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Category: Press Releases

The String Orchestra of Brooklyn Presents: W4 New Music Collective

What: W4 New Music Collective presents the world premiere of a new work commissioned by The String Orchestra of Brooklyn.
When: Thursday, March 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 – The world premiere performance of a new work by W4 New Music Collective is the headlining act for The String Orchestra of Brooklyn’s String Theories Festival.

Whether by choice or circumstance, there are times that we walk the road alone. Acknowledging these moments in their own lives, composers Matt Frey, Tim Hansen, and Molly Herron have collaboratively created Solo, a multi-movement instrumental work for The String Orchestra of Brooklyn. A rotating cast of soloists from every section of the orchestra highlight movements expressing different aspects of solitude. Each composer makes a personal connection with a poet from the past to inspire their work: Sara Teasdale, Hafez, and Rainer Maria Rilke, poets who have written extensively on self-truth and individuality.

West Fourth New Music Collective (W4) is an international group of composers who explore aspects of the human experience by presenting original music at public concert events. Born in the spirit of collaboration, these cohesively-themed concerts are created from a dynamic combination of the composer’s individual voices along with those of guest musical ensembles and artists from other disciplines.

Founded in 2007, String Orchestra of Brooklyn has become an integral part of New York City’s vibrant and diverse musical landscape, bringing together creative instrumentalists, composers, and like-minded organizations and ensembles to collaborate on adventurous musical projects and present them to the public at an affordable price.

The String Orchestra of Brooklyn Presents: The Music of Anna Clyne with Mivos Quartet + Inbal Segev

What: The String Orchestra of Brooklyn and Mivos Quartet perform string works by composer Anna Clyne.
When: Wednesday, March 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 – For the first evening of the third annual String Theories festival, The String Orchestra of Brooklyn and Mivos Quartet perform string works by composer Anna Clyne, joined by an opening set from cellist Inbal Segev.

London-born Anna Clyne is a Grammy-nominated composer of acoustic and electroacoustic music. Described as a “composer of uncommon gifts and unusual methods” by The New York Times and as “dazzlingly inventive” by Time Out New York, Clyne’s work often includes collaborations with cutting-edge choreographers, visual artists, filmmakers, and musicians worldwide. She is currently serving as the Music Alive Composer-in-Residence with the Berkeley Symphony through the 2018-2019 season. Clyne was nominated for the 2015 Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Classical Composition for her double violin concerto, Prince of Clouds.

Mivos Quartet, described as “one of America’s most daring and ferocious new-music ensembles” by The Chicago Reader, is devoted to performing the works of contemporary composers, presenting new music to diverse audiences. Since the quartet’s beginnings in 2008 they have performed and closely collaborated with an ever-expanding group of international composers who represent multiple aesthetics of contemporary classical composition.

Cellist Inbal Segev’s playing has been described as “characterized by a strong and warm tone .. delivered with impressive fluency and style,” by The Strad and “first class,” “richly inspired,” and “very moving,” by Gramophone. Equally committed to new repertoire and masterworks, Segev brings interpretations that are both unreservedly natural and insightful to the vast range of music she performs.

Founded in 2007, String Orchestra of Brooklyn has become an integral part of New York City’s vibrant and diverse musical landscape, bringing together creative instrumentalists, composers, and like-minded organizations and ensembles to collaborate on adventurous musical projects and present them to the public at an affordable price.

The Jazz Passengers: Still Life With Trouble Album Release Celebration

What: NYC jazz stalwarts The Jazz Passengers celebrate the release of their new album, Still Life With Trouble.
When: Tuesday, March 28, 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 – NYC jazz stalwarts The Jazz Passengers celebrate the release of their new album, Still Life With Trouble. The album draws upon the intuitive abandon that characterized the band’s early releases in the late 1980s.

Founded in 1987, The Jazz Passengers are a fantastical fusion of post-bop and musical comedy, once called a “perverse mainstream… hard-bop group as imagined by Frank Zappa” by The Boston Globe. Their name, a take-off on Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers, reveals the musicians’ wild ride along the eccentric currents in modern American music. Saxophonist Roy Nathanson and trombonist Curtis Fowlkes found strong affinity in their Brooklyn roots while playing together in the band of the Big Apple Circus and John Lurie’s seminal band, The Lounge Lizards. The band emerged in the New York City avant-garde scene centering around the Knitting Factory with a hybrid of Mingus-influenced dance rhythms and original tunes complete with lyrics and/or entertaining stories. In addition to Nathanson and Fowlkes, original band members included Bill Ware on vibraphone, E.J. Rodriguez on percussion, Brad Jones on bass, Jim Nolet on violin, and Marc Ribot on guitar. The group is currently a six-piece band with Sam Bardfeld on violin.

