The DownTown Ensemble
Determinancy
/ Indeterminancy
Works by Carla Bley and John Cage
Sunday, June 27 @ 3pm
The Brick Elephant
12 Emily Street
Valley
Falls, NY 12185
"For
those with big ears and a taste for the adventurous."—Albany
Times Union
Determinancy
/ Indeterminancy
Re:Soundings
hosts the DownTown Ensemble, who will perform improvisatory works by the
noted jazz composer and upstate NY resident Carla Bley. The work will
be realized in the improvisational approach developed during the heyday
of downtown new music going on in SoHo in the 70s into the 80s. The DownTown
Ensemble is one of the last surviving performing groups associated with
the musical styles that emerged around loft concerts at legendary spaces
such as The Kitchen, Experimental Intermedia, The Alternative Museum,
The Clocktower, etc. The featured performers will be Daniel Goode, Larry
Polansky, and Peter Zummo.
The program will also feature John Cage’s Indeterminacy performed
by William Hellermann, narrator, and Joseph Kubera, pianist. Though Indeterminacy
is one of John Cage’s best known pieces, it was rarely performed
live, and when it was it was always performed by John Cage and David Tudor,
pianist. The DownTown Ensemble has chosen to give this performance to
see how well the piece serves as more than a performance vehicle for Cage
and his unique voice, but as a composition available for performance by
other musicians.
Carla Bley, née Borg, (born May 11, 1936) is an American jazz composer,
pianist, organist and band leader. An important figure in the Free Jazz
movement of the 1960s, she is perhaps best known for her jazz opera Escalator
Over The Hill (released as a triple LP set), as well as a book of compositions
that have been performed by many other artists, including Gary Burton,
Jimmy Giuffre, George Russell, Art Farmer and her former husband Paul
Bley.
John Cage (September 5, 1912 – August 12, 1992) was an American
composer, philosopher, poet, music theorist, artist, printmaker, and amateur
mycologist and mushroom collector. A pioneer of chance music, electronic
music and non-standard use of musical instruments, Cage was one of the
leading figures of the post-war avant-garde. Critics have lauded him as
one of the most influential American composers of the 20th century. He
was also instrumental in the development of modern dance, mostly through
his association with choreographer Merce Cunningham, who was also Cage's
romantic partner for most of their lives.
Cage is perhaps best known for his 1952 composition 4’?33”?,
the three movements of which are performed without a single note being
played. The content of the composition is meant to be perceived as the
sounds of the environment that the listeners hear while it is performed,
rather than merely as four minutes and thirty three seconds of silence,
and the piece became one of the most controversial compositions of the
twentieth century. Another famous creation of Cage's is the prepared piano
(a piano with its sound altered by placing various objects in the strings),
for which he wrote numerous dance-related works and a few concert pieces,
the best known of which is Sonatas and Interludes (1946–48).
His teachers included Henry Cowell (1933) and Arnold Schoenberg (1933–35),
both known for their radical innovations in music, but Cage's major influences
lay in various Eastern cultures. Through his studies of Indian philosophy
and Zen Buddhism in the late 1940s, Cage came to the idea of chance-controlled
music, which he started composing in 1951. The I Ching, an ancient Chinese
classic text on changing events, became Cage's standard composition tool
for the rest of his life. In a 1957 lecture, Experimental Music, he described
music as "a purposeless play" which is "an affirmation
of life – not an attempt to bring order out of chaos nor to suggest
improvements in creation, but simply a way of waking up to the very life
we're living".
Admission is by donation. A reception for the artists will follow the
concert.
Click
here to see a pdf of complete
press release.
Top of page
Group
info
The DownTown Ensemble was
founded in 1983 by its co-directors, Daniel Goode and William Hellermann,
as a response to a perceived need for repertoire customarily under-represented
in today's new music world. “This intrepid group of conceptualists
cuts no aesthetic corners.” (The Village Voice) Although originally
formed in New York City, the group is now based in Columbiaville, Columbia
County, where Mr. Hellermann lives. The Ensemble has made its reputation
performing a number of different types of experimental music, such as:
traditionally notated and graphic music scores, sound/text music, ritual/intermedia
pieces, performance art and Fluxus, improvisation in a number of traditions;
large ensemble, scores for variable (unspecified) instrumentation, and
interactive computer music. The group regularly features composers performing
and directing their music often written expressly for the Ensemble. There
have been over one hundred and forty such collaborations since the group’s
inception.
The featured performers will be Daniel Goode, William Hellermann, Joseph
Kubera, Larry Polansky, and Peter Zummo.
Pianist Joseph Kubera has been a leading interpreter of contemporary music
for the past three decades and has worked closely with legendary composers
John Cage, Morton Feldman, La Monte Young, Robert Ashley and others. A
longtime Cage advocate, he has recorded the Music of Changes and Concert
for Piano and Orchestra, and toured with the Cunningham Dance Company
at Cage’s invitation.
Mr. Kubera is a core member of S.E.M. Ensemble, the DownTown Ensemble
and Ostravska Banda, and he has performed with a wide range of New York
ensembles and orchestras ranging from Steve Reich and Musicians to the
Brooklyn Philharmonic. He tours with new-music baritone Thomas Buckner,
and luminaries such as Terry Riley and Ingram Marshall have written for
his duo-piano team with Sarah Cahill. Mr. Kubera’s playing may be
heard on the Wergo, Albany, New Albion, New World, Lovely Music, O.O.
Discs, Mutable Music, Cold Blue, and Opus One labels.
Peter Zummo has been composing
for ensemble and trombone since 1967, in pursuit of the evolving boundary
of music-making and brass culture. His many compositions for ensemble
build on original melody and melodic fragments, generating interactive
situations for musicians in which they explore the boundaries of common
and extended practice without, however, having to act arbitrarily.
WHERE:
The concert will be held in the Brick Elephant, formerly an old church,
in Valley Falls, New York.
12 Emily Street, Valley Falls, NY 12185.
Admission by donation.
CONTACT INFO:
Mary
Jane Leach, director
telephone (518-753-0244)
email
DIRECTIONS
Valley Falls is in northern Rensselaer County,
20 minutes north of Troy, 25 minutes west of North Bennington, Vermont.
From the west: at the intersection of Routes 40 and 67 in Schaghticoke, drive 1.5 miles east, turn right just as you get over the bridge, then drive on State Street (117) two blocks and turn left. TheBrick Elephant is the red brick former church on the left at the next corner - it's the biggest building in the village - you can't miss it.
From the east: when 67 branches off to the west from 22 (Eagle Bridge), continue driving for 11 miles, turn left just before the curving bridge, then drive on State Street (117) two blocks and turn left. The Brick Elephant is the red brick former church on the left at the next corner - it's the biggest building in the village - you can't miss it.
Re:Soundings
is a non-profit 501c3 organization dedicated to the arts.
Any donations are tax deductible and will be greatly appreciated.
CREDITS
This program is made possible with public funds
from the New York State Council on the Arts, a State Agency and private
contributors.