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Terry Riley
California Composer Terry Riley launched what is now known as the Minimalist movement with his revolutionary classic IN C in 1964. This seminal work provided a new concept in musical form based on interlocking repetitive patterns. It's impact was to change the course of 20th Century music and it's influence has been heard in the works of prominent composers such as Steve Reich, Philip Glass and John Adams and in the music of Rock Groups such as The Who, The Soft Machine, Tangerine Dream, Curved Air and many others. Terry's hypnotic, multi-layered, polymetric, brightly orchestrated eastern flavored improvisations and compositions set the stage for the prevailing interest in a New Tonality.
In 1970, Terry became a disciple of the revered North Indian Raga Vocalist, Pandit Pran Nath and made the first of his numerous trips to India to study with the Master. He appeared frequently in concert with the legendary singer as tampura, tabla and vocal accompanist over the next 26 years until Pran Naths passing in 1996.
While teaching at Mills College in Oakland in the 1970's he met David Harrington, founder and leader of the Kronos Quartet that began the long association that has so far produced 13 string quartets, a quintet, Crows Rosary and a concerto for string quartet, The Sands which was the Salzburg Festival's first ever new music commission and the 2003 SUN RINGS, the multi media piece for choir, visuals and Space sounds, commissioned by NASA. Most recently he has completed THE CUSP OF MAGIC, for string quartet and pipa. Cadenza on the Night Plain was selected by both Time and Newsweek as one of the 10 best Classical albums of the year. The epic 5 quartet cycle, Salome Dances for Peace was selected as the #1 Classical album of the year by USA Today and was nominated for a Grammy.
Riley's innovative first orchestral piece Jade Palace was commissioned by Carnegie Hall for the Centennial celebration 1990/91. It was premiered there by Leonard Slatkin and the Saint Louis Symphony. June Buddha's, for Chorus and Orchestra, based on Jack Kerouac's Mexico City Blues was commissioned by the Koussevitsky foundation in 1991. The Rova Saxophone Quartet, the Arte saxophone quartet, Array Music, Zeitgeist, the Steven Scott Bowed Piano Ensemble, The California E.A.R. unit, Guitarist's David Tanenbaum, the Assad brothers. Cello Conjunto, the Abel Steinberg-Winant Trio, Pianist Werner Bartschi and the Amati Quartet are some of the performers and ensembles who have commissioned and performed his works. From 1989 to1993 he formed and lead the ensemble Khayal to perform works written for them. He subsequently formed The Allstars and the Vigil Band. He regularly performs solo piano concerts of his works from the past 30 years. He also appears in duo concerts with Indian Sitarist Krishna Bhatt, Saxophonist George Brooks, Gyan Riley and especially with virtuoso Italian bassist, Stefano Scodanibbio. In 1992, he formed the small theater company, The Travelling-Avantt-Gaard to perform the chamber opera The Saint Adolf Ring based on the divinely mad drawings, poetry, writings and mathematical calculations of Adolf Woelfli, an early 20th century Swiss Artist who suffered from schizophrenia and created his entire output over a 35 year span while confined in a mental institution. Terry is currently at work on a set of 24 pieces for guitar and guitar ensemble called The Book of Abbeyozzud and has recently completed a book of 5 pieces for piano, four hands. In 1999 he was commissioned by the Norwich Festival to compose a new work, WHAT THE RIVER SAID, which toured Britain with the UK based group, Sounds Bazaar featuring the great drupad vocalist Amelia Cuni. Then followed a commission from the Kanagawa Foundation in Yokohama to create an evening length work for solo piano in micro tonal tuning. THE DREAM, which received simultaneous premiers in Rome and in Yokohama performed by the composer.
The new millennium began with a tour of a new band, Terry Riley and the All Stars which included George Brooks, saxophones, Tracy Silverman, Violin and 6 string Viola , Gyan Riley Guitar and Stefano Scodanibbio, string Bass with the final concert launching the first New Sounds Live concert of the 21st Century at Merkin Hall. BANANA HUMBERTO 2000, a piano concerto, was written for and performed many times by the composer with the Paul Dresher Ensemble. He is at work on a new solo cello piece commissioned by legendary Artist Bruce Connor to be performed by former Kronos Quartet cellist, Jean Jeanrenaud. Music for a new staging of Michael McClures play, Josephine the Mouse Singer was written for a run in February 2001 at San Francisco's SoMart theater.
