Gallery: Music with a View 2011 Artists

January 12, 2011

Adam & Atau 4 Hands iPhone

Friday, April 1 @ 12PM + 7PM

Adam & Atau exploit a commonly available consumer electronics device, the Apple iPhone, as an expressive, gestural musical instrument. The device is well known an iconic object of desire in our society of consumption. The iPhone can play music as a commodity, and this is the way most listeners interact with it. Adam & Atau reappropriate the iPhone and its advanced technical capabilities to transform the consumer object into an expressive musical instrument for concert performance. In a duo, with one in each hand, they create a chamber music, 4-hands iPhone. The accelerometers which typically serve as tilt sensors to rotate photos in fact allow high precision capture of the performer’s free space gestures. The multitouch screen, otherwise used for scrolling and pinch-zooming text, becomes a reconfigurable graphic user interface akin to the JazzMutant Lemur, with programmable faders, buttons, and 2D controllers that control synthesis parameters in real time. All this drives open source Pure Data (PD) patches running out of the free RJDJ iPhone app. A single advanced granular synthesis patch becomes the process by which a battery of sounds from the natural world are stretched, frozen, scattered, and restitched. The fact that all system components – sensor input, signal processing and sound synthesis, and audio output, are embodied in a single device make it very different than the typical controller + laptop model for digital music performance. The encapsulation in a self-contained, manipulable object take the iPhone beyond consumer icon to become a powerful, expressive musical instrument.

Atau Tanaka bridges the fields of media art and experimental music. He creates music for sensor instruments, wireless network infrastructures, and democratized digital forms. In the 90ʼs he formed Sensorband with Zbigniew Karkowski and Edwin van der Heide. In Japan in 1997-2001, he came in contact with and played with Merzbow, Otomo, KK Null and others. Atau has released solo, group, and compilation recordings on labels such as Sub Rosa, Bip-hop, Caipirinha Music, Touch/Ash, Sonoris, Sirr-ecords. His work has been presented at Ars Electronica, STEIM, ZKM, Sonar Festival.

Adam Parkinson is an electronic musician based in Newcastle, England. Interested in the embodied experience of music, he likes to use improvisations to explore immersive bass tones and electrifying crackles. For this performance, he will be using two ipod touches running RJDJ alongside other electronics. He regularly plays with harpist Rhodri Davies, vocalizer Gwilly Edmondez and turntablist Mariam Rezaei. His musical output incorporates textural laptop improvisations, stuttering, bass-ridden electronica and disco-pop.

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Armando Bayolo

Sunday, March 27 @ 3PM

Born in 1973 in Santurce, Puerto Rico to Cuban parents, composer Armando Bayolo began musical studies at the age of twelve. At sixteen he went on to study at the prestigious Interlochen Arts Academy in Interlochen, Michigan, where he first began the serious study of composition. He holds degrees from the Eastman School of Music (B.M. 1995), where his teachers were Samuel Adler, Joseph Schwantner and Christopher Rouse; Yale University (M.M. 1997), where he studied with Roberto Sierra, Jacob Druckman, Ingram Marshall and Martin Bresnick; and the University of Michigan D.M.A. 2001) where he studied with Michael Daugherty, Bright Sheng and Evan Chambers. Recent performances include the world premiere of Concerto a Due for guitar and violin by Duo 46 and Great Noise Ensemble in Washington, D.C. Mr. Bayolo is the recipient 2008 Brandon Fradd fellowship in music from the Cintas Foundation and has received grants and awards from the states of Iowa and North Carolina, Hamilton College, the Minnesota Orchestra Composers Institute and the American Composers Forum. He lives outside of Washington, D.C. with his wife and two daughters.

