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Call to Reserve Your Spot Today (917) 267-0365 or email amanda@roulette.org
$5 Kids and Adults Sliding Scale.

The recently formed Brooklyn Philharmonic Youth Orchestra (BPYO) joins Roulette Kids on Saturday, May 11 for their very first concert! Kids – and adults – of all ages are invited to hear the BPYO, led by Music Director Nicole Federici and featuring guest artist Jason Kao Hwang, as they perform select movements from violin virtuoso Heinrich Biber's Battalia a 10, a special world premiere commission from composer Jason Kao Hwang, and Butch Morris' Nowhere Ever After.

The Brooklyn Phil Youth Orchestra (BPYO) offers innovative ensemble training to dedicated, young students throughout Brooklyn and New York City. Deeply committed to the musical, intellectual and social growth of our young musicians, we offer an intensive yet positive rehearsal environment in which all students are engaged at a high level and encouraged to excel. Our focus on exceptional musical training, which features master classes with Brooklyn musicians and mentoring with Brooklyn Phil Artistic Director Alan Pierson, unites young musicians from varied backgrounds into a cohesive artistic unit. Our exceptional staff, led by BPYO Music Director Nicole Federici, works with students at every rehearsal, providing them the mentoring they need to experience significant personal growth through music-making.

The BPYO is: Zoe Fraser-Klotz,Matthew Laptev, Gia Grier,Grace Browning, Thalya Williams, Charity Priester, Tara Abdulah-Nri, Isabel Marques-Vahry, Tuesdai Freeman, Fynn Marsella, Sydney Nhambiu, Kory Longsworth and Max Meissner.

Nicole Federici (BPYO Music Director) is a Brooklyn based violist, violinist, composer and teaching artist. As the co-leader of the improvising string quintet, Graffito, and the experimental chamber quintet Rādia, Federici is dedicated to the continuous development of experimentally collaborative, original composition and improvisation that hails the aggressive stylistic diversity of the New York City downtown music scene. In 2010, Prior to her work with the BPYO, she founded Sonic Smithy, a creative student music ensemble as a part of that collaborative, community initiative. Throughout
her career, she has performed with some of the most adventurous pioneers in new music, including vocalists Shelley Hirsch, and the great Ray Charles. She was a regular performer in Butch Morris’ Lucky Cheng Orchestra, and Andrew D’Angelo’s Big Band, and continues to perform with the Matt Wilson’s Quartet Plus Strings, Jeff Lederer’s Reincarnation, Jason Kao Hwang’s Spontaneous River, and Karl Berger’s Improviser’s Orchestra.

Jason Kao Hwang (composer, violin,viola) has created works ranging from jazz, “new” and world music. Hwang recently released his octet CD, Burning Bridge (Innova), commissioned by Chamber Music America/ New Jazz Works, featuring Chinese and Western instruments. In 2011, he released Symphony of Souls (Mulatta), performed by his string orchestra Spontaneous River, and Crossroads Unseen (Eunonymus), the third CD of his quartet EDGE. As violinist, Mr. Hwang has worked with Reggie Workman, Pauline Oliveros, William Parker, Anthony Braxton, Henry Threadgill and many others.

Do you know someone who would be perfect for the BPYO?
Find details on our audition process at http://www.bphil.org/education/bpyo/

Learn more about the mission of Brooklyn Phil here!

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On September 24, drummer/composer/storyteller Sean Noonan will celebrate the August 14 release of A Gambler’s Hand, his third release on Songlines Recordings, with a show at Roulette. A Gambler’s Hand, a suite for amplified/unamplified string quartet and drum kit/percussion, combines the aesthetics of downtown jazz/rock, improv and comprovisation with composition inspired by American experimentalists such as Cowell, Nancarrow and Zorn. At any particular moment, rock grooves might be locking with insistent string ostinatos, which then morph into spiky counterpoint reminiscent of Bartok. Delicate-harsh writing for the quartet is woven around Sean’s eclectic, lyrical and organic drumming in a highly original fusion. The music represents an original story by Noonan, an absurd, dreamlike tale of an Irish gambler who one day finds himself trapped inside a wall. The story has been adapted for a 30-minute silent film that will receive its premiere at the performance; Noonan will also narrate parts of the story between movements.

