A concert featuring compositions and performances by Rensselaer Arts Department faculty and alumni—

Program

Ensemble Congeros Directed by Eddie Ade Knowles INTERMISSION Neil Rolnick Digits, for piano, soundtrack, and video Vicky Chow, piano Video by R. Luke DuBois Pauline Oliveros Tree/Peace Michael Century, piano Jonathan Chen, violin Sam Clapp, cello Michael Century Within and Without Michael Century, accordion with electronics Mary Simoni Eulogy Jeanine Tesori The Girl From 14G Kimberley Dolanski, soprano Mary Simoni, piano Curtis Bahn Improvisation Curtis Bahn, rikEsitar, E-sraj and laptop Seth Cluett, shruti box, laptop, and electronics Michael Bullock, analog & digital video instruments

About the Music

ENSEMBLE CONGEROS Founded in 2004, by Professor Eddie Ade Knowles, Ensemble Congeros is a group of Rensselaer alumni/ae and current students dedicated to the study and performance of Afro-Cuban, African, and New World Percussion. They will perform new work with special guest artists and music from their 2012 DVD, Ensemble Congeros: Chasing the Rhythms. NEIL ROLNICK Digits (2005) for piano, soundtrack, and video. Obviously, digits are what we use both to play the piano and to operate computers. This piece makes some fairly extreme demands on both types of digits. The piano part, written for Kathleen Supové, exploits her incredible technique to play a bit more than is humanly possible. The computer, which plays only sounds that originate from the piano, integrates with the live playing in a way which is seamless and, hopefully, a bit magical. Digits is a composition for solo piano and digital processing. The pianist must bring virtuoso technique to the performance, and the processing is designed to amplify the piano’s sound in ways that are both subtle and arresting. All the processed sound comes from the piano. There can also be a video component of the piece. Designed by R. Luke DuBois, using Jitter, the video track processes live images of the pianist’s fingers (her digits) as she performs the piece, and projects them on a screen inside or above the piano lid. The overall effect of the piece is of a classical, virtuoso piano sonata, in which the piano itself has been bent slightly out of shape, amplified, and multiplied, and the images of the player’s fingers are brought directly to the audience and manipulated to complement the music. PAULINE OLIVEROS Tree/Peace consists of seven sections: The Mystery of Propagation, The Growth of the Seedling, The Full Formation and Maturity of the Tree, The Action of the Seasons, The Magical Nature of the Tree, and The Death of the Tree, Contemplation. The composer notes: The tree metaphor is intended to influence the characteristic dynamics, articulations, and style of the smallest units of Tree/Peace as well as the phrases and sections…[It] is based on attentional strategies which involve listening and reacting acutely in specific ways while shaping the resulting musical performance in relation to the metaphor of an imaginary tree”. MICHAEL CENTURY Within and Without (2012) I began playing the accordion at the invitation of MFA alumna Ryder Cooley (2008) and then became a serious student of the instrument with the encouragement of Pauline Oliveros. Her pioneering work with electronic-processed accordion is part of the backdrop for this new piece of my own, and I dedicate its first performance tonight to her. Initially I only knew I wanted to use the rich timbral palette of the accordion to “drive” a music of rhythmic pulsation. So I used a common software environment for electronic dance music to begin my explorations, found the modules that fit my purposes and engaged MFA alumnus Holland Hopson (1998) to design a patch in Max/MSP that would boil down my musical ideas to a custom instrument I could program myself. The music is in a popular idiom, and its title refers to the Beatles’ song Within You and Without You, which provides some of the melodic motifs. The electronic modules are the classic filters and samplers that have been around since analogue days, and the central instrumental technique used in the piece is the tremolando effect – shaking the accordion in fast rhythmic repetition – usually synced tightly with the electronic pulsation. MARY SIMONI’s Eulogy is a musical interpretation of the eulogy that the children of Lewis E. Simoni, the composer's father, delivered at his funeral. JEANINE TESORI’s The Girl in 14G is a charming stand-alone piece which details the story of a girl moving into New York City and her experiences in her new apartment. The work contains three distinct musical styles; musical theater, opera (with quotes from Mozart’s The Queen of the Night and Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake.) and jazz. Jeanine Tesori is best known for the musicals Thoroughly Modern Millie, Caroline, Or Change and Shrek the Musical. CURTIS BAHN Improvisation—In the spirit of iEAR, Seth, Michael and Curtis will freely improvise using combinations of analog and digital tools for live video and sound. Having a history of performance together spanning over 20 years since the early 90's at Princeton where Curtis was a graduate student and Michael was an undergraduate student. The three improvised together using very different instruments and techniques for many years in Boston prior to Michael or Seth attending iEAR. After attending Rensselaer, Seth attended Princeton for his PhD where he again worked with Curtis through the Princeton Laptop Orchestra (PLOrk), the two also performed in New York at ISSUE Project Room. Michael was Curtis' advisee as the first PhD awarded by the Arts Department. The three have not performed together before using the particular instruments heard tonight which reflect their current interests and research.

