Avant Media Kicks Off First Full Season Tonight

Avant Media is proud to announce its first full season, running from September 2014 to May 2015. To complement its signature event, the annual Avant Music Festival (Feb. 27 - Mar. 7), Avant Media has introduced Tangents, a monthly series of stand-alone concerts that focus on bold new works in innovative formats.

Programmed by Artistic Director Randy Gibsonand Festival co-curator Megan Schubert, the season underlines Avant Media's unique mission: to nurture vital new compositional voices in the American experimental tradition, while paying tribute to explorers who paved the way.

True to its name, Avant Media fosters interdisciplinary collaborations that expand the boundaries of the concert experience. Leading interpreters are enlisted to bring these scores to life in an immersive environment that, in Gibson's words, "allows art to be experienced in its purest form." All events take place at Wild Project, 195 East 3rd Street in New York's East Village (except for the first Tangents concert, noted below). A full schedule appears below; tickets are available at http://avantmedia.org/tickets.

S E A S O N O P E N E R

The season begins with a celebration of John Cage's 102nd birthday, tonight, September 5 (8 pm) at Wild Project. A stellar array of performers will realize Cage's seminal Song Books (1970), which "set" texts by Thoreau, Satie, Duchamp, Buckminster Fuller, and others using diverse, often indeterminate notational systems and verbal instructions. With Eve Beglarian, Drew Blumberg,Nicole Camacho, Vicky Chow, Christie Finn, Randy Gibson, Nick Hallett, John King, Kjersti Kveli, William Lang, Mary MacKenzie, Paula Matthusen, Megan Schubert, Nate Wooley.

T A N G E N T S

Tangents is a monthly series spotlights creators and interpreters who embody Avant Media's bold spirit of experimentation. Four of the concerts consist entirely of world premieres.

Sunday, October 26 (4 pm): "A Celebration of Fred Herko"

Judson Memorial Church, 55 Washington Square South
Marking the 50th anniversary of the death of post-modern dancer and Warhol film star Fred Herko. Poet John Giorno and dancer/choreographer/critic Gus Solomons jr will read and perform; Megan Schubert (with Emily Manzo, piano) will sing songs by Peter Harman, a composer associated with the legendary Living Theatre. Other performers include Deborah Lawlor, David Vaughan, and Vincent Warren.

Wednesday, November 19 (8 pm): Michael Pisaro, Exchange

Wild Project, 195 E. 3rd St.
World premiere of Wandelweiser composer Pisaro's three-hour work for violin duo, performed by Erik Carlson of ICE and Christopher Otto of the JACK Quartet. Pisaro describes Exchange as "a pleasant place to be. The presence of sound and light, maybe an open window. On either side of you, very occasionally, the sound of a violin from behind a screen. Two musicians unseen. Almost a melody."

Monday, January 19 (8 pm): Nate Wooley: for Kenneth Gaburo

Wild Project, 195 E. 3rd St.
World premiere of Wooley's evening-length for Kenneth Gaburo, scored for trumpet and pre-recorded electronic sound and performed by the composer. Using Wooley's research in the mechanical preoduction of phonetic sound and its effect on tonal production, the work stretches an introductory text by electronic music pioneer and language theorist Gaburo (1926 - 93), until the component phonemes lose their connection to textual meaning and become pure sound.

Sunday, April 12 (8 pm): Trio

Wild Project, 195 E. 3rd St.
Three world premieres by members of a vocal trio consisting of noted composer/singersGelsey Bell, Kjersti Kveli, and Megan Schubert. Each member of the trio creates a Gesamtkunstwerk for the group to sing, taking turns as creator/director while performing. The goal: to realize each others' visions with the same care and attention they bring to their own.

Tuesday, May 12 (8 pm): Jude Traxler, Blowback (and other mishaps)

Wild Project, 195 E. 3rd St.
World premiere of composer/percussionist Jude Traxler's virtuosic Blowback (and other mishaps), for percussion quartet and "roaming click track," performed by Mangobot, which includes Traxler. Recreating digital effects through acoustic phenomena, each performer's computer-controlled click track moves ever so slightly to mimic reverb, flanger and reverse-delay effects live. As the piece plays out, these effects are varied and enhanced: very close relationships create stutter effects, while longer phase distances create sweeping reverb tails.

A V A N T M U S I C F E S T I V A L

The sixth annual Avant Music Festival, February 27 - March 7, 2015, comprises four concerts over two weekends. All events take place at Wild Project, including the Festival Preview.

As an upbeat to the Festival, Avant Media hosts a free 2015 Festival Preview party onMonday, December 8 (7 pm) with wine, food, and appearances by each of the festival composers: Paula Matthusen, Imani Uzuri, and Randy Gibson, who will give a world premiere vocal performance with trombonist William Lang.

Friday, February 27 (8 pm) features a world premiere by rising composer Paula Matthusen, performed by Mantra Percussion. Matthusen's piece, written during her recent Rome Prize residency, uses field recordings taken at sites of historical infrastructure, particularly in New York City.

Saturday, February 28 (8 pm) brings the acclaimed Ekmeles vocal ensemble in Cage's rarely heard Hymns and Variations (1979) plus additional choral works from Cage's repertoire. This concert will bridge the rigorous chance techniques of Cage with his penchant for subtractive harmonies.

Friday, March 6 (8 pm) features another world premiere, by composer/singer Imani Uzuri. Scored for a thirteen-piece ensemble of winds, strings, and voices, Uzuri's cantata draws on her rural Southern roots, along with influences ranging from Sufi devotionals to Romany laments.

The festival concludes on Saturday, March 7 (8 pm) with the most expansive presentation yet (3.5 hours) of Gibson's ongoing, meditative drone-epic Apparitions of The Four Pillars in The Midwinter Starfield under The Astral 789 Duet. Gibson leads a seven-piece ensemble on vocals and sine waves, accompanied by paired violins, cellos, and trombones, with live video by Oscar H Scott that responds in real time to the sound.

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