Full Description:

Noa Guy - composer, piano, voice, movement
Thomas Buckner - voice
Antonio Pio Fini - movement
Saul Macwillians - sound environment design

Drops of Consciousness is a series of concerts that are documenting my recovery from a severe brain injury, which happened 17 years ago when I had a brutal scuffle with a tree. The car I was in did not survive.

In part I and II I explored the long journey back from a world of darkness and pain, and the birth into a new reality.

Part III is not a linear continuation of the last two chapters. This performance is a celebration of acceptance, love of life and the realization that I am not my injury. With the support of my friends I explore the hidden possibilities that are embedded in the impossibilities imposed on me by my injury. I can not walk without crutches, but I can move without them. The piano revealed to me a whole new and mysterious sound world.

I composed the music, the poems, and the concept of the whole piece. But the piece grew and became a world of beauty through a close collaboration between all of us that perform tonight.

I thank Tom, Daniel and Saul for their bright ideas, insights, respect and love.

Born in Israel in 1949, Noa Guy studied in the theory department of the Jerusalem Academy of Music and continued to evolve privately and compose original pieces along with composer Abel Ehrlich. In the early 70's Noa studied composition and electronic music with Boris Blacher in the Hochscule fur Musik in West Berlin. She moved to Norway where she made two fantastic kids and continued her explorations. After returning to Israel in 1975 Noa worked with Karlheinz Stockhousen for three years, and took master classes with Luciano Berio and Milton Babbitt. After collaborating with Heinz Holiger, Noa received a scholarship from the Scola Cantorum in Basel to compose the electronic score that was later played with live performance by renowned English tenor John Potter in the Nettlefols Festival of Contemporary Music. She later became sound artist for Ward Swingle on his visit to Israel. From 1985 until 1993 Noa was the musical director at the Jerusalem Music Centre (JMC), where she headed the master class program, and acted as sound engineer and assistant director to all the television productions of JMC. Throughout all these years Noa continued to compose and perform with international accolades. In the early nineties Noa was invited to NY to work under the tutelage of Isaac Stern. In October of 1993, while driving her and a colleague to New York, Mr. Stern crashed their vehicle inflicting on Noa a severe head injury that changed her life. The resulting brain injury prevented Noa from traveling back to Israel and seeing her family. Worse yet for her, she was unable to play, listen to, or compose any new music. In the 13 years since the accident, Noa was consumed in her own rehabilitation process finding innovative ways to overcome her many physical and mental obstacles. The November 30th, 2006 show at Roulette has marked the first time this unusual musician broke her long imposed silence.

Full Description:

DROPS OF CONSCIOUSNESS : PART III

"This is a musical exploration of the unknown world of my recovery of a severe brain injury. Part I was breathing and darkness that became sound and light. Part two was the process of transformation of sounds into words, and words into language.

Part three is a journey into the mysterious world of rhythm. The motion of time, the space of sound and the expanse of silence are the essence of this piece.

The changes that occurred in my biological rhythm and the perception of time, made it possible for me to create a sound world from inner sources that were inaccessible for me before."

Born in Israel in 1949, Noa Guy studied in the theory department of the Jerusalem Academy of Music and continued to evolve privately and compose original pieces along with composer Abel Ehrlich. In the early 70's Noa studied composition and electronic music with Boris Blacher in the Hochscule fur Musik in West Berlin. She moved to Norway where she made two fantastic kids and continued her explorations. After returning to Israel in 1975 Noa worked with Karlheinz Stockhousen for three years, and took master classes with Luciano Berio and Milton Babbitt. After collaborating with Heinz Holiger, Noa received a scholarship from the Scola Cantorum in Basel to compose the electronic score that was later played with live performance by renowned English tenor John Potter in the Nettlefols Festival of Contemporary Music. She later became sound artist for Ward Swingle on his visit to Israel. From 1985 until 1993 Noa was the musical director at the Jerusalem Music Centre (JMC), where she headed the master class program, and acted as sound engineer and assistant director to all the television productions of JMC. Throughout all these years Noa continued to compose and perform with international accolades. In the early nineties Noa was invited to NY to work under the tutelage of Isaac Stern. In October of 1993, while driving her and a colleague to New York, Mr. Stern crashed their vehicle inflicting on Noa a severe head injury that changed her life. The resulting brain injury prevented Noa from traveling back to Israel and seeing her family. Worse yet for her, she was unable to play, listen to, or compose any new music. In the 13 years since the accident, Noa was consumed in her own rehabilitation process finding innovative ways to overcome her many physical and mental obstacles. The November 30th, 2006 show at Roulette has marked the first time this unusual musician broke her long imposed silence.

