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sfSoundSeries is a concert series in the san francisco bay area featuring contemporary and experimental music. our programs reach from the latest music of the european avant-garde to the grittiest sounds of the west coast improv-underground, encompassing recent trends in instrumental technique, conceptual art, music theater, and electronic sound. ANNOUNCING our new bi-tuesday series, sfSoundSalonSeries! at the center for new music in san francisco! a new series dedicated to MUSIC music that sounds new, creative, culturally relevant, and experimentally interesting to us -- TODAY! upcoming concerts june 25, 2013 - grosse abfahrt with torsten müller & alfred harth july 9, 2013 - andrew claussen & michal rataj july 23, 2013 - boris baltschun + serge baghdassarians & phil niblock august 3, 2013 - sfSound performs penderecki and berio (opening for the sun ra arkestra) august 13, 2013 - dan joseph & séverine ballon august 27, 2013 - sfSoundGroup september 10, 2013 - sfSoundGroup september 20, 2013 - sfSoundGroup september 24, 2013 - the hub + local electronic musicians performing scores by hub members :: view previous 2013 concerts here :: |
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Grosse Abfahrt with Torsten Müller and Alfred Harth Two German expatriates (Alfred Harth and Torsten Müller) living now in allies of America, adding to Grosse Abfahrt — a freely-improvising music continuum/community whose name means “great departure” — another departure of meaning. From out this departure of de-parts comes a salute to epic failure, a disaster in full-dress uniform, gold epaulets dangling off the corpse of Western culture. In solidarity the local American cultural-exile cohort of Grosse Abfahrt joins in: Polly Moller - flute, bass flute Kyle Bruckmann - oboe, English horn Matt Ingalls - clarinet, bass clarinet, contrabass garden hose, violin Tom Djll - trumpets, bandleader John Shiurba - guitar Gino Robair - electronics, percussion Tim Perkis via the internet - electronics Multi-instrumentalist (bass clarinet, alto saxophone, trumpet, and electronics), improviser, composer and visual artist Alfred Harth was born near Frankfurt in 1949. He first recorded at age twenty with the ensemble Just Music, with whom he recorded two LPs, one of which was issued on ECM. Throughout the 1970s he worked with musicians like pianist Nicole Van Den Plas, drummer Sven-Ake Johansson, bassist Peter Kowald, trumpeter Michael Sell and others in West European free music. In the late '70s, he became interested in punk music and in addition to a regularly-working duo with multi-instrumentalist Heiner Goebbels, he worked in punk / progrock / improvisation / modern composition combos like Cassiber and Gestalt et Jive. Since moving to Seoul, South Korea in 2001, he has been involved with Otomo Yoshihide's New Jazz Orchestra and his own multi-media projects. Torsten Müller (Born in Hamburg, Germany, 1957) is a free improvising bassist in Vancouver, Canada. He plays a 5-string double bass. He lived in Bremen and Hamburg from 1976 to 2001, where he started his musical career and worked as a radio host and producer at Radio Bremen, a public radio and television broadcaster. He came into the free improvised music scene in the mid 70s, first playing with Free Music Communion (an ensemble with guitarist Herbert Janssen and pianist Udo Bergner) recording three LPs on their own Fremuco Records label. He was a member of the large improvising ensemble King Ubu Orchestra for 10 years. He moved to Vancouver, Canada in 2001 where he has been performing at the Vancouver International Jazz Festival and acts as co-curator of the annual Time Flies Improvised Music Festival. He plays in various ensembles, including Vancouver based drummer Dylan Van Der Schyff's Bande X and his own ensemble, Hoxha, with British trombonist Paul Rutherford and Dylan Van Der Schyff. |
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Michal Rataj and Andy Claussen's Wishbone Project From Prague, composer Michal Rataj presents a set of works for sound objects, writing desk, and live multi-channel electronics. Andy Claussen performs his Wishbone Suite, an extended work for improvising chamber ensemble of clarinet, accordion, trombone, piano and drums. The ensemble explores recurring folk-like themes as springboards into improvised material, creating "an alluring, whimsical, and just-plain-cool mix of jazz, classical, and experimental music. Challenging music that doesn’t shy away from being pretty" -eMusic. Clausen's ensemble features key members of Seattle's vibrant improvised music community; creators of The Racer Sessions, the Table & Chairs Label and The Improvised Music Project: Andy Claussen (trombone), Ivan Arteaga (clarinet), Aaron Otheim (accordion), Gus Carns (piano), and Chris Icasiano (drums). Michal Rataj (born 1975) is a composer, performer and sound designer based in Prague, Czech Republic. He composes mainly electroacoustic and chamber or orchestral instrumental music and receives performances throughout Europe and broadcasts worldwide. Recently he has been active as real-time performer of his acousmatic music and he gives sound performances alone or with different music partners. Rataj is assistant professor of electroacoustic music at the Academy of Performing Arts and at the NYU in Prague. He studied musicology (Charles University, Prague) and composition (Academy of Performing Arts, Prague) with prof. Ivan Kurz and prof. Milan Slavický. He also went to study in Egham (UK) and Berlin (D) and as a Fulbright Scholar he conducted research in Center For New Music And Audio Technologies at University of California, Berkeley, CA in the academic year 2007 - 2008. He has worked as a radio producer at the Czech Radio since 2003, where he has produced over 100 original radioart works with artists from around the world. He is a member of the EBU