Commissioning Club

Earlier this year, Daniel Burkholder and I created the Improv Arts Commissioning Club, a unique opportunity for individuals to invest in the commissioning of new work. So far, the Club has supported a weekend of performances by The PlayGround at Dance Place, and a recording session for the DC Improvisers Collective.

The Club provides a means for broad participation in the cultivation of new work. We invite you to participate in this network of support by joining the Improv Arts Commissioning Club. Whether your gift is $25, $2,500, or somewhere in between, you will be participating in a new model for arts patronage - building a community of support for performing arts in the region.

This summer, the Improv Arts Commissioning Club will support the premiere of “unmapped,” a new duet by Daniel Burkholder and Jonathan Matis. This piece is a large scale, 40 minute structured improvisation that Daniel and Jonathan will perform every hour for 24 hours straight. The performance will be part of the upcoming Capital Fringe Festival, beginning at 9pm on July 21st and continuing until 9pm on July 22nd, at the Warehouse Theater.

Commissioning Club members will receive complimentary tickets to the performance, and a special invitation to a members-only brunch at the Warehouse Theater's café during the performance - Saturday morning, July 22nd.

For more information about "unmapped," including a podcast about the piece, visit:
http://improvarts.alkem.org/unmapped

We know that there are many organizations, individuals and causes that ask for your attention and support, just as we are doing now. We also know that you understand the importance of art in the lives of individuals, communities and nations. We invite you to join the Improv Arts Commissioning Club as we continue to create provocative and extraordinary performances.

You may give online using the link above, or by mail to:
Improv Arts Inc.
6003 44th Avenue
Hyattsville, MD 20781

Thank you for your support.
Daniel Burkholder and Jonathan Morris
Co-Directors, Improv Arts, Inc.

unmapped - the podcast

Daniel Burkholder and I are working frantically to prepare for our most ambitious performance yet. "unmapped" will be performed for 24 hours straight, July 21 through July 22 at Warehouse Theater. In this audio segment we discuss why we're doing it for 24 hours, and discuss a few other issues involved in the piece. For more info, see http://improvarts.alkem.org/unmapped

Another benefit for Joe's

Last night, I performed in another fundraiser event for the new Joe's Movement Emporium, now under construction in Mount Rainier, Maryland. The event was held at Busboys and Poets, which was very nice. Their meeting room / event space is actually a plush little venue - good sound equipment, a baby grand piano, good food and drinks, and a secret not-on-the-menu vegan calzone.

Since the focus of the evening was raising money for the Joe's capital campaign, performances were brief, and varied. Between the holistic belly dancers and the Thai dance troupe, Improv Arts (which is going to be one of the resident organizations at the new Joe's) trotted out members of its music ensemble, the DC Improvisers Collective. Or, in more frank terms, Daniel Burkholder is out of town, so instead of doing our usual "five minute duo improv" dance/music piece that we often bring to these freebie events, I needed to pull something together myself. Happily, Dan Barbiero and Ben Azzara agreed to play with me - even though we were only going to play for five minutes and we weren't getting paid.

We weren't able to schedule rehearsal time together before the show, so we played one of my existing pieces, "shut up and listen." It's originally scored for electric guitar, cello, and laptop. I shared the score and recording with Dan last year, and he made his own version for double bass instead of cello. He did a beautiful job with it, and I really like his take on the piece. Hopefully, we'll have a chance to record it sometime. Ben added hand percussion (bongos, played with hands and brushes) and that worked out really well.

If you're curious, a pdf of the score is online here, and a recording of the guitar/cello version is on my myspace page.

So a big "thank you!" to Ben and Dan for their generosity - and here's hoping we helped raise some money for Joe's...

Philadelphia Mint

Cameron and I spent some time this weekend working on our Eigenvalues project, and we made this recording of a new piece... Cameron wrote the poem during a performance I was in back in the beginning of April. I was playing with a group of improvising musicians from Philadelphia in a project called Sound Exchange, led by Pauline Oliveros. Our first concert was actually a concert by Dr. Oliveros' "Deep Listening Band," but we all played with them during the second half of the evening. She titled this large group piece, "Philadelphia Mint" - so since this piece of music inspired the poem, Cameron borrowed the title.

The music is done live with laptop, clarinet, and a bamboo thing I call my "Tibet Store Flute." I start with the bamboo flute, which is processed and looped, transposed down one octave. This material makes a smooth transition to the clarinet, and helps tie in the text references to various wind instruments. As for the notes, that's all improvised.

I think this is a nice addition to our repertoire, since it has original text (as opposed to found text), and it's also quite personal - where our other pieces are more detached.

It's also up now on our myspace page. We'd love to know what you think.

Eigenvalues

As some of you may know, Cameron and I have been collaborating on text / music pieces. We have a band-name of sorts and now a brand spankin' new myspace page. We even have a gig coming up in September. So be our friend and visit our new Eigenvalues page.

DCIC at the Red and The Black

Tuesday night, DCIC played at a new venue in town: The Red and The Black (12th and H Streets, NE). It's a nice room - small, but warm and inviting. I think they're planning to have rock shows in there, which will be way too loud for the space -- but it was perfect for us.

The three of us fit nicely on the small stage, and we could really hear one another well -- which makes a world of difference. I felt like our playing was really focused - and the group listening was happening nicely. The recording session we just finished turned out to be a great exercise for us - I think the trio lineup is working really well.

Sadly, I forgot to bring any recording gear, so the performance wasn't documented at all. Oh well. I guess you had to be there...

We were opening for a trio from Switzerland called Day and Taxi. I wrote a few thoughts about their set on my other blog.

We just got some exciting news -- we'll be playing at Fort Reno on July 31st, opening for The Evens!

DCIC recording session

Last weekend, the DC Improvisers Collective recorded our new CD. We spent two and a half days at Silver Sonya with T.J. Lipple, working very hard. I mean, it was great fun, but we really did work and work and work. We started Friday evening, setting up and getting sounds. The fact that T.J. is a genius was obvious from the start. Our group is somewhere between jazz and rock, and he got the perfect sound... not close mic-ing everything, so we had a spacious jazz sound, but kept a ballsy rock feel. Hard to explain... but you'll hear it when we get the mastering done.

We spent about 11 hours on Saturday recording. So, we had plenty of time to document what we usually do, and then still had time to try some new things, and to just plain push ourselves to keep improvising and inventing new music after we had exhausted our usual habits. This included an interesting excercise where we did three short pieces in layers - with one of us recording a track, then the other two adding overdubs -- removing the dynamic interactivity of group improvisation and replacing that with one-way communication. I think one of those three will end up on the album, but we'll see... we haven't figured all of that out yet.

Sunday was a twelve hour day of mixing. That can be pretty tedious, but T.J. brought the mad skillz and total concentration and burned through it. We left with over two hours of material mixed. Now we have to decide what "makes the cut" and goes on the album, and what gets left on the metaphorical editing room floor, or gets saved for the outakes that get slapped on the re-issue (that's a joke), but seriously, we can probably use some of the "out-takes" as bonus stuff to give away online or something... we'll get that figured out.

Of couse I couldn't be happier. The session was far more productive than I expected and the recordings sound really wonderful. Once we figure out what goes on the album, we have to go back to the studio for mastering... then we'll have some things to share.



Mike totally rocked all weekend. He pulled out some wild tenor playing, plus several gorgeous pieces on bass clarinet, and several interesting tracks on his new saxello (a wacky hybrid soprano sax thing).

Ben brought his "a-game" too... monster playing, including some cool hand percussion and toy xylophone in addition to his drumset work. Plus, his previous studio experience helped us all in terms of making the best use of the time, and keeping things from getting stressful.

So we still have some work to do - figuring out what pieces stay, and which ones have to go, then mastering, then figuring out how we want to release this thing... so that may take a little while. In the meantime, we're playing next week opening for the Swiss trio "Day & Taxi" and then in August with Greg Osby. Really. But that show happens to be smack in the middle of my little "mini-tour" with Fending/Matis, so I might miss that show. We'll see.

Ok, I can't wrap this up without the obligatory "playing the guitar with a vibrator" photo.

And here's a shot of us in the control room. You'll notice the three of us have very silly grins on our faces? That's because we can't believe how good TJ made us sound...



