Author: ginger@roulette.org

New Roulette TV: BERANGERE MAXIMIN // Siklon Sound Objects, Microphonics, Digital Chimeras

Roulette TV talks with Bérangère Maximin about the solo set at Roulette, the development of her creative practice, and her relationship to music.

Bérangère Maximin’s music engages the listener in considerations of space and textures. Since her debut album, Tant Que Les Heures Passent on Tzadik (2008), she has gradually developed a hyper-personal style, creating sensual, hypnotic, sultry pieces with immediate impact. The electroacoustic composer’s repertoire is marked by encounters that have inspired her writing in various degrees.

She studied under the musique concrète composer Denis Dufour (a member of the famous GRM and a pupil of Pierre Schaeffer). Taking inspiration from the New York improv scene and her European tour in solo and in duo with the likes of Fred Frith, Fennesz, and Rhys Chatham, her work developed towards live practice, playing with laptops and midi controllers delivering what she calls her digital chimeras. This work led her to compose No One Is An Island (Sub Rosa, 2012), the second and only collaborative album so far, and the confirmation of the respect Bérangère had started to get from established artists. The minimal series Infinitesimal (Sub Rosa, 2013) describes a slow transformation, a deep introspection far removed from the convention of the genre, very special imaginary areas where only matters the physicality of the moment. Dangerous Orbits, out since May 2015, is her first album for Crammed Discs’ Made To Measure series.

Produced By
Jim Staley

Directed by
Wolfgang Daniel

Glenn Branca

Writer Kurt Gottschalk sits down with legendary experimental guitarist Glenn Branca to discuss his premiere The Light (For David), a new work written for David Bowie, premiering at Roulette on October 8, 2016.

KG: Your relationship with the electric guitar is well-known, from the twin guitars of Theoretical Girls in the late 70s to works for 100-guitar orchestras. For your appearance at Roulette, you’ve composed for four electric guitars along with bass and drums. How do you determine the shape of an ensemble for a given project?

GB: I had decided that if I was going to continue The Ascension project I would use the same instrumentation in all of them, although the tunings are different. In recent decades my symphonies for guitar ensemble are usually eight or nine guitars, bass and drums. Anything bigger is too expensive to tour. There are also the two symphonies for 100 guitars but they are always one-offs. I get the guitarists from whatever city we’re playing in. So far it’s worked out incredibly well but takes a lot of time online with the musicians since the scores are always in different tunings and in staff notation.

KG: Do you have a way of notating the particular sonic properties of the electric guitar, such as feedback and overtone, or are those decisions communicated verbally or left to the individual players?

GB: I don’t notate the sonic properties of the guitar. The pieces are written the same as I would write for any instrumentation. The sonic quality of the guitar speaks for itself, although I like to use an overdriven sound with no effects of any kind. This is the kind of sound I’ve used since the late 70s when I was doing rock bands. In the 80s, when I was working with a harmonic series tuning system, it was often a mistaken conception that I was working with overtones. The overtones are there, of course, but I was interested in the nature of sound produced by the harmonic series itself, or what is in fact the series of natural numbers.

KG: The Light (for David), which will receive its premiere at Roulette, is dedicated to David Bowie. When did you first start listening to Bowie’s music. What has it meant to you over the years?

GB: I first heard Bowie in the late 60s when Space Oddity would be played on FM stations. I thought it was great but I didn’t know who it was at the time. Later, in the early 70s when I was working in a record store, I came across Hunky Dory and was totally knocked out. I started looking for anything by him that I could find. I found The Man Who Sold the World in a bargain bin. Worst production ever. They’ve fixed the mix and the master at this point, after [Kurt] Cobain covered the title song.

Then Ziggy, of course, and I was hooked. There were a few avant-garde bands that had some pop success, but nothing like Bowie. He was our hero. Intelligent, talented and with the desire to create a really new, different rock. It was important at that time for us (the avant-gardists) to have someone who spoke our language actually be heard on the radio. And of course he was beautiful and clever and compelling.

KG: Did you ever have a chance to meet or work with him?

GB: Yes, Tony Oursler was doing an installation for a German world’s fair in, I think, 2001. I was invited to write the music and Tony wrote the text which Bowie read and was played back on multiple channels. Tony had worked with Bowie a lot, doing video for him I believe. During the work on this gig, I got to hang out with David twice. One surprise was that we were both book collectors. He was really excited about a book he had just bought for $50,000. This was literally a few days after his company had gone public and he had made $50 million in one day. It was hard for him to think about anything else. He was over the moon. Just proved to me that rock stars don’t make anywhere near as much money as people thought. Of course, they don’t make anything now unless they’re tits-out superstars.

