Center for New Music: January 2017

BayImproviser got the jump on the Center for New Music (C4NM) at the beginning of this week. Regular readers know that all of this week’s Bleeding Edge events were scheduled for C4NM (and two of them remain, one tonight and the other on Sunday afternoon). However, there is a generous share of C4NM activities to account for the remaining weeks of the month.

For those who need reminding, C4NM is located at 55 Taylor Street, half a block north of where Golden Gate Avenue meets Market Street. Tickets for almost all events are now available for advance purchase online. (There appears to be only one exception this month.) Specifics for C4NM performances for the remainder of this month are as follows:

Saturday, January 14, 8 p.m.: This evening will feature the imaginative improvisations of a guitarist who refuses to settle down in any particular genre, Henry Kaiser. He will be part of a trio that will also include his frequent partner Scott R. Looney alternating between piano and hyperpiano and Scott Amendola working with his innovative electronic gear. General admission will be $15 with a $10 rate for C4NM members. Tickets may be purchased in advance through a Vendini Web page.

Tuesday, January 17, 8 p.m.: This will be the first sfSoundSalonSeries concert of the year, curated, as usual, by Kyle Bruckmann. He will use this slot to host the visit of cellist Ashley Walters to the Bay Area. She will perform two pieces written for her by long-time collaborators Nicholas Deyoe and Wadada Leo Smith. The program she has prepared will also include the solo cello composition in Luciano Berio’s Sequenza series (the fourteenth), Liza Lim’s “Invisibility,” and “a way [tracing],” by Jason Eckardt. These selections will require a variety of extended techniques (the motivation behind all of the Sequenza compositions), as well as scordatura tuning, microtonality, and improvisation. General admission will be $15 with a $10 rate for C4NM members. Tickets may be purchased in advance through a Vendini Web page.

Saturday, January 21, 8 p.m.: Danny Clay will curate a release concert for the new album Almanac. This was the result of Clay’s year-long collaboration with Joseph M. Colombo based on a weekly exchange of digitally-generated sounds. Both composers will be on hand to present a combination of live and fixed-format material culled from these recordings. General admission will be $12 with an $8 rate for C4NM members. Tickets may be purchased in advance through a Vendini Web page. Admission will include a free download of the album:

Sunday, January 22, 7:30 p.m.: This will be a recital by the Cipher duo of soprano Justine Aronson and violinist Sarah Goldfeather:

 

Formed in 2014, the group was named after the title of a composition by Kate Soper. Soper’s work will be included on the program, as well as recent work by Goldfeather. Other composers whose work will be performed will be Rebekah Driscoll, Veronika Krausas, and Kaija Saariaho. General admission will be $10 with a $7 rate for C4NM members. Tickets will be available only at the door.

Monday, January 23, 8 p.m.: The first installment of the Permutations series in 2017 will be curated by Ken Ueno and will present Battle Trance, a quartet, all four of whose members play tenor saxophone. Those musicians are Travis Laplante, Patrick Breiner, Matt Nelson, and Jeremy Viner. They will perform Laplante’s latest composition, a three-movement piece entitled “Blade of Love.” General admission will be $15 with a $10 rate for C4NM members. Tickets may be purchased in advance through a Vendini Web page.

Friday, January 27, 8 p.m.: This will be a performance by another saxophone quartet, this time involve instruments of different sizes:

This is the Einsteinium Quartet, whose members are Brian Einstein Lassiter, Hermann Lara, Mark Secosh, and Eric Scheide. They will perform the world premiere of “Shapeshift,” a three-movement piece by Mario Godoy, which was commissioned for this concert. Two of the members, Lassiter and Secosh, will also contribute works on the program. The other composers to be represented will be Gordon Goodwin, Erika Oba, Cornelius Boots, Lenny Pickett, and Warren Barker. General admission will be $15 with a $10 rate for C4NM members. Tickets may be purchased in advance through a Vendini Web page.

Saturday, January 28, 8 p.m.: This will be the latest installment in Mark Alburger’s Opus Project a series in which each concert consists of compositions with the same opus number. On this program the opus number will be 49. The pieces will be played in chronological order, covering the time span from 1880 to 1993 and concluding with Alburger’s own music. The complete list of works on the program may be found on the C4NM event page for this concert. General admission will be $15 with a $10 rate for C4NM members, seniors, and students. Tickets may be purchased online in advance through a Vendini Web page.

Monday, January 30, 7:30 p.m.: The month will conclude with an evening of two sets curated by Adam Marks with a focus on percussion. The first set will be taken by the Bent Duo of percussionist Bill Solomon and pianist David Friend. Based in New York City, this concert be the pair’s debut appearance at C4NM as part of their first tour of the West Coast. The feature work on their set will be the world premiere of a work by Crystal Pascucci for vibraphone and prepared piano. Other composers to be performed will be Hannah Lash, Ted Hearne, and Daniel Wohl.

Pascucci will then perform during the second set along with percussionist Mark Clifford. Both are members of the Inner Movements collective of percussionists and string players that specializes in music of the 20th and 21st centuries. They will play one work scored for open instrumentation, which will be realized by Clifford on vibraphone and Pascucci on cello. They will also perform a piece by Clifford that incorporates improvisation. General admission will be $15 with a $10 rate for C4NM members. Tickets may be purchased online in advance through a Vendini Web page.