Roulette to Present INTERPRETATIONS, Featuring John King's FREE PALESTINE and More, 10/23

Roulette presents Interpretations featuring selections from John King's Free Palestine, with A Secret Quartet (Cornelius Dufallo, Jennifer Choi, violins; Lev Zhurbin, viola; Yves Dharamraj, cello). Using materials derived from the Arabic systems of pitch and rhythm, maqam'at and iqa'at, each particular composition uses indeterminacy and improvisation to organize sound and time, thereby providing energetic and visceral motifs encompassing the full range of expression possible from a string quartet.

The concert takes place on Thursday, October 23rd at 8pm and is a highlighted evening in the Interpretations Series.

Also featured on the program, composer Michael Byron's The Celebration.

ROULETTE is located at 509 Atlantic Ave (On the corner of Atlantic & 3rd Aves) in Downtown Brooklyn (2, 3, 4, 5, C, G, D, M, N, R, B & Q trains and the LIRR). Tickets: $20; Members/Students/Seniors: $15; Series Members: $10; FREE for All Access Members. For more about the performance, visit: www.roulette.org/events/interpretations-michael-byron-celebration-john-king-selections-free-palestine.

On the Program:

Selections from Free Palestine by John King for string quartet

A Secret Quartet (Cornelius Dufallo, Jennifer Choi, Violin; Lev Zhurbin, Viola; Yves Dharamraj, Cello) The Celebration by Michael Byron

piano quintet and baritone
Thomas Buckner (baritone), Joe Kubera (piano) and the FLUX Quartet (Tom Chiu, Conrad Harris, Violin;

Max Mandel, Viola; Felix Fan, Cello), featuring texts by Anne Tardos

John King on Free Palestine:

"For some time, I had wanted to play the oud, and finally began that study in the summer of 2013. I made contacts with other oud players asking them many questions about tunings, scales, rhythmic modes and for guidance on the various historical and practical aspects of learning the instrument. And then I began the practice and study of this rich cultural tradition. I was also studying Arabic online, mostly to learn how to write and pronounce Arabic. To me, the calligraphy often felt like the calligraphy of musical notation. And in the study of all these aspects of the Arabic tradition, I was also reading various histories of pre-1948 Palestine, from many perspectives and points of view.

All this came together and led to a desire to put these materials and inspirations into a collection of string quartets using the Arabic pitch and rhythmic modes, know as maqam'at and iqa'at, as their basic material. The traditional tunings for these scales use many quartertones and subtleties, which I try to incorporate with embellishments and glissandi. The formal and temporal components of these pieces use aspects of indeterminacy and improvisation; the progression in time is unspecified by the composer and is left open to the performers to realize. This freedom and collective energy within the performance of this music were areas I wanted to explore and also wanted the performers to practice - not only with the sections of melodic and rhythmic improvisation, but also with their improvising time. The fact is, when I wrote and completed the first one, Humayun - Nuris, the rest just came without stopping. The titles, for example Rast - Deir Yassin, give the name of the primary Arabic maqam used in the piece, followed by the Arabic name of a village in 1948 Occupied Palestine. I would work with a particular maqam, which would then bring rhythmic and formal organizational ideas together, which in turn led me to new systems of incorporating improvisation with indeterminate elements. And it just kept (and keeps) going. I seem unable to stop this process."

John King, Composer

JOHN KING, composer, guitarist and violist, has received commissions from the Kronos Quartet; Red { an orchestra }, Ethel; the Albany Symphony/"Dogs of Desire", Bang On A Can All-Stars; Mannheim Ballet; New York City Ballet/Diamond Project, Stuttgart Ballet, Ballets de Monte Carlo; as well as the Merce Cunningham Dance Co. His string quartets have also been performed by the Eclipse Quartet (LA) and the Mondriaan Quartet (Amsterdam). His quartet Crucible has premiered many of his compositions at The Stone (June 2007), The Kitchen (April 2009), Lincoln Center Festival (July 2011) and Roulette (2012).

He has written 3 operas: herzstu?ck/heartpiece, based on the text of Heiner Mu?ller, premiered at the 1999 Warsaw Autumn Festival and presented at the Kitchen NYC in 2000 (a double-opera, co-written with Krzysztof Knittel); la belle captive based on texts by Alain Robbe-Grillet, premiered at Teatro

Colon/CETC in Buenos Aires in 2003, and toured to London's ICA (Fronteras Festival) in 2004 and The Kitchen in 2005; and also his most recent opera, Dice Thrown, based on the Ste?phane Mallarme? poem, an excerpt of which was performed by New York City Opera as part of its VOX series in May 2008. The complete staged version was presented at CalArts April 23-24, 2010.

He has 3 recent CD releases of music for string quartet; 10 Mysteries and AllSteel (Tzadik); and Ethel (Cantaloupe). He was Music Curator at The Kitchen from 1999-2003 and from 2002-2011 was a co- director of the Music Committee at MCDC. He received the Music/Sound Award for 2014 from the Foundation for Contemporary Arts and also he is the recipient of the 2009 Alpert Award in the Arts for Music.

johnkingmusic.com

A Secret Quartet

A Secret Quartet is resident new music ensemble at Vermont College of Fine Arts. During the 2014-2015 season they will be performing new and recent works by John King, Raz Mesinai, Michael Vincent Waller, Joan Jeanreneaud and Evan Joseph Beigel.

