Composer and trombonist Christopher McIntyre has been developing a number of large ensemble projects in the past few years, both as a leader and collaborator. Several of them will fill Roulette’s stage during this event, including TILT Brass Band, Lotet and Ne(x)tworks. A thread that carries through each group is both technical and spiritual: mapping the space between composition and improvisation. In the process of making pieces for these bands, an immersive and colorful aesthetic has emerged in McIntyre’s work. Tonight’s program offers a full evening of this repertoire, as well as new works commissioned by Roulette with support from the Jerome Foundation and performed by an impressive array of new music’s heaviest-hitters, including Joan La Barbara, Cornelius Dufallo, Miguel Frasconi, Peter Evans and Nate Wooley.
The first half of the performance features scores written for the composer/performer band Ne(x)tworks. The set includes the premiere of Herkimer, a hybrid multimedia score of cellular and strategic notation. Ne(x)tworks is Joan La Barbara (voice,) Stephen Gosling (piano,) Kenji Bunch (viola,) Yves Dharamraj (cello,) Cornelius Dufallo & Ariana Kim (violins,) Shelley Burgon (harp,) Miguel Frasconi (glass instruments,) Peter Evans (trumpet) and McIntyre (trombone.)
Members of the McIntyre-led ensembles TILT Brass Band and Lotet, along with some very special guests, join forces on the second half to perform a set of isomorphic musical structures. Grouped in pairs, the instrumentation on hand fuses the timbral bliss of TILT with the low frequency undulations of Lotet’s live-electronics. With: Nate Wooley & CJ Camerieri (flugel horn & trumpet,) Curtis Hasselbring & Joe Fiedler (trombones,) Ron Caswell, Joe Exely (tubas,) Charles Waters (bass clarinet,) Colin Stetson (bass saxophone,) Kato Hideki, John King (electronics,) Ryan Sawyer, Mick Rossi (percussion) and McIntyre (trombone & conductor.) Visit http://www.cmcintyre.com for more info.