Concert Celebrating Merce Cunningham's Musical Collaborations Comes To Roulette

The Music Committee of the Merce Cunningham Dance Company (MCDC) will present two concerts on Sunday March 20, 2011 to celebrate the release of "Music for Merce," a 10-CD boxed set from New World Records. Live at Roulette in Soho, the concerts, at 5pm and 8:30pm, will offer a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for audiences to witness the remarkable breadth and vitality of the musical community-from John Cage to David Tudor, Takehisa Kosugi, and generations of experimental musicians-that played a critical role in Merce's life and work.

The evening will feature performances of excerpts of works commissioned for MCDC over the years, as well  as works by the current MCDC Music Committee. Highlights include:
• John Cage's Music for Piano 4-19 (1954) and Aria (1958) with Fontana Mix (1958);
• David Tudor's Toneburst (1975);
• Pauline Oliveros' In Memoriam Nicola Tesla (1969);
• Christian Wolff's Or 4 People (1994);
• David Behrman's Long Throw (2007);
• Takehisa Kosugi's Cycles II (1981);
• John King's gliss in sighs (1985).
Alongside the MCDC Music Committee, featured performers include:
• Gordon Mumma, a major collaborator with the Company in the Sixties and Seventies, who will
perform excerpts from his recent piano works;
• Stuart Dempster and Loren Dempster, performing Conches for Cunningham, a piece recalling
his repertory piece Underground Overlays (1995);
• Musicians Fast Forward, John Gibson, George Lewis, Ikue Mori, and Marina Rosenfeld, whose
work is featured on "Music for Merce";
• Past and recent musical collaborators Joan La Barbara, Shelley Burgon, Alvin Curran, Miguel
Frasconi, Matana Roberts, Stephan Moore, and Jesse Stiles.
Noted music scholar Amy C. Beal, whose essay accompanies the boxed set, and David Vaughan, archivist for the Cunningham Dance Foundation, will also speak during the evening about Merce's influence on and relationship to new music. Many works will be accompanied by video clips of the Merce Cunningham Dance Company by the filmmaker Charles Atlas who collaborated with Cunningham on numerous "filmdances" - a genre in which original performance work is created directly for the camera - and documentaries of MCDC  in performance.

Detailed program information follows below.

"Music for Merce" boxed sets will be available for purchase, and the featured artists will be available to sign CDs following each concert.

MERCE CUNNINGHAM DANCE COMPANY

Performance and Ticket Information
Tickets for each concert are $25 ($15 Students, Seniors, Under 30s)
Admission for both 5:00pm and 8:30pm shows $40 ($25 Students, Seniors, Under 30s)
RSVP by phone at (212) 219-8242
Roulette
20 Greene Street
New York, NY 10013
212-291-8242
www.roulette.org
Program A at 5pm
John Cage, Music for Piano 4-19 (1953), performed by Christian Wolff [Music for the dance Suite for
Five (1956)]
Pauline Oliveros, In Memorian Nicola Tesla (1969) [Music for the dance Canfield (1969)]
Event for Set #1 - Shelley Burgon, Fast Forward, George Lewis, Matana Roberts
Jon Gibson, Down the Road (2011)
****David Vaughan, Archivist, MCDC, will speak****
John King, gliss in sighs (1985) [Music for the dance Native Green (1985)]
Gordon Mumma, 4 short piano pieces (1975-2007)
Christian Wolff, Or 4 People (1994), performed by Christian Wolff, Takehisa Kosugi, David Behrman and John King
Program B at 8:30pm
Event for Set #2 - Alvin Curran, Miguel Frasconi, Ikue Mori, Marina Rosenfeld
Takehisa Kosugi, Cycles II [Music for the dance Gallopade (1981)]
David Tudor, Untitled 1975/1994, performed by Takehisa Kosugi [Music for the dance Sounddance (1975)]
****Amy Beal, writer who wrote the liner notes for the 10-CD box set booklet will speak ****
Annea Lockwood, Jitterbug (2007), performed by Takehisa Kosugi, David Behrman and John King [Music for the dance EyeSpace (2007)]
Stewart Dempster, Conches for Cunningham (2011), performed with Loren Dempster
David Behrman, Long Throw (2007), performed by Takehisa Kosugi, David Behrman, John King [Music for the dance EyeSpace (2007)]
John Cage, Aria (1958) with Fontana Mix (1958), Joan La Barbara singing Aria; Christian Wolff, Takehisa
Kosugi, David Behrman, John King, Stephan Moore and Jesse Stiles performing Fontana Mix [Music for the dance XOVER (2007)] ABOUT MERCE CUNNINGHAM
A leader of the American avant-garde throughout his seventy-year career, Merce Cunningham (1919 - 2009) is considered one of the most important choreographers of our time. His company, founded in 1953, has forged a distinctive style, illuminating Cunningham's technique and the near limitless possibility for human movement. Cunningham's work with John Cage, his life partner from the 1940s until Cage's death in 1992, had the greatest influence on his practice. Together, Cunningham and Cage proposed a number of radical innovations. The most famous and controversial of these concerned the relationship between dance and  music, which they concluded may occur in the same time and space, but should be created independently of one another. www.merce.org

ABOUT "MUSIC FOR MERCE" FROM NEW WORLD RECORDS
Spanning six decades from the early 1950s onward, this CD boxed set captures the breadth of the
Cunningham repertory and the rich diversity of Cunningham's musical collaborations. Composers whose work features prominently in this collection include seminal figures of late-20th-century experimental music such as John Cage, David Tudor, Gordon Mumma, Christian Wolff, and Takehisa Kosugi, among others. For the most part, these compositions have not been recorded elsewhere and are making their first appearance on this CD. www.newworldrecords.org

ABOUT ROULETTE
Roulette's original and ongoing purpose has been to provide opportunities for innovative composers,
musicians, sound artists and interdisciplinary collaborators to present their work in accessible, appropriate and professional productions. The organization is committed to supporting work by young and emerging artists as well as by established innovators. Roulette is a major New York City venue for contemporary music and intermedia art, internationally recognized for the presentation and promotion of experimental contemporary music, an incubator for young
talent and a laboratory where new ideas and new technologies are examined, appraised and developed. It is also an artists' resource center, offering cheap rehearsal space, high quality recording facilities, information and commissions. www.roulette.org