles, but it was a bizzare and interesting place. All in all I feel about LA the same as I always have. I have a great time while I’m actually here (yesterday was particularly special) but within minutes of leaving I return quickly to my New Yorker hating LA mindset and I think that’s just fine.
I’ll be back here a lot over the next couple of years ( there are a lot of performances in the works ) and, after a day of such gluttony, I’m glad about that.
Summertime Travailler
I’m on my way to Europe for the month of July. I’ll be visiting London, Berlin, and Calvi dell’Umbria where I will be in residency at the Art Monastery and creating a new piece as a part of their Labirinto festival on July 25th.
It’s become a bit of a summer tradition for me to escape New York for a month or so, and it’s one I always look forward to.
There are a lot of exciting things coming in the next few months for Avant Media and for myself. I’m really excited for a few big announcements and projects that we have in the works.
I hope you will be too.
She is missed
The first time I ever saw a work by Pina Bausch was back in 2004, Ana, Oscar, Laine and I went to see Für die Kinder von gestern, heute und morgen at BAM. I had, of course, heard of this remarkable choreographer who was the giant of inspiration for pretty much every dancer I had worked with. I wasn’t prepared for such beauty, such humor, and such overwhelming brilliance.
I was deeply saddened to hear of her sudden and tragic passing, as my friend Jen put it: “I guess heaven needed an amazing choreographer.”
Now THAT’s something.
Acoustic
I recently went to two very very different entirely acoustic performances. It’s amazing to me how rare this is these days.
On Friday night I attended a marvelous performance at the Rubin Museum of Art by Ustad Mashkoor Ali Khan and Michael Harrison. The Rubin is dedicated to presenting work the way it’s meant to be heard, and this is the second series by Mashkoor Ali Khan that I’ve seen there that used no amplification. The natural vibrations of North Indian music are particularly magical when everything is acoustic.
Then on Sunday I went to see/hear my friend Megan Schubert and Jeffrey Gavett sing Stockhausen’s Am Himmel Wandre Ich… in Sakura Park way uptown. This concert was not only acoustic, but it was outdoors, and it was raining torrentially. Plus the gazebo it was being performed under seemed to be the home of several dozens of birds.
All things considered, including the rain, I have to say I enjoyed myself at the Stockhausen much more than the raga concert. These are the sorts of events that I idealized in my head before I moved here. Wildly avant-garde music presented in a strange venue and sparsely attended by a devout few.
The music itself, the rain, the communal aspect of all trying to huddle under a gazebo, the sounds of birds, and the curious onlookers in the distance all made for a brilliant and beautiful evening.
It’s not often I get to see purely acoustic concerts. I went to a performance of Cage’s Sonatas and Interludes a few months back at Issue Project Room, a quite small venue. There were only a few people there, maybe 20-25 and we were probably 15 feet away from the pianist. For no discernible reason, this was amplified, distractingly so in fact.
I think too often we fall back on amplification to make up for less than ideal performance situations. But the Stockhausen concert on sunday would have been completely ruined by amplification, I’m glad they decided to let the music and performance be what it is. Amplification is another valid tool, but then again, so is acoustic sound. Let’s have a return to sound as it should be: Acoustic or Amplified, let the decision be a decision, not a default.
The art of the Facebook Status
Two of my friends recently posted delightfully long, interesting, and quirky Facebook statuses – I thought I’d share them with you here:
Gerard had a dream:
Gerard Forde dreamed that he was trying on a Walter Van Beirendonck coat, sort of a combination Burberry mac and a Parker. The front and back were the same (a bit like Margiela) and it had numerous layers of lining from vintage ballgowns, including two printed silk linings taken from early 1990s Westwood dresses. It was reduced to €1300 in the sale. Does this mean I might be gay?
And Michael had an extraterrestrial encounter
Michael Theodore so weird–an alien spacecraft landed just now on the lawn, and out popped seven little green men, each playing a nose flute in a flamboyant, triumphal style, and as they built to a cadence of joyous paroxysms, Sarah Palin emerged from the ship and asked if I was cool with a pipeline cutting through the property. I told her it wasn’t my place, so I couldn’t really say…
Beautiful.
I feel like I’ve seen more of these longer-form / more existential status updates recently. Maybe it’s because of the new Facebook layout, maybe it’s because I’m getting too used to a 140 character limit. Regardless, it’s a trend I welcome heartily.
oh… and hey … speaking of Facebook, you can become a fan of Avant Media on Facebook now too… it’s all very exciting.
Doleo Æternus – a look ahead
It’s looking more and more like the Just Intonation World Premiere of Doleo Æternus is going to happen in New York this fall. Updates with exact dates and venues will be coming in the coming weeks.
I’m obviously very excited by this fact. So I’m going to do something I don’t normally do, and post an excerpt of the work in-progress.
I’ve been rehearsing with the violinist Drew Blumberg, and we’re going to be putting together a pretty interesting ensemble for this premiere.
Doleo Æternus (Ira into Mador) VI-xiv-2009 16:33:51″ – 16:44:33″ (Brooklyn):
Performers: