fbpx

Tag: Brendon Randall-Myers

Exceptet Winter Concert: Premieres by Sarah Goldfeather, Brendon Randall-Myers, Matt Evans

What: World premieres from composers Brendon Randall-Myers, Matt Evans, and Sarah Goldfeather, performed by Exceptet.
When: Thursday, February 8, 2018, 8pm
Where: Roulette, 509 Atlantic Ave Brooklyn, 2/3/4/5/A/C/G/D/M/N/R/B/Q trains & the LIRR
Cost: $20 Online $25 Doors
Info: www.roulette.org // (917) 267-0368

Brooklyn, NY – New York-based ensemble Exceptet performs three brand new works — Episodic Memory by Brendon Randall-Myers, which draws on brain processes regarding trauma; The mesh by Matt Evans, inspired by human’s impact on the environment; and Mouth Full of Ears by Exceptet’s very own violinist Sarah Goldfeather, which illustrates contemporary political discourse in a musical manner.

Episodic Memory by Brendon Randall-Myers is a 25-minute work in three sections that reflects the way our brains process trauma and learn from mistakes. The first section starts with subtly shifting polyrhythms that emerge from the beat patterns of microtonal inflections of a single pitch, which are gradually picked up, articulated, and elaborated on directly by the ensemble. The second section abruptly focuses these rhythms to a 16th-note ostinato played at an extremely fast speed, high register, and loud volume. The third and final section begins with extremely quiet multiphonic trills traded around the ensemble, which gradually coalesce into a huge, oscillating mass of sound built on the same pitch that opened the piece. Randall-Myers was a 2017 Roulette Artist-in-Residence.

The mesh by Matt Evans is a 20-minute work in three continuous parts that unpacks the questions surrounding human impact on modern ecology in our recently defined epoch the “anthropocene” through musical abstraction and representation. Three distinct sections of the piece will represent the three basic states of Timothy Morton’s philosophy of Dark Ecology: “darkness as depression, darkness as uncanny, and darkness as sweetness.” The piece draws inspiration from the earth and the sublime through a musical topography of chromatic polyrhythmic dissonances, gradients of noise, and drones of ultimate stillness.

Mouth Full of Ears by Sarah Goldfeather is a 5-minute song featuring a simple melody that builds in orchestration and intensity. The text describes a person who cannot or does not think or speak for themselves — one who simply regurgitates information he or she hears without any synthesis, and on whom it is easy to project your own opinions and designs. An archetype prevalent on both sides of the today’s political spectrum, where so many default to a stance without critical thought, thus creating an even greater rift between us and near impossibility of sensible discourse.

About Exceptet
Founded on the rag-tag instrumentation of Igor Stravinsky’s L’Histoire du Soldat, New York-based Exceptet is an ensemble with “vast emotional range and onomatopoetic charm” (I Care If You Listen) dedicated to commissioning today’s most compelling emerging composers. Exceptet recently performed on the Ecstatic Music Festival as part of the MATA Interval Series, The Times Two Series in Boston, the Queens New Music Festival, The UPenn Composers Guild, and has been showcased several times on WQXR. The group has commissioned new works from a wide range of composers, including Scott Wollschleger, Matt Evans, Brendon Randall-Myers, Sarah Goldfeather, Fay Kueen Wang, Alex Weiser, Fjola Evans, Brooks Frederickson, Paul Kerekes, Brian Petuch, and Eric Shanfield. The ensemble also collaborated with Exceptet violinist Sarah Goldfeather’s indie folk-band, Goldfeather.

[RESIDENCY] Brendon Randall-Myers: Dynamics of Vanishing Bodies

What: Composer and 2017 artist-in-residence Brendon Randall-Myers presents Dynamics of Vanishing Bodies.
When: Tuesday, June 20, 2017, 8pm
Where: Roulette, 509 Atlantic Ave Brooklyn, 2/3/4/5/A/C/G/D/M/N/R/B/Q trains & the LIRR
Cost: $25/20 Online $20/15 Doors
Info: www.roulette.org / (917) 267-0368
Tickets: General Admission $20, Members/Students/Seniors $15, $25/20 Tickets at the door

Brooklyn, NY – As a follow up to February’s Invisible Anatomy performance, composer Brendon Randall-Myers continues his artist residency at Roulette with Dynamics of Vanishing Bodies, featuring premieres for soprano Eliza Bagg of Pavo Pavo, vocalist Doug Moore of Pyrrhon, and Dither Quartet.

