TRAFFIC JAM recap
TRAFFIC JAM was a honking good time! Here is some printed and radio press about the event.
TRAFFIC JAM
TRAFFIC JAM is a project that creates new works for an ensemble of cars, trucks, and bicycles. A workshopped version of these works will be performed at the 2016 Fusebox Festival at the Blue Starlite Drive-In, featuring a massive choir of 80 carhorns, a bicycle fitted with horn speakers broadcasting FM radio, sound installations played on car stereos, and choreographed pedicabs.
Happy to say that the project is sponsored by New Music USA, the City of Austin, and the Texas Music Office. More details here.
SoundSpace: Free Music and Community
Our January SoundSpace featured a wide array of improvisors who are active in their respective communities: Alvin Fielder, (founding member of the AACM), Damon Choice (Sun Ra), Chandra Washington (Sun Ra), Adam Rudolph and his Go: Organic Orchestra (Co-presented by CoFG), Damon Smith, Dave Dove, trombonist and director of Nameless Sound, The Home of Easy Credit (NYC / Denmark), new choreography by Nick Kepley, featuring Ballet Austin, SSBT (Chris Cogburn, Steve Jensen and Parham Daghighi), Bel Curore Sax Quartet, Bob Hoffnar, steel guitarist, Kati Hernandez-Cowles, performance artist. Press: Arts + Culture Texas
Way of Timbre Documentation
Dan Robinson of Your Media created a stunning video archive of our performance of The Way of Timbre for trombones, didgeridoos, and sine waves. The performance occurred at the James Turrell Skyspace located at the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art.
You can watch the video here.
Braxton's 100 Tubas
The Oct SoundSpace concert featured the Austin premiere of Anthony Braxton's Composition No. 19, for 100 marching tubas. James Fei directed the performance. You can watch a video of the entire performance here.
Installation at Austin City Hall
Recycled Sounds is a project that creates novel, recycled instruments and installs them in unexpected public places. Over a series of workshops with students and faculty from Austin SoundWaves, we explored improvisation, composition, and acoustics. The project culminated with a downtown performance and several large-scale instrument installations in collaboration with Travis Weller and Jebney Lewis. These instruments will be on display for the next thirty days at the the Austin City Hall Parking Garage. Austin American Statesman article Austin 360 video
New Residency in Philadelphia
I'll be Artist-in-Residence at the Asian Arts Initiative in Philadelphia. I'll working with their Social Practice Lab, which focuses on "Philadelphia’s Chinatown North as a dynamic neighborhood site for local and national artists to explore contemporary visual and performing arts that forge alliances to encourage neighborhood development and positive change within the community."
SoundSpace: Sound Construction
Our next SoundSpace program at the Blanton Museum is an exploration of unusual timbre and the novel processes used to create it. Featured are a premiere by Travis Weller and his consort of hand crafted instruments, Sam Cusumano of Electricity for Progress / Data Garden, Dan Lippel of the acclaimed International Contemporary Ensemble, Chris Cogburn, curator of the No Idea Festival, and bassist extraordinaire Damon Smith.
KUT's Arts Eclectic Austin American Statesman Arts and Culture Texas
SLUSHPUMP
Here is a video of SLUSHPUMP, a piece I made for trombone choir and pedicab fleet. Featuring the talents of the Texas Trike Pilots and UTSA Trombone Choir + the brilliant Steve Snowden!
The Way of Timbre
I wrote a piece for trombones, didgeridoos, and sine waves for the James Turrell Skyspace at the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art. Commissioned by the Artosphere Festival, the premiere was June 21st at dusk on the Summer Solstice.
Here is the trailer.
Austin Critics' Table Award
SoundSpace won the Austin Critics' Table Award, thanks to the many musicians and artists that performed. Stay tuned for the next show on Oct 21st, which will feature Henry Brant's mesmerizing work, Orbits, for 80 trombones, organ, and soprano.
SLUSHPUMP
Here is a video of SLUSHPUMP, a piece I made for trombone choir and pedicab fleet. Featuring the talents of the Texas Trike Pilots and UTSA Trombone Choir + the brilliant Steve Snowden!
Music for Wilderness Lake
I produced a performance of R. Murray Shafer's Music for Wilderness Lake at The Contemporary Austin - Laguna Gloria June 27-28. The work is a piece of "environmental music" performed at Dusk and Dawn by twelve trombone players, arranged along the perimeter of a lake, signaled by nautical flags on a raft floating in the water.
In our case, we used a beautiful, handmade canoe built by local artist Aldo Valdés Böhm.
SoundSpace: Downtown NYC 1960
The most recent SoundSpace concert coincided with Veronica Roberts' Converging Lines exhibit, chronicling the work of Eva Hesse and Sol Lewitt. This program included works by Glass, Reich, LaMonte Young, Terry Riley and featured line upon line percussion, the Invincible Czars, Outlier, One Ounce Opera, and the Felix Quartet.
Here is a nice article by Robert Faires of the Austin Chronicle about the show and here is a Q&A with some of the performers.
Social Practice Lab: Music on Pearl
Music on Pearl is a project in collaboration with the Philly Youth Workshop and Jeb Lewis that will install large scale instruments along the Pearl St alleyway in Chinatown North. You can follow the project's progress here.
This project is sponsored by the Asian Arts Initiative Social Practice Lab.