NewMusicCircle

This Week: Jen Shyu at The Kranzberg & Special Workshop Event….

October 24, 2016December 27, 2016 by NewMusicCircle

“Jen Shyu represents a new kind of improviser-composer-ethnomusicologist hybrid; this is the result of her own fieldwork (in East Timor, Indonesia, Taiwan and South Korea), pushed through an extraordinary voice and a circle of high-level improvisers.” – Ben Ratliff, NY Times

Solo Concert:

Friday, November 11. 2016

The Kranzberg Arts Center

501 N Grand Blvd. 63103

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+ Just Announced: Special Artist Talk /Workshop with Jen Shyu

Thursday, November 10th

Lewis Center (721 Kingsland Ave. 63130.

Talk will take place in the conference room on 1st floor)

6pm – 7pm. Free and open to the public.

Please join NMC and WUSTL/Sam Fox School as Jen Shyu leads a special artist talk and performance. This event will last roughly one hour, and begins at 6pm. This event is open to the public, no rsvp is needed.

This event is presented by New Music Circle and The Sam Fox School at WUSTL

please reach #314-477-3146 for questions

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Solo Rites: Seven Breaths, performed by Jen Shyu, is a musical drama and portrait of a woman living simultaneously in multiple cultures and “projecting her ancestry” through contemporary monologue — revealing a personal journey of loss and redemption made universal through the exploration of losses and complications of the modern world: loss of tradition, habitat, and public spaces. Sonic, visual, and visceral rites and reflections are discovered by pilgrimage through Taiwan, East Timor, Indonesia, Vietnam, and South Korea.

About Jen Shyu: Born in Illinois from immigrant parents of Taiwan and East Timor, 2014 Doris Duke Impact Award recipient Jen Shyu is an experimental jazz vocalist, composer, multi-instrumentalist, dancer, and educator, having performed internationally as a solo artist, bandleader, and collaborator. Shyu recently spent nearly two years on a Fulbright scholarship in Indonesia studying Sindhenan (traditional Javanese improvisational singing) as well as the simultaneous song and dance form, Ledhekan. She is also a former Asian Cultural Council and Jerome Foundation grantee.

jenshyu

Spring Roll Quartet – October 22nd at KDHX

October 4, 2016December 7, 2016 by NewMusicCircle

Thank you to everyone who came out and supported our season opening concert! We appreciate the support and enthusiasm and we will keep the shows rolling until the end of the year. Please check out our second show of the season, featuring an up-and-coming quartet from France that combines elements of modern composition, experimental rock, and instrumental music. Once again, we will be working with KDHX to bring you new sounds. Additional information is below and in the Upcoming Events page.

Sylvaine Hélary (France) is a composer, and flutist, active in a multitude of endeavors, from performance art, composing for large ensembles, to improvised engagements with Chicago figures such as cellist Fred Lonberg-Holm and percussionist Mike Reed. Her most recent ensemble, working under the title Spring Roll, covers a span of styles, warranting comparisons to Ornette Coleman and Harry Partch, as well as underground-rock greats Henry Cow and Captain Beefheart.

58th Season Upcoming Events

September 10, 2016December 8, 2016 by NewMusicCircle

NMC and KDHX present

Thomas Fujiwara’s The Hook Up

April 28th or 29th, 2017

The Stage at KDHX

3524 Washington Ave. 63103

Tomas Fujiwara – drums / compositions

Mary Halvorson – guitar

Brian Settles – saxophones

Jonathan Finlayson – trumpet

Michael Formanek – upright bass

A drummer working along jazz music’s fringe, Tomas Fujiwara’s résumé boasts memberships in the Taylor Ho Bynum Sextet and the cooperative trio Thumbscrew, featuring acclaimed guitarist Mary Halvorson and veteran bassist Michael Formanek. Fujiwara’s flagship ensemble, The Hook Up, performs rhythmically upbeat tunes, their music often alluding to the aesthetic qualities of Wayne Shorter or Miles Davis of the 1960s – sleek, enigmatically post-bop, more suggestive than demonstrative, complicated but never random. 2016 saw the release of After All is Said, The Hook Up’s third album, which was honed extensively in ‘live’ performance, emphasizing Fujiwara’s nuanced arrangements while honoring the dynamics of its virtuosic soloists: guitarist Halvorson, tenor saxophonist Brian Settles, trumpeter Jonathan Finlayson and bassist Formanek.

New Music Circle Showcase TBA

May 2017

PostCardTabornDavis

Kris Davis – piano
Craig Taborn – piano

Please join us for New Music Circle’s 58th Season opening concert
Saturday, October 1st at the 560 Music Center (E. Desmond Lee Concert Hall)
560 Trinity Ave, St. Louis, MO 63130 (map)
7pm doors / 8pm concert

Tickets available here
Performance and seating will be onstage in the main auditorium of the E. Desmond Lee room.
This concert will be professionally recorded and documented for an upcoming CD release.

Pianist-composer Kris Davis has prospered as one of the singular talents on the New York jazz scene, known for her ability to interweave jazz standards equally with experimental improvisations. Kris cites 20th century composers György Ligeti and Morton Feldman as inspirations in her quest to form complex compositions, yet she utilizes the sense of freedom found in avant-garde jazz to push these influences into new communicative territory. Her 2011 album, Capricorn Climber, made “best of the year” lists in The New York Times, NPR, and Art Forum. In 2015 she was granted the Doris Duke Impact Award. ( www.krisdavis.net )

Craig Taborn is as likely to be playing free-improvisation with Roscoe Mitchell (Art Ensemble of Chicago), as he is to be playing straight-ahead jazz at New York City’s Village Vanguard. Though as adept in composed solo piano settings (see 2011’s critically acclaimed Avenging Angel) as with electro-acoustic sound collage (see 2004’s electronic album Junk Magic), his work resists genre labeling. While he has had a transformative impact on jazz, he remains even more deeply invested in the avant-garde models he has been exploring ever since his teenage years in Minneapolis, citing Cecil Taylor and Sun Ra as influences. Jazz Times ranked Taborn in its 2013 critics’ poll as “best piano player”, and in 2014 he was granted a Doris Duke Artist Award. ( player.ecmrecords.com/taborn )