Bookended with solo and duo sets by Randall-Myers and vocalist Doug Moore, Dynamics of Vanishing Bodies will premiere two large pieces by Randall-Myers written from opposing angles — first, a set of microtonal electro-folk songs for soprano Eliza Bagg, and second, a brutally ethereal electric guitar for Dither Quartet. At play are psychoacoustic effects (timbral fusion and phantom rhythms) created by overtone interaction, interlaced with gradual decay in cycles at a nearly-imperceptible scale.

Brendon Randall-Myers is a Brooklyn-based composer, guitarist, and co-founder of composer / performer / dramatist ensemble Invisible Anatomy and artpunk band Marateck. Described as “fiercely aggressive but endlessly compelling” by The San Francisco Chronicle, his music amplifies the raw physical and emotional power of bodies creating sound. Randall-Myers has received commissions from the Jerome Fund for New Music, the Tang Museum at Skidmore College, the Guitar Foundation of America, Ecstatic Music Festival, and MATA, and he has collaborated with performers such as the Bang on a Can All-Stars, the Omaha Symphony, Friction Quartet, Exceptet, and Sandbox Percussion. He is a member of the Glenn Branca Ensemble and the Dither Big Band, and has also performed with groups such as Ensemble Signal, Opera Saratoga, Magik*Magik Orchestra, and Contemporaneous. Brendon grew up home-schooled in rural West Virginia, and holds degrees from Pomona College and the Yale School of Music.

Invisible Anatomy: Transfigure

What: Brendon Randall-MyersInvisible Anatomy ensemble presents Transfigure, the third and final creation in a triptych of collaboratively written, evening-length musical compositions integrating lighting, video, and choreography.
When: Thursday, February 2, 2016, 8pm
Where: Roulette, 509 Atlantic Ave Brooklyn, 2/3/4/5/A/C/G/D/M/N/R/B/Q trains & the LIRR
Cost: $25/20 Online $20/15 Doors
Info: www.roulette.org / (917) 267-0368
Tickets: General Admission $20, Members/Students/Seniors $15, $25/20 Tickets at the door

Brooklyn, NY – Roulette welcomes back rising young composer Brendon Randall-Myers as an artist-in-residence for the Winter + Spring 2017 season. For this performance, Randall-Myers presents Transfigure, the third and final creation in a triptych of collaboratively written, evening-length musical compositions that integrate lighting, video, and choreography. Co-composed by all six members of the group Invisible Anatomy, the piece unpacks notions of change through a mix of improvisations, arguments, and screaming into a snare drum.

Invisible Anatomy (IA) is a composer-performer ensemble that explores the human body as the most fundamental aspect of music creation and performance. Formed in 2014 by six graduates of the Yale School of Music, IA creates and develops shows from the ground up by writing and performing all new compositions. The group harnesses elements from classical, jazz, experimental rock, performance art and theater, combining an omnivorous stylistic palette, virtuosic physicality, and dramatic visual presentation. IA’s inaugural show BODY PARTS dismembers, manipulates, and reanimates bodies in performance – creating a chattering chorus of woodblock teeth, wearing pop songs as a mask, and floating screaming eyes on TV screens. Their second show, DISSECTIONS, features six interconnected pieces that probe the destruction, transformation, and intimacy inherent in peeling away our surfaces. Derived from a collaboratively generated text over numerous workshops, these works trace a line from ornate to bare, taking the scalpel to instruments, gestures, and language. After the group’s 2015 debut concerts in New York City, IA was invited to China for three shows, including a featured solo concert at the Beijing Modern Music Festival. IA’s second season opened with an intimate house concert of BODY PARTS hosted by David Lang, followed by the world premiere of DISSECTIONS at Brooklyn’s National Sawdust. The group performed DISSECTIONS at Pomona College and The Blue Whale in Los Angeles in February 2016, followed by appearances with Heartbeat Opera and at Roulette in New York City, and at the Yale School of Music in New Haven, CT. The group was the first runner-up in the 2016 SAVVY Chamber Competition, and recorded their debut studio album in June 2016.