Category: Press Releases

Bill Frisell & Thomas Morgan

What: Guitarist Bill Frisell and bassist Thomas Morgan present a program of duets from their new album, Small Town.
When: Friday, June 30, 2017, 8pm
Where: Roulette, 509 Atlantic Ave Brooklyn, 2/3/4/5/A/C/G/D/M/N/R/B/Q trains & the LIRR
Cost: $25/20 Online $20/15 Doors
Info: www.roulette.org / (917) 267-0368
Tickets: General Admission $20, Members/Students/Seniors $15, $25/20 Tickets at the door

Brooklyn, NY – Roulette’s spring season concludes with a duet performance from one of the earliest performers at Roulette, guitarist Bill Frisell, and bassist Thomas Morgan. The duo celebrates the release of their new album, Small Town, available this month on ECM Records.

The album draws upon the poetic chemistry of Frisell and Morgan live at New York’s hallowed Village Vanguard. Small Town begins with a tribute to Paul Motian in the form of a searching, 11-minute interpretation of the late drummer’s composition “It Should’ve Happened a Long Time Ago,” the duo’s counterpoint yielding a hushed power. The album sees Frisell and Morgan pay homage to jazz elder Lee Konitz with his “Subconscious Lee,” along with several country / blues-accented Frisell originals, including the hauntingly melodic title track. The duo caps the set with an inimitable treatment of John Barry’s famous James Bond theme “Goldfinger.”

Thomas Morgan is a double bass player with a unique approach to the instrument and an exceptional musical understanding. He has appeared on several ECM albums of late, as bassist of choice for Tomasz Stanko, Jakob Bro, David Virelles, Giovanni Guidi and Masabumi Kikuchi. As one of the most in demand jazz bassists on the international scene, Morgan owes his success to his ability to stay in the moment and put his own signature on a classic instrument.

Bill Frisell made his debut as a leader for ECM in 1983 with the similarly intimate In Line. The guitarist’s rich history with the label also includes multiple recordings by his iconic cooperative trio with Paul Motian and Joe Lovano, culminating in Time and Time Again in 2007. Frisell’s career as a guitarist and composer has spanned more than 35 years and many celebrated recordings, whose catalog has been cited by Downbeat as “the best recorded output of the decade.” Recognized as one of America’s 21 most vital and productive performing artists, Frisell was named an inaugural Doris Duke Artist in 2012.

[DANCEROULETTE] Biba Bell

What: Biba Bell presents a project created for summer, inspired by the social dance framework for the ensemble.
When: Tuesday, June 27 — Thursday, June 29, 2017, 8pm
Where: Roulette, 509 Atlantic Ave Brooklyn, 2/3/4/5/A/C/G/D/M/N/R/B/Q trains & the LIRR
Cost: $25/20 Online $20/15 Doors
Info: www.roulette.org / (917) 267-0368
Tickets: General Admission $20, Members/Students/Seniors $15, $25/20 Tickets at the door

Brooklyn, NY – Dancer, choreographer, and scholar Biba Bell presents a project created for summer, inspired by the social dance framework for the ensemble. Coming together in the structure of the group, drawing upon a range of real and imagined social dances for and of the time, this piece is about building a scene, feel, and sense of belonging in the room.

The piece is animated by the question: how does the concert dancer take the step (what does it look like, feel like, sound like) into the social field? The question has been asked through a series of participatory events, dance-marathons in city parks and green spaces. In this sense, the goal is to find a way to dance together that takes a step offsides from (modern) dance’s individuating stage, into the room, into the park, into the group, as the choreographic goal. To step out, from the inside; or in, from the outside.

