Peter Evans (trumpet) and Sam Pluta (electronics) have been collaborating since 2008 in a wide variety of contexts. Their work together has spanned small Jazz groups, large wind ensembles, through-composed works by themselves and others, and in educational contexts in the fields of improvisation an electro-acoustic music. Their work together has been featured in the Peter Evans Quintet and Octet, Rocket Science (with Craig Taborn and Evan Parker), Parker’s USA Electro-Acoustic Septet, ICE and the Wet Ink Ensemble. They have performed at major festivals and venues across Europe, Canada and USA, and have presented their work and ideas at several major colleges and universities.
In the duo format Pluta and Evans use all they have developed from their experience together to forge a new and dynamically interactive music. Since the release of their recording “Sum and Difference” in 2011, they have persistently honed and refined their duo music into a fully formed type of electro-acoustic chamber music. Improvisation and a commitment to the explosive energy of sound itself informs the duo’s approach to real time composition.
Their music bridges Evans’ efforts to explore new sonic worlds for a traditional acoustic instrument with Pluta’s customized and highly flexible software. Their instruments are at some points fused into a unified sonic entity indistinguishable as two voices, while at others engaged in violent counterpoint.
Their latest record, Event Horizon is upcoming on Pluta’s label Carrier Records, released in LP and digital formats.
Archer Spade is honored to collaborate with Japanese veteran no-input mixing board master Toshimaru Nakamura on an improvised set of music. Blacksberg and Millevoi are dedicated improvisers, and often program fully improvised pieces alongside notated compositions in their concerts. One of the highlights of this practice is their ongoing collaboration with Nakamura. Nakamura is a world-renowned improviser, who is well known for cultivating a world of mesmerizing tones for his unusual instrument, the no-input mixing board. This collaboration builds on Archer Spade’s mission to create new music for our unlikely instrumentation by adding Mr. Nakamura’s deeply experienced voice to our own.
Archer Spade is the experimental duo of trombonist Dan Blacksberg and electric guitarist Nick Millevoi. Blacksberg and Millevoi formed the duo in 2010 to compose and commission a dynamic repertoire of new works for their unlikely instrumentation. Equally capable as composers, improvisers, and interpreters, Blacksberg and Millevoi are redefining and expanding the traditional composer/performer relationship in contemporary concert music. The duo has commissioned works from Mick Barr, Gene Coleman, and is currently working with Roscoe Mitchell on a new commission for the duo augmented by saxophonist Drew Ceccato. Individually, they have worked with some of the biggest names in experimental music: Blacksberg is a member of a new version of the Anthony Braxton Quartet, and Millevoi’s band Many Arms premiered music from John Zorn’s new Masada Book III.
Peter Evans/Sam Pluta Duo + Archer Spade with Toshi Nakamura is made possible, in part, with funds from GENERATE: The Frances Richard Fund for Innovative Artists of Promise. GENERATE, instituted in celebration of Roulette’s 35th Anniversary in 2013, aims to provide immediate, practical assistance to artists, helping them achieve ambitious work to be presented in our theater. For more information about how you can contribute to GENERATE, please call our Development Office at 917.512.2474 or visit https://roulette.org/support/generate/.