75 Dollar Bill: Little Big Band

What: Minimalist duo 75 Dollar Bill performs arrangements for large ensemble, recreating densely layered tracks of their records while also adapting duo materials for an expanded group.
When: Monday, March 27, 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 – Minimalist duo 75 Dollar Bill performs arrangements for large ensemble, recreating densely layered tracks of their records while also adapting duo materials for an expanded group. Drawing on the loose, improvisatory structure of the music, the performance will emphasize the individual contributions and personalities of the band members. Players will come and go throughout the evening, with the band taking on larger and smaller configurations depending on the material. The music is intended to be social, at times appropriate for dancing and at others for more contemplative listening.

75 Dollar Bill was formed in 2012 by percussionist Rick Brown and guitarist Che Chen. Brown’s earthy, elemental rhythms, played on a deeply resonant plywood crate, are both the foundation and foil for Chen’s searchingly abstract guitar playing. Often using a custom quarter tone guitar, Chen’s improvisations are forays into a modal, microtonal sound world. The duo’s electric, richly patterned music can shape shift from ecstatic dance tunes to slowly changing polyrhythmic trance minimalism, an uncategorizable hybrid which draws on early electric blues, the modal traditions of West Africa, India and the Middle East, Sun Ra’s space chords and the minimalist and No Wave histories of their home town. The band’s second album, Wood / Metal / Plastic / Pattern / Rhythm / Rock, was released in 2016 on Thin Wrist Recordings to wide critical acclaim. While Brown and Chen are always at the band’s core, the duo frequently expands into other configurations live, from trio with saxophone to 25-piece marching band.

Toby Driver / Madonnawhore with String Noise

What: The duo of Toby Driver and Keith Abrams, followed by String Noise, present two sets of dark, austere avant-folk.
When: Tuesday, March 21, 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 hosts two sets of dark, austere avant-folk inspired by the likes of David Ackles, Sam Prekop, Nick Cave, Grouper, and Current 93. The first set will feature the duo of Toby Driver and Keith Abrams performing material from the new album Madonnawhore, followed by the world premiere of several new pieces featuring Driver and Abrams joined by String Noise, the violin duo Conrad Harris and Pauline Kim Harris.

Toby Driver and Keith Abrams are best known by their work together in their avant-goth experimental rock band Kayo Dot. The pair have toured Europe extensively, from the shores of Portugal and Ireland to as far east as The Republic of Georgia, Israel, Russia, and Istanbul. Madonnawhore’s music can be heard on the album by the same name, released by Flenser Recordings in spring 2017.

String Noise is a classical, avant-punk violin duo comprised of violinists Conrad Harris and Pauline Kim. Since the do’s inception in 2011, String Noise has expanded the two violin repertoire in over 50 new works to include larger collaborations with electronics, projections and dance. String Noise was highlighted in Performa 2011 with artist Will Cotton and was the featured ensemble for the launch of composers collective Index 0. Premieres include works by Christian Wolff, John King, Phill Niblock, John Zorn, and more. As curators, Conrad and Pauline presented Drawing Sound: Part II, a three-night mini-festival featuring artists Alvin Lucier, Greg Saunier and Jad Fair, at the Drawing Center in Manhattan.

[RESIDENCY] The Tomeka Reid Quartet

What: The Tomeka Reid Quartet, featuring Jason Roebke, Tomas Fujiwara, and Mary Halvorson, performs compositions composed by artist-in-residence Tomeka Reid.
When: Monday, March 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 – Roulette is pleased to welcome back cellist Tomeka Reid as a 2017 artist-in-residence. For this performance, The Tomeka Reid Quartet performs compositions composed by Reid and featuring Jason Roebke, Tomas Fujiwara, and Mary Halvorson.

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.

Mary Halvorson is one of the most recognizable guitarists of her generation who has a won accolades from both side of the Atlantic, through her own bands and projects with Anthony Braxton, Stephan Crump, Ingrid Laubrock, Tom Rainey, and Ches Smith. Jason Roebke is a bandleader in his own right, scoring deserved praise with his 2014 debut recording by his octet. He has also served as the harmonic anchor for a host of Chicago bandleaders including Mike Reed, vibist Jason Adasiewicz, clarinetist James Falzone, and cellist Fred Lonberg-Holm. Tomas Fujiwara is a Brooklyn-based drummer and composer. Fujiwara is an active player in some of the most exciting music of the current generation, including his collaborative duo with cornetist Taylor Ho Bynum; the collective trio Thumbscrew (with Mary Halvorson and Michael Formanek); and appearances alongside forward thinking peers such as Matana Roberts and Nicole Mitchell.

Curated by Meredith Monk: Ellen Fisher: Time Don’t Stop for Nobody

What: Ellen Fisher presents Time Don’t Stop for Nobody, a movement-based performance relating to the perception of age.
When: Thursday, March 23, 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 – For the final Curated by Meredith Monk performance of the winter season, Ellen Fisher presents Time Don’t Stop for Nobody, a movement-based performance relating to the perception of age. A small ensemble of four performers, each 25-30 years apart, will collaborate during the creative process to highlight their shared experiences on the progression of growing up.

