Appparitions of The 2012 Avant Music Festival
We're gearing up for the 2012 Avant Music Festival in a big way. We've recently released a little preview video as a part of our Kickstarter campaign:
This whole campaign culminates in a one-night-only preview performance and thank-you party on Monday December 19th. I'll be performing a new solo vocal work: The First Pillar Appearing in Palindrome with The Harbinger of The Second Pillar under the 27/28 Triple Primal Region from Apparitions Of The Four Pillars that acts as an introduction into this year's realizations of Apparitions Of The Four Pillars. Please consider making a pledge on kickstarter and coming to hear this special performance. Plus there will be free food and drink and performances from The Pierrot Project and Eve Beglarian. Plus, if you donate $25 or more, you get a copy of the 2012 Avant Music Festival EP featuring my own Third Pillar recording from Voices + Sine Waves (previously only available on the CD version) as well as works by Eve Beglarian and Jenny Johnson.
In February, the festival will open (February 10th) with Circular Trance Surrounding The Second Pillar with The Highest Seventh Primal Cirrus, The Utmost Fundamental, and The Ekmeles Ending from Apparitions of The Four Pillars performed and commissioned by Ekmeles Vocal Ensemble.
Here is a clip from the November 2011 World Premiere at Music At First:
The festival will close (February 18th) with a new work written for trombonist William Lang: The Third Pillar in Primal Imperfect Palindrome with The Souvenir of The Second Pillar, The Floating Cirrus over the Pumping Slush, and The Highest Moving Chordal Motif from Apparitions Of The Four Pillars - This work takes the same basic idea as what I'll be performing on December 19th and transforms it into a one-man symphony of dense droning pure textures.
Full information on the 2012 Avant Music Festival, including ticketing, can be found here.
Analog Apparitions now for sale
My new album Analog Apparitions is now on sale from The Tapeworm.
It's 60 minutes of dense, swirling, droning cassettes, and i'm truly, deeply proud of it. It's being released in a limited edition of 250. More details can be found here.
I was joined on the recording by Drew Blumberg and Laine Rettmer, and the beautiful cover illustration was done by Oscar Henriquez.
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The Season Ahead
It's shaping up to be a pretty big season this year. A bunch of performances, some recordings, and the second annual Avant Music Festival.
Plus, I've started a mailing list, which you should join, I'll only email for new and exciting things.
So here's what's coming up.
The Third Pillar and Voices + Sine Waves
Just over a week ago Will Lang, Drew Blumberg, and I got together to record a short version of Apparitions of The Four Pillars to be included on a limited edition physical version of Voices + Sine Waves. This new piece is called: The Third Pillar with its Lowest Primes and Memories of The Second Pillar from Apparitions of The Four Pillars III-iii-2010 20:02:56" - 20:20:17" (Brooklyn) and I'm really happy with how it turned out.
It's 17 minutes of droning raga-inflicted melodies all drawn from The Third Pillar. The physical version of Voices + Sine Waves is going to be limited to an edition of 100 signed and numbered units, and this will be the only place this piece will be available.
There's no release date yet for the album, but it should only be a couple of weeks.
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.
Reflections on my time in Italy
It was an odd week to say the least.
I'm not entirely sure what happened, but somehow I went from creating new work on a strange baroque organ to cooking for 20 for a week and getting a pretty awesome tan.
It's not that I didn't enjoy my time in Italy, I definitely did. It ended up almost being a proper vacation - something I haven't had in a long time. I just didn't go there with the plan of having a vacation. I had fully expected to be cooped up in a dark church for a week listening to drones and trying to write. Instead I sat in the hot sun and cooked in a hot kitchen.
I did meet some amazing people, and reconnected with some old friends. The Monastery was able to put together a group of truly, fantastically talented individuals to take part in a strange little performance that, unfortunately, was much more about entertainment than it was about art - and there's nothing wrong with entertainment - it was the right thing to put on in the little labyrinthine town of Calvi dell'Umbria - it just wasn't why I was there, and it's not what I'm interested in doing these days.
I've since come up with some new ideas for new pieces, and I'm hoping to find ways to work with many of the people that I met while I was there. Who knows, it may turn out to have been an incredibly beneficial experience.
Just not in the way I thought it would be.