Full Description:

 

$15 General Admission
$10 Members/Students/Seniors

Beloved Bay Area techno-songstress Amy X Neuburg returns to Roulette, this
time in collaboration with NYC pianist/improviser Cory Smythe (of ICE), The
evening will consist of new compositions for voice, piano and live electronics,
improvisational duets, and solos from Amy and Cory -- including Amy's
spirited 'avant-cabaret' songs for voice and drum-controlled looping, and works
from Cory's recent release "Pluripotent" for piano with live processing.

The intricate, multi-layered compositions of Amy X Neuburg combine her
interests in poetry, theater, expressive use of music technology, and exploration
of multiple genres using the many colors of her four-octave vocal range. She
has performed at the Other Minds and Bang on a Can festivals, the Berlin
International Poetry Festival, the Wellington and Christchurch Jazz Festivals
(NZ), the Warsaw Philharmonic Hall, rock clubs, electronic music festivals and
concert venues at home and abroad. Commissions include numerous works for
ensembles with and without live electronics (recently Present Music, Robin Cox
Ensemble, Pacific Mozart Ensemble chorus, Del Sol String Quartet), as well
as for theater, visual media, and modern dance, and she composes regularly for
her Cello ChiXtet -- three cellists with voice and electronics. As vocalist Amy
toured Europe and Japan with Robert Ashley's operas. She is a 2011 recipient of
the Alpert/Ucross prize.

As a member of the International Contemporary Ensemble, pianist Cory
Smythe has contributed to numerous premieres, worked with composers
Philippe Hurel, Dai Fujikura, Magnus Lindberg, Kaija Saariaho, Mathias
Pintscher, and David Lang, and performed in venues across the U.S. and abroad;
a forthcoming recording by ICE (Mode Records) will feature Cory as soloist in
Iannis Xenakis's "Palimpsest." Equally invested in the classical repertoire, Cory
is a sought-after chamber musician and inventive soloist, appearing at chamber
festivals in Bloomington, IN, and Salem, NY, at the Ravinia Rising Stars series
with violinist Tim Fain, and making his Carnegie Weill Hall debut with violinist
Sung-Ju Lee. As an improviser and jazz musician, Cory has worked with the
Greg Osby Four, Pete Robbins' Centric, Tyshawn Sorey, Peter Evans, Beth
Schenk, Kyle Quass, and Anthony Braxton.

Full Description:

San Francisco-based avant-cabaret artist Amy X Neuburg performs a "one-woman musical hurricane" (Otago Times, NZ) of emotionally intense, meticulously crafted songs and stories accompanied by electronic percussion and layers of live vocal looping. In this concert Amy will perform favorites from her past and present repertoire as well as introduce works-in-development using her newest gadget the Blippoo Box -- a hand-built analog synthesizer created for her by instrument designer Rob Hordijk. Special guest Steve Espinola will join Amy for an experiment in live looping using 1940s archaic recording technology.

The oddly entertaining and often humorous 'avant-cabaret' songs of Amy X Neuburg combine her interests in poetry and theater, expressive use of music technology, and exploration of multiple genres using the many colors of her four-octave vocal range. She has performed at venues as diverse as the Other Minds and Bang on a Can Festivals, the Berlin International Poetry Festival, the Wellington and Christchurch Jazz Festivals (NZ), colleges, rock clubs and concert venues at home and abroad. As composer, her many commissions include works for chamber ensembles with and without live electronics (Robin Cox Ensemble, Present Music, Santa Cruz New Music Works, Solstice vocal ensemble, Christchurch Arts Centre chorus), as well as numerous works for theater, visual media, and modern dance. As vocalist Amy specializes in contemporary performance; she toured Europe and Japan with Robert Ashley's operas, sang the leading role of Simone Weil in Guillermo Galindo's "Decreation," and played in a long-running musical with Culture Clash. Her current focus is her new ensemble The Cello ChiXtet, with whom she is now recording her song cycle The Secret Language of Subways for voice, three cellos and live electronics.

Steve Espinola (Brooklyn) has been a long-time member of NYC's Anti-Folk community as a songwriter, singer and pianist. He is an obsessive collector and rejuvenator of discarded, rare and archaic music technologies as well as an instrument builder and healing-music practitioner

"(A) wonderful performer-composer... Her songs channel the rhythms of urban life through the seriocomic sensibility of a born entertainer"¦ a delicate balance between sauciness and depth"¦ Neuburg's musical inventiveness proves a delight throughout. -- Joshua Kosman, San Francisco Chronicle

"Neuburg is a new kind of multi-threat composer"¦ a wonder of sampling, overdubbing, and electronic manipulation of live sound, a fabulous singer"¦ exhilarating originality. Nobody else sounds like Amy X. Some of the most compelling music being made today." -- Tom Strini, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Full Description:

with cellists Jess Ivry, Elaine Kreston, Kelley Maulbetsch

Since her NYC debut at Roulette in 2003, San Francisco-based "avant-cabaret" artist Amy X Neuburg has toured the U.S. and abroad performing her "one-woman musical hurricane" (Otago Times, NZ) of emotionally intense, tightly crafted songs and stories accompanied by electronic percussion and layers of live vocal looping. This appearance will mark the New York debut of Amy's new cello trio, as they perform selections from her in-progress song cycle "The Secret Language of Subways" for voice, cellists, electronic percussion and electronic processing. Amy will also premiere several new solo works. The New York Press has described her as "an astonishing array of musical talents... a phenomenal voice... a master with electronics."

Amy X Neuburg's "avant-cabaret" songs for voice and live electronics are diversely influenced and sung in various styles -- from rock to bel canto to "world" -- over a nearly four-octave vocal range. In performance Amy accompanies herself with real-time looping and electronic drums, using the drum kit to trigger sounds, control looping functions, and change mixer settings. She has performed her solo work at venues and events throughout the U.S., including the Other Minds Festival (San Francisco); Roulette, Joe's Pub, and the Bang on a Can Marathon at Symphony Space, (New York); Seattle's Experience Music Project; the San Jose Tech Museum; numerous college residencies; and her own multimedia theatrical show "Songs About Life & Death & Love & Insects." She recently returned from a 2-week performance tour of New Zealand and will return as composer-in-residence at Christchurch Arts Centre in 2006.

Full Description:

The San Francisco-based perforer/composer/lyricist/siren creates high-technology music that is unusually intimate in nature. Her diversely-influenced songs use electronic percussion and voice processing to build up thick layers of vocal harmonies and rhythms. Neuburg is known for her avant-cabaret band Amy X Neuburg & Men and has recorded and toured with Robert Ashley's operas.