Ellen Fisher is an interdisciplinary artist whose work combines dance with visual components. She began performing with Meredith Monk / The House in the 1970s and continues today. Fisher’s performance work is informed by ethnographic research in trance dance and rituals of South Asia, particularly Sri Lanka. Since 1981, she has toured solo work throughout Europe and the U.S., also directing large ensemble work reinterpreting myths and legends. Her film work, including documentaries, has been included in festivals throughout the world. Fisher continues to teach and collaborate with artists on community intergenerational and intercultural projects, both domestically and internationally, and recently served as a Fulbright Scholar in Sri Lanka.

About the Series: Curated by Meredith Monk features performers selected by Monk who are following his or her own path, asking questions, finding places that fall between the cracks of genres or categories.

Curated by Meredith Monk: Robin Holcomb: Quartet

What: Robin Holcomb performs new compositions and songs for quartet.
When: Friday, March 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 – Singer-songwriter Robin Holcomb returns to Roulette to perform new compositions and songs with long-time collaborator Peggy Lee on cello, Sara Schoenbeck on bassoon, and Guy Klucevsek on accordion. The same quartet performed her score for Yasujiro Ozu’s 2010 film That Night’s Wife, which will premiered as part of the evening’s program.

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, Holcomb 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 labels. Holcomb is a founder and co-director of The New York Composers Orchestra and WACO (The Washington Composers Orchestra), ensembles for which she is also conductor, pianist and a principal composer.  Other current performing ensembles include a longstanding duo project with cellist Peggy Lee and The Robin Holcomb Ensemble. Composing instrumental and vocal music for a wide variety of chamber ensembles and soloists, she has been commissioned to create scores for dance, film and theatre.

About the Series: Curated by Meredith Monk features performers selected by Monk who are following his or her own path, asking questions, finding places that fall between the cracks of genres or categories.

Curated by Meredith Monk: Don Byron: Works For Quartet

What: Don Byron premieres new works for quartet alongside pieces by Anton Webern, Erik Satie, and Olivier Messiaen.
When: Saturday, March 4, 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 convenes Don Byron, Blair McMillen, Cornelius Dufallo, and Wendy Sutter to premiere new works for quartet by Don Byron and works by Anton Webern, Erik Satie, and Olivier Messiaen.

For over two decades, Don Byron has been a singular voice in an astounding range of musical contexts, exploring widely divergent traditions while continually striving for what he calls “a sound above genre.” As clarinetist, saxophonist, composer, arranger, and social critic, Byron redefines every genre of music he plays, be it classical, salsa, hip-hop, funk, rhythm & blues, klezmer, or any jazz style. Byron is a recipient of the Guggenheim Fellowship, Doris Duke Performing Artist, Sundance and Rome Prize fellowships, and was a 2009 finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. His most recent recording, Infinite Winds, features his concerto for clarinet and wind ensemble commissioned by MIT.

Born and raised in the Bronx, New York, Byron was exposed to a wide variety of music by his father, who played bass in calypso bands, and his mother, a pianist. His taste was further refined by trips to the symphony and ballet and by many hours spent listening to Dizzy Gillespie, Miles Davis and Machito recordings. He formalized his music education by studying classical clarinet with Joe Allard while playing and arranging salsa numbers for high school bands. He later studied with George Russell in the Third Stream Department of the New England Conservatory of Music and, while in Boston, also performed with Latin and jazz ensembles.

About the Series: Curated by Meredith Monk features performers selected by Monk who are following his or her own path, asking questions, finding places that fall between the cracks of genres or categories.

Taylor Ho Bynum’s PlusTet

What: Taylor Ho Bynum‘s PlusTet performs music from Enter the PlusTet, followed by a premiere of a new composition.
When: Thursday, March 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 – Taylor Ho Bynum‘s PlusTet performs music from their recent Firehouse 12 Records release Enter the PlusTet, followed by the U.S. premiere of Uncle, Another Tale – a piece first performed by the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra last fall, and now reimagined for improvising creative orchestra. The PlusTet is the expansion of Bynum’s core sextet into a creative orchestra, inviting musicians to travel fresh avenues of sonic exploration, balancing the spontaneous and the pre-determined in an organic whole. Drawing on a variety of techniques from improvised conduction to big band orchestration to deconstructed fanfares, the band demonstrates a celebration of musical community, a belief in the transformative power of improvisation, and a commitment to work that offers listeners and performers challenge, surprise, and satisfaction in equal measure.

Taylor Ho Bynum has spent his career navigating the intersections between structure and improvisation through musical composition, performance and interdisciplinary collaboration, as well as through production, organizing, teaching, writing and advocacy. Bynum’s expressionistic playing on cornet and his expansive vision as composer have garnered him critical attention on over twenty recordings as a bandleader and dozens more as a sideman. His varied endeavors include his Acoustic Bicycle Tours, where he travels to concerts solely by bike across thousands of miles, and his stewardship of Anthony Braxton’s Tri-Centric Foundation, which he serves as executive director, producer, and performer. Bynum is also a published author and contributor to The New Yorker’s Culture Blog and has taught at universities, festivals, and workshops worldwide.