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Kevin Boursiquot

Wednesday, March 23 @ 7PM

Kevin Boursiquot, 24, a first generation Haitian-American, and New York Native, began composing at age sixteen and began formal training in guitar at eighteen. Pursuing his Bachelor of Music degree in composition Kevin has been at Mannes College, the New School for Music for 4 years. While at Mannes he placed second in the 2009 Jean Schneider Goberman Piano Trio Competition and for his first piano trio Dark Night Variations, and was commissioned a piece from CIRICE (Composer-In-Residence-Chamber-Ensemble) The Bells. Mr. Boursiquot has written for several multiple pieces that have made appearances at Mannes College throughout the previous years, and received his first orchestral performance of ‘Time Cycle’ (2008) in 2009 with David Hayes, and the Mannes Orchestra. Over the summer he attended California summer music premiering his String Trio False Expectations. He studied in the past with Rudolph Palmer, Peter Bellino, Leo Edwards, Jennifer Higdon, Christopher Theofanidis, and John Musto. Mr. Boursiquot is currently studying with Mario Davidovsky.

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Marco Cappelli

Tuesday, March 22 @ 7PM

After completing many years of demanding music studies (first at Conservatorio di S. Cecilia in Rome and then in the Konzert-Klasse at the Musik Akademie in Basel with Oscar Ghiglia), Marco Cappelli has lead an extraordinary artistic path, becoming familiar both with rigorous written music as well with free improvisation languages. Among the founders of the acclaimed Italian contemporary music group “Ensemble Dissonanzen,” Marco Cappelli currently lives in New York, where he is involved with the contemporary and avant garde music scene. He is Guitar Professor at Conservatory “Vincenzo Bellini” in Palermo and Music Associate at Columbia University in New York. More over he has been Sharon Isbin’s assistant at the Aspen Music Festival and School ’06 (Colorado), and guest professor at Julliard School in New York (2004), Cal Poly Pomona (Los Angeles: 2003,2005,2006), University of Guadalajara (Mexico: 2004, 2007). Marco has recorded three solo guitar CDs: “Fantasia per Ensemble” and “Yun Mu“for the for the Italian label TDS, and EGP (Extreme Guitar Project: Music from Downtown New York) for the prestigiuos American label Mode Records. Mode Records also published two cds by Ensemble Dissonanzen, where Cappelli is involved in G. Petrassi’s and H.W. Henze’schamber Music.

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Jonathan Chen

Saturday, March 26 @ 7PM

Jonathan Chen’s work includes composition, improvisation, and installation. His work has been performed or installed in cities in the U.S., Europe and China. As a violinist and/or electronicist he has performed as improviser at major venues and festivals in the U.S. and internationally and has collaborated with many notable artists. Chen studied composition, improvisation, and installation with Alvin Lucier, Anthony Braxton, and Pauline Oliveros. He received his Master of Music in violin performance from Northwestern University, Evanston, IL in 1999, and remained in Chicago for several more years to participate in the experimental and improvised music scenes where he performed at most of the city’s noteworthy venues and festivals. In 2006 he completed his Master of Arts in experimental music composition at Wesleyan University, Middletown, CT. Chen is currently based in New York City and is a PhD Candidate in Electronic Arts at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. He can be heard on Asian Improv, Interval, and Striking Mechanism among others.

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Phyllis Chen + Rob Dietz

Friday, April 1 @ 7PM

Phyllis Chen (composer/toy pianist/electronics) and Rob Dietz (video artist/electronics) have been performing as a duo since 2007. Together they have created The Memoirist, Pearlessence, Chroma, Carousels and most recently, Down the Rabbit-Hole. Their work strives to experiment, discover and re-think multimedia and the combination of music,visuals and found objects to create live art. Phyllis and Rob have performed at the Chris Henry Gallery, Gershwin Hotel,Flea Theater, Le Poisson Rouge,Cinema Arts Centre (Hungington), Zhou B Gallery (Chicago),Doug Fir Lounge (Portland, OR),House of Yes and Listen/SPACE. They recently made a mini-tour through Europe stopping at Brussels’ Q02, Ghent’s Campo Santo and Berlin’s Madame Claude. Upcoming engagements include an Artist-in-Residence at CUNY’s City College Theatreworks in the Spring of 2011 for a four-show run of Down the Rabbit Hole and a new multimedia work commissioned by Opera Cabal to take place January 2012 in Chicago. They are currently based in Astoria, New York.

