Saturday, January 28, 2012, 7:30 pm
Chris Corsano with Darin Gray and Dave Stone
Pre-show ambience provided by DJ Jeremy Kannapell
Plus free workshop — see below for details.

Chris Corsano, percussion
Dave Stone, reeds
Darin Gray, bass

Kranzberg Arts Center
501 N. Grand
St. Louis, MO 63103

With an expressive palette born from having studied a variety of extended drum techniques, Chris Corsano’s sound has become unique in both its rapidfire aggressiveness and its keen sense of space and tone, displaying a range of qualities not always found in the free music tropes.

Corsano has collaborated with a variety of artists: Björk, Sonic Youth, Jandek and Nels Cline, all the while maintaining ongoing partnerships with the likes of Akira Sakata, Paul Flaherty, Vampire Belt, Joe McPhee and many others.

This concert will find Corsano performing solo pieces as well as collaborating with two fixtures on St. Louis’s experimental music scene, bassist Darin Gray, with whom he has toured Japan (in Akira Sakata’s Trio), and saxophonist, Dave Stone.

Saturday, December 3, 2011, 7:30 pm
Tony Conrad

White Flag Projects
4568 Manchester Ave.
St. Louis, MO 63110

For nearly fifty years, experimental sound and visual performance artist, Tony Conrad, has been making drone music and short films that re-examine and re-invent their form, content and structure.

Conrad was one of the early pioneers of New York minimalism and deep listening microtonal music. He worked in 1962 on LaMonte Young’s “Dream Music” project with the likes of John Cale and Angus MacLise (both moving on later to form The Velvet Underground). Since then, he has remained the purest and most ascetic of the minimalists.

Violin has remained his trademark instrument, although he has also manipulated sound through electronics, studio techniques, and projects with various collaborators.

• Saturday, November 12, 2011, 7:30 pm
  Keith Fullerton Whitman

  White Flag Projects
  4568 Manchester Ave.
  St. Louis, MO 63110

  

  Since early childhood, Keith Fullerton Whitman has been interested in electronics. He eventually developed his own process-intensive version of electronic music, often involving a wide variety of electronic instrumentation, ranging from digital processing to analogue synthesis to primitive “musique concrete” tape experiments.

  Finding inspiration in electronic music’s history, Whitman helps to span the gap between early electronic pioneering experimentation and the current underground noise, electronica, and free music scenes.

  Pre-show ambience provided by DJ Joe Raglani

  EVENT BEGINS PROMPTLY AT 7:30 pm

  Whitman will also lead a WORKSHOP on electronic music and modular synthesis (bring your instruments!). Nov. 12, 1:00-2:30 pm;  Luminary Center for the Arts, 4900 Reber Place, 63139

• Friday, October 28, 2011, 7:30 pm
  James Mobberley and Paul Rudy

  Kranzberg Arts Center
  501 N. Grand
  St. Louis, MO 63103

  

  Paul Rudy and James Mobberley both teach, compose, and perform experimental and electro-acoustic music in the Conservatory of Music, University of Missouri–Kansas City. Together they have composed four new pieces which explore the possible interrelationships between ‘live’ acoustic instruments and pre-recorded electronic sounds.

  James Mobberley’s music spans many media, including orchestral and chamber music, music for film, video, theater, dance, and music that combines electronic and computer elements with live performance. Overall, his music has received more than 600 performances on five continents. He has recently been named Curators’ Professor of Music and currently serves as Composer-in-Residence for New Ear, Kansas City’s Contemporary Music Ensemble.

  Paul Rudy is a Rome Prize, Guggenheim, Fulbright and Wurlitzer Foundation Fellow and has recently won the Sounds Electric ’07 Competition. “Paul makes incredibly beautiful music from musical tones and environmental sounds of widely varying recognizability…” Kyle Gann, The Arts Journal

• Friday, October 14, 2011, 7:30 pm
  Matthew Shipp Trio
  Co-sponsored by Washington University

  

  Matthew Shipp, piano
  Michael Bisio, bass
  Whit Dickey, drums

  The Ballroom at the 560 Music Center at Washington University
  560 Trinity Ave.
  University City, MO 63130

  Always on the cutting edge of jazz improvisation, Matthew Shipp has, over the course of his career, developed an identifiable language of his own. His new ensemble direction blends high energy and a sense of freedom with complexly structured themes and extended, long range form.

  Learning to be a jazz player at an extremley early age, Shipp moved to New York City in 1995 and was soon performing with the David S. Ware Quartet and Roscoe Mitchell’s Note Factory. He has recorded with such top flight performers as William Parker, Joe Morris and Daniel Carter.

  In February 2011, Shipp released a double-disc album entitled ”Art of the Improviser”. This release is “testament to Shipp’s achievements, yet it is also a continuation of the discovery in his developmental musical language.” The Chicago Tribune

Saturday, September 17, 2011, 7:30 pm
Joe McPhee’s Survival Unit III
plus free workshop at 2pm (see below)

CAMA Event! – Combination Tones – Tom Hamilton

Tom Hamilton

• Peter Zummo – trombone
• Rich O’Donnell – percussion
• Tom Hamilton – electronics
• Bill Schulenburg – sound design

“Combination Tones” is the new work by composer/performer Tom Hamilton. In combining his electronic sound with 2 longtime collaborators, New York trombonist Peter Zummo and St. Louis percussionist Rich O’Donnell, Hamilton continues exploration of the improvisational territory defined in his previous CAMA events. The musicians form a confluence of changing sonic ideas and moods in the midst of Hamilton’s sonic environment, embellished by sound designer Bill Schulenburg.