In 2004 Terry and Michael released their first collaborative album, I LIKE YOUR EYES LIBERTY. In May of 2000, Terry made his first tour of Russia with solo piano concerts at the Sergei Kuryokin Festival in Saint Petersburg and at the Moscow Conservatory and the Dom, a privately run contemporary music club. The review of these concerts in Izvestia proclaimed "Terry Riley to be the greatest composer pianist since Prokofieff.
Terry has scored 3 feature films and has made music for numerous short films including those of Bruce Conner.
In 2003 his plans for the new TIME LAG ACCUMULATOR were realized and constructed for the Festival of Lille. This 9 room mirrored structure with multi time delays was modeled on the original TIME LAG ACCUMULATOR assembled in 1968 for the Magic Theatre Show at the Nelson Atkins Gallery in Kansas City. The new TLA will reside at the museum of Contemporary Art in Lyon France. Riley was listed in the London Sunday Times as "one of the 1000 makers of the 20th Century.
www.terryriley.com |
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Bang on a Can All Stars
Since its inception in 1987, the Bang on a Can festival, curated by composers David Lang, Micheal Gordon and Julia Wolfe, has been discovering and presenting the most exciting performers committed to the music of our time. Over fifteen years, Bang on a Can has found a number of these musicians - performers who are adventurous, virtuosic, dynamic and intense, who are equally at home with the diverse styles that exist within music today. Six players in particular kept coming back. They were among the festival's finest artists - six of the most accomplished performers of new music in the world. With these six players the festival created the Bang on a Can All-Stars.
The instrumentation of the Bang on a Can All-Stars is unique: clarinets and saxophones, electric guitar, cello, bass, keyboards, percussion. It is an instrumentation that doesn't seem to fit in any recognizable category. Part classical ensemble, part rock band, part jazz band, it has a flexibility that represents a wide range of musics from a new generation of composers and performers.
Bang on a Can All-Stars have established both a national and international reputation as premier pioneers of music from the cutting edge, bringing their commitment to adventurous new performance. At home in NYC’s venues such as Merkin Concert Hall, the Brooklyn Academy of Music, Alice Tully Hall at Lincoln Center, and the Miller Theatre, they also extensively perform
Internationally, from the UK to Uzbekistan. The All-Stars regularly premiere pieces commissioned for them by Bang on a Can's People's Commissioning Fund , and by jazz luminaries Ornette Coleman and Cecil Taylor.
Named Musical America's Ensemble of the Year for 2005, the growth of the Bang on a Can All-Stars is paralleled by a growth in the repertoire that they play. Because of their dedication to music that is being composed right now, the Bang on a Can All-Stars have become very active commissioners of new work. Increasingly, their repertoire is made up of exciting new works from emerging and established composers. Not only does this create fresh challenges for players and audiences alike but it also insures that the Bang on a Can All-Stars are continually the champions of an evolving list of the music of our time. |
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Robert Black
his interests range from traditional orchestral and chamber music to solo recitals, collaborations with actors, music with computers, movement-based improvisations with dancers, and live action-painting performances with artists. He has commissioned, collaborated, or performed with musicians from John Cage to D.J. Spooky, Elliott Carter to Meredith Monk, Cecil Taylor to young emerging composers.
His recital activities frequently take him to five continents and has appeared at major festivals (Takefu International Music Festival, Japan; Festival de Eleazar Carvalho, Fortalzea, Brazil; Colombo-Catalan Festival, Medellin, Colombia; the Helsinki Festival; NYYD, Estonia; etc.), on radio and television broadcasts (Asia Live, Singapore, VPRO, Holland; NPR, United States; CBC, Canada; etc.) and as an artist-in-residence (American Center, Paris; the Banff Centre, Canada; Studio P.A.S.S., NYC).
www.robertblack.org |
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David Cossin
A native of Queens, New York City, David Cossin is a specialist in new and experimental music, working across a broad spectrum of musical and artistic forms to incorporate new media with percussion. He has recorded and performed internationally with composers and ensembles including the Bang on a Can All-Stars, Steve Reich and Musicians, Philip Glass, Yo-Yo Ma, Meredith Monk, Tan Dun, Cecil Taylor, Talujon Percussion Quartet, Thurston Moore (Sonic Youth) and Bo Didley. Numerous theater projects include collaborations with Blue Man Group, Mabou Mines, and director Peter Sellars.
David was featured as the percussion soloist in Tan Dun's Grammy and Oscar winning score to Ang Lee's film "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon." He has performed as a soloist with orchestras through out the world including the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Orchestra Radio France, Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, Sao Paulo State Symphony, Sydney Symphony, Gothenburg Symphony, Hong Kong Symphony, and the Singapore Symphony. David has created sonic installations that have been presented in New York, Italy and Germany. He is also an active composer and has invented several new instruments that expand the limits of traditional percussion.