Praised by the New York Times for its “focused, fluid performance” and by Sequenza 21 for its “fire, fantasy and absolute musical commitment,” The Momenta Quartet has premiered over fifty works in the past seven years and has collaborated with over 80 living composers. Since 2004, Momenta has given over 100 concerts, among them 60 in New York City at such venues as Roulette, The Stone, Le Poisson Rouge, Issue Project Room, Tonic, BargeMusic, Symphony Space, Americas Society, Asia Society, and the Austrian Cultural Forum. The quartet is celebrated for its innovative programming, juxtaposing contemporary works from widely divergent aesthetics with music from the classical canon.

A diverse group of improvisers will join Noonan and Momenta. Violist Mat Maneri has recorded with Cecil Taylor, Matthew Shipp, Joe Morris, Joe Maneri, Gerald Cleaver, Tim Berne, Borah Bergman, Mark Dresser, William Parker, Michael Formanek and John Lockwood, as well as with his own trio, quartet, and quintet. Jason Kao Hwang (violin/viola) has created works ranging across jazz, classical, new and world music. Stories Before Within (2008, Innova),featuring his jazz quartet EDGE, was chosen as one of the Top Ten CDs of the year by Coda Magazine, and his chamber opera, The Floating Box, A Story in Chinatown (New World Records), presented by the Asia Society in 2001, was named one of the Top Ten Opera Recordings of 2005 by Opera News. Violinist Tom Swafford, who is also featured on A Gambler’s Hand, has received several notable awards including the Charles Ives Prize from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, an Eisner Prize from the University of California, Berkeley, the Mabel Daniels Prize for music from Tufts University and a piano soloist award from the Lionel Hampton Jazz Festival.

Momenta Quartet
Emilie-Anne Gendron violin
Adda Kridler violin
Stephanie Griffin viola
Michael Haas cello

Guest improvisers:
Jason Kao Hwang violin
Tom Swafford violin
Mat Maneri viola
TBA cello

Please visit noonansmusic.com

Listen http://snd.sc/qMPt4P

CD excerpt

Watch a live performance

http://www.youtube.com/brewedbynoon

 

 

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$15 General Admission
$10 Members/Students/Seniors

A night of engaging performances from the Canadian saxophone quartet Quasar and New York composer Jason Kao Hwang. The Quasar saxophone quartet presents work by Iannis Xenakis, Canadian composers Jean-François Laporte (who custom-built wind instruments for Quasar's performance) and Luc Marcel, and New York's tireless and innovative violinist/composer Jason Kao Hwang. Hwang's own group Local Lingo (w/ Sang Won Park, William Parker, Thomas Buckner, & Joe McPhee) presents "Voices of Our Own," featuring the poetry of Lester Afflick, Fay Chiang, Steve Dalachinsky, Patricia Spears Jones and Yuko Otomo.

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Burning Bridge was composed upon a Burning Bridge. The nature of this music consumes temporal illusions while enveloping the concurrence of life and death. On this Burning Bridge, the tinder of history and culture feed flames that vibrate within the core of both instinct and identity. The fire, often ignored, has always existed, with bridges burning each moment of our ever-changing lives. For Burning Bridge, the various traditions of each instrument, Chinese, Jazz and Classical, are united into a single musical voice resonant with distinct cultural overtones. With the poetic complexities inherent to this sound, the music possesses all the attributes of any human being. Burning Bridge is the experience, not the representation.



"Jason Kao Hwang, who brought a vast array of sonic wonders to the Freer Gallery on Friday night in his latest genre-straddling work, "Burning Bridge." ... Hwang has his finger firmly on the racing pulse of the 21st century, where everything is interconnected and boundaries of time and geography seem hopelessly quaint. If there's a war cry for music of the new millennium, it might well be: Burn the bridges - there's no going back." The Washington Post



Jason Kao Hwang - composer, violin

Taylor Ho Bynum - cornet/ flugelhorn

Joe Daley - tuba

Andrew Drury - drum set

Ken Filiano - string bass

Sun Li - pipa

Steve Swell - trombone

Wang Guowei - erhu



The appearance of EDGE with guest artists is made possible by Chamber Music America's Presenting Jazz program; and Burning Bridge, by composer Jason Kao Hwang , was commissioned through the CMA program New Jazz Works: Commissioning and Ensemble Development. Both programs are supported through the generosity of the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation.

