What: World premieres from composers Brendon Randall-Myers, Matt Evans, and Sarah Goldfeather, performed by Exceptet.
When: Thursday, February 8, 2018, 8pm
Where: Roulette, 509 Atlantic Ave Brooklyn, 2/3/4/5/A/C/G/D/M/N/R/B/Q trains & the LIRR
Cost: $20 Online $25 Doors
Info: www.roulette.org // (917) 267-0368
Brooklyn, NY – New York-based ensemble Exceptet performs three brand new works — Episodic Memory by Brendon Randall-Myers, which draws on brain processes regarding trauma; The mesh by Matt Evans, inspired by human’s impact on the environment; and Mouth Full of Ears by Exceptet’s very own violinist Sarah Goldfeather, which illustrates contemporary political discourse in a musical manner.
Episodic Memory by Brendon Randall-Myers is a 25-minute work in three sections that reflects the way our brains process trauma and learn from mistakes. The first section starts with subtly shifting polyrhythms that emerge from the beat patterns of microtonal inflections of a single pitch, which are gradually picked up, articulated, and elaborated on directly by the ensemble. The second section abruptly focuses these rhythms to a 16th-note ostinato played at an extremely fast speed, high register, and loud volume. The third and final section begins with extremely quiet multiphonic trills traded around the ensemble, which gradually coalesce into a huge, oscillating mass of sound built on the same pitch that opened the piece. Randall-Myers was a 2017 Roulette Artist-in-Residence.
The mesh by Matt Evans is a 20-minute work in three continuous parts that unpacks the questions surrounding human impact on modern ecology in our recently defined epoch the “anthropocene” through musical abstraction and representation. Three distinct sections of the piece will represent the three basic states of Timothy Morton’s philosophy of Dark Ecology: “darkness as depression, darkness as uncanny, and darkness as sweetness.” The piece draws inspiration from the earth and the sublime through a musical topography of chromatic polyrhythmic dissonances, gradients of noise, and drones of ultimate stillness.
Mouth Full of Ears by Sarah Goldfeather is a 5-minute song featuring a simple melody that builds in orchestration and intensity. The text describes a person who cannot or does not think or speak for themselves — one who simply regurgitates information he or she hears without any synthesis, and on whom it is easy to project your own opinions and designs. An archetype prevalent on both sides of the today’s political spectrum, where so many default to a stance without critical thought, thus creating an even greater rift between us and near impossibility of sensible discourse.
About Exceptet
Founded on the rag-tag instrumentation of Igor Stravinsky’s L’Histoire du Soldat, New York-based Exceptet is an ensemble with “vast emotional range and onomatopoetic charm” (I Care If You Listen) dedicated to commissioning today’s most compelling emerging composers. Exceptet recently performed on the Ecstatic Music Festival as part of the MATA Interval Series, The Times Two Series in Boston, the Queens New Music Festival, The UPenn Composers Guild, and has been showcased several times on WQXR. The group has commissioned new works from a wide range of composers, including Scott Wollschleger, Matt Evans, Brendon Randall-Myers, Sarah Goldfeather, Fay Kueen Wang, Alex Weiser, Fjola Evans, Brooks Frederickson, Paul Kerekes, Brian Petuch, and Eric Shanfield. The ensemble also collaborated with Exceptet violinist Sarah Goldfeather’s indie folk-band, Goldfeather.