David curates the Sound Res Festival, an experimental music festival in southern Italy. David has participated in festivals throughout Europe, South America, Asia, and the US. Some recent highlights include the Italian premiere of Tan Dun's "Concerto for Water Percussion and Orchestra" at the Venice Biennale, an invitation to solo with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, a US tour with the Bang on a Can All-Stars and Philip Glass, and a solo performance of Steve Reich's Piano Phase/Video Phase for live performer and super imposed video projection at the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art.
www.davidcossin.com |
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Felix Fan
Felix Fan’s versatility has made him one of the most sought after cellists in classical and contemporary music, as well as improvisatory and rock & roll. As a chamber musician, Fan has performed and recorded with the likes of Janos Starker, Yo-Yo Ma, Gil Shaham and Cho- Liang Lin. His recent solo engagements include the San Diego, Pacific and Kansas City Symphonies under Jah- Jah Ling and Michael Stern, as well as Taiwan’s National Symphony Orchestra and the Hong Kong Philharmonic with composer Tan Dun. While studying in Germany, Fan was introduced to the foremost contemporary composers of Europe, subsequently leading to collaborations with Hans Werner Henze, Oliver Knussen and Kaija Saariaho, performing in venues such as Carnegie Hall, the Kennedy Center, Royal Festival Hall and the Musikverein. In 1998, Fan founded the Muzik3 festival in La Jolla, CA, a performance series dedicated to the advancement of modern music, theater, video and dance. Muzik3’s influence on Fan was significant, as it led to innovative projects with musicians Sam Rivers and Jonas Hellborg, as well as the birth of Real Quiet, a trio consisting of Fan, David Cossin (percussion) and Andrew Russo (piano). Having worked together on previous projects with George Crumb, Philip Glass, David Lang, Terry Riley and the Bang on a Can All-Stars, Real Quiet has emerged as a group serious about shaping the future of music. Fan’s interests have also taken him from film to theater to dance. In 2005, he performed a series of radio plays written by acclaimed screenwriters Charlie Kaufman and the Coen Brothers, starring actors Steve Buscemi, John Goodman, Philip Seymour Hoffman and Meryl Streep. In the same year, Fan collaborated with choreographer Karole Armitage on her latest work In this Dream That Dogs Me with music by Annie Gosfield. |
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Mark Stewart
Multi-instrumentalist, singer, composer and instrument designer, he has been heard around the world performing old and new music. Mark habitually records, tours and performs with Paul Simon, a founding member of the Bang on a Can All-Stars, Mark is also a member of Steve Reich and Musicians, David Krakauer's Klezmer Madness, the manic duo Polygraph Lounge Rob Schwimmer with keyboard & the remin wizard, The Fred Frith Guitar Quartet, Arnold Dreyblatt's Orchestra of Excited Strings and Zeena Parkins' Gangster Band. He has also worked with Anthony Braxton, Bob Dylan, Cecil Taylor, Meredith Monk, Edie Brickell, Don Byron, Paul McCartney & Marc Ribot. He has worked with the choreographers Eliot Feld, Susan Marshall, & Yoshiko Chuma and collaborated extensively with composer Elliot Goldenthal on music for the feature films Titus, The Butcher Boy, Bob the Gambler, In Dreams and Heat. His New York Lower East Side "lab" is home to an instrument workshop and sonic salon where traditional and new instruments cohabitate. Mark in fact enjoys playing instruments of his own design and construction. He has played for the Broadway shows Showboat, The Who's Tommy, The Sound of Music, Carousel, and The Lion King. Stewart can be heard on Warner Bros., Sony Classical, Point/Polygram, Nonesuch, Label Bleu, Resonance Magnetique, Cantaloupe and CRI recordings.
www.polygraphlounge.com |
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Evan Ziporyn
has toured the globe with the All-stars since 1992. He is also founder and Artistic Director of Gamelan Galak Tika, a Boston-based Balinese music and dance troupe devoted to new works by American and Balinese composers. With Galak Tika, he has presented his groundbreaking Balinese/western fusion works in venues as diverse as New York's Zankel Hall and and the Balinese International Arts Festival. He is the recipient of the 2007 USA Artists Walker Fellowship and the 2004 American Academy of Arts and Letters Goddard Lieberson Award. His music has been commissioned and performed by Yo-yo Ma's Silk Road Project, the Kronos Quartet, Wu Man, the American Composers Orchestra, the American Repertory Theater (their acclaimed 2004's "Oedipus Rex"), Maya Beiser, and the Boston Modern Orchestra Project, with whom he recorded his 2006 orchestral CD, "Frog's Eye."
