Soundwaves

The third and final show of our first season with Jacaranda is a preview of selections from their May 25 program, which includes work by Alban Berg, Mauricio Kagel, Witold Lutoslawski, and Wolfgang Mozart.

For their May 15, 2019 performance, the four trumpeters of the Carillon Quartet played a continuous set of compositions and structured improvisations, coordinated with film and prerecorded electronics.

Program:

• Stefano Scodanibbio – Plaza (2002)
• Tangos (arr. Dan Gonzalez, 2019)
  • Astor Piazzolla – Oblivion
  • Astor Piazzolla  – Adios Nonino
  • Carlos Gardel – Por Una Cabeza
  • Carlos Gardel – El Dia Que Me Quieras
• Carillon Quartet – Music of the Spheres (2019)
• David Rosenboom – Zones of Coherence (2003)
• Carillon Quartet – Sonic Meditation (inspired by Pauline Oliveros) (2019)

The Carillon Quartet: Nicolas Bejarano, Ethan Marks, with special guests Michael Davis and Dillon Parker.

Audio and video design by Nicolas Bejarano and Ethan Marks.

About the Program: El Aleph is the second installment of a series of concerts inspired by the literature of Jorge Luis Borges. We’re awakened by Stefano Scodanibbio’s Plaza (2002), representing the feeling of stirring remembrances of past time, of loss, and of the inevitable discomfort of grief. The music is accompanied by videos of the Los Angeles skyline at sunrise and sunset. The piece transitions into traditional tangos by Astor Piazzolla and Carlos Gardel, arranged by Mexican composer Dan Gonzales, as the video moves into footage of a by-gone Hollywood era overlaid with that most common of LA phenomena: traffic. The tangos devolve into Music of the Spheres, a sound bath of Tibetan singing bowls, ancient trumpets, and manipulated sounds from NASA’s recordings of the planets. We have discovered The Aleph: a convergence of space-time containing all other points of space-time. Simultaneously, the video transitions to images of black holes, nebulae, star fields, pulsars, and simulated exo-planets. Inside this meditation, confronting the infinite, we are slowly brought back to reality through David Rosenboom’s Zones of Coherence (2003). With unusual trumpet sounds, virtuosic runs, and echoes of nature, we find comfort in a familiar place, ourselves changed by the discovery of The Aleph. As the piece comes to a close, the concert ends with a Pauline Oliveros-inspired deep listening meditation, accompanied by a time-lapse video of the Super Blue Blood Moon over Los Angeles on January 31, 2018. The Carillon Quartet invites the audience to contribute sonically to this meditation if inspiration strikes. The performance runs for approximately 70min with no interruptions. We hope you enjoy taking this journey with us. —The Carillon Quartet

Recorded by Adam Borecki Recording adamborecki.com

Flutist Nicole Mitchell, a regular winner of the Downbeat Critics’ Poll, as well as numerous other honors, returns to the Library with electronic musician Alex Lough.

Our second collaboration with Jacaranda offers selections from their April 13 program of Julius Eastman, Lukas Foss, Frederic Rzewski, and James Tenney.

Pianist Susan Svrček and guests present an evening of new transcriptions and arrangements of the music of Arnold Schoenberg.

Los Angeles composer Corral presented the world premiere of the song cycle “Summits,” for vocalist Joanna Wallfisch, the Koan String Quartet (Eric KM Clark, Orin Hildested, Cassia Streb, and Jennifer Bewerse), with himself on accordion and guitar.

Soundwaves favorite Vicki Ray is joined by violinist Tom Chiu of the Flux Quartet for a partial performance of Morton Feldman‘s epic “For John Cage.”

Keyboardist Wayne Horvitz, leader of bands including The President, Pigpen, Zony Mash, and Sweeter than the Day, and an important collaborator with Bill Frisell, John Zorn, and others, joins bassoonist Sara Schoenbeck (heard on records from the Matrix soundtrack to Nels Cline’s Lovers, including work with Roscoe Mitchell, Anthony Braxton, Adam Rudolph, Harris Eisenstadt, and many more) for a set of original music with improvisation.

Saxophonist Dewar, a professor at the University of Alabama who has recorded with Anthony Braxton and Bill Dixon, performed his “Ghosts in the Uncanny Valley III (2019)” for soprano saxophone and live electronics.

and took audience questions:

 

Soundwaves is delighted to launch a collaboration with the Jacaranda Music series, presenting free previews of selections from their regular season events. This first installment draws from their “Premonitions I & II” programs on Feb. 3, which include work by Georg Friedrich Haas, Pavel Haas, Gustav Mahler, and Jörg Widmann.