Photos by Travis Miller

DC Improvisers Collective - and you

Dear friends and family,

I'd like to thank all of you for your support and encouragement over the last several years. My career as a composer and performing musician has come a long way and I owe you all a big heartfelt thanks.

I'd also like to share an opportunity with you, to join the Improv Arts Commissioning Club.

Last summer, I assembled a "Jonathan Matis Commissioning Club" to raise funds for my participation in the Oregon Bach Festival Composers Symposium including composing a new work for the ensemble FIREWORKS. That effort was very successful, and really helped move my career forward.

This model of support is now being expanded. Daniel Burkholder and I have formed a nonprofit organization called Improv Arts, Inc., that provides a framework for supporting our new dance and music projects: our collaborative work as well as our individual projects.

We have received a grant from the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities to support my latest endeavor: a studio recording of the DC Improvisers Collective (DCIC). This is an ensemble that I founded a few years ago, to serve as a laboratory for exploring free improvisation in music, as well as methods for developing structured improv pieces. DCIC has consistently provided a very challenging work environment where I'm pushed hard to keep up with a group of ridiculously talented musicians.

During the first week of June, DCIC: Ben Azzara (drums), Mike Sebastian (saxophones and bass clarinet) and myself, will be working at a local studio called Silver Sonya. This is a studio adjacent to / sharing the tracking room (the space where we actually play) with the legendary Inner Ear studio, a facility famous for recording many of the area's punk and hardcore bands (Fugazi, etc.). We will be working with Chad Clark (of the band Beauty Pill), who is a gifted artist and top-notch audio engineer. Needless to say, I'm very excited about this opportunity.

Our budget for the recording process and the associated marketing to record labels is $4,000. Thanks to the grant from the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities, and several major gifts to the Improv Arts Commissioning Club, we are already halfway to our goal.

This is where you come in. By joining the club, you can play an active role in producing our new album, and support the creation of new, innovative music right here in the DC area.

All club members will receive an invitation to our pre-release launch party (date and location TBA). We'll have a chance to listen to the tracks and party like rock stars, even though it will be a few months until the business end of the commercial release is worked out.

Join the club at the $50 level, "The Fan Club," and receive a copy of the CD when it is released, along with the option to buy additional copies at cost, for sharing with friends and family.

Join the club at the $100 level, "The DCIC super-fans," and receive all of the above, plus a limited edition pre-release copy of the album (please don't leak it on the internet).

Join the club at the $250 level, "Recording Sponsors," and receive all of the above plus a credit in the liner notes as a project sponsor.

Join the club at the $500 level, "Executive Producer," and receive all of the above and a special Executive Producer credit on the CD.

or feel free to join the club at any amount you'd like.

With your help, I am confident that we can raise the additional $2,000 needed to complete the project, and produce a fabulous recording. You can join online using the links above, or mail your tax-deductible gift to:

Improv Arts, Inc.
6003 44th Avenue
Hyattsville, MD 20781

Thank you so much for all of your support - and I look forward to sharing the results of our recording project very soon. Please don't hesitate to contact me if you have any questions, or suggestions. I'm always happy to hear from you!

Sincerely,
Jonathan Morris (Matis)

P.S. Please remember to check with your employer to see if matching gifts are available. I'm happy to help you with any paperwork that may require.

Get Me on the O.C.

I heard an interview a few weeks ago with the music supervisor for "The O.C." TV shows like this one, and a few others that she works on, have had an enormous impact on the "buzzworthy" bands that get on the show. Given the very sad state of radio, and the all-around turmoil in the recording industry, it has somehow become "important" for so-called "indie" bands and artists to get their work on television or included in film soundtracks (it seems there's now a term for it, "The O.C. effect"). Since I'm not entirely opposed to selling out, I thought I'd take a crack at it. My usual work is probably not so well suited for trashy teen dramas, but here's something that might be a good fit. Now I just sit back and wait for the cash, right?

DCIC at Warehouse "Black Box"

Last night, the DC Improvisers Collective (DCIC) played as part of a four-band bill at the Warehouse's "Black Box" theater.

Since we're heading into the studio in two weeks to make a CD, we wanted to get another chance to play out and see how things stand up with an audience present. Funny that it's always so different in rehearsal vs. performance.

The space is a challenging room, acoustically. It's pretty small, and very very live. Everything seems loud in there. Even when Ben was playing softly, the drums seemed loud. Mike tried to start the show with his bass clarinet, but things were just too darn loud to make that work. The tenor and soprano saxes worked out just fine. However, we all had a hard time hearing one another and had no idea what the audience was hearing. I'm not sure if this show really helped with our process for preparing for the upcoming recording, but that's how it goes, I guess.

It was a crazy and interesting night of music. Supernatural Hot Rug and Not Used opened the show with a short prepared guitar duo. They were followed by Na, which was a hard act to follow. Kazu performed in a costume made of two plastic garbage bags, tin foil helmet and tin foil boots. Their mix of spaz-out improv, goofy humor, and full-on noise makes for quite a bit of unpredictable theater. They ended their set with all three people kneeling on the floor pummeling a cymbal that was also on the floor, and screaming. All of them pummeling and screaming, like some kind of ritual - very Artoud, I suspect.

Following us, Mandarin Movie performed. They were also intense, but in a different way. Two bassists (one electric, one upright), drums, and trumpet/electronics. The drummer was excellent - great jazz technique and pure adrenaline rocking power combined. But with the two basses, and ferocious drumming, it was hard to hear the details.

unmapped 4x4

Here's a recording of the piece I did for Cross Currents Dance Company. This take is from a run we did an hour before the show last Sunday. It's a live recording - instrumentation is guitar and laptop. I'm following the form of the dance piece - but the structure of the piece is somewhat open and changes every time, so I have lots of room to improvise. Does it make you wanna move?

Cross Currents Dance Co.

This past weekend, I performed in two shows with Cross Currents Dance Co. For their 10th anniversary season, they commissioned a new work by Daniel Burkholder, and I played the music. The two of us haven't really done other "works for hire" together before, so this was something new... I think it worked out very well. They got a strong improv piece that works (which is no small feat considering how unaccustomed most of the dancers were to improvised performance) - and they got some live music on their program, which is a very good thing if I do say so myself.

I recorded the music at both shows, and the last few rehearsals. Since the music is quite different every time, I want to give them multiple recorded versions, so if they do perform the piece without me, they can mix up which version of audio to use. I haven't gone back to listen, if there's one take that holds up on it's own, I'll podcast it later.

The piece was done just with guitar and laptop. I had great freedom to do whatever I wanted. The piece had some structure (actually quite a bit of structure) so I followed the overall form of the dance quite closely, but actual musical materials were totally improvised.

Ok, gotta run and pack up my gear for tonight's DCIC show (which conflicts with Pretty Girls Make Graves at the Black Cat, so sad to miss their show!), will post soon about the DCIC show and our upcoming studio time.

Duet with Tom Bickley

My friend, Tom Bickley, is in town this week for a library conference. Happily, he had some time free last night for a brief visit. We used to play together in a quintet called Gray Code. Strangely, I'm the only member left in the DC area. Hmmm.

We made this little recording. It's a duet - alto recorder and classical guitar. We recorded two passes. It's all improvised. The only pre-determined structure was the decision that we would allow ourselves the possibility of overdubbing, and the duration would be between five and six minutes.

SUV "World Premiere"

Yesterday, Cameron and I gave the first public performance of "Sport Utility Vehicle" as part of the Baltimore Composers Forum's annual fundraiser concert at An Die Musik. We shared the program with Bruno Amato, Vivian Adelberg Rudow, George Spicka, James Brody, and Todd Marcus. Quite a diverse program.

Our performance went very smoothly. Cameron is a superstar. The computer cooperated, and the whole thing went off without a hitch. Seriously, Cameron did a beautiful job - even with the foul language. I haven't had a lot of "composed" music performed recently, and it was quite a thrill to hear a piece come off exactly as it was intended. We couldn't have ordered up a better debut performance for our text/sound/music collaborative duo project (haven't quite figured out what to call it yet...)

After the concert, we went to Great Sage for dinner - which was really the highlight of the trip. They had a jerk seitan special with mashed sweet potatoes (made with coconut milk), and collards. Wow. That was tasty. And while we're on the subject of vegan treats, after our set up and sound check, we had lunch at Red Emma's anarchist bookstore / cafe which was also nice - including the (vegan) Chocolate Toffee Walnut Crunch Bar.