Composer Michael Gordon rehearsed, recorded, and premiered his new work Rushes for seven bassoons. Composed with cascading waves of sound, Gordon’s composition transformed the woodwinds into something improbably electronic. A companion piece to his earlier composition Timber (which applied a similar sound layering technique to the Simantra percussion instrument), Rushes is a haunting convergence of digital and analog ambiance.

Gordon is co-founder and co-artistic director of New York City’s music collective Bang on a Can, and has produced a diverse body of work, ranging from large-scale pieces for ensembles to major orchestral commissions to works conceived specifically for the recording studio. He has been commissioned by Lincoln Center, Carnegie Hall, the BBC Proms, the Brooklyn Academy of Music, and the Sydney 2000 Olympic Arts Festival, among others.

A concert of classical and contemporary music directed by Michael Century, with Holland Hopson, and featuring Rensselaer student and faculty performers

Program to include compositions ranging across the career of John Cage and a partial re-enactment of Glenn Gould's final piano recital in 1964, combined with a sound collage by Century and Hopson. Works by Cage include Inlets/Improvisation 2, Litany for the Whale, Two(four) for cello and piano, Bacchanale for Prepared Piano.

Presented by the Arts Department and sponsored by the Classical Concert Committee of the Rensselaer Union with support from the Jaffe Fund for Experimental Media and Performing Arts.

An exploration of the music of the African Diaspora, performed by Ensemble Congeros - Prof. Eddie Ade Knowles and students and alumni/ae of Knowles' introductory Afro-Cuban Percussion course.

As part of an artist-in-residence recording project, pianist Yegor Shevtsov presented a work-in-progress performance of solo pieces by two giants of 20th century music. Separated by almost a century, Debussy’s Etudes (1915) and Boulez’s Incises (1994/2001) intersect in both their French heritage and their substantial demands on a pianist’s control and technique. Rounding out the recital was Boulez’s more recent work for solo piano, une page d’éphéméride (2005). During the residency, Shevtsov first made high-quality test recordings, evaluated the recording and performance over several months, and then returned to make a final version. The music was mixed and mastered at EMPAC.

Shevtsov is a Ukrainian-born pianist based in New York City. As a soloist and a collaborative pianist, he has performed widely, including at Lincoln Center, Carnegie Hall, the Whitney Museum, and Tanglewood.

A sound installation by German artist Thom Kubli, Black Hole Horizon was designed and constructed at Rensselaer in collaboration with the School of Architecture and consultants Zackery Belanger (acoustic design) and David Jaschik (mechatronics). Using the university’s laser-cutting and 3D-milling equipment for the material creation, the production team designed a complex system of air compressors, fluid pumps, and Arduino-controlled mechanisms to create horns that produce tone-generated bubbles. Each bubble is deformed by the energy of the sound produced through the horn, and then bursts onto the room’s white floor. The shapes of the horns, some stretching eight feet long, were based on a model of a black hole geometrodynamic physics. In the installation, spectators could explore the space by walking through the room and witnessing the transformation of sound into ephemeral sculptures.

Jem Cohen’s newest film project is a documentary-based, interdisciplinary hybrid built from footage he gathered in Nova Scotia over the past decade, coupled with live music and texts ranging from poems and folklore to mundane local newspaper fragments to scientific research.

As an artist who has explored and deplored the disappearance of regional character brought on by corporate-driven homogeneity, the discovery of Cape Breton was a revelation for Jem, who describes it as a place as beautiful as any he has ever seen throughout his travels, but one that remains elusive and deeply “itself.”

This commissioned project, premiering here at EMPAC and featuring such stellar musicians as Guy Picciotto (Fugazi), Efrim Menuck (Founder, Godspeed You! Black Emperor), T. Griffin, Jim White (Dirty Three), Jessica Moss (Silver Mt. Zion), and Sophie Trudeau (Godspeed You! Black Emperor, SMZ), will be a visual and sonic exploration that primarily exists as a visceral evocation of place, and for someone known primarily as an urban filmmaker, a rare foray into intensive engagement with the natural landscape.

