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The DownTown Ensemble
Mostly
Words
Saturday,
June 18@ 3pm
The
Brick Elephant
12
Emily Street
Valley
Falls, NY 12185
Admission
by donation
There will be a reception after the concert.
This
concert by The DownTown Ensemble will feature David
Garland performing three of his new songs from his forthcoming album
Conversations with the Cinnamon Skeleton and performances by
Bill Hellermann
of sound/text pieces by Robert
Ashley, Daniel Goode,
Richard Kostelanetz,
Jackson Mac Low and Anne
Tardos. Featured performers will be such downtown stalwarts as Peter
Zummo, Alex Waterman, Andrew Bolotowsky, and Daniel Goode, Co-director
of the DownTown Ensemble.
David Garland will sing,
play clarinet, and play a one-of-a-kind, drone-driven guitar. David
Garland's songs are "squeezed between categories looking for the
truth." His first album Control Songs was released in
1987 and his 10th album will come out in July 2011.
Bill Hellermann,
well known as a composer guitarist on the downtown scene in the 70s
and 80s, has in the last five years redefined himself as a reciter/narrator
of texts in experimental music works. As a curator at PS 1, the Clock
Tower, and the Alternative Museum he launched the first exhibitions
of sound sculpture and audio art, and in the process bringing into usage
the term "Soundart".
Robert Ashley is widely regarded
as one of the foremost composers of experimental music. He is best known
for his operas Perfect Lives, Atalanta (Acts of God),
and the monumental tetralogy, Now Eleanor's Idea. On this concert
Hellermann will perform his rarely performed virtuoso narration piece
But, Is It Edible?
Daniel Goode's new work Misdirection
of the Eye is one of a series of monologues with music written
expressly for Bill Hellermann and this latest one focuses on the troubles
going on in his home state of Wisconsin, with some asides on the travails
of God.
Richard Kostelanetz
is one of America's most prolific and interesting poets. Among his vast
output are a significant number of important sound/text works. Tonight's
concert will feature his work Lovings, in which a collection
of completely independent sentences are performed by musicians, who
interpret the sentences as music, or as spoken words, or as a combination
of both.
Jackson Mac Low is widely
acknowledged as one of the major figures in 20th century American poetry,
with much of his work ranging freely across boundaries into the spheres
of music, dance, theater, performance, and the visual arts. The DownTown
Ensemble will perform his Music Words (for Phill Niblock) comprised
entirely of words and pitch patterns that would never be employed by
Phill Niblock.
The DownTown Ensemble also will perform poems set to music by Anne
Tardos from her book Uxudo, featuring Toowomba 5,
Work Ants, and Avuncular Proceedings. Ms. Tardos is
a poet, composer, and visual artist. She is the author of several books
of poetry and the multimedia performance work and radio play Among
Men.
The
DownTown Ensemble was
founded in 1983 by its co-directors, Daniel Goode and William Hellermann,
as a response to a perceived need for repertoire customarily under-represented
in today's new music world. “This intrepid group of conceptualists
cuts no aesthetic corners.” (The Village Voice) Although originally
formed in New York City, the group is now based in Columbiaville, Columbia
County, where Mr. Hellermann lives. The Ensemble has made its reputation
performing a number of different types of experimental music, such as:
traditionally notated and graphic music scores, sound/text music, ritual/intermedia
pieces, performance art and Fluxus, improvisation in a number of traditions;
large ensemble, scores for variable (unspecified) instrumentation, and
interactive computer music. The group regularly features composers performing
and directing their music often written expressly for the Ensemble. There
have been over one hundred and forty such collaborations since the group’s
inception.
WHERE:
The concert will be held in the Brick Elephant, formerly an old church,
in Valley Falls, New York.
12 Emily Street, Valley Falls, NY 12185.
Admission by donation.
CONTACT INFO:
Mary Jane Leach
telephone (646-544-0110)
email
Valley Falls is in northern Rensselaer County, 20 minutes north of Troy,
25 minutes west of North Bennington, Vermont.
From
the west: at the intersection of Routes 40 and 67 in Schaghticoke, drive
1.5 miles east, turn right just as you get over the bridge, then drive
on State Street (117) two blocks and turn left. The church is on the left
at the next corner - it's the biggest building in the village - you can't
miss it.
From
the east: when 67 branches off to the west from 22 (Eagle Bridge), continue
driving for 11 miles, turn left just before the curving bridge, then drive
on State Street (117) two blocks and turn left. The church is on the left
at the next corner - it's the biggest building in the village - you can't
miss it.
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