DCIC rehearsal

Here's a podcast from rehearsal with the DC Improvisers Collective last weekend. The group is a trio: Ben Azzara (drums), Mike Sebastian (reeds), and me on guitar. We're preparing for a recording session in the beginning of June. I felt like this rehearsal really was good practice. Practice isn't supposed to sound good. It should sound bad - since we're trying new things, and learning to do things we couldn't do before. You know, practice. Even though we're making up all the music on the spot, we can always use more practice. I think this track came out nicely, even though it was practice. Mike is playing soprano sax and then bass clarinet (mmmm i love the bass clarinet). It's the first recording we made with my new toy that lets us record up to 8 mics independently into the laptop - I think the results are promising (but I still have a few things to learn in the audio engineering department). This piece is called "Lost Civilizations, Part 2." We recorded the entire rehearsal, but I haven't had time to mix it yet... I think this might be a nice document of raw improv practice.

unmapped

This past weekend, Daniel Burkholder and I performed four shows as part of the "International Dance Jam," presented by the Theater Alliance at H Street Playhouse. This was our first opportunity to show "unmapped" - a work in progress that attempts to blur the distinction between our roles as musician and dancer.

For this run of shows, we did the piece as a fifteen minute improvisation. We set up the space with a stool downstage right, and a bench upstage left. The guitar is using a wireless transmitter and a delay - so we can move around the stage freely and whatever sounds we generate with the guitar are repeated several times, so we don't have to be "playing" the guitar at all times.

Before each show, we flipped coins to determine if we begin at the stool or at the bench, and to determine the costumes. At this point we have two kinds of shirts, and two pants each to choose from. Chris, our costume designer, built my pants with special pockets to hold my "tools" (dulcimer hammers, pencils, slide, paintbrush, vibrator).

We begin the piece with both of us focused on the guitar and gradually begin moving. We had a few light cues so we knew how much time had elapsed. During the first five minutes, only the area around the stool or bench is lit, then lights come up on the rest of the stage and we expand our movement. At ten minutes, a lighting change signals that we're "allowed" to settle into our traditional roles - I can focus on playing guitar, and Daniel can focus on movement. Another light cue at 14:00 lets us know that it's time to find an ending. Other than that - all content of the piece is made up on the spot.

This was pretty scary. I had to do a good deal of moving / dancing and I've never done that on stage before! Overall, I think the shows went pretty well. Daniel blogged about each performance, if you're interested in more detail click here.

Now we have some hard work ahead: we have to develop the piece from this fifteen minute version up to a forty-five minute structure. The full-blown "unmapped" premieres during Capital Fringe, July 21 and 22 at Warehouse Theater. We're doing it every hour for 24 hours straight. More info on that as it develops.

(photo by Cameron McPhee. Not bad for a camera phone in very low light...)

I Saw You

During our Austin trip, Cameron and I spent a day and a half working on this piece, and making a "studio" recording. It is intended for live performance, and we're almost done setting up the computer gizmonics to make that possible.

The text is taken from the "i saw you" section of the personal ads -- mostly from the Washington CityPaper, but we've left a few open slots to plug in new / local ads at the time of each performance. So in this case, there are a few from last week's Austin Chronicle. The order of the ads is randomized, old-school style. We put them on index cards and shuffle them up before each performance.

Special thanks to Graham Reynolds and Shawn Sides for providing gear and space for the recording process!

Austin, Texas

I've just returned from a few wonderful days in lovely Austin, Texas. I lived there from '93 to '97 and made the mistake of moving away. Hopefully I'll correct that situation in the next 18 to 24 months. That place totally rules.

Originally, I booked the trip as a short vacation, as well as a chance to spend a few days recording with Graham Reynolds. He's been hard at work on the score to Richard Linklater's new film, "A Scanner Darkly" (a Phillip K. Dick story, film stars Keanu Reeves, Robert Downey Jr., and others, and is done in the same style as "Waking Life" -- it's going to be awesome). Unfortunately, Warner Bros. called Graham about two weeks before our scheduled visit and told him he had to be in L.A. for the final mix of the audio -- for the entire time that we were scheduled to be in Austin. I guess that's good trouble to have... congrats to Graham - can't wait to see/hear the film.

Cameron and I went to Texas anyway - and Graham was generous enough to let us stay at his place (and his girlfriend, Shawn, was especially generous - sharing the house with two strangers for a few days). Shawn has a new play, "Revenge," that opened that weekend... check it out if you're in Austin, it's excellent!

So I didn't get to record with Graham, but Cameron and I took advantage of his microphone collection and spent a day working on our new piece, "I Saw You," which I'll podcast in a separate post. I also picked up a used Firepod from Graham, which is a nice addition to my home studio -- now I can record eight channels into the computer in real-time (with nice mic preamps). Can't wait to try it out with DCIC.

We also took advantage of the great weather and time away from work... Swimming at Barton Springs, Hamilton Pool, and Pace Bend park. Tofu Migas at Mr. Natural (twice). Dinner with Pat (old friend) at Mother's. Lunch with Scott (old friend) at Madam Mams. And we even spent a Saturday night at Emo's - just like old times - except that 6th Street sure has changed, and the show was disappointing, and they ran out of Shiner Bock. Hmm, a disappointing night at Emo's... that really is just like old times. Well, we sure had a great time and Austin is a very special place. Hope to get back soon!

Sound Exchange performances

Um, I got a little bit behind here on the bloggie blog... so, on April 1 and 2 I performed in Philadelphia as part of "Sound Exchange" - which was awesome. I was part of a large group of improvising musicians studying / rehearsing / performing with Pauline Oliveros and the Deep Listening Band (Pauline along with Stewart Dempster, trombone, and David Gamper, piano).

The Deep Listening Band gave a concert on Saturday night, complete with 12-channel surround sound. Nice. After intermission, the trio was joined by the full Sound Exchange group.

On Sunday, we gave an afternoon concert: it opened with the Deep Listening Band performing an acoustic trio (gorgeous) and then the world premiere of four pieces composed by members of the Sound Exchange group. My piece, "Beyond Vietnam" was up first. The performance went really well... the other musicians really seemed to dig-in, and after what I would call "minimal" rehearsal time, I was delighted that everyone really "got it" and did a beautiful job. Cameron McPhee delivered a stellar performance. She had the hardest part -- delivering excerpts from Dr. King's speech, which is no easy task. Honestly, I couldn't be happier with the performance. The event was recorded, so I hope to have a recording to share in the near future.

I'm a little short on time, so I can't write up a full blow-by-blow of the other pieces on the program... but it was a real treat to play with such a talented group. At times, it felt like herding cats (put a dozen improvising musicians in a room and try to get them to agree on what we're working on... or even just try to get them all in the room at the same time ;-) but I had a great time and it was really an honor and a privilege to participate. Big thanks to all of the artists, and to the Philly Chapter of the American Composers Forum for putting it together!!

City of Brotherly Love

Greetings from lovely Philadelphia, PA! It's a beautiful day and I have a little time before rehearsal this afternoon... so I can catch up on some news:

Since my last post about the bad day in rehearsal with Ben, I've been playing quite a bit, and things are going very nicely thank you very much. I think the allergy medicine really does make my brain foggy - so I've been trying to take as little as possible.

A few weeks ago, I performed with Jane Franklin Dance in a short performance that was part of their gala evening, held at Episcopal High School in Alexandria, VA. The school is really something... it's a high-end boarding school with a large and gorgeous campus. The arts center was very nicely outfitted, including some big name artwork on the wall, such as two Picasso limited edition prints, a Renoir lithograph, and a signed and numbered Miro. Quite a far cry from a public high school! Anyway, the show went well. They've added a new section to this suite of pieces including poetry that we've been working on for a few months. We had very little rehearsal time, so I had to make something up on the spot and there was little room for making revisions. I think that actually helped - I had the freedom to do whatever I thought worked best and didn't have to answer to anyone ;-)

I've also been hard at work rehearsing with Daniel Burkholder. Our new duo piece, "unmapped," will be performed in April (see upcoming events sidebar for details). Then we're gearing up for the full version in July during Fringe. This piece attempts to blur the line between the musician and dancer on stage. My guitar is hooked up to a wireless gizmo so I have to be out on stage moving with Daniel, and we can pass the guitar back and forth and toss it around, etc. (all while actually playing the music for the piece live). The two of us are also developing a new piece for Cross Currents - we've been commissioned as part of their 10th anniversary season. The plan was to use this commission as an opportunity to develop material for our own duo piece, but it doesn't seem to be working out that way.