I had a very strange “relationship” with David over the years that started in the early 80s when his office called my record label, Neutral, for the purpose of getting a copy of every record in the catalog. For almost 20 years I would get a call about every couple years from someone who was trying to get us together for some purpose: collaborate, play on the same bill, always something. One time I heard he had played the entirety of my Symphony No. 6 for the audience before he come out to do a show in Europe. Another time I heard from one of the engineers on the Tin Machine sessions that he had brought in about six or seven of my records and told the engineer “Make it sound like this.” Stuff like that was always happening.

He died too soon, he was only a year older than me. I was shocked, just like everybody else. And with the release of his brilliant Black Star, I couldn’t stop listening to it. I hadn’t realized how much he had meant to me throughout most of my life and that album broke my heart.

I still can’t believe he’s just gone. It affected me even more than Lennon. I think that somehow knowing that he was here, in my case literally right down the street, was like having a muse. I don’t know what else to say. It hurts.

KG: Bowie worked with a remarkable succession of guitarists, from Mick Ronson and Carlos Alomar to Earl Slick, Adrian Belew and Reeves Gabrels not to mention recordings with Robert Fripp and David Torn. Is there something about Bowie’s use of guitar that speaks to you in particular?

GB: That’s a tough one to answer since most of that playing was part of a very distant past. I loved Mick Ronson at the time. There were few players getting that kind of sound. I was never into metal and found guys like Glen Buxton, Joe Perry and Johnny Thunders to be more what I wanted to hear. Ronson was one of the first, along with Mark Bolan. I think every single one of the guys you mentioned did a great job with Bowie’s music. And Reeves Gabrels could do anything. I think that’s why Bowie got him. His work on Outside was amazing. And of course there was Fripp, never a favorite, but what he did on Heroes was moving. It made the song.

These were guys that I loved to listen to, among many others. But as a composer my approach had almost nothing to do with any of them or anyone else for that matter. I wanted to do serious experimental rock and that sound, that approach, wasn’t gonna work. I liked to fool around with it very early on but the music was the priority. When Theoretical Girls and the Static started pushing the parameters, the audience just got bigger and bigger. After a very short time it became clear that this was going to be my work.

It’s never really been about the guitars. They just happened to be what was convenient. And as things have turned out they still are, although there’s far more I’d like to do. I’d really like to create an entire orchestra with mostly instruments that I create myself. But such things are far beyond my means.

KG: What’s coming up next for you?

GB: Death? I wouldn’t mind having Symphony No. 16, my second 100 guitar piece, heard in NYC, and maybe even properly recorded.

Optics 0:0

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By Mia Wendel-DiLallo

Archivist of the unexpected; Documentarian of energy; Emissary of the omniscient; Steward of experimenters. — It is hard to imagine that these divergent and elusive nomenclatures could describe a single person. Yet Victoria Keddie encapsulates these (and many more) titles, and assumes each with the precision of a scientist, the imagination of an artist, and the curiosity of an explorer.

For fall 2016, Victoria has been invited by Roulette director Jim Staley to organize a video-based festival that approaches the medium in a new way, excavating what is going on in experimental video right now. The festival is multi-day, running from November 2 – 4, and will return in the fall of 2017 to explore timely topics in video composition. For the November 2016 iteration, Victoria has divided the festival into three days, under the titles: Parallax View; TV EYE; and Encoder/Decoder.

In Parallax View, Victoria presents artists who use synthetic space and fantastical architectural environments, and who engage in building and creating elaborate worlds. It features Jeremy Couillard, who premiers his virtual reality game which begins at the last ten minutes of your life, and includes audience engagement in this sinister activity. Victoria brings Canadian artist Sabrina Ratté to New York, for a live video performance of her architectural mapping projections which depict an entirely imagined universe. TV EYE features artists using different signatures of televisual practice, including explorations of their involvement with a live audience, camera play, seriality, and timing. The evening includes a screening component as well as live performance. Encoder/Decoder, presents artists whose process takes precedence over the product, in a night of live performances delving into signal-based works for sound as well as video. These artists work with restrictive systems using algorithms or a series of rules and constraints to produce the piece.