Biba Bell is a writer, dancer, and choreographer. She received her Ph.D. in Performance Studies from New York University where her research focused on contemporary choreography’s geographic interventions within architectural, disciplinary, and dance’s artistic homes and theatrical houses. Bell’s performance work has most recently been produced at the Kunstlerhaus (Bremen, Germany), the Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit (MOCAD), the Cranbrook Museum of Art, and in an apartment in Detroit’s Lafayette Park. Her work has additionally been shown at Times Square Arts and the Clocktower Gallery (NYC), Visual Arts Center at UT Austin (Texas), Insel Hombroich (Germany), NADA Fair (NYC), Detroit Institute of Art (Michigan), The Garage for Contemporary Culture (Moscow), Centre Pompidou (Paris), The Kitchen (NYC), Roulette (NYC), Performa (NYC), Dixon Place (NYC), and many others. She has toured extensively with choreographer Maria Hassabi, has collaborated with visual artist Nick Cave, visual artist Davide Balula, and composer Frank Pahl. Bell was a 2015 DAAD guest professor of Experimental Performance at the University of the Arts (Hochschule für Künste) in Bremen, Germany. She is a co-editor of Critical Correspondence, Movement Research’s online journal, and is on the editorial board for Detroit Research, a new journal of artistic thought and aesthetics.

[COMMISSION] Gemma Peacocke: Waves + Lines

What: Gemma Peacocke presents a newly commissioned multimedia song cycle adapted from Afghan women’s folk poems.
When: Thursday, June 22, 2017, 8pm
Where: Roulette, 509 Atlantic Ave Brooklyn, 2/3/4/5/A/C/G/D/M/N/R/B/Q trains & the LIRR
Cost: $25/20 Online $20/15 Doors
Info: www.roulette.org / (917) 267-0368
Tickets: General Admission $20, Members/Students/Seniors $15, $25/20 Tickets at the door

Brooklyn, NY – New Zealand composer Gemma Peacocke presents Waves + Lines, a multimedia song cycle for soprano, electronics and chamber ensemble, adapted from Eliza Griswold‘s book, I Am the Beggar of the World: Landays from Contemporary Afghanistan.

Landays comprise a single rhyming couplet on subjects like love, grief, home, and war. They relay both a collective and a very individual experience so vivid and relatable that it is hard not to be captivated by the passion, desperation, and humor of the authors. Exploring the distance, anonymity and strange intimacy of phone calls, text messages, and radio broadcasts in which the poems are shared, the performances will feature the use of fixed electronics and projections. The ultra-conservative regime of the Taliban has meant that the lives of Afghani women are largely invisible to the outside world. Landays offer a surprising and vivid glimpse into this secret world.

New-York-via-New-Zealand composer Gemma Peacocke writes both acoustic and electronic music and composes music that seamlessly combines electronics with traditional instruments and voices. She often collaborates with filmmakers, choreographers, and theatre practitioners, including with director Benita de Wit and renowned choreographer Sylvain Émard. Peacocke studied with Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Julia Wolfe with support from the Arts Council of New Zealand and NYU Steinhardt, and spent fall 2015 studying at the Institute for Music / Acoustic Research and Coordination (IRCAM) in Paris. Her music has been performed in New Zealand, Australia, Austria, Brazil, United States, and Denmark.

[RESIDENCY] Brendon Randall-Myers: Dynamics of Vanishing Bodies

What: Composer and 2017 artist-in-residence Brendon Randall-Myers presents Dynamics of Vanishing Bodies.
When: Tuesday, June 20, 2017, 8pm
Where: Roulette, 509 Atlantic Ave Brooklyn, 2/3/4/5/A/C/G/D/M/N/R/B/Q trains & the LIRR
Cost: $25/20 Online $20/15 Doors
Info: www.roulette.org / (917) 267-0368
Tickets: General Admission $20, Members/Students/Seniors $15, $25/20 Tickets at the door

Brooklyn, NY – As a follow up to February’s Invisible Anatomy performance, composer Brendon Randall-Myers continues his artist residency at Roulette with Dynamics of Vanishing Bodies, featuring premieres for soprano Eliza Bagg of Pavo Pavo, vocalist Doug Moore of Pyrrhon, and Dither Quartet.

Bookended with solo and duo sets by Randall-Myers and vocalist Doug Moore, Dynamics of Vanishing Bodies will premiere two large pieces by Randall-Myers written from opposing angles — first, a set of microtonal electro-folk songs for soprano Eliza Bagg, and second, a brutally ethereal electric guitar for Dither Quartet. At play are psychoacoustic effects (timbral fusion and phantom rhythms) created by overtone interaction, interlaced with gradual decay in cycles at a nearly-imperceptible scale.

