Posted by Thomas Deneuville »
Add Comment »According to the band itself,
“Big Farm is a place where serious counterpoint can meet burlesque, earnestness meet abandon; a place where they can kick it or take it to tea, reflect, attack, mourn, dance, pray, or mock with ease or determination, joy or fervor, using any and all means necessary. This world is a big farm – lots of different crops, changing weather, livestock, and a duck pond for good measure.”
Big Farm
Big Farm is Grammy winner and Pulitzer Prize finalist vocalist-lyricist Rinde Eckert; electric bassist Mark Haanstra; Grammy winner and pioneering composer/guitarist Steven Mackey; and celebrated percussionist Jason Treuting (So Percussion). Thanks to our friends at New Amsterdam Records, we are able to offer an exclusive album preview on I CARE IF YOU LISTEN! The eponymous debut album will be out on May 28, and this preview will stream until May 27, midnight EST.
Let your friends know about it!
Posted by Thomas Deneuville »
Add Comment »From the Make Music Winter website:
“Inspired by the collaborations of John Cage and Lou Harrison, So Percussion’s Jason Treuting and Josh Quillen will create a new piece for a chorus of pitched copper pipes in the streets of Greenwich Village. Led by percussionists Amy Garapic and Matt Evans, each participant will receive a length of pipe along with simple instructions for how and when to play it, and how to interact with the NYC percussionists who will join the proceedings at spots along the way.”
More info: http://makemusicny.org | http://sopercussion.com
Embedding is cool. Crediting is really cool.
Video + Editing: Thomas Deneuville | Opening animation: Daniel Thompson at DTWebart (http://www.dtwebart.com)
Posted by Justin Rito »
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A makeshift model of the Brooklyn Bridge built out of old cardboard boxes resides on the front of the new Sō Percussion and Grey McMurray collaboration, Where (we) Live. The imagery is apropos for both Sō and McMurray in that the album is meant to question what “home” can mean. What are its boundaries? How does it evolve, and what creates those evolutions? The album certainly communicates these questions (and many others) as a standalone creation, but the liner notes mention that the music heard here is actually a distillation of a larger project. In their effort to answer the seemingly endless questions that arise from a concept as slippery as “home,” Sō invited artists of all types to “substantively alter our process,” (more on this later).
Sō Percussion
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Posted by George Heathco »
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There were two wonderful opportunities over the past month for chamber music fans in Texas to experience fantastic performances of master works by leading contemporary American composers. The pair of concerts were on May 8 and 9 in San Antonio, and were presented by veteran new music group SOLI Chamber Ensemble. SOLI is a contemporary music quartet based in San Antonio, Texas, and is comprised of clarinetist Stephanie Key, violinist Ertan Torgul, cellist David Mollenauer, and pianist Carolyn True. They presented a youthful, energetic, and bold program of five works on May 8 at Trinity University’s Ruth Taylor Recital Hall. The program was repeated the following night at the McNay Art Museum, in the Leeper Auditorium. Of the five works performed over the two evenings, two pieces were premiere performances of specific arrangements, and one was a world premiere of a brand new collaborative work by composer Steven Mackey and video artist Mark DeChiazza.
SOLI Chamber Ensemble
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Posted by Evan Burke »
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Frank Zappa famously asked, “Does humor belong in music?”. He asked this question using an absurdist concert film, and answered it quite profoundly (I’m paraphrasing): of course it does, if music is supposed to be a reflection of human emotional life. Music persists in human society because of its ability to communicate complex emotions directly into our brains, more effectively than spoken or written language. Musicians play their instruments and the music plays us in turn. Humor persists for similar reasons, using language and wordplay and culture to elicit the uniquely human reactions of laughter and amusement. Humor experienced with other people helps you bond, and contributes to your shared history, much like music. But combining them has always been a challenge for composers. Historically, it’s difficult to produce funny instrumental music (although many great musicians have), and even when one hears clever, complex humor in a piece (think Shostakovich’s nervous, bitter sarcasm), it’s not usually laugh-out-loud funny. Finding a piece of instrumental music that you’d guffaw at like an episode of Arrested Development isn’t easy. When there are words, it’s usually in the form of funny lyrics, to a song whose general character is indistinguishable from other, non-funny songs. Nick Zammuto, composer and former ringleader of blues-folk musique-concrete act The Books, has a markedly different approach to music and humor, and together with composer/percussionist Jason Treuting, brought a variety of hilarious pieces to their slice of the Ecstatic Festival.
Jason Treuting – Photograph by David Andrako
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Posted by George Heathco »
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Following a fair amount of controversy regarding scandalous album art, Steve Reich released a new album this past September featuring three works: WTC 9/11, performed by the Kronos Quartet; Mallet Quartet, performed by So Percussion; and Dance Patterns, performed by members of Reich’s longtime ensemble Steve Reich and Musicians.
WTC 9/11 is Steve Reich’s third string quartet and, like its predecessors, was composed for the Kronos Quartet. Composed in 2010 the piece bears a striking resemblance to Reich’s first quartet Different Trains in that it features the quartet interacting with prerecorded voices, as well as an element that Reich made use of in his second string quartet Triple Quartet, which is writing for one live quartet and two prerecorded. There are three movements: I. 9/11, II. 2010, III. WTC. It commemorates the 10-year anniversary of the September 11 attacks on New York City, Virginia, and Pennsylvania.
Steve Reich (Source: redbullmusicacademy.com)
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