This project is a culmination of Victoria’s unique audio visual explorations. Sound is at the start of her creative process, and it is through sound that her projects in video, choreography, and curation are realized and become compositions unto themselves. Creating and stressing these points of contact, or “dialogue” as Victoria puts it, between sound and other art forms is an essential part of her work. While sound is a foundational constant to her practice, she puts the stability of it to the test again and again, probing the outer limits of its ability, the depth of its uncertainty and, as a self proclaimed mediator, strives not only to forge but to reveal the breaking point of the bonds. In Victoria’s Aelita (2014) a single channel video piece dedicated to the Queen of Mars, she seeks the fallibility of repetition in a live session recording of balanced sound and video waves. Exploring the point just before the signal collapses, she works to “show and expose, these moments right before something gets pulled away.” It is these moments of collapse she finds the most beautiful and in “trying to pick up on signals and interference, unknown interference, discontinuities of sound…That’s where the mystery of it is.”

Victoria began her trajectory studying the preservation and archiving of the moving image, but turned instead to the collection and documentation of sound artifacts. From there, her work branched off into an inquiry of the term “media” — how to collect and record radio, sound experiments, and video work. From an archivist standpoint, Victoria sees analog machinery as key in the presentation of sound and video because of its relationship to electromagnetic signal. Analog works by “pushing and pulling at the signal in a kind of language structure” through which Victoria can develop her own language. She finds this language of the electromagnetic compelling because “we exist in a magnetic field, we ourselves have that energy, we are conduits….It is directly linked to how we exist and what we exist in.” And, she says, it is paramount to “work with machinery that is geared to vocalizing that or visualizing that, or trying to communicate it.” This is what she calls a “close language” that is laid open in her work, either for interpretation or obfuscation. That dialogue takes into consideration “how the room I am in also participates in this, as well as what my body is doing and how much the choreography of my body is interacting with the machines I use.”

Further explorations of the human relationship to machines can be seen in her performance piece Headbanger (2015), which explores complex questions such as: What are the primordial rhythms we find even in states of complete repose? What are the breaking points of these states? What is the machine that documents us? Who mothers us through all of this? Headbanger involved a visual score, a visualized sound recording, a fabricated stainless steel sculpture, and a live performance. The performance was focused around a sleep related rhythmic movement disorder, referred to as “headbanging,” in which the patient repeatedly and forcibly bangs or slams their head while sleeping. There is a “violent percussion,” as Victoria calls it, in this repetitive motion, documented by a polygraph unit, and translated by observers of the machine’s results. Victoria became transfixed with the “strange artifact and presence of the machine,” which in another sense is the “translation of the unconscious state.” In the same way that we wonder why we remember certain dreams, Victoria wanted to expose the complexities of why we retain a quasi-rhythmic structure while in sleep and what it means for the conscious, waking world.

“The machine” figures strongly in her projects as the conveyor of the “omnipresent authorship” of a controlled situation. Her works in surveillance, in particular, touch on the unseen narrative. In Victoria’s Cannibal Méchanique installation she coordinated machine play, live sound, and larger-scale choreography to determine how we can communicate and understand movement. Historically, the viewer watches these actions through a single lens, stationed solidly at one angle of the room, which loses the experience of the dancers, the energy of the performance, and the shape of the space. Following the typical example of museum surveillance, Victoria multiplied the cameras in the room so that “you were seeing what was perhaps, invisible” and were, furthermore, able to witness a once invisible presence watching and recording. It is easy to conclude that these themes of surveillance are allusions to the government, to being constantly watched without our knowledge and without our permission. Surveillance, with Victoria, resists these tropes, setting aside the “big-brother” presence, and focusing on the all-seeing, omnipresent author. Her focus is to highlight “something already present that I’m tapping into.” The concealed hand has been made obvious, although not entirely explained.

Ominous, sinister, expansive, and strange, you move through Victoria’s work, whether it be a dance performance, video festival, or a visualized soundscape, with the sense of Another. Moving her hands like a puppeteer, she refers to the great “author,” whom one can imagine shifting time and space without the weight of moral obligations. Although she insists that she is not personally this omnipotent presence, you cannot help but see a majestic reflexivity in Victoria Keddie’s orchestrations of sound, video, and performance.

New Roulette TV: KEELY GARFIELD // POW

Roulette TV sits down and talks with Keely Garfield about such things as her artistic practice, the power of dance to allow the artist to be fully present in a moment, and the relationship of Frankenstein to the development of POW.