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Lisa Coons

Saturday, April 2 @ 7PM

Lisa R. Coons is a composer and sound artist with a special affinity to noise composition and experimentation. She is attracted to the sound palettes inherent in simple materials and creates welded sculptural instruments from found and salvaged objects. Lisa studied composition at the University of Missouri-Kansas City during her undergraduate degree and received her Master’s from SUNY Stony Brook. Presently a PhD candidate at Princeton University, her portfolio includes music for acoustic and electronic instruments, turntables, traditional ensembles and welded percussion sculptures. She received an ASCAP Morton Gould Young Composer Award in 2005 for the string quartet Awkward Music and an Honorable Mention in 2009 for Cross-Sections, her electric guitar quartet. Recent commissions include works for The Machine Project for the Hammer Museum of Los Angeles, The New Music Collective of Charleston, Iktus Percussion Quartet, the Violin Futura Project, and Dither Electric Guitar Quartet. Lisa lives in New York and is a member of the composers collective called, simply, The Collected.

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Coppice (Noé Cuellar + Joseph Kramer)

Friday, March 25 @ 7PM

Coppice (Noé Cuéllar + Joseph Kramer) is a Chicago-based duet of bellows and electronics. Formed 2009, they have produced original compositions for stage, fixed media, and performed installation settings, with a focus on adhering textural attenuation, processed gradation, the contours of instrumentation, and their multiple aspect highlights.

Their variable instrumentation departs between bellow and reed instruments (accordion, pump organ, shruti box, harmonica) and custom electronics (reproduction, transmission, spacialization, interference and gentle feedback), adapted in ways responsive to location, audience flow, and aural perspectives.

They have recently presented their work at Spark Festival of Electronic Music and Arts (Minneapolis), Dragonfly Festival (Göthenburg, Sweden), New Music at the Green Mill (Chicago), and several live radio performances. They have also composed for dance, in collaboration with choreographer Rachel Damon (Synapse Arts Collective).

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Sam Crawford

Tuesday, March 22 @ 7PM

Samuel Judson Crawford (b. 1985) is an American composer, writer, and visual artist who finds fascination with all things rare, often drawing inspiration from material that seems underappreciated, neglected, or virtually unheard of. Musically, Sam possesses a certain American sensibility in which neo-classical elements and cinematic textures often fuse together. The complete sonic atmosphere and experience is thus typically more important than process or form in Crawford’s work. More recently, he has been interested in exploring electro-acoustic blends and incorporating other, experimental media into his music, such as film projection and non-traditional instrumentation. Crawford’s interest in journalism and written commentary has fueled numerous personal journals, sketchbooks, and public blogs (both in America and abroad), and his love for literature and poetry typically informs his musical work in some way. While never pursued professionally, drawing, painting, and photography have also remained an important component to the composer’s personal expression and creative processes.

Mr. Crawford holds a degree in Vocal Music Education from East Tennessee State University (B. M., ’09) and is currently earning the Master of Music degree in Composition and Theory at New York University’s Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development. Studying privately with composer Julia Wolfe (b. 1958), Sam aims to continually reconsider his own musical language as he searches for inventive ways of incorporating the new, the old, and the unexpected. More than anything, however, he simply wants his music to speak.