Today (and through the rest of this weekend) I'm in Philadelphia for "Sound Exchange." Tonight is the first concert of the project - a concert by Pauline Oliveros and the Deep Listening Band. The second half of the concert features the Deep Listening Band along with the full group of Sound Exchange participants (a large group of improvising musicians, mostly from Philly). We had one rehearsal yesterday, and another one later this afternoon. It's been quite remarkable: there were a few rehearsals without Pauline and company, and the results were much different that what we played yesterday. Pauline, David Gamper, and Stuart Dempster really lead by example. We're all quite free to improvise - there has been very little structure imposed so far, but their playing (and mindful listening) really sets the tone. Yesterday's rehearsal sounded quite nice - with all members of the group showing quite a bit of restraint.

Coming up on Sunday, there is another concert - featuring new works by the four "composer participants." I'm one of them. My piece is built around excerpts from a speech by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. That came about in a serendipitous manner... our first meeting for "orientation" was on Martin Luther King Day in February. While I was driving up to Philly, I heard a fascinating radio program (on WPFW) exploring Dr. King's decision to speak out against the war in Vietnam, and examining how his remarks were received in the media. That night, after playing with the group most of the day, I was thinking of what to write and it seemed to make sense to include this material. The end result is an arrangement of King's "Beyond Vietnam" speech with instrumental accompaniment. Cameron is coming up to Philly to perform with us - she'll be reading the text. If you're curious, you can have a look at the score here (pdf).

The DC Improvisers Collective is also hard at work - we're preparing for a recording session in the beginning of June. We'll also be performing on May 15th in DC... details coming soon.

A kick in the 'nads of my confidence

Ok, so in the post below this one, I said how I was going to play with Ben and then podcast something? Well, I'm not going to. I played with Ben on Saturday and I kind of sucked real bad. I'm going to blame it on the allergy medicine. I guess this happens sometimes? We did some improvising and I had no ideas. Or only bad ideas. That sounded bad. Listening back to the tape, I felt like I was listening to old recordings of me playing when I was fifteen (and those are bad. very bad). Hopefully the recording we made (on Ben's four track cassette because I forgot to bring the power supply for my laptop) will never enter the digital domain or be heard by anyone ever again.

This week I have not one, but three rehearsals with Daniel Burkholder, plus Sound Exchange rehearsal in Philly tomorrow, and then rehearsal & gig with Jane Franklin Dance on Saturday, so I guess I'm climbing right back on that metaphorical horse and hopefully things will improve. Actually, I'm sure they will... had one rehearsal with Daniel yesterday and that was ok. But, ouch. Sorry Ben - will do better next time.

Sound Exchange in the news

The Philadelphia City Paper has a cover story this week about the Sound Exchange program / workshop that I'm participating in. Click here for the article. I'll be heading up to Philly this coming Thursday for a rehearsal with the group - hopefully we'll have a chance to work through a few sections of my piece (which is still "under construction").

Tomorrow, I'll be doing some rehearsing / recording with drummer, Ben Azzara. Assuming we don't run into technical problems (like forgetting to press the record button, which I've been known to do) I'll probably podcast something in a few days...

Misc. Update

I have a Performance this coming Saturday with Jane Franklin Dance, the same suite of short dances with poems that we performed at Iota a few weeks ago, this time at Arlington Arts Center. I'’ve got to set aside some home-studio time to build a recorded version so they can do the piece without me.

"“Sport Utility Vehicle" will be released on a compilation / audio '‘zine thanks to Sean Peoples and his Sockets CDR label. There'’s a release party on Sunday at Warehouse Next Door.– We'’re not performing at that, but you can pick up a copy at a discount during the show…

Cameron and I will also be presenting the world premiere performance of "Sport Utility Vehicle"” as part of a Baltimore Composers Forum concert, April 30, 3pm, at An Die Musik in Baltimore.

I was just hired by Cross Currents dance company to create original music for a piece that Daniel Burkholder is choreographing for them. Actually, it'’s a chance for us to work out some of the material that will be used in our upcoming duo piece, "“unmapped."” The Cross Currents show will be staged May 13 and 14 at Dance Place. Daniel and I will be showing our first version of the duo piece as part of "“The Pangea Project" at H Street Playhouse, April 14 -– 16.

Daniel and I are just starting our rehearsal process for the duo project. After the shows at H Street Playhouse, we'll be preparing for the real "“world premiere"” during the Capital Fringe Festival. Exact date(s) and venue will be announced soon. We'’re going to perform the piece, which will be a 40 minute structured improvisation, every hour for 24 hours straight. It'’s gonna be nuts.

I'’m still hard at work on my piece for "“Sound Exchange"” in Philadelphia. The project is a workshop for improvising musicians, led by Pauline Oliveros and members of her Deep Listening Band. The piece will be premiered in Philadelphia at the Trinity Center for Urban Life on Sunday, April 2nd at 4pm. The piece is a large-scale work, built around excerpts of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s "“Beyond Vietnam" speech. I'’ll be in Philadelphia from March 30 -– April 2 for the workshop and concerts.

I just fired off a grant proposal to Chamber Music America, for their "“New Works: Creation and Presentation Program," which funds the commissioning of pieces for composer-led jazz ensembles. I hope to continue developing the Sound Exchange piece, as an evening length piece for DC Improvisers Collective. Keep your fingers crossed!

I'm heading to Austin, Texas in April (6th to 11th) and while I'’m there, I'’m planning on doing some recording with Graham Reynolds. Hopefully I'll have some material to share afterwards… I haven't seen Graham in a while, and I have no idea what might happen!

We're still making arrangements for the DC Improvisers Collective recording sessions, looks like it will be in late May, or early June. Hopefully our second full-length CD will be available shortly thereafter. As part of our preparations for the recording session, we hope to schedule two live shows before then… dates and venues coming soon.

Jane Franklin Dance at Iota

This past Sunday I performed with Jane Franklin Dance in an unusual event at Iota in Arlington. This season, Jane Franklin is doing a series of performances using poems by local writers - in very different types of venues. A few weeks ago, we were at the Schlesinger Center at Northern Virginia Community College (a huge concert hall), and this time we were in a small club.

This show was part of a monthly poetry series hosted at Iota. We did a twenty minute piece using several poems, and then the poets who normally gather for this Sunday night thing read some work, some of them inviting the dancers to improvise during their readings.

We had a few rehearsals, and I have to admit I think I did a better job in rehearsal. I made a few mistakes during the performance, and had some problems with noise from my guitar rig (probably interference from the lights messing with my single-coil guitar pickups). I think it went ok, but I didn't feel like it was my best work...

Sport Utility Vehicle

I wrote this piece a few years ago and shelved it. The story goes like this: I heard a performance by Charles Amirhkanian, and a few days later (not surprisingly) I had an idea for a text-based piece. I came up with an algorithm for distributing the words using chance operations, and I found the numbers to be intoxicating and wound up getting caught up in the process, which caused the piece to go on for way too long.

Lately, I've been experimenting with some new looping tools in Audiomulch, and I came up with a revised version that could be performed live pretty easily. Cameron had some great suggestions, and we made this recording today. Hope you enjoy this new revised (rescued?) version of Sport Utility Vehicle featuring Cameron McPhee (voice).

Guitar and laptop

Today I want to share a new recording I made at home this weekend. I've been doing some tweaking of my guitar processing rig lately for a few projects that I have coming up.

A few years ago, I sold my racks full of guitar gear and switched over to a computer based system using my laptop. I'm working with an audio environment called Audiomulch. For more information about Mulch, visit audiomulch.com and you can learn all about it. Basically, it's a very cool platform for manipulating audio in real time. It provides a system for configuring lots of little contraptions in a very flexible way. I've replicated the system I used to have with my old hardware-based rig, plus I've added some nifty new features.

This recording was made while I was testing out my latest configuration – making sure it works the way I'd hoped it would, and I've been practicing making loops and juggling looped material along with live playing. This piece was played live – it's just one pass with guitar and live processing, totally improvised. I hope you enjoy it.

As always, you can get the latest news about what I'm working on by visiting morrismatis.blogspot.com.