Keely Garfield’s personal and professional engagement in the world at large is the heart of all of her creative work. Alongside her choreographies for her acclaimed company, Keely Garfield Dance, the British-born choreographer, dancer, teacher, and curator has created work for ballet dancers at the Dance Theatre of Harlem, directed the movements of antique puppets for The Czechoslovak-American Marionette Theatre’s production of Golem, and choreographed musical theater productions including Gypsy (Sundance Theatre, Utah), Carnival (New Jersey Shakespeare Festival), and Yeast Nation, The Triumph of Life! (Perseverance Theater, Alaska). Keely has made dances for students (Barnard, Hunter, The New School etc), children (DTW’s Family Matters, Lincoln Center’s Reel to Real etc), and MTV (Adam Ant, Herbie Hancock). Keely holds an MFA from UWM, and is engaged as a visiting professor of dance in many university departments. Additionally, Keely is an E-RYT 500 yoga teacher, a Donna Karan/ Urban Zen Integrative Therapist working in oncology and hospice.

Produced by
Jim Staley

Directed by
Wolfgang Daniel

Photographed by
Wolfgang Daniel
Sonia Li

New Roulette TV: ROBIN HOLCOMB // Solo

Roulette TV sits down and has a discussion with Robin Holcomb about her solo performance at Roulette, her history with New York, and her lyrical process.

Pianist/vocalist/composer Robin Holcomb has performed internationally as a solo artist and the leader of various ensembles. Following Sundanese gamelan performance studies at UC Santa Cruz and several years spent sharecropping tobacco in North Carolina, she was active in New York for many years as a composer and performer with deep roots in the downtown avant-garde as one of the original Studio Henry mavericks. She has recorded her music for Songlines, Tzadik, Nonesuch and New World records. Currently living in Seattle, she composes and performs music for ensembles of all sizes, theatre, film and dance productions as well as several major song cycles including We Are All Failing Them, a sidewise regard of the Donner Party for film and magic objects, The Utopia Project concerned with utopian societies in the Pacific Northwest in the late 1800s and O, Say a Sunset reflecting the life and work of environmentalist Rachel Carson. She is a founder of the New York Composers Orchestra and now is a co-director of the Washington Composers Orchestra (WACO). She is currently recording with cellist Peggy Lee, a long-time collaborator.

Produced By
Jim Staley

Directed by
Wolfgang Daniel

Dame Electric: Dorit Chrysler

By Mia Wendel-DiLallo

Organizer of the September 14, 2016 Dame Electric festival, Dorit Chrysler is perhaps best known as a virtuoso theremin player (or “theremin goddess,” if you will.) She has placed a spotlight on the often-sidelined instrument in her own mesmerizing performances, and through the projects she helms such as the New York Theremin Society and KidCoolThereminSchool. In honor of her one-day festival, Roulette had the pleasure of asking Dorit about her history in the musical world, how she happened upon the forlorn theremin, and what led her to the empowering line-up of Dame Electric.

MWD: What is the motivation behind the Dame Electric festival?

DC: I wanted to see strong, hands-on females operating analog synthesizer machines and producing their own original sounds on stage. Not surprisingly, there are many women represented in the field of analog synthesis, but they are not featured and celebrated often enough. Headliner and pioneer legend Suzanne Ciani’s story is a good example of her struggle in a male dominated field, and to this day not enough women are building their own hardware such as Antenes.

I saw Suzanne Ciani perform at Namm Fair two years ago. The day featured a list of several performers, but Suzanne stood out like a gleaming light, connecting with the Diodes in such a personal, unassuming, professional, and extraordinary musical way. Her performance and craft inspired the idea for “Dame Electric” and we are so thrilled to bring her to New York and to have her headline the festival at Roulette. It turns out, she has not performed a solo concert on her Buchla here since 1975! Congruently, Suzanne has a documentary coming out about her life — a fascinating story about what it is like to be a woman in this new field of a male-dominated analog and synth world. As part of the Dame Electric festival, there will also be a short preview of the upcoming film, to be screened at the Austrian Cultural Forum on Tuesday, September 13th.

