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Fulcrum Point New Music Project Presents Computers Come Alive! May 19
Contact: Beth Silverman/ Eric Eatherly
The Silverman Group, Inc.
(312) 932-9950
Beth@silvermangroupchicago.com For Immediate Release
FULCRUM POINT NEW MUSIC PROJECT PRESENTS COMPUTERS COME ALIVE! FEATURING AMERICAN PREMIERE OF ELEVATOR MUSIC ON MARS AT HARRIS THEATER, WEDNESDAY, MAY 19 Jam-packed program showcases works influenced by or incorporating computer-driven technology, and provocative Fluxus performance events
April 22, 2010 - Under Founding Artistic Director Stephen Burns, Fulcrum Point New Music Project, the city’s leader in new art music and inventive collaborations between classical music and popular culture, culminates its 2009-10 season of Movies, Myths and Machines with the dynamic one-night-only Computers Come Alive!, featuring a series of works influenced by or incorporating computer-driven technology, at the Harris Theater for Music and Dance, 205 E. Randolph Drive, Wednesday, May 19, at 7:30 p.m., with special pre-show programming from 7:10-7:25 p.m.
As is the Fulcrum Point signature, the Computers Come Alive! concert program will debut several works here, including the American Premiere of Finnish composer Tomi Räisänen’s Elevator Music on Mars, which explores themes of elevation via saxophone, electric guitar, synthesizer, percussion and tape; the Midwest Premieres of Italian composer Luciano Chessa’s Cinque Quadri da una città fantasma (Five Pictures from a Ghost Town) for piano, 3 turntables and chalkboard, and Randall Woolf’s dynamic setting of the rap song Blues for Black Hoodies, in a bed of strings, beats and turntables; and the Chicago Premiere of Christopher Burns’ latest computerized musical program, performed by Burns (no relation to Stephen), Sawtooth. Completing the jam-packed program will be a reprise of Hilda Paredes’ Óox p’eel ikil t’aan (Three Poems) for trumpet, percussion, tape and live electronics, plus all eight Fluxversions of George Brecht’s comical For a drummer, in which musicians drum with – and on – unexpected instruments.
“As a continuation of our collaboration from last year’s outrageous ‘Dada Machinations,’ the Chicago Fluxus Ensemble led by Simon Anderson will perform works that are related to machines and computers, as well as selections from the complete ‘For a drummer’ by George Brecht,” added Stephen Burns. “Creating and appreciating the artistic possibilities in everyday life experiences is at the core of the Fluxus philosophy. Computers, CDs, and machines surround us and offer a broad spectrum of sound worlds to explore.”
Pre-show Program Celebrates Fluxus Movement Audiences are urged to arrive early as the evening will begin with pre-show programming throughout the Harris Theater, courtesy of the Chicago Fluxus Ensemble led by Simon Anderson. Performances will include three of eight versions of Brecht’s 1966 For a drummer in which the audience is invited to connect with, and participate in, a “ballet of intention, material, and creativity utilizing physics, funk, and caprices to engage the audience’s curiosity, imagination, and intellect.” (The other versions will be interspersed in the concert program.) Performances of Brecht’s radical “event scores” are considered to have launched the Fluxus Movement in Wiesbaden, Germany. Also presented will be the Chicago Premiere of Christopher Burns’ latest computerized musical program, Sawtooth (2009), integrating performance, sound, and image. Burns, himself, will be present to perform the work, in which a solo musician's physical gestures in space are captured by a video camera, and translated simultaneously into both music and animation. As the action becomes more complex, the software underlying this process also begins to make autonomous contributions, adding new layers of audiovisual density, and creating new challenges for the performer. Burns, an assistant professor in the Department of Music at the UWM Peck School of the Arts, is a laptop improviser and a composer of instrumental chamber music.
Concert Program
The concert begins with the American Premiere of Finnish composer Tomi Räisänen’s Elevator Music on Mars (2003/2009) which fuses prerecorded, computer-generated sounds with electric guitar, sax, synthesizer and percussion to create a futuristic sound world redolent with atmospheric extraterrestrial references. Explains Räisänen,“Elevator Music on Mars tells about an elevator journey from the root to the top of the volcano Olympus Mons on Mars. It takes a while to reach the top of the largest volcano in the Solar System, which measures three times higher than Earth's highest mountain Mount Everest. Hence music like this can be performed to the impatient space tourists of the future as an entertainment during the elevator journey.” Räisänen is expected to be in attendance at the concert.?