Brendon Randall-Myers is a Brooklyn-based composer, guitarist, and co-founder of composer / performer / dramatist ensemble Invisible Anatomy and artpunk band Marateck. Described as “fiercely aggressive but endlessly compelling” by The San Francisco Chronicle, his music amplifies the raw physical and emotional power of bodies creating sound. Randall-Myers has received commissions from the Jerome Fund for New Music, the Tang Museum at Skidmore College, the Guitar Foundation of America, Ecstatic Music Festival, and MATA, and he has collaborated with performers such as the Bang on a Can All-Stars, the Omaha Symphony, Friction Quartet, Exceptet, and Sandbox Percussion. He is a member of the Glenn Branca Ensemble and the Dither Big Band, and has also performed with groups such as Ensemble Signal, Opera Saratoga, Magik*Magik Orchestra, and Contemporaneous. Brendon grew up home-schooled in rural West Virginia, and holds degrees from Pomona College and the Yale School of Music.

[DANCEROULETTE] Sally Silvers: Tenderizer

What: Sally Silvers & Dancers present three nights of Tenderizer, a mash-up of three new dance pieces / modes.
When: Thursday, June 15 — Saturday, June 17, 2017, 8pm
Where: Roulette, 509 Atlantic Ave Brooklyn, 2/3/4/5/A/C/G/D/M/N/R/B/Q trains & the LIRR
Cost: $25/20 Online $20/15 Doors
Info: www.roulette.org / (917) 267-0368
Tickets: General Admission $20, Members/Students/Seniors $15, $25/20 Tickets at the door

Brooklyn, NY – Sally Silvers & Dancers present three nights of Tenderizer, a mash-up of three new dance pieces / modes that contradict and illuminate each other through their distinct approaches to movement and social play. Calling upon a cast of 14 dancers, the program consists of three different dances that interrupt and interweave throughout the evening-length work, complete with identifying music and video for the three modes.

The first piece will be a companion to Actual Size — a piece performed at Roulette in 2014 that subterfuges Alfred Hitchcock’s 1959 North by Northwest film. The new work will once again tease Hitchcock’s obsessions and repeating motifs, but will call upon darker his darker films such as The Birds, Marnie, and Psycho. The second piece, Threading In, celebrates girl power and liberation. The third and final piece is will feature structured improvisation with experienced movers including Sally Silvers, Paul Langland, and two additional dancers.

The music will be a collaboration between music director Bruce Andrews and 2017 Mixology curator Michael Schumacher with identifying soundscapes for each mode: movie soundtrack, post dowop / postpunk girl group, and experimental free improvisation. Ursula Scherrer, who created the evocative, multi-projector, video visuals for Actual Size, will once again contribute visuals.

Sally Silvers & Dancers has an on-going engagement with the poetic as well as the social meanings of movement. Often operating in areas between idiomatic dance and unconventional movement, Silvers’ work keep its focus on clearly defined, if unusual, structures for the articulated body. The company has performed with composers John Zorn, Lawrence “Butch” Morris, Ikue Mori, Bun-Ching Lam and George Lewis, among others. Active since the 1980s, choreographer Sally Silvers is a Guggenheim Foundation and Bessie-award-winning choreographer. She is also known for several large dance community curatorial projects: TalkTalkWalkWalk (combining dance artists and poets) and Surprise Every Time (a festival of “live choreography” – making work live in front of the audience on the spot). From 2005 to 2011, she danced in new and historical works of Yvonne Rainer.

Curated by Meredith Monk: Ensemble Connect: Immigrant Voices

What: Ensemble Connect celebrates the voices of immigrants in our nation.
When: Thursday, June 8, 2017, 8pm
Where: Roulette, 509 Atlantic Ave Brooklyn, 2/3/4/5/A/C/G/D/M/N/R/B/Q trains & the LIRR
Cost: $25/20 Online $20/15 Doors
Info: www.roulette.org / (917) 267-0368
Tickets: General Admission $20, Members/Students/Seniors $15, $25/20 Tickets at the door

Brooklyn, NY – Meredith Monk curates Ensemble Connect to celebrate the voices of immigrants in our nation, featuring works by Esa-Pekka Salonen, Shulamit Ran, Anna Clyne, and the next generation of international composers who have come to live and create in the United States.