His works have been released on Cantaloupe, Sony Classical, New Albion, New World, Koch, Innova, and CRI; his 2001 solo clarinet CD, This Is Not A Clarinet, made numerous Top Ten lists and was featured on All Things Considered and PRI’ s The World. He has also recorded for Nonesuch (including Steve Reich's New York Counterpoint and the Grammy Award winning Music for 18 Musicians), Thirsty Ear, and Point; his music provided the soundtrack for the PBS film "Tail-enders", and his playing was featured in Tan Dun's soundtrack for the film "Fallen." With the All-stars, a partial list of collaborators includes Brian Eno, Ornette Coleman, Thurston Moore, Meredith Monk, Iva Bittova, Philip Glass, Terry Riley, Don Byron, Louis Andriessen, Cecil Taylor, Henry Threadgill, Wayan Wija, Kyaw Kyaw Naing, and Pamela Z. He has also recorded with Paul Simon, Matthew Shipp, So Percussion, and Ethel. He is Kenan Sahin Distinguished Professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and has two children, Leo (14) and Ava (7). He is currently working on a opera based on the life of Colin McPhee, to be premiered in Bali with the All-stars in June 2009.
www.ziporyn.com |
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Ning Yu
was born and raised in China, and started her music education at the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing before moving to America at age 15. Her interest in wide varieties of music has taken her to perform in solo, new music ensemble concerts, dance and theater venues throughout United States and other parts of the world. She has performed as a soloist with the Greensboro Symphony Orchestra, the Eastman Wind Ensemble, and has appeared in concerts at the University of Maryland, Tufts University, Yale University, and June in Buffalo amongst other venues. She joined the OBIE award winning theater production of Mabou Mines Dollhouse in 2003. Since then, she has performed at the Sundance Institute, St. Ann’s Warehouse in New York City, Spoleto USA, and has been touring with the productions to Israel, Hong Kong, Italy, Spain, Poland, the Edinburgh Festival, and mostly recently the Bogotá Festival. In May, she has just appeared in a film version of the production on the ARTE French Television. She has also collaborated and performed with Moisès Kauffman and the Tectonic Theatre Project at Sundance and Playwright’s Horizon in New York. Besides playing, she is also currently involved in the making of a documentary film about the French pianist Alfred Cortot. She has been living in New York City since graduating from the Eastman School of Music in 2004. She plays and shares music as often as possible, and she is a faculty at the Third Street Music School Settlement. |
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Andrew Cotton (sound design)
In his role as tour manager and engineer, Andrew Cotton works closely with both composers and musicians in creating new works. Cotton works closely with several major London producers, specializing in contemporary music projects with artists and concert series as diverse as Elvis Costello & John Harle, the BBC Promenade Series, Meltdown, George Russell, Carla Bley, The Balensescu Quartet, Lloyd Cole & Talvin Singh. Current projects include ongoing production management & sound design for Evelyn Glennie as well as recently completing the Norfolk and Norwich Festival & My Dream for the Chinese Peoples Disabled Performance Group. He collaborates with composers Michael Gordon, Julia Wolfe & David Lang on their pieces for the All-Stars as well as large ensemble, dance & theatre pieces. |
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Katia Anguelova |
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Adrian Paci
In the poetics of Adrian Paci and through the various techniques used - painting, sculpture, photography, video and installation - the poetic strength of memory and of distance act in redefining the identity of the individual and of his people, placed at risk by the migratory processes of this new millennium. As a matter of fact, his works are often a reflection about the themes of household and of emotional bonds, meant as values both of private life and of the public sphere. By doing so, he does not hesitate to stage what is between reality and imagination, like the painted scenes of his wedding, or the images of a well-known video in which one of his daughters sings an Albanian nursery rhyme to which reply - from a different monitor, opposite and lower - the relatives who remained in Albania. The theme of wandering is at the centre of his big-format photographs, in which the artist portrays himself as a contemporary Christ who instead of the cross carries an overturned house roof.
Through his works, Paci forces us to reason on what it means for each of us to belong to a context, on how our own private dimension interacts with everything that is external and on the relationship with our roots: not necessarily on the migrant condition in a strict sense, but in a wider sense, on the disorientation and struggle to find one's own home. |
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