Following will be a reprise of the popular mixed-media piece Óox p’eel ikil t’aan (Three Poems) (2007) by Hilda Paredes, one of the leading Mexican composers of her generation. Óox p’eel ikil t’aan, based on three poems in contemporary Mayan language by Briceida Cuevas Cob, evokes an ancient mysticism using live and pre-recorded poetry and electronic sounds filtered through computer and disseminated through an eight-channel surround sound system to transport the listener into a magical spiritual realm. The piece, which features Burns (trumpet/flugelhorn) and Jeff Handley and Brandon Podjasek (percussion), had its American premiere in March, performed by Fulcrum Point (with special guests, Luna Negra Dance Theater).
Next will be the Midwest Premiere of Italian composer Luciano Chessa’s Cinque Quadri da una città fantasma (Five Pictures from a Ghost Town) (2003/05) for piano, 3 turntables, and chalk board, which serves as a bridge between Fluxus techniques and traditional compositional devices. Using static, classic recordings, improvisation, chorales, and the inclusion of a chalk board, Quadri aims to challenge expectations; the meaning of the chorale is obscure, the turntables are not scratched in a ‘traditional’ hip-hop fashion, and what is written on the chalk board is barely legible… if at all. Featured artists are Kuang Hao Huang (piano/chalkboard) and Joe Darnaby (turntables). As a composer, pianist and musical saw/Vietnamese dan bau soloist, Chessa has been active in Europe, the U.S., and Australia, specializing in Futurist Sound Poetry.
Concluding the program will be the Midwest Premiere of Blues for Black Hoodies (2008) by Fulcrum Point composer-in-residence and Brooklyn native Randall (Randy) Woolf. Originally composed for the String Orchestra of New York City, the work is a new setting of the rap song Blues For Black Hoodies by emcee and producer Wordisbon. The lyrics explore the plight of young urban African-Americans, set in a bed of strings, beats, and turntables. This composition is part of Woolf’s on-going exploration of hip hop and spoken word poetry; in March, Harris Theater audiences experienced the World Premiere of Woolf’s Urban Legends, which incorporates New York City rap artists recording their own versions of a classic myth. Woolf will be in attendance at the concert. His Fulcrum Point residency is made possible through “Music Alive,” a program of the League of American Orchestras and Meet The Composer. This national program is designed to provide orchestras with resources and tools to support their presentation of new music to the public and build support for new music within their institutions. Funding for Music Alive is provided by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, The Aaron Copland Fund for Music, and the ASCAP Foundation-Joseph and Rosalie Meyer Fund.
Since its formation by trumpet virtuoso and conductor Stephen Burns in 1998 under the auspices of Performing Arts Chicago, the mission of Fulcrum Point New Music Project has been to champion new classical music and highlight contemporary composers who are inspired and influenced by popular culture, including literature, film, dance, folk, rock, jazz, blues, Latin and world music. Through multi-disciplinary concert performances and educational programs, the 25-member Fulcrum Point ensemble seeks to encourage audiences to make cross-cultural connections between new music, art, technology and literature, gaining greater insight into today’s diverse world. Burns, himself, has been acclaimed on four continents for his widely varied performances encompassing recitals, orchestral appearances, chamber ensemble engagements, and innovative multi-media presentations involving video, dance theatre, and sculpture.
Single tickets are priced at $30 each, with student and senior tickets priced at $15, and all tickets include a post-concert wine & cheese reception with the artists.
To order tickets, please call 312-334-7777 or visit www.harristheaterchicago.org. Discount tickets at $20 are available for groups of 10 or more.
A portion of the proceeds from all ticket sales fund Sound Tracks, Fulcrum Point’s innovative program that brings global and new music to Chicago Public Schools. The Sound Tracks project, designed to appeal to fourth- and fifth-graders, takes students around the world, mixing an introduction to world instruments with geography, architecture, visual art, cultural history and more.
Fulcrum Point New Music Project programs are supported in part by: the Illinois Arts Council, a City Arts Program grant from the City of Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs, Music Alive, The Irving Harris Foundation, an Arts Engagement Grant of Chicago Community Foundation, The MacArthur Fund for Arts and Culture at the Richard H. Driehaus Foundation, The Mayer and Morris Kaplan Family Foundation, Arts Work Fund of Chicago Community Trust, Polk Bros Foundation, The Gaylord and Dorothy Donnelley Foundation, The Neisser Family Fund, The Jordan & Jean Nerenberg Family Foundation, The Aaron Copland Fund for Music, Inc., and the National Endowment for the Arts, with The Seneca as the official hotel sponsor.