Celebrating its 10th anniversary during the 2016–2017 season, Ensemble Connect — formerly known as Ensemble ACJW — is a two-year fellowship program for the finest young professional classical musicians in the United States. The program prepares its members for careers combining musical excellence with teaching, community engagement, advocacy, entrepreneurship, and leadership. along with offering top-quality performance opportunities, intensive professional development, and the opportunity to partner throughout the fellowship with a New York City public school.

[RESIDENCY] Tomeka Reid Large Ensemble

What: Cellist and composer Tomeka Reid continues her 2016-2017 residency at Roulette.
When: Wednesday, June 7, 2017, 8pm
Where: Roulette, 509 Atlantic Ave Brooklyn, 2/3/4/5/A/C/G/D/M/N/R/B/Q trains & the LIRR
Cost: $25/20 Online $20/15 Doors
Info: www.roulette.org / (917) 267-0368
Tickets: General Admission $20, Members/Students/Seniors $15, $25/20 Tickets at the door
Brooklyn, NY – Following two successful quartet performances as part of her artist residency at Roulette, Tomeka Reid presents works for large ensemble.

For the final performance of her Roulette artist residency, cellist + composer Tomeka Reid presents a series of compositions for 7-piece string ensemble with drums. Inspired by her mother’s drawings and a childhood spent at Washington, DC, the program contains many several musical vignettes, each accompanied by one of Reid’s mother’s drawings.

Over the last decade Tomeka Reid has emerged as one of the most original, versatile, and curious musicians in the Chicago’s bustling jazz and improvised music community. Her distinctive melodic sensibility, usually braided to a strong sense of groove, has been featured in many distinguished ensembles over the years. She is a key member of ensembles led by legendary reedists such as Anthony Braxton and Roscoe Mitchell, as well as a younger generation of visionaries including flutist Nicole Mitchell, singer Dee Alexander, and drummer Mike Reed. She’s also a founding member of the adventurous string trio called Hear in Now.

Lineup:
Tomas Fujiwara
Sarah Bernstein
Mazz Swift
Jason Hwang
Christopher Hoffman
Melanie Dyer
Adam Hopkins
Tomeka Reid

Hans Tammen & Third Eye Orchestra: Clepsydra

What: Hans Tammen‘s Third Eye Orchestra performs Clepsydra, a score produced from electronic sample and hold procedures.
When: Tuesday, June 6, 2017, 8pm
Where: Roulette, 509 Atlantic Ave Brooklyn, 2/3/4/5/A/C/G/D/M/N/R/B/Q trains & the LIRR
Cost: $25/20 Online $20/15 Doors
Info: www.roulette.org / (917) 267-0368
Tickets: General Admission $20, Members/Students/Seniors $15, $25/20 Tickets at the door
Brooklyn, NY – Hans Tammen‘s Third Eye Orchestra performs Clepsydra, a score produced from electronic sample and hold procedures.

Tammen’s compositions are inspired by Charles Ives’ polytonality, Steve Coleman’s rhythmic complexity and Karlheinz Stockhausen’s organization of sounds. Using textures, timbre and dynamics as primary elements, Tammen’s music shifts continuously, with different layers floating into the foreground while others disappear. Whether richly processed guitar sounds from his hybrid interactive guitar / software instrument Endangered Guitar, traditionally notated material for his Third Eye Chamber Orchestra, or graphically notated elements for the all-electronic Dark Circuits Orchestra, Tammen’s music “[transforms] a sequence of instrumental gestures into a wide territory of semi-hostile discontinuity; percussive, droning, intricately colorful, or simply blowing your socks off” (Touching Extremes).

The 13-17 piece ensemble includes string and wind quartets, voice, pianos, guitar, moog bass, percussion, plus electronic live sound processing. Founded in 2005, the ensemble regularly plays in New York City at Roulette, Czech Center, Brecht Forum, Galapagos, and others.

