Interactions Quartet East features Andrew Raffo Dewar (s. saxophone), Mary Halvorson (guitar), Jessica Pavone (violin/viola), and Aaron Siegel (percussion). The quartet will perform excerpts from Dewar’s “Interactions #1-6 (2009),” “Piece for Four Instruments (2002)” and new work in progress.
The “Interactions” series of compositions explore a variety of strategies in notation and performance combining traditional scoring, photographs read musically, notated structural materials that function invisibly within the music, and improvisations that can be difficult to determine where they lie on the spectrum of fixity and flux. “Piece for Four” is a work using invented spatial notation that explores group dynamics and indeterminate counterpoint resulting in an array of irrational rhythmic relationships. These compositions destabilize conventional approaches to foreground and background sound events in favor of a collective sound that allows the listener to draw their own conclusions.
Andrew Raffo Dewar (b. 1975 Rosario, Argentina) is a composer, musician, scholar and educator. In addition to leading his own ensembles, he works internationally in collaborative groups with a wide range of musicians and artists. Dewar studied and has worked with musical innovators such as Anthony Braxton, Bill Dixon, Steve Lacy and Alvin Lucier. He holds an MA and PhD in music from Wesleyan University and teaches at the University of Alabama.
Jazz Composer Series is supported in part through an anonymous contribution.
Photo by Peter Gannushkin
