Past Events

CAMA Event
Saturday, May 8, 2010 – 7:30 pm
Kranzberg Arts Center
501 N. Grand

Separate Checks is a new work by composer/performer Tom Hamilton that combines electronic sound with acoustic performers. Hamilton continues the direction started in his CAMA event last season by directing a stream of improvising musicians to create a confluence of changing sonic ideas and moods in the midst of his sonic environment.

Percussionist/electronic musician Rich O’Donnell and reed player Dave Stone will join Hamilton in the spontaneous creation of Separate Checks. The group will also incorporate musical elements supplied by bassist Zimbabwe Nkenya.

Hamilton’s work with electronic music originated in the late-60s era of analog synthesis. He 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, has worked on more than 60 recordings, including 12 CDs of his own music, and is a longtime member of composer Robert Ashley’s touring opera ensemble.

More information and music samples.

CAMA Event!
Saturday, April 3, 2010 – 7:30 pm
Kranzberg Arts Center
501 N. Grand

Cellist Craig Hultgren is an activist for new music, the newly creative arts, and the avantgarde.

Possessing a broad range of instrumental techniques from traditional to radical, he has had over 100 new works written for him. He currently plays in the Alabama Symphony, has served as principal cellist with the National Symphony Orchestra of Panamá, and teaches at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, the Alabama School of Fine Arts, and Birmingham-Southern College, where he directs the BSC New Music Ensemble.

Along with poet Anna Lum, Dr. Mabuse (synthesizer and cello), and Rich O’Donnell on KYMA electronics, Hultgren will present a program that blurs the conclusions, beginnings and differences of music and poetry.

In Stains, an evocative set of solo cello pieces with strong narratives will be sampled and extended to run seamlessly, overlapping poems and stories. The works will include acoustic, electronic, and video pieces for solo cello played by Hultgren, as well as a variety of narrative pieces. The audience will contribute a collective “exquisite corpse” that will be created in the first part of the performance and performed at the end of the concert.

Saturday, March 13, 2010 – 7:30 pm
Kranzberg Arts Center
501 N. Grand

“Ice is personal to me – it reminds me of the cultural autonomy I felt as a child growing up in all-engulfing Nordic winters.” –John Tamm-Buckle

John Tamm-Buckle’s musical background ranges from classical training to rave-scene electronica. Growing up in Scandinavia and the UK, Tamm-Buckle’s interest in alternative forms of sonic expression stems from exposure to European modern art, sculpture, and British pirate radio.

Tamm-Buckle will perform Dronning Maud Land, an interactive sculpture made of ice frozen around a frame, contact microphones, and a digital thermometer. While the ice melts, pieces of the sculpture will be amplified and played like a percussion instrument. The signal sources will be run through a custom Max/MSP patch that performs various signal-processing and signal-routing functions. In addition to the sound of the sculpture, analyzed audio data will trigger and morph samples recorded in Antarctica.

More information about John Tamm-Buckle.

CAMA Event
Saturday, February 27, 2010 – 7:30 pm
Winifred Moore Auditorium
470 E. Lockwood Ave.
Co-sponsored by the Webster Film Series

Admission prices for this event only:
$6 Regular admission, $5 for Seniors, students, Webster alumni
$4 Webster U staff/faculty, $Free Webster U students with a valid ID

Media artist Van McElwee presents an evening of new video work, 3D animation by Casper McElwee, and new music by Rich O’Donnell and the Semi-Acoustic Noise Ensemble (SANE). In MODULAR MAZES these elements will operate as one, exploring the ancient form of the labyrinth in novel ways. 3D glasses will be provided for two of the pieces, BLUE SNOWBALLS and Y-SPACE.

McElwee’s body of work encompasses over 40 video installations and single channel works. He is the recipient of multiple awards and grants including The American Film Institute Independent Filmmaker Award and seven fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts. He has exhibited his work extensively worldwide, and is currently Professor of Electronic and Photographic Media at Webster University.

In Modular Mazes video and music, as well as 3D animation by Casper McElwee will operate as one, exploring the ancient form of the labyrinth in new ways.

http://www.webster.edu/filmseries/current.html

CAMA Event!
Saturday, February 13, 2010 – 7:30pm
Webster University Community Music School Concert Hall – map
Located behind the Loretto-Hilton at 535 Garden Ave, Webster Groves

Douglas R. Ewart, Flute, Sopranino Saxophone, Didjeridu, Voice and Percussion
Shirley LaFlore, Poet
Rashu Aten, Percussion
Jim Hegarty, Electronics

This concert is an homage to Zimbabwe Nkenya, composer, musician and community activist, who is currently recuperating from a stroke; the late grand poet, philosopher and activist Ajule Sonny Rutlin; and Haiti, the Pearl of the Antilles.

This is an opportune time to open our mind, heart, conduct, and pocket book, and to truly be our Sisters’ and Brothers’ keepers.

What this Haitian tragedy points out is that we need to assist each other before we have tragedies like we just experienced in Haiti. Haiti has been crying out for substantive support for hundreds of years. Haiti has been punished/isolated for being successful at fending off the slave promoting and maintaining countries of the world: France, England, America, Spain, Italy, Portugal, Netherlands, etc. Haiti has been suffering ever since its successful slave rebellion 1790s and independence in 1804. Haiti is the only nation on the planet that has had a successful slave rebellion. Thus Haiti’s infrastructure was never fully developed after its revolution. Dictatorships, corruption, and reprehensible Haitian governments have been fostered, bolstered, and well-supported by many powerful governments outside of Haiti with selfish agendas.

–Douglas R. Ewart

Douglas R. Ewart is perhaps best known as a composer, improviser, sculptor, and maker of masks and instruments. Douglas R. Ewart is also an educator, lecturer, arts organization consultant, and all-around visionary. In projects done in diverse media throughout an award-winning and widely-acclaimed 40-year career, Mr. Ewart has woven his remarkably broad gifts into a single sensibility that encourages and celebrates–as an antidote to the divisions and compartmentalization afflicting modern life–the wholeness of individuals in culturally active communities.

Ewart became associated with the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM) in 1967, studying with Joseph Jarman and Roscoe Mitchell. He served as that organization’s president from 1986 to 1979.

Ewart has performed or recorded with J. D. Parran, Muhal Richard Abrams, Art Ensemble of Chicago, Anthony Braxton, Alvin Curran, Anthony Davis, Robert Dick, Von Freeman, Joseph Jarman, Amina Claudine Myers, Roscoe Mitchell, James Newton, Rufus Reid, Wadada Leo Smith, Cecil Taylor, Richard Teitelbaum, Henry Threadgill, Hamid Drake, Don Byron, Malachi Favors Maghostut, and George Lewis.

The outstanding acoustics of the Webster University Community Music School Concert Hall will be the ultimate space to hear the unique and vibrant sounds of Ewart’s unique flutes and other instruments.

More information about the artists:

Douglas R. Ewart
Shirley LaFlore
Rashu Aten
Jim Hegarty