Cornelius Dufallo (composer/violinist) is an innovator at the forefront of the American contemporary music scene. The New York Times praises his "alluring" performances and "imaginative" compositions. Dufallo plays acoustic and electric violin, and has two solo albums available on the Innova Recordings label. His debut solo album, Dream Streets, is a collection of his own compositions for violin. Time Out New York calls it "a beautiful, evocative disc of electroacoustic soundscapes." Dufallo's Journaling album (listed as Album of the Week by WQXR in 2012) includes works for solo violin and violin + electronics by John King, Joan Jeanrenaud, Huang Ruo, Vijay Iyer, John Luther Adams and Kenji Bunch. "A truly sonic view of the modern violin as observed by many modern perspectives" (Chris McGovern, Mediatapper). Dufallo was a founder of the ensemble Ne(x)tworks and performed for seven years with the string quartet ETHEL. He has toured throughout the US, Europe, Asia, and Australia, and recorded for Mode, Tzadik, Cantaloupe, and Innova. Also a licensed master social worker, Dufallo is currently a staff psychotherapist at Washington Square Institute for Psychotherapy and Mental Health.

Hailed by Time Out New York as "passionate", and "one of New York's most reliably adventurous performers," violinist Jennifer Choi has charted a career that breaks through the conventional boundaries of solo violin, chamber music, and the art of creative improvisation. Internationally recognized as a performer with "brilliance and command," (The New York Times), "a leading New York new-music violinist that plays it with fiery authority" (Boston Globe), and with "intense, spectacularly virtuosic play" (The Seattle Weekly), Jennifer brings her strong classical background and dedication to whatever work she decides to take on from Bach to Zorn and back. Ms. Choi is regularly sighted in solo performances of rare works that stretch the limits of violin playing often calling for extended techniques, improvisation, and the use of electronics. In 2006 she received a grant from the New York State Music Fund for the premiere and performances of Holding Fast for violin and video written for her by Randall Woolf. She also gave the world premiere of John Zorn's solo violin work, Goetia at the Guggenheim Museum, as well as the U.S. premieres of Jacob ter Veldhuis Capriccio and Helmut Lachenmann's Toccatina. In 2011, Ms. Choi was invited to premiere Wadada Leo Smith's violin concerto, Afrikana 2. She can be heard on over a dozen albums for TZADIK record label in compositions by new music icons such as John Zorn, Elliott Sharp, Wadada Leo Smith and the Susie Ibarra Trio, as well as on her self-released album, VIOLECTRICA - Works for Solo Violin and Electronics.

Lev "Ljova" Zhurbin - Hailed by The New York Times as "dizzyingly versatile... an eclectic with an ear for texture... strikingly original and soulful", LJOVA (Lev Zhurbin) was born in 1978 in Moscow, Russia, and moved to New York with his parents, composer Alexander Zhurbin and writer Irena Ginzburg, in 1990. He divides his time between composing for the concert stage, contemporary dance & film, leading his own ensemble, LJOVA AND THE KONTRABAND, as well as a busy career as a freelance violist & musical arranger. Among recent collaborations are projects with Yo-Yo Ma, the Kronos Quartet, Gustavo Santaolalla, Osvaldo Golijov and Alondra de la Parra. Recent commissions have included projects with the string quartet Brooklyn Rider, choreographer Aszure Barton and filmmaker Josef Astor.

With his main performing ensemble, LJOVA AND THE KONTRABAND, Ljova has appeared at New York's Lincoln Center, The Kennedy Center in Washington DC, the Brooklyn Academy of Music (as part of the Sundance Film Festival), New York's Museum of Modern Art, Joe's Pub and other venues. The Ensemble released its acclaimed debut CD, "MNEMOSYNE", in 2008, and is the featured ensemble on "Cupcake", a short film which debuted at Tribeca Film Festival and continues to travel the festival circuit. Ljova is a graduate of The Juilliard School, where he was a pupil of Samuel Rhodes (violist of the Juilliard String Quartet). He has won numerous prizes as a composer, and appeared several times as soloist with orchestras, including as a winner of the Menschenkinderpreis from RTL TV (Germany). For the latest news, downloadable mp3s and CD releases, please visit Ljova's website at Ljova.com

Yves Dharamraj has earned a worldwide reputation as a dynamic cellist who blends an immaculate command of the instrument with deep musical understanding to express his fresh and elegant interpretations. As soloist, recitalist, chamber musician, and teaching artist, Dharamraj enjoys a multi-faceted career that takes him to the major stages of the United States and abroad. Dharamraj was a pupil of Aldo Parisot at Yale University where he graduated cum laude with a Bachelor of Arts in History (Medieval Mediterranean Studies), a Master of Music, and an Artist Diploma. He further studied in Joel Krosnick and Darrett Adkins's studio at the Juilliard School where he earned his Doctor of Musical Arts degree. He has also worked with Paul Katz at the New England Conservatory. Dr. Dharamraj taught cello at Juilliard as assistant to Mr. Krosnick from 2006 to 2009. He plays an 1842 Jean-Baptiste Vuillaume cello. In his leisure time, he loves to learn about and taste the great wines of Burgundy and Bordeaux, and is a zealous supporter of the Chicago Cubs, Tampa Bay Buccaneers, and Arsenal FC.

Photo Credit: Anna Finke