April 23 — Screening of Gravity Hill Newsreels: Occupy Wall Street (Series One and Two)

Please join resident, Jem Cohen, for a screening and discussion about his recent documentary work around Occupy Wall Street @ 2pm in the Theater. FREE.

Infinite Jest was both an installation and a live handmade film inspired by the complex and remarkable novel of the same name by the late author David Foster Wallace. The evening began with the audience experiencing the performance space as an installation composed of a text-based soundtrack and various miniature sets intended for the audience to walk through and examine. The film was then brought to life through the lens of live cameras that follow the manipulation of photographs, drawings, scale models, and various three dimensional objects by visual artist and performer SUE-C, along with the live lush electronic soundtrack and vocals by AGF and narration from Francis Deehan. Set in a slightly futuristic world, the film is an attempt to create and re-create what character James Orin Incandenza, optics expert and filmmaker, considered his life’s major work. After many unseen failures, his “film” Entertainment is eventually released, which proves to be fatally seductive. With this as a jumping off point, long time audiovisual collaborators SUE-C and AGF explore the expression of seduction in sound and image.

The day prior to the performance, SUE-C also gave a reading of excerpts from Infinite Jest and a discussion of her work. SUE-C has created handmade videos for both the stage and screen, challenging the norms of photography, video, and technology by blending them into an organic and improvisational live performance. AGF (Antye Greie) is a singer and digital songwriter, producer, performer, e-poet, calligrapher, and digital media artist known for her artistic exploration of digital technology through the deconstruction of language and communication. 

Quote Unquote was an interdisciplinary series presenting work by artists that use an existing text as a departure point for time-based works including installation, film, and performance.

“What could a musikFabrik (music factory) be?” When asked this question, a young child answered, “That’s where they create music that hasn’t been made yet.” Ensemble musikFabrik has been commissioning new works and performing unknown music since 1991. The Cologne-based soloist ensemble plays more than 100 international concerts each year, and has built a close association with prominent conductors and composers. musikFabrik visits us after a Fromm Foundation residency at Harvard University, where they will collaborate with Harvard’s PhD composition students in performing their latest works. The ensemble will select two pieces from the Harvard premiere to perform, providing a unique opportunity to listen in on what these young composers currently are up to. Setting the context for these new pieces are John Cage’s Concert for Piano and Orchestra; Interference by British composer Richard Barrett, a piece for contrabass clarinet and kick-drum; and the colorful chamber music piece Paramirabo by Canadian composer Claude Vivier.

Join us for a celebration of Pauline Oliveros’ 80th birthday, complete with Tibetan dungchen, didgerdoo, accordion, meditative percussion, and the Fort Worden Cistern—a two-million-gallon underground water tank made famous by Oliveros’ 1988 Deep Listening album and recreated by Jonas Braasch from Rensselaer’s Architectural Acoustics program. Presented in collaboration with the Rensselaer Arts Department, this event will benefit the Deep Listening Institute.

May 10 — Open Studio

During Local Lunch in the café, peek into the process of Pauline Oliveros and Jonas Braasch, who will be working on their Fort Worden Cistern simulation for an evening performance in the Concert Hall. 

Program Info:

Land of Snows — by Brian Pertl Musicians: Brian Pertl (Dung Chen Tibetan Horn), Stuart Dempster, Pauline Oliveros (Conches); Monique Buzzarté, Peter Zummo, Jen Baker (Digjeridus); Cistern simulation technology by Jonas Braasch, Anne Guthrie, Sam Clapp.

From Now On — by Deep Listening Band (Oliveros/Dempster/Gamper) Musicians: Deep Listening Band (Oliveros, Dempster) and guest artist Brian Pertl.

Returning — by Oliveros/Dempster Musicians: Pauline Oliveros (Voice, Accordion) and Stuart Dempster (Trombone/Didjeridu).

The Single Stroke Roll Meditation — by Pauline Oliveros Musicians: Ade Knowles and the Congeras and Richard Albagli with the Rensselaer Percussion Ensemble.

Exit Sliding — by Stuart Dempster Musicians: Jennifer Baker, Monique Buzzarté, Stuart Dempster, and Peter Zummo (four trombones).