Good News! DCIC = Grantee

Let's all give thanks to the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities. Through their "Small Projects" program, the DC Improvisers Collective just received a grant of $1,000 to make a studio recording!!! We plan on spending three days at Inner Ear / Silver Sonya with Chad Clark.

We still need to raise another $500 to cover the studio time, so you'll be hearing more from us about that in the near future... but today let's just enjoy the good news!

DCIC at Warehouse Next Door, Jan 18

As promised, here's a podcast from our performance at Warehouse Next Door a few weeks ago. We played as a trio that night, and did three "pieces." This is the final one. At this point, I was kneeling on the floor, playing prepared guitar. Mike opens the piece with key clicks on the sax, while Ben is playing with brushes. Mike then pulls out a particularly gorgeous lyrical improvisation and Ben's brushwork gradually coalesces into a steady rhythm. I didn't want to mess up this nice texture, so I let them take it for a while... You'll hear me sneak in at about 2:15. The entire concert is available for free download on our website now: http://dcic.alkem.org.

Dan (bass player) couldn't play with us that night, but he did contribute titles for the tracks. He named the set "An Index of Elements" and this track is named "c) Sn (density 7.3)"

Robert Carl - Changing My Spots

Last Friday night (January 27), I had the chance to perform in a concert by composer Robert Carl. He was one of my composition teachers at the Hartt School of Music (where I did my graduate work). He came to town to present an evening of work that he performs by himself - including several nice piano pieces, and some electronic things along with some shakuhachi music. The last piece on the program is an improv piece for an ensemble of unspecified instrumentation called "Changing My Spots." For this performance (which was the "world premiere" - fancy fancy), we put together a quartet with Jodi Beder (cello), Dan Barbiero (double bass), me (guitar), and the composer at the piano.

The score is wide open, but all pitches are specified. I'm probably the weakest reader in the group, and Cameron remarked that she thought it looked "cute" when I was squinting at the page, then looking at the neck of the guitar, then playing a note or two. Well, hopefully the audience couldn't see me counting the frets trying to make sure I was playing the right notes!

Music roundtable at DCist

Just came across this nice post at the DCist. They published a "music roundtable" discussion about the state of the "industry." It's not exactly comprehensive, but a great start. I think the discussion about the usefulness of MySpace is actually pretty accurate, which is rare given all the hype surrounding that stuff these days.

DCIC at Warehouse Next Door

Last night, DC Improvisers Collective played on a bill with Hugh McElroy (former member of the legendary Black Eyes, and currently working with Hand-Fed Babies) and the guitar duo of Don Fleming and Chris Grier.

We played as a trio again, since Dan (our bass player) couldn't make it. Happily, the trio format is really working nicely. With the bass missing, there's lots of sonic space open, so I brought my laptop processing rig and allowed myself the luxury of gadgets. When we're a quartet, I've found it works much better to leave the gadgets at home since there's no need (or space) for looping and processing.

We played this show with very little planning, we really left things open to make up everything on the fly. After hearing the two guitar assault of Don and Chris, I wanted to open with some noisy guitar playing, so we agreed to start with a short noisy guitar solo (which I did with a slide in my right hand - attacking the strings above the pickups and occasionally over the neck), then Ben and Mike entered with some droning textures and I switched gears to more ambient textured sounds. Then things just progressed organically from there.

Mike started on bass clarinet, which is a fairly quiet instrument and I had a hard time playing softly enough to match (the joys of borrowing the Azarra's delicious sounding tube amp), but when Mike switched to his tenor sax that wasn't an issue.

We were all quite satisfied with the performance. I felt like there was really good ensemble listening and interaction. We all had ample opportunities to initiate new ideas, and I think we all did a nice job of responding to one another. It may be a week or two before I get the recording posted online, but I'll podcast something when it's available...

Sound Exchange Orientation

Last Monday was our "orientation" for Sound Exchange in Philadelphia. The session was basically our first day of workshops with Pauline Oliveros.

It's a very interesting group of musicians with very diverse backgrounds: jazz players, experimental musicians, people coming from different areas of rock, electronic music, and all kinds of improv traditions.

The day opened with a short performance by Pauline and David Gamper, utilizing their Extended Instrument System (laptops running a Max patch into a four channel surround sound system). It was simply breathtaking, gorgeous, and amazing.

Pauline and David explained some of the evolution of the Extended Instrument System and the development of her Deep Listening practice.

We continued with several pieces / exercises such as: a five minute group listening, two one-minute "pieces" where we each made one sound during that minute, a series of short solos (as a means of introducing ourselves to the group), a series of duos and trios, followed by some discussion.

After a meal break, we dove into a full group improvisation. That was followed by a discussion including some poignant criticism of the large group piece, and then some discussion about how the rest of the program will proceed. It seems that I'll have an opportunity to "compose" a piece for the full ensemble, to be included in a concert on Sunday, April 2. I have some ideas about that already... maybe when I write up a summary / proposal to float to the gruop, I'll post some info about it here.

All in all, a fascinating and inspiring day. I'm looking forward to playing with everyone again!

Sound Exchange - Philadelphia

I just found out today that I've been selected as one of the four "composer participants" in a program called Sound Exchange - presented by the Philadelphia chapter of the American Composers Forum and Ars Nova Workshop.

The program is essentially a three day workshop with Pauline Oliveros (pictured), and mebers of her Deep Listening Band: David Gamper and Stuart Dempster - along with four composers and I think fifteen performers? I'm tickled to have been accepted and am seriously looking forward to it!

Oh, and I'll be needing a place to crash in Philadelphia, March 30 - April 2... please let me know if you or a friend or relative might like to host a visiting artist...

(at this time, I couldn't find much info about the program online, but if you click through to Ars Nova Workshop, go to "event calendar" and then scroll down to March you'll see the original call for participants)

holy crap! I just got the list of participants and Byard Lancaster is one of the "performer participants." Looks like a really interesting mix of people that I'll be working with... including some previous conspirators like Charles Cohen. Here's the list, if you're curious:

PERFORMERS
Bart Miltenberger
Byard Lancaster
Charles Cohen
Chris McGlumphy
Dave Smolen
Evan Lipson
Gerone Dale Jimenez
Helena Espvall-Santoleri
Jesse Kudler
Joe Whitt
Monica McIntyre

COMPOSERS
Ben Camp
Jonathan Matis
Valerie Opielski
John Phillips

Leroy

I'm working on new music for Jane Franklin Dance - as part of a project called "Dancing the Page" which is a collaborative project with local poets, composers, and the dance company. The piece I'm working on now is called "Leroy" and it's built on a poem by Reuben Jackson.

We started on this a few months ago, and did an in-progress showing at the Improv Festival last October (which I wrote about at the time). Since then, I scrapped what I had done and tried something different - which didn't work out so well with Jane Franklin. So we went back to the original approach, and for the latest draft I made a cleaned up version of that first material. It's funny to call this a piece of "my" music since it's just a collage of samples from old soul records, but I'm not so interested in authorship - let's just say I'm playing D.J. on this one... I think I'm going to add some live guitar or prepared-guitar material on top, but this is probably going to be the foundation of the piece. So, anyway, here's the 3rd draft. Comments welcome.

Happeningistime

Ginger Wagg has a new show coming up this Saturday called "Happeningistime" - it's at Spare Room in Baltimore from 7 - 9pm.

The show is an installation and performance. For the last few months, Ginger has been travelling around the country and sending packages to the Spare Room. She is making an installation of all the mailed materials, plus there's some sculpture by Agata Olek. Ginger will also be doing some movement performance (costume by Agata as well). For the show, she wanted to create some audio, so I helped her with the recording.

Wanted to clarify since there's some possibly misleading info on Damian's blog... I didn't do any composing - Ginger created the piece and performed the cello herself. We made two recordings - one on her rooftop of the cello and other ambient sounds, then took a walk down U Street and recorded that. We edited them together, and this will be the sound environment for the installation and performance.

The day-job balancing act

This week was my first Wednesday since leaving my bookkeeping job at Cultural Tourism DC. I had been working for them one day each week for the last few months - and found that I really didn't have time for it (but it paid well, and I do need the money). So, I made a leap of faith, of sorts, and gave them notice back in November... they convinced me to stay on through the end of the year, but now I'm free free free. And if this week was any indication, I think I made the right decision.

