Center for New Music: Early March 2017

Having observed the absence of word from the Center for New Music (C4NM) about this month’s activities, I figured I would take some of the more personal notifications I have received as a point of departure for accounting for the first full week in March and that month’s preceding half-week. This will be a rather busy time, including a Sunday with performances in both the afternoon and evening. 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 all events enumerated below are now available for advance purchase online through the indicated hyperlinks:

Friday, March 3, 8 p.m.: This will be a two-set evening of audiovisual improvisations. In the opening set Bill Hsu will improvise video displays in real time to complement the musical improvisations of James Fei and Gino Robair. The second set will present live coded video created in real-time by Shawn Lawson in response to electronics provided by Ryan Ross Smith from a secret remote location. General admission will be $15 with a $10 rate for C4NM members. Tickets may be purchased in advance through a Vendini Web page.

Saturday, March 4, 8 p.m.: Pianist and vocalist Jenny Maybee will lead her band in a program of new compositions and arrangements on the themes of love, transformation, exploration, and state of being entitled Sacred Landscapes. General admission will be $20 with a $10 rate for C4NM members. Tickets may be purchased in advance through a Vendini Web page.

Monday, March 6, 8 p.m.: Casey Grev will give a solo saxophone recital augmented with electronics and multimedia. The program will consist of new and recent works by Georges Aperghis, Jason Thorpe Buchanan, Ann Cleare, Dai Fujikura, Ravi Kitappa, Alex Mincek, and others. General admission will be $15 with a $10 rate for C4NM members. Tickets may be purchased in advance through a Vendini Web page.

Wednesday, March 8, 8 p.m.: Trumpet virtuoso Andy Kozar, currently based in New York City, will present a program of five recent pieces for trumpet and electronics. These will be “Flutter” (Tyler Harrison), “Deviations from a Theme by Brahms” (Elizabeth Hoffman), “Still Life” (Scott Worthington), “Moving Target” (Jeff Gavett), and “Rahab’s Herbarium” (Adam Zahller). On the basis of this excerpt, it would appear that Hoffman’s Brahms source has been significantly concealed:

uploaded to YouTube by Andrew Kozar

Kozar will also perform in a set of improvisations with local performers including Tania Chen on piano, vocals by Ken Ueno, and Matt Ingalls on clarinets of different sizes. General admission will be $15 with a $10 rate for C4NM members. Tickets may be purchased in advance through a Vendini Web page.

Saturday, March 11, 8 p.m.: Utter will be a solo concert by Anne La Berge featuring interactive works that weave together performer, audience, and digital technology. “Utter” is also the concluding work on the program, composed by La Berge for flute, electronics, narration, and interactive tablets. There will be three other “flute++” compositions, “Delay/Line” by Sam Pluta, “Modes of Assisted Ventilation” by Hugo Morales, and “Telemachus” by David Dramm. The program will begin with Yannis Kyriakides’ “Oneiricon,” scored for tablets and musicians without the instruments being specified. General admission will be $15 with a $10 rate for C4NM members. Tickets may be purchased in advance through a Vendini Web page.

Sunday, March 12, 3 p.m.: This will be the first of two concerts to be curated by Danny Clay on the same day. The Cornelius Cardew Choir will perform the second “paragraph” from Cardew’s The Great Learning, his settings of seven paragraphs from the first chapter of Great Learning, the first of the so-called “Four Books” that illustrate the core value and belief systems of Confucianism. Cardew composed this piece for his Scratch Orchestra, whose performance of this particular paragraph is available on YouTube:

uploaded to YouTube by tiovelvet

This paragraph was composed for singers and drummers and consists of a single (large) score page. That page is divided into three columns:

1. a very slow, long-tone melody with one of more words specified for each tone
2. 26 rhythm patterns
3. a lengthy description that accounts for how the singers deal with the melody, how the rhythmic patterns are to be performed, and an overall description of the entire performance

In the spirit of the Scratch Orchestra, the Cornelius Cardew Choir, founded here on May 1, 2001, brings together professional, amateur, and novice singers who collectively work to turn their ideas into sonic action. While the above video lasts about twenty minutes, Cardew’s score specifies that the duration of this paragraph should be about one hour. General admission will be $15 with a $10 rate for C4NM members. Tickets may be purchased in advance through a Vendini Web page.

Sunday, March 12, 7 p.m.: The second concert that Clay will curate will be a solo recital by pianist Adam Tendler. Tendler has prepared a program entitled still that will bring pioneering compositions by John Cage and Morton Feldman together with more recent works by Charlie Sdraulig and Marina Poleukhina. General admission will be $15 with a $10 rate for C4NM members. Tickets may be purchased in advance through a Vendini Web page.