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Jonathan Elliott

Sunday, April 3 @ 3PM

Embraced by audiences, performers, presenters, notable for its communicative power and modern expression, the music of Jonathan Elliott is performed and broadcast internationally. Elliott has received numerous awards and honors including fellowships from the MacDowell Colony, Yaddo, the Ragdale Foundation, the New State Council on the Arts, the International Festival of New Music at Darmstadt, Centre Acanthes, the Aspen Music Festival, and the W.K. Rose Trust. He has won prizes from BMI, ASCAP, the Chicago Symphony, the American Composers Forum, Forum 91/UNESCO, and has been a nominee for the American Academy of Arts and Letters Music Awards. Elliott has been commissioned by leading concert artists and presenting organizations include PS 122, the Poetry Project at Saint Marks, the American Liszt Society, the American Composers Forum, the Jerome Foundation, the Monadnock Music Festival, the Center for Experimental Theater at Vassar College, and others. His music is published by Lux Nova Press and PBP Music and recorded on Koch International Classics and Centaur Records. A native of Philadelphia, Elliott studied with Annea Lockwood at Vassar and subsequently on a University Fellowship with Ralph Shapey and Shulamit Ran at the University of Chicago. He has lived in Brooklyn, NY, since 1988, where he is also active as a visual artist and is composer in residence and co-chair of the music department at Saint Ann’s School in Brooklyn Heights.

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Ted Hearne + Phillip White

Saturday, March 26 @ 7PM

Ted Hearne (b. 1982, Chicago) is a composer, conductor and performer of new music. His work Katrina Ballads is the recipient of the 2009 Gaudeamus Prize in composition, and his piece Cordavi and Fig was recently praised by Allan Kozinn of the New York Times as “fresh and muscular.” Ted’s music has been performed by the Minnesota Orchestra, Calder Quartet, The Knights, and New York City Opera; heard at the MATA Festival, Bang on a Can Marathon, Carlsbad Music Festival, and LPR’S Sleeping Giant; and commissioned by Chicago’s Third Coast Percussion, San Francisco’s Volti Choral Arts Laboratory, Charleston’s New Music Collective, Newspeak, Huntsville Symphony, Albany Symphony and Ensemble ACJW. Ted is the artistic director of Yes is a World, resident conductor of Red Light New Music, and for five years was composer-in-residence of the Chicago Children’s Choir. He served as music director for the premieres of David Lang’s opera Anatomy Theatre (performed by ICE, 2005), Michael Gordon’s Lightning at our Feet (BAM Next Wave Festival, 2008), and Bryan Senti’s From the margins, this, unmentioned (Brooklyn Lyceum, 2009); as well as the American premieres of Constantine Koukias’s Prayer Bells and Beat Fürrer’s Gaspra. Ted has received the 2008 Charles Ives Scholarship from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, was an artist in residence at the MacDowell Colony in Fall 2009, and recently completed collaborations with composer J.G. Thirlwell and renowned filmmaker Bill Morrison. His album Katrina Ballads was released in August 2010 on New Amsterdam Records, and as vocalist he recently premiered the role of Justin in Jacob Cooper’s Timberbrit at the Incubator Arts Series. Upcoming commissions include works for DITHER Electric Guitar Quartet, Toomai String Quintet, and a new work for Yale Glee Club and Yale Symphony Orchestra to premiered at Carnegie Hall in April 2011.

Philip White currently performs with Suzanne Thorpe (thenumber46) and Chuck Johnson (with chuck johnson with philip white). Recent performances/exhibitions include Diapason (NYC), ISSUE Project Room (NYC), The Stone (NYC), Sonic Circuits (DC), Redux New Media Festival (Charleston, SC), Galerie Neurotitan (Berlin), Princeton University, Bent Festival 2010, NYCEMF 2010, Floating Points Festival 2010 and a featured spot on free103.9.org. He has performed with Toshimaru Nakamura, Gene Coleman, Kenta Nagai, ADACHI Tomomi, MV Carbon, Michael Schumacher and Nisi Jacobs. He has received grants form Meet The Composer and Electronic Music Foundation. In 2008, Philip received his MFA in Electronic and Recorded Media from Mills College where he worked with Chris Brown, Hilda Parades, Helmut Lachenmann, Roscoe Mitchell and James Fei. While there he taught both Sound Art and Electronic Arts. Prior to Mills he received a BA in Music from the College of Charleston. Currently Philip is the Technical Director at ISSUE Project Room.