This week, instead of going to their office and spending the day doing bookkeeping, I went to work by spending the day in my home studio making recordings. Much more enjoyable work -- the hours flew by. Ginger Wagg came over in the morning to do an editing session for audio for her show coming up this Saturday, then I spent the afternoon working on music for a project with Jane Franklin Dance. (I'm going to write entries about those projects in a few minutes...)

Hopefully the money will work out... but in any event, I'm feeling great about setting aside some additional time for art-making. It certainly feels like the right thing to do now.

Alkem Benefit show

On Saturday, December 17, the DC Improvisers Collective (DCIC) played in a marathon show at Warehouse Next Door to benefit Alkem (the lovely and amazing nonprofit that provides free web-hosting for DCIC, Improv Arts, the DC Sonic Circuits Festival, and many other local artists).

There were seven bands on the bill and things got started late, so the show went (as expected) until very late. We didn't go on until after 1am, and I think our fatigue showed - and it was showing in the audience (what was left of them) as well.

Turnout for the show was very good. We got a pick in the CityPaper's "City Lights" section of weekly critic's picks, and a small write-up in the Post's nightlife column. Dan even got his picture in the CityPaper. Unfortunately, by the time we went on the crowd had thinned considerably. Sarah Azzara mentioned during her set (she was the only one who had to go on later than us) that by that point in the night it was more like the Alkem office party...

Sarah also opened the show with her new trio, Shame Girl. They were followed by Ben Azzara's new band, Pup Tent. The evening was really the Ben & Sarah Azzara variety show, which is a good thing... since they both rock. Other non-Azzara performers included The Antiques and Kohoutek. I hadn't heard John Rickman play drums before, so that was nice. I've only heard him in more "experimental" settings such as his duo EBSK.

As for our set, it was a little disappointing. We were all kinda wiped out before we got on stage, and then we rushed to set up and start playing since it was already so late. After the show, Mike said he felt like free improv really is about realizing the energy in the space - at the time, and we didn't really do that... we did more of a "hurry up and blow" kind of set rather than feeding on the overall mellowing that had occurred by that late hour. I don't feel like we really connected with one another (we all had a hard time hearing Dan's bass), so overall it wasn't so satisfying.

That being said, I'd still rather spend a Saturday night playing with these guys and not realizing our full potential, than almost anything else... and hopefully we raised enough money at the show to cover our web hosting for the next year.

In other news, I'm working on music for a new dance piece with Jane Franklin Dance. The piece is still in the fuzzy stages of development, but since the show is coming up next month I need to get it ironed out soon. Assuming it comes together ok, I'll podcast a draft of it in the next week or so.

DCIC at Black Cat

Here's the final track from our performance last month at the Black Cat. Dan (bass player) couldn't make it, so DCIC was a trio: Mike Sebastian (sax), Ben Azzara (drums) and me. Mike's new horn sounds particularly nice on this track -- and his playing is lyrical and bittersweet. I think this piece has a kind of wintery feel, so a nice choice for a snowy weekend... The rest of the show is posted on our site for free download: http://dcic.alkem.org

Well, not the whole show. I forgot to press record before we started playing, so the recording is missing the first fifteen minutes or so.

We'll be playing next saturday (12/17) at Warehouse Next Door along with The Antiques, Sarah Azzara, Lida Husik (who is coming to sit in at DCIC rehearsal tomorrow... I'm eager to see how that works), Kohoutek, Pup Tent, and Shame Girl. The show is a benefit for Alkem, which provides free web hosting for artists and small arts organizations.

testing new podcast

I wanna be a podcaster... so I'm figuring out some of the technical stuff now. If this works, you can grab a fresh track from the DC Improvisers Collective from this post and/or by adding my blog feed to your podcast subscriptions... assuming this all works like it's supposed to, I'll be posting more new music on a regular basis. Cool, no?

Dr. James Dorsey

I had an interesting opportunity – last Saturday I performed in a trio with James Dorsey (piano) and Ben Tokarz (percussion) at the Eubie Blake Jazz Institute and Cultural Center in Baltimore.



James wrote a large-scale work that was a very cool (and very well written) blend of jazz and classical styles. The piece was about 60 minutes long, with a very clear structure, very clear themes, and lots of room for improvising. There is a “piano interlude” based on a theme from Chopin that returns several times during the piece, and in between these interludes, there are three different “themes” in different styles. There are a few places with space indicated for “solos” by different performers, and a few instances where the ensemble plays more freely. During this performance, there was one section (marked in the score as “spacey”) where we really took things out into left field – much more so than we did during rehearsal. In fact, Ben and I weren’t exactly sure where we were in the score, but things were going off in a different direction so we just went with it (with interesting results) and then found our place again when James brought the interlude back… Towards the end, James takes the interlude into a blues section, which was also elaborated much more in performance than rehearsal – and I even found myself accompanying his solo with some fragmented blues licks. Very surprising since I don’t really know any blues licks!

I was quite unsure of myself when we started working on the piece – I had to read notes on paper, which isn’t a skill I’ve really cultivated as a guitarist, but I think I did ok. James is a very talented composer and pianist, and I think I’ve learned quite a bit from him just in the short time we’ve been working on this piece. Seeing as my own compositions depend on combining notated / composed materials with improvisation in different ways, it was quite interesting to become familiar with his approach as a performer. This is also great timing, since I’m just starting work on a project with John Kamman and Carl Banner (director of Washington Musica Viva) that will likely explore similar terrain.

Ben Tokarz is an excellent musician as well. It was a treat to perform with him. He laid down some monster grooves with a pair of congas, bass drum, and high-hat. He made some really interesting choices playing with different groupings and subdivisions during a section of the piece that can be counted in four with a triplet feel, or in six. Unfortunately, he’s moving to Norfolk soon, but I hope we’ll have a chance to perform together again soon.

James will also be performing a solo piano piece in a “New Music Salon” event this coming Friday, presented by the American Composers Forum. I hope we’ll be able to find a DC area venue with a nice piano, so we might have a chance to do this piece again.

Photos by Jen. You can see all the pictures she took at the show by clicking here.

DCIC Rocks the Black Cat

On Tuesday, November 8th, the DC Improvisers Collective played at the Black Cat along with Gestures, a new group featuring Sean Peoples (Hand Fed Babies), Rebecca Mills (The Caution Curves) and Fiona Griffin (ex-Meltdown, Et At It, Horses, etc.).

We performed without our bass player, Dan Barbiero, because (get this) he had a gig that night with a straight-ahead jazz piano trio at a public library in the suburbs. Well, we’ll forgive him for not doing both shows, even though we didn’t go on until 11pm so he probably could have played both. And I guess he should get points for playing at the library. I do love my county library system.

Anyway, Dan’s early-to-bed early-to-rise schedule notwithstanding, we had a grand old time as a trio. Actually, the sax-guitar-drums lineup worked out nicely for a rock club. I brought my laptop so I had some looping, pitch shifting, and other effects at my disposal and I enjoyed being able to take up more space, sonically. Mike spent most of the evening playing tenor sax, although a short excursion on soprano worked out really well too. His new tenor sax is so loud he didn’t need to mic it, even though the guitar amp was mic’ed and Ben hammered the drums at maximum volume quite often. Ben Azzara, our drummer, is no stranger to the Black Cat – he’s there almost monthly with at least one of his various rock bands.

We all had a hard time hearing the guitar on stage – I should have turned my amp up louder, but the audience heard it just fine since it was mic’ed and fed through the house PA. I think the difficulty hearing actually led to really good listening by the three of us. Since we had to make an effort to hear everything, we were really listening closely to one another, and I think that translated into some solid group improvising.

The venue also had some influence on our playing, I think. Being in a rock club made it easy for us to cut loose and play loud (and we did some softer playing as well). We had a nice audience – pretty good turnout for a rainy Tuesday night, certainly. There were many friends in the house, and I think that also encouraged us to take some risks and try some new things since it was essentially an intimate gathering of friends – many of whom have heard DCIC play a few times, so it was nice to give them something a bit different. And before I get off the subject of the venue, I love the Black Cat for several reasons, including: half price food for the bands at the attached vegan-friendly café, Food for Thought (mmmm, BBQ Seitan Sandwich), three free pitchers of cheap beer for the band (also probably helped us cut loose and play loud), and finally and perhaps most important for me: properly grounded outlets! That seems like a funny detail, but my guitar rig can be so noisy thanks to my single coil pickups and my cheap-o audio interface for the laptop. The rig was really quiet, so the power on stage must be really well grounded. What luxury! I wish the same were true in my apartment…

Ok, now about the music… We had a rough outline that was something like this:
1. We open with something energetic and let that go for a good amount of time, 10 – 15 minutes.
2. We do a second piece that opens with a guitar/drum duo – sort of ambient with prepared guitar sounds. After five minutes or so, sax enters, drums exit and we do a lyrical sax/guitar duo. Then we make up some more.

