The Flea Theater
$15/$10 Students
PURCHASE TICKETS
Electronic Music Foundation presents the first annual EMF Lab, a new concert series bringing together emerging and established composers and improvisers to explore the convergence of sound and technology. The opening concert will feature works for traditional instruments and electronics by composers Matthew Burtner, Wil Smith, Jenny Olivia Johnson, and Evan Antonellis.
PROGRAM
beautiful/fragment.......................................................................................................Jenny Olivia Johnson
Jessica Schmitz, flute
memory/fixed objects (world premiere).................................................................................Evan Antonellis
Andy Kozar, trumpet; William Lang, trombone; Evan Antonellis, electronics
Automatic Arms (NY Premiere) .................................................................................................... Wil Smith
Eric km Clark, violin; Kevin Lovelady, video; Wil Smith, electronics
intermission
Broken Drum.....................................................................................................................Matthew Burtner
Morris Palter, percussion
Fragments from Cold..........................................................................................................Matthew Burtner
Minna Chung, cello
Kuik (aria).........................................................................................................................Matthew Burtner
Jaunelle celaire, voice; Morris Palter, percussion; Matthew Burtner, laptop
SXrAtch.............................................................................................................................Matthew Burtner
Matthew Burtner, metasax
"That which is bodiless is reflected in bodies"........................................................................Matthew Burtner
Matthew Burtner, soprano sax; Morris Palter, percussion
ABOUT THE ARTISTS
Composer and sound artist Matthew Burtner (www.burtner.net) is a professor of composition and computer technologies at the University of Virginia. Originally from Alaska, he creates music exploring ecoacoustics, electroacoustic embodiment, and extended polymetric and noise-based musical systems. First prize winner of the Musica Nova International Elecroacoustic Music Competition, The WIRE described his work as “some of the most eerily effective electroacoustic music I've heard”.
Lyric-soprano, Jaunelle Roberta Celaire enjoys a musical career as a teacher, soloist, conductor and performer. Born in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, Dr. Celaire is internationally known; performing music that ranges from cabaret to music theatre to solo recitals to opera. She has made solo appearances with the Maumee Symphony Orchestra and the Lima Symphony Orchestra in Ohio. In August of 2003 Dr. Celaire joined the University of Alaska Fairbanks voice faculty.
As a recipient of numerous national awards, cellist Minna Rose Chung performs internationally as a recitalist and chamber musician. Ms. Chung is the principal chair of both the Fairbanks Symphony Orchestra and the Arctic Chamber Orchestra. She is also a member of the Alaska Piano Trio and the Alaska Chamber Players. In 2003, cellist Minna Rose Chung joined the University of Alaska-Fairbanks as Assistant Professor of Cello.
In 2000, Morris Palter co-founded NOISE (San Diego New Music) and in 2003, he founded the “Speak-Easy Duo,” a group that frequently appears at various ragtime and jazz festivals worldwide. Morris completed his DMA under Steven Schick at the University of California, San Diego and is endorsed by Black Swamp Percussion, Paiste Inc. and Ayotte Drums. Palter was a lecturer in music at UCSD in 2006/07 and is currently an assistant professor in music at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. Palter has recorded for Sony/BMG, Mode, Innova, New World Records, and Tzadik Records.
Evan Antonellis (composer)
Composer Evan Antonellis’ compositions have been performed both in the United States and abroad. He recently finished his Master's Degree in Composition at Manhattan School of Music, and received full scholarship as a Doctorate in Musical Arts candidate. As an electronic musician, he has performed electronics works with the E.M.F., the M.S.M. Percussion Ensemble, and Red Light New Music.
Trumpeter Andy Kozar is an avid performer of contemporary music in New York City. He is a member of a number of contemporary ensembles including Loadbang and Zero Gravity. He has premiered numerous works for trumpet and electronics, solo trumpet and mixed ensembles. He was recently a featured soloist at the f(x) new music marathon in Miami and has performed at both Zankel Hall and Town Hall. He holds a B.M. from the Eastman School of Music and is currently pursuing his masters in contemporary performance at the Manhattan School of Music.
Composer/improviser Wil Smith’s music spans traditional and popular styles, integrating electronics, theatrics, and improvisation. Wil performs regularly on keyboards and laptop with his experimental band Passenger Fish. Three scenes from the opera-in-progress were recently showcased at The Flea Theater's "Music with a View" series, curated by pianist Kathy Supove. Wil has attended the Czech-American Summer Music Festival in Prague and the Bang on a Can Summer Music Institute, and studied composition, organ, and jazz piano at Florida State University. He received his masters degree in composition from the Manhattan School of Music in 2005, were he studied with Julia Wolfe.
Canadian violinist, composer, and improviser Eric km Clark is a genre-defying performer who splits his time between LA and New York City and performs regularly with the California EAR Unit. Notable recent appearances include performances at the Ontological Theater with Object Collection; the debut of the Deprivation Orchestra of NYC at the Rattlestick Theater; and a residency with the California EAR Unit at Chapman University. Compositionally, Mr. Clark employs many styles, including the use of Hearing Deprivation as a medium to explore hermetic, or individualized, canons; and Simplified Instruments [i.e. Instruments with all of the same string <eg. 4 E-strings on a violin>].