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Taylor Ho Bynum - cornet, flugelhorn, Andrew Drury - drum set, Ken Filiano - string bass,
Jason Kao Hwang - composer/ violin, viola

CELEBRATING THE RELEASE OF
STORIES BEFORE WITHIN (Innova Records)

Jason Kao Hwang's quartet EDGE is nested in the urban mountains of New York City where he created Stories Before Within, personal tales celebrating both life and loss. Over the past three years EDGE has embraced both past and future with musical offerings resonant with human and animal overtones. Their instruments sing through sharp lines vibrating between history, cultures and genres.

In 2006, EDGE's first CD (Asian Improv Records) scaled the college radio charts at #14 for CMJ and #4 for Canada's EARSHOT. EDGE was ranked #3 on a Top Ten CDs of 2006 list for ALL ABOUT JAZZ. They have performed Vision Festival XI, Tonic, Brooklyn College, the Living Theater, and the Stone, all in NYC. EDGE also performed at Sangha (Washington, D.C.), An die Musik (Baltimore), the Deep Listening Institute (Kingston, NY), and the Sanctuary for Independent Media (Troy, NY). In the fall of 2008, EDGE will tour Syracuse, Rochester and Buffalo. They will also perform in EDGEFEST (name has no prior relation) at the Kerrytown Concert House in Ann Arbour, Michigan.

The four manage to meld their individual experiences into a group that can swing hard, evoke the pentatonics and timbres of Asian music traditions or blues edge and push toward freedom.
Michael Rosenstein, SIGNAL TO NOISE, 2006

Jason Kao Hwang (composer, violinist) has created works ranging from jazz, classical, "new" and world music. As violinist, he has worked with Reggie Workman, William Parker, Pheeroan akLaff, Anthony Braxton, Vladamir Tarasov, Butch Morris and Henry Threadgill. As composer he has received support from the National Endowment for the Arts and New Jersey State Council on the Arts and others. His duo with Sang Won Park(kayagum, ajeng, voice), Local Lingo (Euonymus Records), recently broke into the CMJ charts at #36. His chamber opera, The Floating Box, A Story in Chinatown (New World Records), was named one of the top ten opera recordings of 2005 by Opera News. Music From China recently commissioned his string quartet, In the Garden of Morning Glories (violin, erhu, pipa, yanqin), which premiered at Symphony Space.

Taylor Ho Bynum (coronet, various brass) is a composer and bandleader born in 1975, raised in Boston, and presently residing in Brooklyn. Bynum has established a reputation as a unique musical voice willing to take chances in a wide variety of artistic contexts. Projects range from ensembles in the jazz tradition, to work with DJs, contemporary classical composers, and world music ensembles, to composing for film and theater, to collaborations with dancers and visual artists. He leads a variety of small groups and the large ensemble SpiderMonkey Strings, and works with Anthony Braxton, Cecil Taylor, and the Fully Celebrated Orchestra.

Andrew Drury (drum set) is a drummer/composer whose work has been noted for its lyricism and expansive approach to form and technique. Drury can be heard on fifteen CDs (two as a bandleader) and he has performed in Europe and the Americas with Michel Doneda, Mark Dresser, Briggan Krauss, Myra Melford, Chris Speed, Jack Wright, Kenny Wolleson's Marching Band with Butch Morris, and others. A former student of Ed Blackwell, he photographs drum solos in desert and prairie settings, collaborates frequently with dancers, and has led over 700 junk percussion workshops across the U.S.

Ken Filiano (string bass), has fused the rich traditions of the double bass, bringing out the many voices inherent to the instrument. His solo bass CD, Subvenire (NineWinds), received unanimous critical praise, and was chosen by Cadence Magazine as one of the top ten CDs of 2003. Ken tours widely, performing at the DuMaurier International Jazz Festival, Banlieues Bleues Festival (Paris, France); and on many concert stages including Carnegie Hall. He was principal bassist with the Cascade Festival Orchestra from 1985 - 2002. Ken has also played and/or recorded with artists and orchestras including Bobby Bradford, Nels Cline, Vinnie Golia, Dom Minasi, Alex Cline, Ted Dunbar, and Joseph Jarman.

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Who says the connection between two points is a straight line? Makanda Ken McIntyre (multi-reeds) and Jason Kao Hwang (violin) gang up on Euclid when they explore a place where free jazz, blues, microtonalism, bebop and traditional Asian music come together.

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"A group of Rick Iannacone, guitar, Michael Dougherty, electronics, Lenny Seidman, percussion...along with violinist Hwang's "Skysing" featuring Carol Emanuel, harp; Geoffrey Gordon, percussion; Elliot Sharp, guitars, bass clarinet."