[RESIDENCY] James Brandon Lewis & Chad Taylor // Heroes Are Gang Leaders

What: Saxophonist James Brandon Lewis and drummer Chad Taylor honor the great saxophone + drum duos of the past.
When: Monday, June 5, 2017, 8pm
Where: Roulette, 509 Atlantic Ave Brooklyn, 2/3/4/5/A/C/G/D/M/N/R/B/Q trains & the LIRR
Cost: $25/20 Online $20/15 Doors
Info: www.roulette.org / (917) 267-0368
Tickets: General Admission $20, Members/Students/Seniors $15, $25/20 Tickets at the door

Brooklyn, NY – Roulette artist-in-residence James Brandon Lewis presents a program of original and arranged works inspired by John Coltrane, Rashied Ali, Cecil Taylor, Sun Ra, and Ornette Coleman.

The passing of poet Imamu Amiri Baraka in 2014 was a major loss for various facets of Black Radicalism. A strong figure in politics, culture, and community, Baraka inspired many to follow in his footsteps. Formed from the love and respect of Baraka, a group of poets and musicians, led and founded by James Brandon Lewis and Thomas Sayers Ellis, come together for this evening as Heroes Are Gang Leaders.

With a name lifted from one of Amiri Baraka’s stories, the group embarked on a recording session last fall that blended poetry and music to “outishly” echo and honor Baraka’s legacy. In the tradition of the protest song, the group’s style combines jazz, groove, black hollerin with extensions of paged and oral literary text by Gwendolyn Brooks, Bob Kaufman, and Baraka himself.

Saxophonist and composer James Brandon Lewis has received accolades from cultural tastemakers such as Ebony Magazine, who hailed him as one of the “7 Young Players to Watch” in 2013. Lewis has shared stages with icons such as Benny Golson, Geri Allen, and Dorinda Clark Cole, as well as Roulette artists Ken Filiano, Darius Jones, and Jason Hwang. Lewis attended Howard University and holds an MFA from California Institute of the Arts.

Curated by Meredith Monk: Song Out! Folk ‘n’ Pop Fantasies

What: New songs by Dick Connette, Rachelle Garniez, and Mimi Goese, featuring vocals by Suzzy Roche and Ana Egge.
When: Friday, June 2, 2017, 8pm
Where: Roulette, 509 Atlantic Ave Brooklyn, 2/3/4/5/A/C/G/D/M/N/R/B/Q trains & the LIRR
Cost: $25/20 Online $20/15 Doors
Info: www.roulette.org / (917) 267-0368
Tickets: General Admission $20, Members/Students/Seniors $15, $25/20 Tickets at the door

Brooklyn, NY – A new group consisting of Dick Connette, Rachelle Garniez, Mimi Goese, Steve Elson, Kevin Kuhn, Derek Nievergelt, and Karen Waltuch perform songs from Connette’s 2017 album Oysters Ice Cream Lemonade. The songs will be performed by the instrumental ensemble in various combinations, and will feature guest vocalists Suzzy Roche and Ana Egge.

Dick Connette has been composing, performing, and recording music since 1970. His work has been presented by The Kitchen, LaMaMa, Arts at St. Ann’s, New Sounds Live at Merkin Hall, and Central Park’s SummerStage. Over the last 30 years, he has devoted himself to writing music and songs based on American folk and popular traditions. Two albums of this work, under the project name Last Forever, have been released by Nonesuch Records. He is also active as a producer, and has his own label, StorySound Records, which features composers, arrangers, and singer/songwriters with similar interests and enthusiasms. In 2009, Connette won a Grammy for his work on Loudon Wainwright III’s 2-CD set High Wide & Handsome.

Multi-instrumentalist, songwriter, and vocalist Rachelle Garniez is a native New Yorker. Known as a “diva with a difference” (Billboard) and a “certified free spirit” (The New Yorker), her genre fluid story songs and stream of consciousness performances delight and thrill audiences from the NYC metropolitan area to Europe.

Mimi Goese’s musical pursuits have included the seminal dream pop band, Hugo Largo, the band Mimi, as well as collaborations with Moby, A. Leroy, Hahn Rowe, Porl Thompson (of The Cure), Hector Zazou, and, most recently, Ben Neill. From 1988-1990, Mimi worked with Dick Connette on the creation and development of his Last Forever project.