Hamilton often explores the interaction of many simultaneous layers of activity, prompting the use of “present-time listening” on the part of both performer and listener. Hamilton was a 2005 Fellow of the Civitella Ranieri Foundation in Umbria.

NMC Laptop Orchestra Project – Premiere Performance

Saturday, April 16, 2011, 7:30 pm
William A. Kerr Foundation
21 O’Fallon St., St. Louis, MO 63102

An orchestra of laptop performers join together to present a multidimensional texture of sound layers. Individual performers distributed throughout the perfor- mance space explore spatial and antiphonal possibilities in originally created site-specific sound works. Lighting and projected video will enhance the multi-faceted environment. The concert features community members as laptop performers and soloists and is organized by the NMC and Jim Hegarty.

A demonstration workshop will also be held in the music technology studios, at St. Louis Community College at Forest Park in The Mildred Bastian Center, room T-165 (the rehearsal room under the main theatre) on Thursday, April 14, 2011 at 7:30 pm. The workshop is free and open to the public, and there will be free software distribution.

Peter Henderson, piano

Peter Henderson

Peter Henderson will perform The People United Will Never Be Defeated! by Frederic Rzewski and 24 Studies in African Rhythms by fellow St. Louisan Fred Onovwerosuoke. The People United is a theme and 36 variations on “El pueblo unido jamas sera vencido,” a song from the Unidad Popular coalition in Chile. Extended techniques and technically demanding passages build to frequent, forceful climaxes.

Mr. Henderson is a strong advocate of new music, having given several premieres of solo piano works over the past several years. In addition to solo recitals, Henderson has performed with noted German violist Roland Glassl, the Ilex Piano Trio, the Garth Newel Piano Quartet, and the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra.

“In the classical music crowd in St. Louis, Henderson is a name to conjure with – up there with David Robertson, the musical director of the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra, who makes use of Henderson’s talents often. Onovwerosuoke, who produced and executive-produced this recording, selected an exciting variety of tunes and tempos for Henderson’s expert hands.” –Chris King, St. Louis American

CAMA Event! – Craig Hultgren, cello

Craig Hultgren

CAMA artist and cellist Craig Hultgren will present a concert of some of the 20th Century’s most severe musical compositions that are associated with the music courses in contemporary music given in Darmstadt, Germany. The program features music by Maricio Kagel and others related to the Darmstadt school. The program will also present videos from this era of great musical experimentation. Joining Hultgren will be percussionists Stuart Gerber from Atlanta, Rich O’Donnell from St. Louis and cellist Tracy Andreotti from St. Louis.

LaDonna Smith

LaDonna Smith and Davey Williams

Saturday, February 12, 2011, 7:30 pm
The Focal Point
2720 Sutton Blvd.

Violinist and violist LaDonna Smith has been on the international new music scene for well over 20 years. She is an active performer, as well as an educator and native of Birmingham, Alabama. LaDonna has created a style of improvisation on violin and viola that is uniquely her own. Alternating classical and extended techniques, she explores her instrument,
painting scenarios and sound pictures as she plays. She has performed at practically every major improvisation festival and many of the New Music Festivals.

Davey Williams is a highly regarded improvising guitarist who performs solo and in collaborations with LaDonna Smith. Throughout the ‘80’s and ‘90’s he was a member of the experimental group Curlew as well as other bands including Ok, Nurse, and Fuzzy Suns. In addition to frequent collaborative performances, the duo maintains their own recording label, TransMuseq, and also co-edit the improvisor, the international journal of free improvisation.

Bloom Project – Thollem Mcdonas & Rent Romus

Saturday, January 22, 2011, 7:30 pm
Kranzberg Arts Center
501 N. Grand

Bloom Project duo Thollem McDonas and Rent Romus

Bloom Project is a spirited collaboration between pianist Thollem McDonas and saxophonist producer Rent Romus. McDonas has logged thousands of miles touring throughout world performing his unique brand of compositional improvisation with eighteen recordings spanning eight recording labels. Romus has released over twenty three recordings and built a community infrastructure in the San Francisco Bay Area as the owner of Edgetone Records and the Executive Director of Outsound.

Bloom Project features free improvisations as well interpretations of textual and graphical scores. The music is an organic construction and expression that combines disparate and divergent stylistic histories with a sense of refreshing immediacy, intensity, and spontaneous inventiveness.

Download the 2010-2011 New Music Circular (PDF) (Season Brochure)

sound designer and self-taught pianist Lauri des Marais

NMC Showcase – Five Innovative Artists

Saturday, December 4, 2010 7:30 pm
Steinberg Auditorium at Washington University

This concert is an opportunity to experience the creativity of five innovative regional artists as they present individual sets of recent work.

• Eric Hall (electronics and processed instruments) is a composer, improviser, producer, and performer of electronic-based music, as well as an installation artist and DJ.
• Zlatko Ćosić is an experimental filmmaker and video artist.
• Lauri des Marais is a self-taught pianist who has a large body of work that includes solo piano, electronic ambience and avant garde arrangements.
• Baba Mike Nelson – Sound artist and vocalist who works with indigenous instruments, fusing a genre bending meld of Asian, and African music with American sounds.
• Ron Coulter is a percussionist, composer and sound artist who works with self-built instruments, an array of electronic effects and unusual sound sources.

Steinberg Auditorium at Washington University
Forsyth at Skinker
7:30pm