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Jiří Kadeřábek

Sunday, April 3 @ 3PM

Jiří Kadeřábek is an award-winning composer, born in 1978 in Zlín, Czech Republic. Originally jazz, rock and pop music composer, pianist and singer, he studied classical composition at the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague, Royal Conservatoire in The Hague, The Netherlands and Columbia University, New York City. During his studies he attended many composition workshops, residencies and private lessons in the Czech Republic, The Netherlands, France, Italy and USA. His works have been commissioned and performed by the BBC Symphony Orchestra, Czech Radio Symphony Orchestra, Slovak Philharmonic Choir, Berg Orchestra, National Theater in Prague and ensembles such as Sybarite5, Fourbythree, Fama Quartet, Ensemble Calliopée, Ensemble MoEns and Intrasonus Ensemble. He received prizes in the Shipley Arts Festival Composition Competition (2010), Antonín Dvořák Composition Competition (2010), Zenith Composers Competition (2009), International Cimbalom Festival Composition (2008), Czech Radio Composition Competition (2006), Generace Composition Competition (2003, 2004, 2006, 2007), he also won the Dean of the Music Faculty of the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague Award (2006), became a finalist of the Musica Nova International Composition Competition (2008) and was nominated for the Gideon Klein Award (2006). In his work various compositional approaches are confronted, often principles or fragments of historical music as well as pop, rock and jazz are incorporated. He also works with recorded nonmusical sounds integrated in the musical structure, uses theatrical elements and recently even video. He himself considers his pieces „as polygons with internal side mirrors that make it possible to look at each side again and again but always from a different perspective.” Often he integrates himself in performances of his works, whether as a singer or pianist.

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Agatha Kasprzyk + Vision Fugitive

Friday, March 25 @ 7PM

Raised in Canada, Agatha Kasprzyk (b. 1987) began her musical interests at the age of five by studying piano at the Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto, Ontario. Since then, she developed her skills through several piano schools until deciding that composition was her true ambition. In 2005, she commenced her undergraduate studies at Wilfrid Laurier University in Kitchener-Waterloo, Ontario. During those four years, she composed and recorded pieces ranging in several ensembles and genres including solo, chamber, choral, film and orchestral. In composition, she studied under Canadian composers Peter Hatch, Linda Catlin Smith, and Glenn Buhr. In piano, she studied under Leslie Wyber, Shoshana Telner, and Anya Alexeyev. Recently, her music (both concert and film) have been performed and presented at the Studio of Visual Arts (SVA) Theatre, (le) Poisson Rouge, Merkin Hall, and the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York City. Her arrangements of classical and popular music (ranging from duet to full orchestra) have been performed in the United States and Spain. Agatha is currently pursuing her Masters in Film Scoring and Composition at New York University (The Steinhardt School) and studying privately with film composer Mark Suozzo. She was awarded the Billy Joel Scholarship for the 2010-2011 academic year.

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Lukas Ligeti

Saturday, April 2 @ 7PM

Transcending the boundaries of genre, composer-percussionist Lukas Ligeti has developed a musical style of his own that draws upon downtown New York experimentalism, contemporary classical music, jazz, electronica, as well as world music, particularly from Africa. Known for his non-conformity and diverse interests, Lukas creates music ranging from the through-composed to the free-improvised, often exploring polyrhythmic/polytempo structures, non-tempered tunings, and non-western elements. Other major sources of inspiration include experimental mathematics, computer technology, architecture and visual art, sociology and politics, and travel. He has also been participating in cultural exchange projects in Africa for the past 15 years. Born in Vienna, Austria into a Hungarian-Jewish family from which several important artists have come including his father, composer György Ligeti, Lukas started his musical adventures after finishing high school. He studied composition and percussion at the University for Music and Performing Arts in Vienna and then moved to the U.S. and spent two years at the Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics at Stanford University before settling in New York City in 1998. His commissions include Bang on a Can, the Vienna Festwochen, Ensemble Modern, Kronos Quartet, Colin Currie and Håkan Hardenberger, the American Composers Forum, New York University, ORF Austrian Broadcasting Company, Radio France, and more; he also regularly collaborates with choreographer Karole Armitage.