Ars Acustica Group, his music has been broadcast worldwide and performed throughout Europe and in the USA. Andy Claussen is a New York-based trombonist, composer and bandleader. An avid explorer of cross-genre territory, drawing inspiration from folk music, jazz, classical, and indie rock, Clausen has performed with new music mavericks Bill Frisell and Wayne Horvitz, pop sensation Feist and the avant-jazz saxophonist Andrew D’angelo. Hailing from Seattle, Clausen relocated to NYC in 2010 to begin his studies at the Juilliard School where he enjoys a diverse performance schedule, collaborating with choreographers, filmmakers, folk and blues artists, classical composers, as well as New York's jazz elite. An active bandleader since the age of 14, The New York Times has described his work as “sleek, dynamic large-group jazz, a whirl of dark-hued harmony and billowing rhythm…The intelligent sheen of Mr. Clausen’s writing was as striking as the composure of his peers…It was impressive, and not just by the yardstick of their age.” More info can be found at tableandchairsmusic.com. |
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boris baltschun & serge baghdassarians bodybuilding Phil Niblock Disseminate Berlin-based artists boris baltschun & serge baghdassarians present bodybuilding, an hour-length theatrical piece for electronics, texts, electric fan, radio, table, hotplate, espresso maker, and fried chicken. bodybuilding retraces mathematician and astronomer Charles-Marie de La Condamine's journey to South America, though instead of the tropical wilderness, it measures the urban jungle of Rio de Janeiro. The three-sided Largo do Guimarães on the hills of Santa Teresa becomes the point of reference, where, its name, urban situation and sonic appearance are triangulated -- acoustically. On foot, and with an assortment of quasi-ritual exercises, the artists move from their residence in Rio to the triangular plaza. What stands at the end of their aural journey is the ideal form of a place, an artificial sounding-body that seems strangely familiar in the way it further alienates the alien. This performance celebrates the new release of bodybuilding for the publication on errant bodies. Opening the concert, sfSoundGroup performs Phil Niblock's Disseminate (1998) for 12 pre-recorded tracks and 4 live instrumentalists. Niblock's music creates sound differences by combining many simultaneous microtonal pitches / tones (by means of multitrack mixing) played on traditional instruments to make clouds of sum and difference tones. boris baltschun & serge baghdassarians have been collaborating since 1999 in the fields of sound installation and electronic music. Their work often focuses on the conception and realization of temporary as well as longtime installations that use mechanical means to realize an aesthetic inspired by electronic music. With references to outdated 19th century technology (lovers telegraph, steam engine f.e.) as well as computer controlled motor systems, a visualization of sonic phenomena is pursued. Of importance are also seemingly simple and minimal setups (well known, but appropriated materials), which produce complex results. Phil Niblock is a New York-based minimalist composer and multi-media musician and director of Experimental Intermedia, a foundation born in the flames of 1968's barricade-hopping. He has been a maverick presence on the fringes of the avant garde ever since. In the history books Niblock is the forgotten Minimalist. That's as maybe: no one ever said the history books were infallible anyway. His influence has had more impact on younger composers such as Susan Stenger, Lois V Vierk, David First, and Glenn Branca. He's even worked with Sonic Youth's Thurston Moore and Lee Renaldo on "Guitar two, for four" which is actually for five guitarists. This is Minimalism in the classic sense of the word, if that makes sense. Niblock constructs big 24-track digitally-processed monolithic microtonal drones. The result is sound without melody or rhythm. Movement is slow, geologically slow. Changes are almost imperceptible, and his music has a tendency of creeping up on you. The vocal pieces are like some of Ligeti's choral works, but a little more phased. And this isn't choral work. "A Y U (as yet untitled)" is sampled from just one voice, the baritone Thomas Buckner. The results are pitch shifted and processed intense drones, one live and one studio edited. Unlike Ligeti, this isn't just for voice or hurdy gurdy. Like Stockhausen's electronic pieces, Musique Concrete, or even Fripp and Eno's No Pussyfooting, the role of the producer/composer in "Hurdy Hurry" and "A Y U" is just as important as the role of the performer. He says: "What I am doing with my music is to produce something without rhythm or melody, by using many microtones that cause movements very, very slowly." The stills in the booklet are from slides taken in China, while Niblock was making films which are painstaking studies of manual labour, giving a poetic dignity to sheer gruelling slog of fishermen at work, rice-planters, log-splitters, water-hole dredgers and other back-breaking toilers. Since 1968 Phill has also put on over 1000 concerts in his loft space, including Ryoji Ikeda, Zbigniew Karkowski, Jim O'Rourke. |
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sharing a concert with the Sun Ra Arkestra and Hans Grusel's Krankenkabinet, sfSound performs Krzysztof Penderecki's Actions für Jazzensemble & Luciano Berio's Laborinitus II |
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Séverine Ballon and Dan Joseph |
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sfSoundGroup |
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sfSoundGroup |
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sfSoundGroup |
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The Hub plus local electronic musicians performing scores by hub members |