Best known for his ambient, slowly evolving sound compositions such as The Disintegration Loops (2002), tape-loop tinkerer William Basinski presents his most recent piece, Nocturnes. Originally recorded in 1979, the piano metallic tape loop used in Nocturnes was stored for more than 30 years, gradually being degraded and transmuted by time. Basinski has further altered the identity of the sound by removing the attacks of the piano and overlaying them, creating an underwater-like atmosphere that is strangely recognizable as the ghost of the piano.

William Basinski is a classically trained musician and composer who has been working in experimental media for over 25 years. His haunting and melancholy soundscapes explore the temporal nature of life, resounding with the reverberations of memory and the mystery of time. His epic four-disc masterwork, The Disintegration Loops, received international critical acclaim and was chosen as one of the top 50 albums of 2004 by Pitchfork Media. Artforum magazine selected The River, Basinski’s transcendental two-disc shortwave music experiment on Raster-Noton.de, Germany, as one of the top 10 albums of 2003. His concerts, installations, and films made in collaboration with artist-filmmaker James Elaine have been presented internationally, most recently at the Venice Biennale; Happy New Ears Festival, Belgium; Focus: ONE Festival, Poland; Festival Filosofia, Carpi, Italy; and Cité de la Musique, Paris, among others. Basinski's latest albums, 92982 and Vivian & Ondine, were released in 2009 on 2062/USA and distributed internationally. The Wire magazine selected 92982 as one of the top 50 releases of 2009.

Two masterful pianists from different musical worlds: Vicky Chow is a champion of new music, who performs as a soloist and with ensembles like the Bang on a Can All-Stars, and Craig Taborn is an unparalleled jazz keyboardist who tours as a soloist, band leader, and sideman with musicians like Dave Holland and Tim Berne. Chow and Taborn’s contrasting solo sets represented the wide spectrum of virtuoso pianism today. 

Chow has performed extensively as a classical and contemporary soloist, chamber musician, and ensemble member; While at the University of Michigan, Taborn became a member of saxophonist James Carter’s band. He has subsequently worked with many musicians, including Dave Douglas, Hugh Ragin, Eivind Opsvik, Marty Ehrlich, Drew Gress, Chris Potter, David Torn, Michael Formanek, and Tomasz Stanko, as well as with members of the Bad Plus. 

Program

Avenging Angel Solos and Improvisations Craig Taborn, piano Interval Surface Image for piano and 40-channel 1-bit electronics - Tristan Perich Vicky Chow, piano

Celebrate the DVD/Blu-ray release of Brent Green’s Gravity Was Everywhere Back Then. Produced in conjunction with, as well as shot and mastered at EMPAC, the film of the live version will be screened, followed by a discussion with Green. Purchase of a ticket includes a copy of the release.

Through live action and hand-drawn stop-motion animation, Gravity Was Everywhere Back Then tells the true story of a man who fought against reason and nature to save the woman he loved from illness. Heartbreaking, darkly humorous, and philosophically challenging, Brent Green touches on everything from the vastness of space and the existence of God to the futility of our actions and the power of human will. Green narrates the film and provides a soundtrack along with his band.

Oneohtrix Point Never—aka Daniel Lopatin—is a Brooklyn-based composer who creates electronic music that is often described as “cinematic” and “orchestral.” While broad in range, Lopatin does not ignore the small stuff; his sound engineering crafts and controls every detail and effect. Pulling from a wide range of influences—synth sounds, television commercials, classical minimalism, and high-end audio production—Lopatin condenses the disparate sounds to form music that slopes forward with self-contained narratives. Oneohtrix Point Never performs new music with visuals by Nate Boyce from his upcoming album R Plus Seven.

Daniel Lopatin has always deftly balanced the experimental with the accessible: He has released several albums under his Oneohtrix Point Never moniker on various independent labels – including the 2013 3-CD/5 LP Rifts, a compilation of his early work – as well as amassing a large catalogue of mini-album tape releases. His most recent disc, 2011’s Replica, was built around samples of television commercials; Sasha Frere Jones of the New Yorker called it “music that gently triggers a series of images and feelings, none of which you can name and all of which seem entirely common.” He has built live soundscapes at the Museum of Modern Art; collaborated with Montreal-based ambient electronic music composer Tim Hecker on the largely improvised 2012 Instrumental Tourist; and recast the title track from his 2010 disc Returnal as an elegant and emotive piece for piano, featuring the otherworldly voice of Antony Hegarty. Advertising powerhouse Saatchi & Saatchi tapped Lopatin for an installation event at the 2012 Cannes film fest and Sofia Coppola’s longtime cohort Brian Reitzell invited him to create original music for Coppola’s The Bling Ring. Said the Saatchi execs, “There’s this grandeur to his music, but it’s always counterbalanced by moments of irony and lightness.”