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Emily Manzo

Wednesday, March 23 @ 7PM

Emily Manzo has performed throughout the U.S. and Europe at festivals including the Sosterberg Music Festival in Holland and the Acanthes Festival in France. She has premiered the works of John Luther Adams, Susie Ibarra and Rodney Sharman and has played in ensembles conducted by Tim Weiss and Tania Leon. Her degrees were earned at the New England Conservatory (pre-college), the Oberlin Conservatory of Music (BM) and Columbia University Teachers College (MA) where her teachers included Jean Stackhouse, Stephen Drury, Lydia Frumkin, and Jeanne Golan. She has played in masterclasses for Seymour Lipkin, Loren Hollander, Roger Muraro and Florent Boffard, among others. She currently resides in New York where she performs regularly as a classical solo and chamber musician, as well as with her group, Christy & Emily, which has a new release on The Social Registry. She has a long-term collaboration with video artists Paul Rowley and David Phillips based around John Cage’s piano music from the ’40s. Emily is a founding member of Till by Turning, an ensemble dedicated to developing educational resources for new music. She is also a mentor, piano instructor and band member for the viBe SongMakers, one of several workshops run by viBe, a local nonprofit and performing-arts education program for teenage girls

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Peri Mauer

Friday, April 1 @ 7PM

PERI MAUER, COMPOSER: MM, BM Manhattan School of Music, BA Bard College, graduate of the High School of Music and Art, has composed works for solo instruments, chamber music ensembles, orchestra, and theater. Her music has received performances at Gamper Festival of Contemporary Music in Bowdoin, ME, NYU Composers Forum, Sound Minds:New Music Series at the Living Theater, Doctors Orchestra of New York, Manhattan Composers Orchestra, and New York Composers Circle Concert of New Music at St. Peter’s Church in NYC. Peri has composed incidental music scores to several Off-Broadway classic theater productions including Aristophanes’ “Thesmophoriazusae” and “Ecclesiazusae”, Euripides “The Bacchae”, Aphra Behn’s “The Emperor of the Moon”, and has received grants for her composing from Meet the Composer, Composers Guild of Utah, and National Federation of Music Clubs. Peri is also a professional cellist and conductor, and has performed with such groups as American Symphony Orchestra at Carnegie Hall. Encompass New Opera Theater at Alice Tully Hall, Radio City Music Hall Orchestra, Astoria Symphony, Playwrights Horizons, NYU Contemporary Players, Prospect Theater Company, American Chamber Opera, etc., and has held the position of assistant conductor of Redeemer Arts Chamber Orchestra in NYC.

Additionally, Peri has been elected into membership of Pi Kappa Lambda, the National Honor Society of Music, is a recipient of a National Collegiate Music Award, is listed in “International Who’s Who in Music” and a member of New York Composers Circle. Her new work “Rhapsodance”, for clarinet and piano, will be premiered at St. Peter’s Church in New York City on April 5, 2011

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Martha Mooke

Friday, March 25 @ 7PM

Martha Mooke composer/electro-acoustic violist, a pioneer in the field of electric five string viola, transcends musical boundaries by synthesizing her classical music training with extended techniques, digital effects processing and improvisation, while retaining the depth and soul of the instrument. She is a Yamaha Artist and leading clinician on electric and alternative approaches to string playing. Mooke is founder and violist of the adventurous electro-acoustic Scorchio Quartet, which has performed with David Bowie, Trey Anastasio, Philip Glass, Iggy Pop, Patti Smith and Lou Reed among others. Mooke has toured internationally as a member of Barbra Streisand’s acclaimed orchestra and traveled throughout the U.S., Canada and Mexico with “Star Wars: in Concert”. She has also performed and or recorded with Bon Jovi, Enya, Peter Gabriel, Andrea Bocelli, Tony Bennett, David Byrne, Moby, John Cale, Ziggy Marley, Luciano Pavorotti and the Orchestra of St. Luke’s. She has received awards from ASCAP, Meet the Composer and Arts International among others. She was honored with an ASCAP Concert Music Award for conceiving and producing the new music showcase THRU THE WALLS featuring ASCAP composer/performers whose work defies categorization.