We didn’t actually stick to that game plan – the high energy opening piece got quiet and slow after a few minutes before building back up again, and we went right into the prepared guitar thing without a break distinguishing a second “piece.” All the elements we planned for did get included at one point or another, but we let the music go where it was going and got outside of that structure. Happily, we still did the stuff we said we would… so I can’t complain about any lack of rigor or anything. I’m actually quite happy that we had the flexibility to stay in the moment with the music that appeared – and still find ways to break out into the duos at various points.

During the prepared guitar section, I put the guitar down on a chair and knelt on the floor. I had the usual alligator clips and paperclip on the strings, and played with dulcimer hammers, a paintbrush, and vibrators. Every once in a while, someone in the audience would come up close to see what I was doing and then move back to where they had been standing. That was funny… I’ve been the “guitar nerd” checking out a performer's gear that way so many times, I think this was one of the first times I’ve been on the other side of that transaction.

I forgot to push record on the minidisc before we started the show, but I think I did manage to record about half of it. Hopefully we’ll get that posted on the DCIC website in the next week or so.

If anyone took photos at the show, please let me know – I’d love to post a few here. Thanks to everyone who came out for it! Hope to see you all again soon. And thanks to Gestures for playing with us!

I (heart) Jane Jerardi

Last week, I had the honor / privilege of participating in an event called "Efficiency," directed by Jane Jerardi.

The show featured the world premiere of Jane's multimedia dance piece, "Efficiency," with original music by Scanner. It's an understated and powerful work, and I'm sad that it was shown for one night only.

The program also included a performance of "Heaven and Hell," by Stephen Vitiello and Scanner, with live video by Patrick Power.

At the top of the show, I performed in "Spill No. 3" with Ginger Wagg. This was a re-working of our site-specific piece (directed by Jane and Ginger) that was done at Transformer Gallery and on a parked bus during Arts on Foot. The piece includes crochet sculpture by Agata Olek, and some sound elements by dj milo.

Previous versions of "Spill" played with the boundaries between audience and performers. This presented a particular challenge in a conventional theater space. Ginger and I performed in two small balcony areas, and I set up audio installations in the lobby and in the stairway between the lobby and the theater. Since we were limited in how we could manipulate the space between audience and performers, we chose to also try to play with expectations about timing. For the lobby installation, I made field recordings on the street corner outside the theater a few weeks earlier, and for the stairway I made recordings in the lobby before another show the previous week. The idea was that as you enter the lobby, sounds of the street are present, and then as you move up towards the theater, sounds of the lobby are present -- so previous moments are "spilling" into the present one.

Ginger and I began our "performance" before the house was open, so as the audience entered the space the "show" was already underway. I was playing prepared guitar and laptop, including samples from dj milo's previous work as well as samples I made by rustling the crochet sculpture that was installed for the piece.



When the audience was seated, the house lights gradually dimmed, signifying that the "show" had "officially" begun, and after a few minutes stage lights came up as an enormous piece of crochet "spilled" across the bare stage (thanks to a cranky winch and a stage hand - theater magic!).

It's always a pleasure to improvise with Ginger. She did lots of imaginative work in the balcony, playing with the fact that she was partially obscured from view, so she was able to disappear, or show only her feet above the railing, and occasionally climbing over the railing completely. She also had a piece of the crochet to manipulate, spilling it over the balcony, or taking it away.


Photos: Lani Iacovelli

DC Improv Festival: DCIC

Last night I performed with the DC Improvisers Collective (DCIC) in a show called "BoiledDown," part of the DC International Improvisation Festival. The performance was presented by Improv Arts, Inc. and curated by Daniel Burkholder. The concept was very cool: a wide variety of artists (music, dance, theater, etc) - all performing five minute improv pieces.

Since there was no time for set-up or tear-down, we had to do a piece that would allow us to simply walk on stage, play, and walk off. That meant no drum kit and no electric guitar since we wouldn't be able to set up any gear. So, we put something together for bass, tenor sax, clarinet, and percussion. Ben played bongos (with brushes and hands), I played clarinet. We had some kind of structure pre-determined, but not much. I'll tell you what I can of the piece:

1. The piece opens with the bass playing a sort of drone thing with the bow, Sax plays with the drone. This texture returns at the end. (some other time, when I'm feeling less cynical, I'll write more about my theory of the "bring the beginning stuff back at the end and everything works out" theory)

2. The bass, sax, and clarinet are all playing in different, but related, scales. Dan is playing in a kind of ambiguous D mode, Mike is playing some Chinese scale, in A, and I'm playing some modal stuff in G. Plenty of common tones between us, but also nice possibilities for juicy dissonances (of which there were several during the performance)

3. Rest of the piece we make up while we're playing.

I think it worked out pretty well, and this instrumentation was a really nice change for us as a group. We've been playing for a few months with a straightforward jazz quartet (sax, bass, guitar, drums) and this gave us a chance to try something without any instrument that's playing chords - so we were able to do some much more linear types of interacting.

Our piece was pretty somber but I had assumed that most of the other acts on the program were going to be fast paced and lighter given the compressed time for each piece… I was wrong. Many of the dance pieces were slow, and done in silence. There was some heavy stuff… Jen Stone did a beautiful solo movement piece with no sound and very slow / minimal movement. Andrew Suseno did a dance piece with text about grieving for his father who passed away about a month ago, and a butoh style piece by They Can Never Take Our Crow (which I didn't get to see because it was right after us, so we were backstage. oh well).

There was also some humor in the show… Cyrus Khambatta did a funny (and technically stunning) movement improv, and members of Washington Improv Theater did a short scene.

(photos by Enoch Chan)

DC Improv Festival: DJ Matis

Last night, I performed in a concert called "Breaking the Sound Barrier" -- part of this year's DC International Improvisation Festival. The program included dance and movement work that incorporated text in various ways.

I am working on a project this season with Jane Franklin Dance that includes work by several local poets. This was the first performance of material from this project -- still very much in-progress. The piece features a poem by Rueben Jackson called "Leroy." I'm not sure that I've made the right choice... it seems too obvious, but the text really seemed to want samples from old soul records, so that's what I've been working with. I made seven loops and then programmed a patch in Audiomulch so I can juggle them with some other signal processing in real-time. This seemed to work out ok, but I'm still not convinced that it's the right approach. Maybe after we start working on some other pieces in the series, I'll see how it feels in context of the larger work.

I also had a last minute surprise, helping out dancer / poet / performance artist / diva, Holly Bass, with her piece. (Holly doesn't appear to have her own website, but for a glimpse at some of her work, try here, here, and here) For her piece in the show, she wanted to use a radio program that was only available as streaming audio - so she enlisted my help to burn it to cd. Ok, no problem. Then at the theater, it was revealed that there were three other sound cues and some crossfades that needed to happen - and the sound system at Joy of Motion wasn't going to cut it (they only have one CD player). So, I put all the cues onto my laptop and threw together another Audiomulch patch... and now I've had the pleasure of doing sound for one of Holly's pieces. The piece is called "America" and includes two poems, one by Lucille Clifton: "Cruelty" (click here and scroll down a bit for the complete text), and "I, too" by Langston Hughes. Sandwiched between these two poems, is a radio piece about the Pledge of Allegiance (you can listen here) cut up with an Aretha Franklin song.

Besides Holly's piece, I thought another stand-out was a text/movement improvisation by Wendy Woodson. This doesn't really tell you anything, but it felt like part Laurie Anderson, part Emo Phillips, part Stephen Wright - kind of a stream of consciousness storytelling - that wasn't about the story, but had a continuous narrative thread (kind of like a Jim Jarmusch movie) - but as a dance piece. Actually, that's probably the worst description ever of her work but anyway, if you have a chance to see her perform it's worth the trip.