Praised by critics around the world, audiences over the past several years have gravitated to OPN’s profound arrangements, which touch upon both mainstream and discarded electronic music histories; merging the structural freedom of noise with the abstract emotionality of work considered by many to be “background music.” In addition to his work as OPN, Lopatin is known for his production and arrangement work, having collaborated with Antony Hegarty, Doug Aitken, Fennesz, Tim Hecker, and Hans-Peter Lindstrøm, among others.

Taking jazz ensembles into the 21st century, the Peter Evans Quintet incorporates real-time sound processing with traditional instruments. These live electronics allow the group to change their sound fluidly from mellow tones to jagged rattling to cacophonous reverberation. The quintet draws on traditional jazz idioms as source material and contorts them into something resembling classical European avant-garde—complete with complex rhythms played with pinpoint accuracy and confounding extended techniques. Peter Evans Quintet:

Peter Evans (trumpets/compositions)

Ron Stabinsky (piano)

Tom Blancarte (bass)

Jim Black (drums)

Sam Pluta (live electronics)

One of the most beguiling experimental jazz groups working, the Peter Evans Quintet contorts traditional jazz idioms with European avant-garde structures. Their music comes alive with complex rhythms, pinpoint virtuosity, and surprising techniques of prolongation. Evans and his ensemble performed at EMPAC while they were in residence recording material for their next album. Evans is a trumpet player and composer based in New York City who works across a wide spectrum of contemporary music practices. In addition to touring internationally with the quintet since 2009, he has formed collaborative groups with other composers and improvisers (Pulverize the Sound, Rocket Science) and performed music by both new and established composers. As a trumpet player, Evans has been steadily working to broaden the expressive vocabulary of the instrument for both solo and group contexts. In 2011 he established his More is More label and has released several recordings of his music.

Pauline Oliveros began her exploration of listening as a child fascinated by sounds of nature, music and daily life. She noticed early on that others seemed to ignore the sounds that she loved. As a composer Oliveros began to address the direction of attention with Sonic Meditations (1970) – compositions written in prose. Sonic Meditations was a radical departure from conventionally notated music. Oliveros considers “ear training” to be a misnomer for what should be “brain training”. These compositions are directions for ways of listening (hearing plus attention) and ways of responding (vocalizing aloud or mentally).

Listening is not the same as hearing and is not as well understood as hearing. Hearing is physical and can be measured. Listening is more mysterious and as yet can only be measured subjectively.

So what does it mean to listen. Further what is Deep Listening? Deep Listening practice was created by Oliveros to experience and share what is heard in order to gain understanding of our primary sense.

Listening In can be understood ambiguously as over hearing sounds or listening inwardly. Listening Out could be directing attention to what is understood as sounds external to the self.
In any case listening requires attention and choice whereas hearing happens involuntarily.

The RMA is putting on our annual Pops Concert! We will be featuring the Symphony Orchestra, Repertory Jazz Orchestra, and Contemporary Jazz Ensemble, featuring guest singer Janice Pendarvis . Come support your friends and listen to some awesome music!

Laurie Anderson discussed the ever-evolving development of new instruments and interfaces for her productions and performances, and her “new rig,” which finally allows her to travel with her custom configuration of instruments in a suitcase. She was joined by her software and hardware collaborators: Konrad Kaczmarek, Liubo Borissov, and Shane Koss. She also discussed her new work with the Kronos Quartet, Landfall, one of the projects she was working on in residence at EMPAC.

Throughout her genre-crossing career, Anderson has invented several technological devices for use in her recordings and performance art shows, including voice filters, a tape-bow violin, and a talking stick. In 2002, she was appointed NASA’s first artist-in-residence, and she was also part of the team that created the opening ceremony for the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens. She has published six books, produced numerous videos, films, radio pieces, and original scores for dance and film. In 2007, she received the prestigious Dorothy and Lillian Gish Prize for her outstanding contribution to the arts. 

Laurie Anderson, EMPAC’s inaugural distinguished artist-in-residence, presented a series of events focusing on topics unique to her practice as an artist. 

Ben Frost’s music is not just heard; it’s felt. Influenced by classical minimalism, punk rock, and metal, he creates intense, monolithic sounds that command attention. Keenly aware of listeners’ thresholds, Frost exploits every extreme of pitch and volume as he pushes the sound of electric guitars, drums, and laptops out from a wall of speakers and amps. As the music unfolds, overlapping layers and elongated structural forms emerge from within the encompassing sonic space.

Frost and his group were in residence to record and perform his composition A U R O R A. While using EMPAC’s Studio 1 for tracking, he routed sound back through the Concert Hall, transforming it into a real-time reverb chamber. Frost has given building-shaking performances at international festivals such as Montréal’s MUTEK, combining amplified electronics with the furious thrashing of live guitars. His music’s intense physicality has also driven contemporary dance productions by Chunky Move, the Icelandic Dance Company, and the choreographers Erna Ómarsdottír and Wayne McGregor.