Antenes and Electric Indigo will collaborate for the first time together, opening for Suzanne Ciani at Dame Electric. Antenes (Lori Napoleon), builds her own synthesizers inspired by outmoded technologies, including using old patch telephones in her work. Electric indigo is an Austrian performer working with granular synthesis. She has founded an internationally growing network called female:pressure, that collects statistics of representation of woman in electronic music. They will also hold workshops on synth building and granular synthesis at Pioneer Works on September 17th.

While thinking about the festival, I kept in mind the idea of nurturing the community. So, I paired Austrian artists, that are flown in for the festival, with local artists. Each will collaborate with a chosen partner, featuring premieres of new works that leave comfort zones and push boundaries.

MWD: Can you talk about performing at a young age and how you got started?

DC: I was a child performer. I have been on the stage since the age of seven at the local opera house in my Austrian hometown. The colorful world of props and drama, orchestra and ballet, and paper-maché and stucco, was all so exciting and inspiring to me. At the age of ten I sang twelve tone music by Alban Berg with a fake hunchback on by back in Woyzeek — who would not want to be a musician/performer after that?

MWD: How did you discover the theremin?

DC: I was in New York playing guitar and singing in a band called Halcion. A friend of mine, Lary 7, has a wild collection of assorted analog instruments at his house, and he took me to a corner where a theremin stood, that he was repairing and he demonstrated it to me. It was a life-changing experience and I can’t thank him enough for introducing me to this instrument. I felt the theremin deserved much more attention than it had previously gotten. I had studied musicology and was intrigued by its odd history and status in the pantheon of musical instruments. It was a challenge to explore the theremin and to see what it was capable of.

MWD: What is the “odd history” of the theremin?

DC: Léon Theremin invented the TermenVox in 1919. It was the first electric music instrument featuring a unique new interface that allowed it to be played without touching anything — waving hands in electromagnetic fields based on the heterodyne system. Theremin was a prodigy of Lenin, and the termenvox fit perfectly into the Russian Revolution, and was even featured in several soundtracks for promotional movies. Theremin was sent on tour to represent Russian technical accomplishments across the globe.

After touring in Europe, he settled in New York. His theremin patent was produced by RCA, and the instruments were promoted as easy to play at home —which was of course proved wrong. Production had also gone quickly into debt after the market crashed. Theremin himself married Lavinia Williams, one of the members of the first African-American ballet troupe in New York. Then, all of a sudden, he disappeared one day. Maybe he was kidnapped by the KGB, or maybe he returned to Russia voluntarily. He ended up working in a secret science prison camp where he developed the brand new technology of listening devices, the BUG, to be installed in a seal that hung behind the desk of the American ambassador in Moscow. This allowed the Russians to listen in to conversations until the British discovered a signal — this very seal was held up at a meeting at the UN when the Cold War was declared.

Theremin’s absence in the U.S. stopped the growing popularity of the instruments and efforts of contemporary composers writing for it. Some popularity occurred in the 1950s, when Hollywood used its signature sounds for horror and suspense themes such as The Day the Earth Stood Still or Hitchcock’s Spellbound. To this day the theremin is still gravely underestimated as a musical instrument and has not been able to establish itself in either popular or classical music. Due to its unusual interface, that differs gravely with traditional sound production, a theremin is not easy to play, and whoever has witnessed a theremin producing noise might think that this is all it can do. Platforms such as the NY Theremin Society and KidCoolThereminSchool (which I founded) help the instrument find greater popularity.

MWD: What do you love most about working with the theremin?

DC: What keeps me engaged with this unique device is its extraordinary dynamic capacity — unparalleled by any other music instrument. You enter micro-space and learn more about your own body, just by playing. It’s physicality is revealed through the slightest movement of your hand. You can literally sculpt the notes with your own hands, shaping sound this way. I love this primal directness of motion and sound, its drama and the ultimate challenge of attempting to control it — that impossibility appeals to me! It’s like fighting windmills…

[DANCEROULETTE] Patti Bradshaw: Three Short Portraits

What: Roulette presents an evening of Patti Bradshaw’s recent works, featuring two works for solo dancer and one trio piece.
When: Wednesday, September 28, 2016, 8pm
Where: Roulette, 509 Atlantic Ave Brooklyn, 2/3/4/5/A/C/G/D/M/N/R/B/Q trains & the LIRR
Cost: $20/15 Online $25/20 Doors
Info: www.roulette.org / (917) 267-0368
Tickets: General Admission $20, Members/Students/Seniors $15, $25/20 Tickets at the door

Brooklyn, NY – Patti Bradshaw makes new theater works of imagined lives of poets, shifting episodic images taken from nature, and the subject of a legendary photograph among other inspirations. Her shows employ puppets, elaborate costume, dance, original text, film and performing objects in collaboration with skilled performers of all disciplines. Visual charm, emotional impact, and metaphysical oddity combine to capture the humor, loneliness and piquancy of human circumstance.