Kevin Lovelady grew up Mojave-adjacent making videos from VCR to VCR. These investigations led him to the study of film and art history at the University of California, Santa Cruz. In downtown Los Angeles he began to present digital video work in the form of installations, music videos, and animations. Kevin now resides in Brooklyn, where he works with choreographer Cathy Weis and other collaborators while continuing to produce his own work.
Composer Jenny Olivia Johnson’s artistic and intellectual interests feature experimental opera, multimedia compositions that combine home video with lo-fi electronics, and fragmentary musical expressions of traumatic childhood experiences. Recent collaborations include performances of her music by New York City Opera, ICE, Alarm Will Sound, and Ensemble Robot, and artistic residencies at the Banff Centre and the Atlantic Center for the Arts. In September 2008, Jenny’s first opera, “Leaving Santa Monica,” will compete for the Gaudeamus Prize in Amsterdam.
Drawn to both contemporary and traditional repertoire, New York-based flutist Jessica Schmitz has performed many world premieres and worked with such composers as Meredith Monk, Steve Reich, Robert Dick, Steve Mackey, and Harold Meltzer. Schmitz’s recent collaborations include those with Signal Ensemble, June in Buffalo Festival, NIME (New Interfaces for Musical Expression), S.E.M. Ensemble, So Percussion, Bang On a Can, Electronic Music Foundation, and the Chelsea Symphony Orchestra. Her work has been heard in Carnegie Hall, Symphony Space, Merkin Hall, Lincoln Center, and The Kitchen, among others. A winner of the Artists International Competition in 2006, she is a graduate of the Manhattan School of Music and New York University.
ABOUT THE MUSIC
beautiful // fragment
beautiful // fragment is about the Challenger disaster of 1986, but it is also about how this event became, for many people, enfolded into other, more personal memories, especially those of a confusing or unresolved nature. Most of the stories meditated upon here are shattered fragments, glittering and intense, beautiful and terrifying. In many cases, we cannot tell which of these memories are fiction, which are real, and which are a bizarre combination of both. Many thanks to Janet McKay, and to those who shared their stories with me. - J. Johnson
memory/fixed objects
The work memory/fixed objects is one musical extrapolation of the concept of memory, a theme in many of my works. In this particular composition, it means that the work is constructed out of multiple "fixed objects" that either do not change or change very little, thereby giving the work its own memory with its own specific points, events, and items to recall. The fourth-dimensional model of memory introduces the concept of time, and more importantly, temporal comparability, meaning that it is possible to track the evolutions of different musical objects throughout the work.
Automatic Arms
Automatic Arms was written for violinist Eric km Clark, who has transformed an ordinary hot-pink violin into a simplified all-E string assault vehicle. In Eric's world, extremist improvisation, falsetto vocalizations and Whammy Pedal sweeps are a common language. In this new multimedia work, Brooklyn-based artists Wil Smith (music) and Kevin Lovelady (video) mechanically regulate this world with an array of digital equipment, the raw power of the human performer, and the arms in between.
Broken Drum
I found a car brake drum on the side of the road and decided to make this bit of wreckage into a musical instrument. Musically the piece focuses on two ideas: 1) the acoustic sonorities of the brake drum, and 2) the “broken drum” metaphor represented by rhythmic systems that in various ways are imperfectly constructed or disintegrated through cross-polymetric relationships. Broken Drum was written for percussionist Morris Palter. - M. Burtner
Fragments from Cold
Like a skier moving across the snow, I imagined the cellist sliding the bow across the surface of the cello. The performer’s breath and the sounds of snow reveal contours of two parallel terrains. Fragments from cold: the snow from outside, the breath from within. The tracks of both crossings are left in noise. Premiered at the Technosonics Festival by Madeleine Shapiro, Fragments from Cold was recently featured at the EMF Ear to the Earth Festival in New York. - M. Burtner
Kuik (aria)
The aria from my multimedia opera, "Kuik", traces the flow of water from glacier ice into the ocean, following the Kvichak river in southwest Alaska.The names of places expand on a legend from this river, and a lesson of peace among different people and harmony with our environment: "Water travels farther than human beings". "Kuik" has been performed at the Staunton Festival, the Whitney Museum in New York, the Stone in NY, and at the Peabody Conservatory. - M. Burtner
SXrAtch
In SXrAtch the saxophone is played like never before: struck, thrown, shaken, turned, and (of course) blown. The body of the instrument becomes a physically active part of the sonic result as the metasax sensors track parameters such as velocity, angle, acceleration and force. Intelligent samplers and chaotic systems create a bounded performance space in which decisions are made outside the performer’s control. Every aspect of the music is dynamic and chaotic. The performer inputs expressive movement and sound and the system either uses it or does not. Further destabilizing the performer, the system continuously remaps the sensor parameters. Playing SXrAtch is less like performing a saxophone than it is like surfing breakers… which is to say that playing saxophone is now much more fun. - M. Burtner
That which is bodiless is reflected in bodies
This piece explores notions of disembodiment through the combination of physical and virtual instruments. Resonant metals centered around a Tibetan singing bowl complement a soprano saxophone reimbodied in a Tibetan bowl through the use of interactive physical models. The title comes from Gnostic philosophy, a principle put forth in Artemidorus' Oneirocritica (ca. 200 AD), a large compendium of dream interpretations. - M. Burtner
SITES
EMF :: Arts Electric :: EMF Productions :: Ear to the Earth :: CDeMusic :: EMF Media :: EMF Institute