For more information on Fulcrum Point New Music Project, please call (312) 726-3846 or visit www.fulcrumpoint.org. ###
FULCRUM POINT NEW MUSIC PROJECT PRESENTS COMPUTERS COME ALIVE! FEATURING AMERICAN PREMIERE OF ELEVATOR MUSIC ON MARS AT HARRIS THEATER, WEDNESDAY, MAY 19 Jam-packed program showcases works influenced by or incorporating computer-driven technology, and provocative Fluxus performance events
April 22, 2010 - Under Founding Artistic Director Stephen Burns, Fulcrum Point New Music Project, the city’s leader in new art music and inventive collaborations between classical music and popular culture, culminates its 2009-10 season of Movies, Myths and Machines with the dynamic one-night-only Computers Come Alive!, featuring a series of works influenced by or incorporating computer-driven technology, at the Harris Theater for Music and Dance, 205 E. Randolph Drive, Wednesday, May 19, at 7:30 p.m., with special pre-show programming from 7:10-7:25 p.m.
As is the Fulcrum Point signature, the Computers Come Alive! concert program will debut several works here, including the American Premiere of Finnish composer Tomi Räisänen’s Elevator Music on Mars, which explores themes of elevation via saxophone, electric guitar, synthesizer, percussion and tape; the Midwest Premieres of Italian composer Luciano Chessa’s Cinque Quadri da una città fantasma (Five Pictures from a Ghost Town) for piano, 3 turntables and chalkboard, and Randall Woolf’s dynamic setting of the rap song Blues for Black Hoodies, in a bed of strings, beats and turntables; and the Chicago Premiere of Christopher Burns’ latest computerized musical program, performed by Burns (no relation to Stephen), Sawtooth. Completing the jam-packed program will be a reprise of Hilda Paredes’ Óox p’eel ikil t’aan (Three Poems) for trumpet, percussion, tape and live electronics, plus all eight Fluxversions of George Brecht’s comical For a drummer, in which musicians drum with – and on – unexpected instruments.
“As a continuation of our collaboration from last year’s outrageous ‘Dada Machinations,’ the Chicago Fluxus Ensemble led by Simon Anderson will perform works that are related to machines and computers, as well as selections from the complete ‘For a drummer’ by George Brecht,” added Stephen Burns. “Creating and appreciating the artistic possibilities in everyday life experiences is at the core of the Fluxus philosophy. Computers, CDs, and machines surround us and offer a broad spectrum of sound worlds to explore.”
Pre-show Program Celebrates Fluxus Movement Audiences are urged to arrive early as the evening will begin with pre-show programming throughout the Harris Theater, courtesy of the Chicago Fluxus Ensemble led by Simon Anderson. Performances will include three of eight versions of Brecht’s 1966 For a drummer in which the audience is invited to connect with, and participate in, a “ballet of intention, material, and creativity utilizing physics, funk, and caprices to engage the audience’s curiosity, imagination, and intellect.” (The other versions will be interspersed in the concert program.) Performances of Brecht’s radical “event scores” are considered to have launched the Fluxus Movement in Wiesbaden, Germany. Also presented will be the Chicago Premiere of Christopher Burns’ latest computerized musical program, Sawtooth (2009), integrating performance, sound, and image. Burns, himself, will be present to perform the work, in which a solo musician's physical gestures in space are captured by a video camera, and translated simultaneously into both music and animation. As the action becomes more complex, the software underlying this process also begins to make autonomous contributions, adding new layers of audiovisual density, and creating new challenges for the performer. Burns, an assistant professor in the Department of Music at the UWM Peck School of the Arts, is a laptop improviser and a composer of instrumental chamber music.
Concert Program
The concert begins with the American Premiere of Finnish composer Tomi Räisänen’s Elevator Music on Mars (2003/2009) which fuses prerecorded, computer-generated sounds with electric guitar, sax, synthesizer and percussion to create a futuristic sound world redolent with atmospheric extraterrestrial references. Explains Räisänen,“Elevator Music on Mars tells about an elevator journey from the root to the top of the volcano Olympus Mons on Mars. It takes a while to reach the top of the largest volcano in the Solar System, which measures three times higher than Earth's highest mountain Mount Everest. Hence music like this can be performed to the impatient space tourists of the future as an entertainment during the elevator journey.” Räisänen is expected to be in attendance at the concert.?