Full Description:

Noa Guy

DROPS OF CONSCIOUSNESS - PART II

Drops of Consciousness is an audio-visual personal diary. These series of performances cover the story of recovering from a traumatic brain injury. It takes you through the tremors of being thrown beyond the limits of perception, emotions, feelings and reality. The narrative is non-linear and to an outsider might seem surreal. A collaboration between Alon Leventon and Noa Guy resulted in a unique musical language. They improvise live, on stage, and use pre-recorded musical material.
Each performance represents one aspect of Noa's recovery.

Part one, which was performed at Roulette in NYC on November 30, 2006, oscillated around the tunnel that connected breathing and sound. Part two is a quest of coherence, language and meaning. The audio shape of words and visual forms of letters are the building block of part two of Drops of Conciseness.

As in part one the performance is a collaboration between composer/performer Noa Guy, composer/sound artist Alon Leventon and video artists Kim and Lio Spiegler.

Full Description:

Drops of Consciousness - part one by Noa Guy - with Alon Leventon - sound artist Kim Spiegler & Lio Spiegler - film artists.
http://noaguy.blogspot.com/

Using her still photography and pre-recorded string quartet as a point of departure, composer- performer Noa Guy collaborates with friends in a journey exploring the edges of audio-visual information processing. This performance examines the emotional reaction to an image of sound and silence, of light and darkness, of being and not being.

Noa Guy's works include pieces for solo voice to symphonic orchestra as well as multimedia work and music for film and the theatre. This is her first concert after being injured in a car accident 13 years ago.

Guy studied music theory in the Rubin Academy of Music in Jerusalem and composition and electronic music in Berlin. A recipient of several international prizes, she worked with Karlheinz Stockhausen for four years. For three years she performed with American and Dutch composers in concerts of live electronic improvisation. In 1993, she suffered a severe brain injury in a car accident. The process of recovery opened new doors, which led to her active interest in neuroscience, psychology and painting and her search for the temporarily lost land of music. This performance is a break of 13 years of silence.

Producer, pianist and composer Alon Leventon came to the US in 2001 from his native Israel. He has since worked on numerous projects ranging from electronic and pop music, to acoustic jazz to experimental avant-garde music. Alon has been featured on films, radio, TV and many albums both as a producer and performer and as one half of the duo The Bursers.

Lio Spiegler is an Israeli filmmaker living and working in NY. Lio started his career as copywriter in a TBWA affiliated agency in Israel where he's written and creatively directed dozens of radio and TV commercials. In the late 90s Lio moved to NY and after receiving his BFA from the School of Visual Arts, he became head of the Creative Strategy Department at ink&co branding & advertising. In the past few years, Lio's attention was devoted to film and TV. In 2003 he wrote and directed "Rattlesnakes & Heatwaves," which opened the HOWL! Film Festival. In 2004 he produced and directed a pilot for a half-scripted-half-reality-half-baked cooking show. In 2005 Lio traveled to Sri Lanka to interview Sir Arthur C. Clarke for a feature length docudrama. Early this year, he produced a viral campaign for GenSpec Vitamins and shot and edited a short film for the Tribeca Film Institute and Abas Kiarostami. Limiko Films, the company he founded, is now developing a news drama series for NBC.

Kim Spiegler was born in Israel. She received her Associate Degree in Communications from the Open University in Tel-Aviv and developed her production skills while working as Assistant Producer at a TBWA affiliated ad agency. In 2000 Kim moved to the US and expanded her alternative vocabulary while working with the J. Mandle Performance Group. In 2006 she graduated from Hunter's film department, while working as Associate Producer at Tamouz Media. "Hijacked!," which she helped produce, recently aired on PBS. Kim was an ambassador of the TriBeCa Film Institute's exchange program in Marrakech, in collaboration with Martin Scorsese and Abas Kiarostami. She just has finished working on "In the Name of the Victims," a TV documentary for channel 10 in Israel. She is one of the founders of Limiko Films.