Patti Bradshaw is a director, puppet artist, and choreographer. Bradshaw creates original dance theater projects using puppets, performing objects and elaborate costumes in a folk-like style. Her work has been supported by The Jim Henson Foundation and the Harkness Dance Festival at 92nd Street Y. She has been artist-in-residence at Sarah Lawrence College and at Brooklyn Studios for Dance. She was a multi-year member of St. Ann’s Warehouse and founding member of PEPATIAN, a performing and visual arts organization along with dancer/choreographer Merian Soto and visual artist Pepon Osorio. Bradshaw has collaborated on several projects with Roulette artistic director and producer Jim Staley at the original West Broadway location. She currently teaches at Sarah Lawrence College.

The ongoing [DANCEROULETTE] series reflects Roulette’s commitment to presenting experimental dance held since the organization’s founding in 1978, particularly the collaborative efforts of composers and choreographers exploring the relationship between sound and movement, choreography and composition.

Marie-Helene Brabant – dancer
Jimmy Brenner – dancer
Pepper Fajans – dancer
Jane Stiles O’Hara – dancer
Valerie Striar – dancer
Cory Antiel – video
Patrick Gallagher – TBA

[DANCEROULETTE] Elke Rindfleisch: Horsepower

What: Elke Rindfleisch presents Horsepower, a solo piece that culminates in a community of all-female performers.
When: Tuesday, September 27, 2016, 8pm
Where: Roulette, 509 Atlantic Ave Brooklyn, 2/3/4/5/A/C/G/D/M/N/R/B/Q trains & the LIRR
Cost: $20/15 Online $25/20 Doors
Info: www.roulette.org / (917) 267-0368
Tickets: General Admission $20, Members/Students/Seniors $15, $25/20 Tickets at the door

Brooklyn, NY – Horsepower is a self performed solo by acclaimed choreographer Elke Rindfleisch. Beginning as a solo and culminating in a community of all-female performers, the soloist moves between the roles of narrator and performer, revealing an abstract narrative through movement, text, sound, and a shifting scenery of 20 toy horses. The narrative is intermittently supported by projections of vast landscapes and short original storylines. Using choreography that is both set and partially improvised, the dance score revolves around birth and rebirth, and engages with what motivates the self and the “herd,” and the power dynamics that evolve from those differing motivations.

Active since 1999, Elke Rindfleisch has created a rigorous, critically acclaimed body of solo and group works characterized by raw, highly physical and emotional performances—provoking fresh reactions to personal, physical, and spatial relationships—exploring the diverse aspects of human nature and social psychology. She often works with original music composed by her longtime collaborator Chris Woltmann. She has most recently performed at the Currents New Mexico/Multimedia Festival in collaboration with filmmaker Martha Williams, at Roulette in 2014 and 2015, and in collaboration with choreographer/dancer Sarah Weber Gallo.

Matt Lavelle and the 12 Houses Orchestra

What: Matt Lavelle and the 12 Houses Orchestra draw upon the talents of rapper A.R.B.R.A.F. and trombonist Art Baron to present a Duke Ellington-inspired performance.
When: Sunday, September 25, 2016, 8pm
Where: Roulette, 509 Atlantic Ave Brooklyn, 2/3/4/5/A/C/G/D/M/N/R/B/Q trains & the LIRR
Cost: $20/15 Online $25/20 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 presents the first major concert hall performance from Matt Lavelle and the 12 Houses Orchestra. Deeply influenced by Duke Ellington, Lavelle’s spiritual compositions bring out the best in the individual members of the band. Taking a cue from Charles Mingus and John Coltrane‘s musical protests, the 12 Houses Orchestra aims to confront today’s reality through music. Drawing upon the talents of rap artist A.R.B.R.A.F. (Akustyx Rhythm Beats Rhymes and Flows), the 12 Houses Orchestra uses voice as an instrument unto itself. The ensemble will be joined by special guest and Duke Ellington alumni trombone master Art Baron.