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Dafna Naphtali

Saturday, March 26 @ 7PM

Dafna Naphtali is a singer /sound-artist/ guitarist/electronic-musician from an eclectic musical background. Composing /performing using her Max/MSP programming for sound processing of voice and other instruments, she’s collaborated with many influential experimental musicians & video artists since the mid-90’s. She co-leads the digital chamber punk ensemble, What is it Like to be a Bat? w/ Kitty Brazelton , is a founding member of Magic Names vocal sextet , and performs in many small ensembles mixing electro-acoustics and improvisation. She’s received numerous commissions and awards for her composing/programming projects, and performs and gives workshops internationally, most recently in Prague and Germany. Her CDs are on Tzadik and Acheulian Handaxe labels.

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Lorenda Ramou

Saturday, April 2 @ 10PM

Lorenda Ramou’s repertoire includes piano pieces from Bach and Mozart up to Fluxus happenings and pieces with electronics, with special emphasis given to works by Greek composers. In her recitals she often combines classical with contemporary repertoire and music theatre works. She has recorded for BIS, NAXOS, Spektral and Athens Music Society. Reviews praised her “great creativity” and “very substantial” contribution in the Greek music scene, as well as her playing: “full of verve (Gramophone)”, “admirable” (International Record Review), “with straightforward energy and authority (American Record Guide)” and “visceral power”. She has appeared in Holland, Greece, France, Britain, Sweden, Portugal, Germany, USA and Chile.

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Aled Roberts

Wednesday, March 23 @ 7PM

Aled Roberts is currently a sophomore at NYU’s Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development, and is majoring in Music Theory and Composition. He has also studied composition at the Cleveland Institute of Music and the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, where his Piano Trio and Clarinet Quartet were premiered, respectively. The third movement of his String Quartet was also part of the repertoire that earned the Boise High Quartet first place in the Boise Chamber Music Society String Quartet Competition. The Ying Quartet judged the competition. Aled starting learning the violin at 4-years-old and has since picked up the piano, guitar, drums, (and ukulele). His influences include concert composers such as Shostakovich, Prokofiev, and Beethoven; blues and jazz artists such Robert Johnson, Miles Davis, and Louis Armstrong; and rock artists such as Radiohead and the Velvet Underground. Accordingly, Aled focuses on writing and performing concert, jazz, blues, folk, and rock music. As a sophomore he is open to many career paths, but he mostly hopes to make a living writing film and commercial music. He is currently studying under Argentinean composer, Ezequiel Viñao, and is interning in the A&R Department at Columbia Records.

Sidney Samberg

Sunday, April 3 @ 3PM

A native of Chicago, Sid Samberg began composing and performing his own music at the age of six. Since then, it has been performed in numerous cities, including Chicago, New York, Montreal, Toronto, Ann Arbor, Puerto Rico, Maccagno (Italy) and Berlin. He has had the honor of performing the music of George Flynn, Cornelius Cardew and Terry Riley, and premiering two works of Frank Abbinanti. Samberg performs on viola in a number of ensembles, including performances of Gino Robair’s improvisational opera “I, Norton”, performances of Cornelius Cardew’s revolutionary Treatise, and the newly formed Scratch Orchestra of Chicago alongside such artists as Julia Miller, Jeff Kowlakowski, and Eric Leonardson. His piano work “Larsen B” was recently premiered on the New Music at the Green Mill concert series, and can be viewed on YouTube. Samberg has participated in various music festivals, including soundSCAPE 2010 in Italy, The Summer Institute for Contemporary Performance Practice at Boston’s New England Conservatory, The Hawai’i Institute of Contemporary Music, and Lilfest music festival in Chicago. He has also lectured on the history of music at St. Francis College (at age 15) and on the music of the Holocaust.

