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Please join us after the show for an artist talk with Gelsey Bell.

For her commission from the Jerome Foundation, performer/composer Gelsey Bell offers OUR DEFENSIVE MEASUREMENTS, a new collection of songs by the artist. Bell sets the stage for these songs with a question: "Song can be a mechanism for tracing a home - creating space for oneself. Where do our defensive calculations place the pathways of the voice?"

Using the full space of the Roulette concert hall, each song in the cycle has been designed for the audience and performers to be in a particular physical arrangement or engaged in a particular task. The piece will be performed by Gelsey Bell (voice/metallophone) with Jen Baker (trombone/voice), Paul Pinto (voice/metallophone/jack-of-all-trades), Dave Ruder (clarinet/voice), and Aliza Simons (euphonium/voice).

Read an interview with Gelsey Bell about her upcoming performance on the ROULETTE BLOG

http://gelseybell.com/

Gelsey Bell is a singer, songwriter, and scholar. She has released two studio albums, Under A Piano (2005) and In Place of Arms (2010), two experimental albums, February (2008) and Love Is Just a Crack In the Space of You (2009), and the digital album SCALING live at Roulette (2012). Her work has been presented in the Vital Vox festival, the BEAT festival, and the SITE festival. Gelsey is a core member of thingNY and Varispeed. In addition, she has worked with numerous composers, choreographers, and performance creators including Matthew Barney, Jonathan Bepler, Robert Ashley, Kimberly Bartosik, Chris Cochrane and Fast Forward (as the Chutneys), Dave Malloy, Rachel Chavkin, Alec Duffy, John King, Yasuko Yokoshi, the Panoply Performance Laboratory, the No Collective, Tom Swafford, and Jay Vilnai. Gelsey is also an ABD Doctoral Candidate in Performance Studies at NYU, where she is completing a dissertation on twentieth-century vocal music and was recently awarded the 2012 Stefanos Tsigrimanis Artistic Scholar Award. In addition, she is the Critical Acts Editor for TDR/The Drama Review.

Gelsey Bell’s performance is made possible with support from Jerome Foundation.

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ROULETTE KIDS presents: Your voice, my violin
February 11th 2012
$5 Kids and Adults (Children under 3 Free)
Call to Reserve Your Spot Today! 917-267-0365 or email amanda@roulette.org

Speaking, sighing, laughing, crying, growling, grunting, whispering, shouting: these are just some of the sounds you can make with your voice. Violinist/composer Tom Swafford, along with singers Amirtha Kidambi and Gelsey Bell, will lead you on an exploration of vocal sounds. Together we will make familiar sounds, discover new sounds, copy each other's sounds and hear how the violin and the voice can sound like each other. We will then create a concerto for violin and your voices. We will also present excerpts from Tom's new composition for two singers and a piece for solo violin.

Tom Swafford is Brooklyn based violinist and composer active in a wide variety of styles. He has presented composition concerts at Roulette and The Stone and he is preparing a new set of pieces for a concert in spring 2012. Currently he performs with Butch Morris, Sean Noonan, Aram Bajakian's Kef, $.99 Dreams, Emanuel and the Fear and The Great Yankee Hove. He can often be heard busking on NYC's subway platforms.

www.tomswafford.com

www.amirthakidambi.com

www.gelseybell.com

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$15 General Admission
$10 Students/Seniors/Members

VITAL VOX: A VOCAL FESTIVAL this 2-day festival explores the myriad power of the human voice in its solo and ensemble forms across a multitude of genres. It celebrates composer-performers in the vocal arts who stretch and expand the voice in new and original ways, continuing a strong contemporary tradition developed in the United States.

VITAL VOX is an annual vocal festival that had its premiere in 2009. It has brought together some of the most talented & creative vocalists in the Tri-State area, and has featured 19 projects and 30 vocalists thus far. The Vital Vox Artistic Directors are Sasha Bogdanowitsch & Sabrina Lastman.

www.vitalvoxfest.com

JUDITH BERKSON

Judith Berkson is a New York based soprano, pianist and composer who also performs as Liederkreis. She has played at the BrucknerTage, Museo Picasso Malaga, Le Poisson Rouge, Leipzig Kaufhaus Joske and the American Festival of Microtonal Music, premiering pieces as both a singer and pianist. She has been collaborating with Kronos Quartet on re-workings of Schubert lieder for string quartet, voice, wurlitzer and organ and is currently working with Darmstadt Institute and Theater of a Two-Headed Calf on opera premiers. Her latest recording 'Oylam' (ECM) uses voice and keyboards in a similar way to her live shows where originals, Schubert lieder, standards and liturgical music share the same recital. Judith studied voice at New England Conservatory with Lucy Shelton, composition with Joe Maneri and piano with Judith Marinelli Godfrey and Viola Haas. In addition to performing new music and art song she is also a cantor.artist's website

GALSEY BELL

Gelsey Bell is a singer, songwriter, and scholar. She has released two studio albums, Under A Piano (2005) and In Place of Arms (2010), and two experimental albums, February (2008) and Love Is Just a Crack In the Space of You (2009). She has performed her site-specific Bathroom Songs (2010) in various locations throughout New York City. She performs regularly with contemporary music ensemble thingNY, and has premiered and developed a number of works by New York City-based composers. Gelsey is also an ABD Doctoral Candidate in Performance Studies at NYU and the Critical Acts Editor for TDR/The Drama Review. artist's website

DAFNA NAPHTALI

Dafna Naphtali is a singer/instrumentalist/electronic-musician from an eclectic musical background (jazz, classical, rock and near-eastern music). Since the mid-90's she composes/performs experimental, interactive electro-acoustic music using her custom Max/MSP programming for live sound processing of voice and other instruments, and also interprets the work of Cage, Stockhausen and contemporary composers. With her large variety of projects with well regarded musicians in the US, Europe and India, she has received awards from NYFA, NYSCA, Franklin Furnace, American Composers Forum and American Music Center, and recorded several CDs, including "What is it Like to be a Bat?" a digital punk trio with Kitty Brazelton (on Tzadik). artist's website