Baltimore Composers Forum Fall Concert

Last Monday, I performed my piece, "shut up and listen," in the Baltimore Composers Forum's fall concert. The piece is scored for electric guitar, amplified cello, and laptop. I played with an excellent cellist, Amy Cavanaugh. You can hear a "studio" recording of the piece on my myspace.com page.

I think the performance went fairly well... no screw-ups that would have been noticeable to anyone else. I pressed a wrong button and looped some guitar material that wasn't supposed to be routed to the looping system, but that didn't really cause a problem. The laptop is functioning basically like a collection of delay pedals. The signal processing patch that the piece calls for is pretty simple. Funny that I still messed it up a little bit in performance.

Amy did a great job. She's a good match for the piece, and for my work, in general. She's classically trained, but like me, didn't finish her masters degree and went on to play in bands and other non-classical ensembles. I hope we'll be able to continue developing duo material, but she moved to Baltimore last summer, so it's a long trip for rehearsals. We'll see what happens... She's currently playing in a group called Yeveto, they're performing a live soundtrack to an old silent movie called "The Golem" at the lovely AFI Silver in Silver Spring on October 29 and 30.

The other pieces on the program were an eclectic mix. I particularly liked Kendall Kennison's solo cello piece, and James Brody's serial work based on DNA structures.

More Duo Shows with Daniel Burkholder

This past weekend, Daniel and I performed our short duo improvisation as part of Joy of Motion’s 29th Anniversary Concert. This was the first time we’ve done it since I bought a wireless system for the guitar. Now I have no excuse for staying the corner of the stage while Daniel is dancing all over the place… scary.

From what I can tell, we kinda rocked the house. Now that I’m moving around on stage, I can’t always see what Daniel’s doing, so I don’t really have a clear sense of what the performance looked like to the audience, but it felt good, and we got lots of positive feedback.

I had alligator clips on five out of six strings, so I couldn’t play much pitched material. It was mostly percussive “prepared guitar” sounds, with the guitar loud and distorted. On both nights, I took the strap off the guitar so I could move it around more – mostly to imitate gestures that Daniel was initiating. This also freed up the instrument so Daniel could literally take it away or lead me in one direction or another. While on stage, I have my pockets loaded with the various implements I use for the prepared guitar sounds – like pencils, dulcimer hammers, paintbrush, a metal slide, and the vibrator. During these particular shows, I didn’t have much chance to dig around in my pockets as I was playing so it was mostly slide, dulcimer hammer, and fingers – but I did do some playing with the vibrator both nights. It’s hard to resist; when the guitar is distorted and turned up so loud, it really makes a tremendous grinding wall of sound. Also, it doesn’t require much movement on my part, so I can generate a ton of noise while the movement on stage is winding down.

Hurricane Relief Benefit at Dance Place

Last Sunday, September 18, Daniel Burkholder and I performed a short duo (again) as part of a Hurricane relief benefit event. This is the third time in the last three months that we've done this piece. So far, the "piece" consists of the following determined elements:

1. Daniel and I are both on stage.
2. We perform for 5 to 7 minutes.
3. I play the guitar.

We've got to make up the rest on the spot.

Back in July, Daniel had the great idea of dancing his way over to me and grabbing at the guitar while I'm playing. This worked really nicely, so it happened again when we performed in August. During our tech rehearsal this time, I felt like it was becoming a kind of "schtick" and I wanted to know there was some artistic reason why we were wrestling over the guitar. Daniel's a smart one. He made the piece more about the fact that we're both in the space and interacting with each other – physically, not just in relation between sound and movement. Now that means that my whole body is fair game and not on stage simply to play music, but movement is part of the show too… so this time during the performance we interacted closely, I had to move around quite a bit to avoid certain gestures – for example, Daniel would thrust his arms out just above or below the neck of the guitar so I had to respond in some way. At one point he picked up my leg, and so on… Now I'm hoping we'll find time (and rehearsal space) to work on this further. Of course, I'm totally reluctant to become a movement-based performer (it's enough to try and fool an audience into thinking I can play the guitar!) but I do think if we're going to take this idea further it's going to take some rehearsal.

And by the way, Daniel and I are happy to share that we have a new website for our new joint venture: Improv Arts, Inc.

Arts on Foot

On Saturday September 17, I had a busy day with multiple performances as part of Arts on Foot, thanks to Capital Fringe. The organizers of the upcoming Fringe festival presented loads of free performances and I was lucky enough to be included in two of them…

Ginger Wagg and Jane Jerardi put together a site-specific piece called "Spill." We did this last February at Transformer Gallery, and made a new version for this event, which took place on a parked bus.

We re-used certain elements from the first version, but things were considerably different this time. Originally, visual artist Agata Olek constructed an enormous sculpture made entirely of crocheted balloons, this time we were using different work of hers, made from crocheted plastic, toys, and other materials. Agata made new costumes for Ginger and Jane, and I made some new recorded audio materials using field recordings of the DC subway system plus some samples of public transit in Budapest that I found online… the live elements included dance by Ginger and Jane, and I played clarinet and a few small percussion instruments. There wasn't electricity, so I couldn't play electric guitar. Dave Maddox wrote up a nice review on his blog – so I won't write a redundant description of the performance… but I will tell you that it was a unique performing experience, since the audience was coming and going during the show, and the boundaries between performing space and audience were totally blurred. There were four performances, I played live in two of them.



We're doing this piece again on October 22nd as part of Jane's big show, Efficiency, but that will be in a theater, not on a bus.

I had to miss two Spill shows because I was also scheduled to perform with Jane Franklin Dance. We did a piece called "This Just In…" which includes live music performed by Amber Dunleavy on theremin, and me playing prepared guitar. We've done this piece several times, and I felt like it went pretty smoothly. We were in a vacant store on 7th Street – it was a raw unfinished space, and made for an informal performance environment. I think this led to our own perception that the stakes were low, so it was ok to take some risks. That resulted in a lively performance.


I'm working on a major new project with Jane Franklin Dance for this coming season… some info is online here.

photos: top three by Julianne Brienza, bottom one by Jason Horowitz.

Berkeley visit and recording

Over labor day weekend I was out in California for a cousin's wedding, so I stayed for a few extra days to visit and play music with Tom Bickley and Joe Zitt. Tom, Joe, and I used to play in a quintet called Gray Code, back when they lived in DC. Now that they're out in Berkeley, I don't get to see them much, so it was great to have a chance to visit. Joe was able to get access to a church near the monastery where they live, so we were able to set up some recording gear, and spent a few hours improvising in a really nice sounding space.

We tried a few structured things - some of which worked better than others, as well as some free improvising. I'm not sure what we'll do with the recordings, possibly we'll use them as raw materials for further editing and processing, maybe someday I'll have some time to add additional guitar tracks or something... we'll see. Tom did a few pieces with a "snake bead," a reed instrument that his partner, Nancy, brought back from India. It's very loud and has a remarkably piercing sound. One piece involved Tom walking around the space playing that thing, while I tried to put out a similar amount of sound using the vibrator and a slide simultaneously on the guitar.

Unfortunately, scheduling didn't work out for us to also play with Phillip Greenlief and Jonathan Russell - hopefully next time!

While in the bay area, I did have a chance to eat at Cha Ya, Manzanita, and we stopped for vegan gelato, but I don't remember the name of that place. I also had time for a quick trip to Otsu.

DC Improvisers Collective at True Vine, Baltimore

On August 26, the DC Improvisers Collective (DCIC) performed at a great little record store in Baltimore called TrueVine. To keep their neighbors happy, they have a funny rule that drumsets are not allowed. Our drummer, Ben Azzara, came up with a novel solution that involved a snare drum, one cymbal, bongos, and a variety of shakers and other small hand percussion instruments.

Turn out was, well... let's say it was an "intimate" performance. It was hot that night, and pretty humid in the store. I was pretty unhappy with my own performance, although the rest of the group sounded good. I haven't listened back to the recording yet, but I think I made a mistake that I often am guilty of: playing it safe. I was really reluctant to take risks and try things that I wasn't sure if I could pull off. I think our best work happens when we're all taking chances and simultaneously dealing with the results in real time. Lately, I think that's when free improvisation really works in performance, so I have to remind myself to go ahead and take a leap of faith in performance. It seems that I'm more able to do that in rehearsal, when there's less pressure - if something fails there's no harm done, but on stage... I'm concerned that the audience will figure out that I'm in over my head with this group.