Chris Forsyth
Guitarist/composer Chris Forsyth has carved a varied niche in the contemporary music scene with projects ranging from avant-rock to electro-acoustic experimentation to unclassifiable folk/noise/drone hybrids. He is an active collaborator across many media, and is a founding member of the iconoclastic group Peeesseye, who have been referred to as “the most remarkable smorgasbord of back porch minimalism, sound poetry and urban decay of recent memory” (Eric Weddle, Signal to Noise). Their unique combination of warped rock architecture, free jazz horror, intergalactic glossolalia and stripped down abstract expressionism has been presented on over 145 concerts in North America and Europe and documented on 6 CDs since their formation
in 2002. More recently, Forsyth has begun branching out in a solo direction, composing and performing on 12-string acoustic guitar, resulting in his first solo CD “Live Journal at the Mice Machine VIP Dance Floor,” released in September 2008 on the Incunabulum label.
Currently Forsyth is performing expansive electric versions of this solo material with a trio creatively dubbed The Chris Forsyth, which includes drummer Ryan Sawyer (Tall Firs, Stars Like Fleas, Charles Gayle Trio, etc) and bassist Peter Kerlin (The Sumerians, Minetta). “Blue Liz,” his collaboration with choreographer RoseAnne Spradlin will premiere at the Kitchen October 23-25, 2008.
Alex Temple
presents new works for solo voice, keyboards and electronics:
“The Travels of E.C. Dumonde” — Experimental radio theater exploring American mythology – a story about a woman finding strange things in small towns out West.
“This Changes Everything!” — Combines New Wave, prog-rock, industrial, Baroque counterpoint, Minimalism and microtonal drone music. “hyperrealist video game music”
“Nobody Cares About Your Dreams But You” — Explores the uneasy boundary between music and speech.
A sound can evoke a time, a place, a cultural moment, or a worldview. Alex Temple (b. 1983) writes music that distorts and combines iconic sounds to create new meanings, often in service of surreal, cryptic, or fantastical stories. She’s particularly interested in reclaiming socially disapproved-of (“cheesy”) sounds, playing with the boundary between funny and frightening, and investigating lost memories and secret histories.
In addition to performing her own works for voice and electronics, she has collaborated with performers and ensembles such as Mellissa Hughes, Timothy Andres, the American Composers Orchestre, Fifth House Ensemble, Cadillac Moon Ensemble, and Spektral Quartet. She has also played keyboards with the chamber-rock group The Sissy-Eared Mollycoddles, and made sounds using her voice, synthesizers and various household objects with a·pe·ri·od·ic.
Alex got her BA from Yale University in 2005, and her MA from the University of Michigan in 2007. After leaving Ann Arbor, she spent two years in New York working for the New York Youth Symphony’s Making Score program for young composers. She recently completed a DMA at Northwestern University, and will be starting at Arizona State University as an Assistant Professor of Composition in the fall.