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Andrea Szigetvari

Friday, March 25 @ 7PM

Andrea Szigetvari studied sound recording and electro acoustic music at Fr. Chopin Academy of Music in Warsaw. After finishing her studies she worked as a music editor, sound engineer, and musical producer for Hungaroton Recording Company and Hungarian Radio. She has worked at the Institute of Musicology as a member of the first computer music research project in Hungary. In 1989 she was a Fulbright researcher in the USA. First she worked at Brooklyn College with Charles DODGE, later at Stanford University with John CHOWNING. After returning from the USA in 1990 she funded the Hungarian Computer Music Foundation to help to develop contemporary music life in Hungary. From the beginning of ’90-ies she has been the main organizer of the composition and computer music course of the International Bartók Festival, the Short Circuits contemporary music days and from 1998 the MakingNewWaves contemporary music festival. Between 1993 and 1995 she developed the musical informatics course curriculum at University of Pécs, Faculty of Music and Visual Arts and the electronic music curriculum for the Liszt Ferenc Academy of Music in Budapest. In 1995 she started to teach musical informatics in the University of Pécs, Faculty of Music and Visual Arts and in 1996 she started to teach electronic music at the Liszt Ferenc Academy of Music in Budapest.

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Maria Tegzes

Saturday, April 2 @ 10PM

Innovative vocalist and performance artist, Maria Tegzes, along with her group, Impetus (pianist, Geoffrey Burleson and guitarist, David “Knife” Fabris) returns to The Flea, with very special friend and guest artist, The Baroness, for a performance piece that will combine interpretive dance, expressionist opera, bondage and rope suspension, with jazz, rock, and world music. Tegzes is a singing actress with a dark and earthy sensuality whose performances have received critical acclaim the world over. Burleson has been heralded as a “remarkable pianist” and “a first-class instrumental presence”, as well as an “outright thrilling” artist. Fabris, noted for his collaborations with jazz pianist legend, Ran Blake, is highly praised for his sensitive, virtuosic, and iconoclastic interpretations. And The Baroness, New York’s Premiere Designer of Elegant, Provocative Latex Fashions, is herself no stranger to the stage. As a performer, The Baroness is embraced and celebrated for her stirring presentations, expressing her artistic vision and imbuing the bdsm sense and sensibility with a uniqueness that transcends time and space.

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Molly Thompson

Tuesday, March 22 @ 7PM

Molly Thompson is a composer and singer who writes music that Global Rhythm calls “hauntingly beautiful” and the New York Times describes as “rhapsodic music with…jazzy outbursts and exuberant chaos.”

Her most recent album, Ash (2007, White Lime Records), is a collection of eleven songs that All About Jazz Italia calls “some of the most beautiful songs ever heard.” Time out Chicago says Thompson “has a sultry voice, somewhere between Lotte Lenya and the pop icon Nico…Equal parts smoky lounge music, turn-of-the-century Berlin cabaret and Medieval chanson…Thompson’s blend of recognizable genres is fascinating and unique.” In addition to writing and performing her own songs, Thompson also writes music for concerts, independent film, and multimedia performance. The LA Times called her Draft of Shadows “a clever mash-up of tango, rock rhythms, and taped city noises, more party music than parlor music” and Spoleto Today called The Great Hush “eerie and lovely.” She has been commissioned by California E.A.R. Unit, Composers Collaborative, Kathleen Supové, Margaret Lancaster, and Demetrius Spaneas and has been resident at Villa Montalvo, I-Park, Bang on a Can Summer’s Institute, and the Oregon Bach Festival. She has also received funding from Meet the Composer for her theater piece called The Scream with slam poet Regie Cabico and director Michael Montel.

Thompson’s music is performed at venues as diverse as New York City performance spaces and nightclubs, new music festivals, and Parisian jazz clubs. “On stage, her music comes across to the listener as honestly raw and yet sophisticatedly crafted, filled with intimate lyrics and intriguing cross-genre influences…her musical personality seems to draw a curtain around some more mysterious internal characters. It keeps her audiences on their toes…” (New Music Box)

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