Deviant Septet Premieres Sleeping Giant's HISTORIES, 5/24

Deviant Septet--an acclaimed ensemble modeled after Igor Stravinsky's favored instrumentation of violin, bass, clarinet, bassoon, trumpet, trombone, and percussion--will perform the NYC premiere of a new collaborative evening-length work entitled Histories, written by six-piece composer collective Sleeping Giant, on May 24th at Brooklyn's Issue Project Room.

Histories is Sleeping Giant's first-ever collaborative piece and was written exclusively for Deviant Septet to serve as a companion piece to Igor Stravinksy's L'Histoire du Soldat, the piece after which the Septet is modeled. (Selections from an earlier version of the piece were performed by Ensemble AJCW at Carnegie Hall's Weill Recital Hall in February to a warm welcome.) Fittingly, Histories works to examine and contrast the influences Stravinsky's seminal work had personally on the evening's composers and performers, as well as the music scene in New York City today in general.

The two promising young Brooklyn based groups are natural allies; each was founded on the mutual respect and inspiration of its members and desire to create music as a new kind of collective. Separately, however, the groups are quite unique: The six composers that make up Sleeping Giant (Andrew Norman, Robert Honstein, TEd Hearne, Jacob Cooper, Christopher Cerrone, Timo Andres) are joined not by a common aesthetic vision, but by a wish to create music reflective of each other's distinct creative voices; Deviant Septet was formed with a goal of creating a repertoire for and fulfilling Stravinsky's vision for his unique l'Histoire du Soldat ensemble and is the first and only chamber music ensemble of its kind. Together, they will accomplish both missions with Histories.

Deviant Septet members are: Bill Kalinkos (clarinet, co-founder) Mike Gurfield (trumpet, co-founder), Courtney Orlando (violin), Brad Balliett (bassoon), Doug Balliett (double bass), Shayna Dunkelman (percussion, xylosynth), and David Nelson (trombone). The Deviant Septet will be the Artists-in-Residence for the Greenwich Music Festival in Greenwich, CT this summer.

Deviant Septet premieres Histories by Sleeping Giant
Thursday, May 24th at 8PM
at Issue Project Room
22 Boerum Place (between Livingston and Schermerhorn), Brooklyn, NY
Admission: $15 / $12 for members
Event link: http://www.issueprojectroom.org/2012/04/11/deviant-septet-premieres-histories-by-sleeping-giant-composer-collective