Following will be a reprise of the popular mixed-media piece Óox p’eel ikil t’aan (Three Poems) (2007) by Hilda Paredes, one of the leading Mexican composers of her generation. Óox p’eel ikil t’aan, based on three poems in contemporary Mayan language by Briceida Cuevas Cob, evokes an ancient mysticism using live and pre-recorded poetry and electronic sounds filtered through computer and disseminated through an eight-channel surround sound system to transport the listener into a magical spiritual realm. The piece, which features Burns (trumpet/flugelhorn) and Jeff Handley and Brandon Podjasek (percussion), had its American premiere in March, performed by Fulcrum Point (with special guests, Luna Negra Dance Theater).
Next will be the Midwest Premiere of Italian composer Luciano Chessa’s Cinque Quadri da una città fantasma (Five Pictures from a Ghost Town) (2003/05) for piano, 3 turntables, and chalk board, which serves as a bridge between Fluxus techniques and traditional compositional devices. Using static, classic recordings, improvisation, chorales, and the inclusion of a chalk board, Quadri aims to challenge expectations; the meaning of the chorale is obscure, the turntables are not scratched in a ‘traditional’ hip-hop fashion, and what is written on the chalk board is barely legible… if at all. Featured artists are Kuang Hao Huang (piano/chalkboard) and Joe Darnaby (turntables). As a composer, pianist and musical saw/Vietnamese dan bau soloist, Chessa has been active in Europe, the U.S., and Australia, specializing in Futurist Sound Poetry.
Concluding the program will be the Midwest Premiere of Blues for Black Hoodies (2008) by Fulcrum Point composer-in-residence and Brooklyn native Randall (Randy) Woolf. Originally composed for the String Orchestra of New York City, the work is a new setting of the rap song Blues For Black Hoodies by emcee and producer Wordisbon. The lyrics explore the plight of young urban African-Americans, set in a bed of strings, beats, and turntables. This composition is part of Woolf’s on-going exploration of hip hop and spoken word poetry; in March, Harris Theater audiences experienced the World Premiere of Woolf’s Urban Legends, which incorporates New York City rap artists recording their own versions of a classic myth. Woolf will be in attendance at the concert. His Fulcrum Point residency is made possible through “Music Alive,” a program of the League of American Orchestras and Meet The Composer. This national program is designed to provide orchestras with resources and tools to support their presentation of new music to the public and build support for new music within their institutions. Funding for Music Alive is provided by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, The Aaron Copland Fund for Music, and the ASCAP Foundation-Joseph and Rosalie Meyer Fund.
Since its formation by trumpet virtuoso and conductor Stephen Burns in 1998 under the auspices of Performing Arts Chicago, the mission of Fulcrum Point New Music Project has been to champion new classical music and highlight contemporary composers who are inspired and influenced by popular culture, including literature, film, dance, folk, rock, jazz, blues, Latin and world music. Through multi-disciplinary concert performances and educational programs, the 25-member Fulcrum Point ensemble seeks to encourage audiences to make cross-cultural connections between new music, art, technology and literature, gaining greater insight into today’s diverse world. Burns, himself, has been acclaimed on four continents for his widely varied performances encompassing recitals, orchestral appearances, chamber ensemble engagements, and innovative multi-media presentations involving video, dance theatre, and sculpture.
Single tickets are priced at $30 each, with student and senior tickets priced at $15, and all tickets include a post-concert wine & cheese reception with the artists.
To order tickets, please call 312-334-7777 or visit www.harristheaterchicago.org. Discount tickets at $20 are available for groups of 10 or more.
A portion of the proceeds from all ticket sales fund Sound Tracks, Fulcrum Point’s innovative program that brings global and new music to Chicago Public Schools. The Sound Tracks project, designed to appeal to fourth- and fifth-graders, takes students around the world, mixing an introduction to world instruments with geography, architecture, visual art, cultural history and more.
Fulcrum Point New Music Project programs are supported in part by: the Illinois Arts Council, a City Arts Program grant from the City of Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs, Music Alive, The Irving Harris Foundation, an Arts Engagement Grant of Chicago Community Foundation, The MacArthur Fund for Arts and Culture at the Richard H. Driehaus Foundation, The Mayer and Morris Kaplan Family Foundation, Arts Work Fund of Chicago Community Trust, Polk Bros Foundation, The Gaylord and Dorothy Donnelley Foundation, The Neisser Family Fund, The Jordan & Jean Nerenberg Family Foundation, The Aaron Copland Fund for Music, Inc., and the National Endowment for the Arts, with The Seneca as the official hotel sponsor.
For more information on Fulcrum Point New Music Project, please call (312) 726-3846 or visit www.fulcrumpoint.org. ###
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