Based in New York City and lead by Matt Lavelle, The 12 Houses is a multicultural and multigenerational large music ensemble. Described by Lavelle as “Ornette Coleman meets William Parker at Duke Ellington’s house,” the female-centric ensemble originated from an assignment given to Lavelle by Ornette Coleman. Credited by new breakthroughs within the spheres of jazz, The 12 Houses released their debut record, Solidarity, on Unseen Rain Records.

Lineup:

Matt Lavelle – Trumpet, alto clarinet, bass clarinet
Leader, Composer, and Arranger

Art Baron – Trombone
Ar Braf-Brafmatic – Rap

Nicole Davis – Trumpet
Anders Nilsson – Guitar
Tom Cabrera – Drums (1st set)
Alex Hamburger – Baritone sax
Stephanie Griffin – Viola
Jeremy Carlstedt – Drums (2nd set)
Ras Moshe – Tenor sax, flute
Gil Selinger – Cello
Jack DeSalvo – Guitar, Banjo
Charles Waters – Alto sax, clarinet
Francois Grillot – Bass
Sweet Lee Odom – Soprano sax, clarinet
Chris Forbes – Piano
Mary Cherney – Flutes
Julie Lyon – Voice

Ned Rothenberg’s 60th Birthday Party: A Benefit For Roulette Featuring Muhal Richard Abrams, John Zorn, George Lewis, and More

What: Ned Rothenberg convenes John Zorn, Muhal Richard Abrams, George Lewis, Sylvie Courvoisier, Ikue Mori, Mark Feldman, Jim Staley, Mivos Quartet, Erik Friedlander, Marty Ehrlich, and Gamin for an improvisational performance on the occasion of the composer’s 60th birthday.
When: Sunday, September 18, 2016, 7pm
Where: Roulette, 509 Atlantic Ave Brooklyn, 2/3/4/5/A/C/G/D/M/N/R/B/Q trains & the LIRR
Cost: $20/15 Online $25/20 Doors $60 Benefit Ticket (Premium Seating + CD)
Info: www.roulette.org / (917) 267-0368
Tickets: General Admission $20, Members/Students/Seniors $15, $25/20 Tickets at the door, $60 Benefit Ticket

“What could be a better way to celebrate 60 years on this earth than playing with some of my favorite musicians? And what better purpose than to support the wonderful activities of Roulette? It’s an honor to have some of my oldest partners in crime, musical heros, most amazing improvisers on the planet and dearest friends (all these categories cross over each other) to join me for the festivities.”

— Ned Rothenberg

– John Zorn is a composer and saxophonist with hundreds of album credits as performer, composer, and producer across a variety of genres. Zorn established himself within the New York City downtown music movement in the mid-1970s performing with musicians across the sonic spectrum and developing experimental methods of composing new music.

– Muhal Richard Abrams is a composer, cellist, and jazz pianist working in the free jazz medium. Following his move to New York in 1975, Abrams began involved in the Loft Jazz scene. In 1983, he established the New York chapter of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians.

– A member of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM) since 1971, George Lewis‘ work in electronic and computer music, computer-based multimedia installations, and notated and improvisatory forms is documented on more than 140 recordings.

– Sylvie Courvoisier is a pianist, composer and improviser born and raised in Lausanne, Switzerland and currently residing in Brooklyn. As the leader of several groups over the years, Courvoisier has recorded over 25 records for top labels in including ECM, Tzadik, and Intakt Records.

– Ikue Mori moved from her native city of Tokyo to New York in 1977. She started playing drums and soon formed the seminal No Wave band DNA with fellow noise pioneers Arto Lindsay and Tim Wright. After becoming involved with the city’s flourishing improvisational scene via John Zorn, she began experimenting with drum machines, and in recent years utilizes the laptop as her primary instrument.

– Mark Feldman is currently a member of the John Abercrombie Quartet along with Joey Baron and Marc Johnson. In addition to international concert tours the resulting recordings “Open Land,” “Cat n’ Mouse,” and “Class Trip” on ECM Records.

– Roulette artistic director and producer Jim Staley occupies a unique position among trombonists, crossing genres freely between post-modern classical music and avant-garde jazz. He boasts spectacular technique, including the ability to spit forth clusters of notes at rapid speed.

– Gamin is one of the most celebrated piri, taepyeongso (Korean traditional oboe family), and saengwhang (ancient wind-blow instrument) performers in Korea today. Solidly trained in jeongak, the classical court music, Gamin also studied the techniques of sinawi, the shaman ritual music.