On November 9th 2010 The Rotunda and Soundfield will present some outstanding musicians from Taiwan, New York and Philadelphia, in a program of new compositions, improvisations and traditional Chinese music.
Featured on this special program will be: Taiwanese composer and guzheng player Chao-Ming Tung, Philadelphia composer and bass clarinetist Gene Coleman and members of his Ensemble Nomaniesa (bass player Evan Lipson and cellist Alex Waterman).
The program springs from the special collaborative relationship that has developed over the last 5 years between Gene Coleman and Chao-Ming Tung, as both have composed music for the great Chinese instrument ensemble “Chai Found Music Workshop” and performed together as a duo in the USA, Europe and Asia. The program on Nov. 9 will feature compositions of Coleman and Tung for acoustic instruments, electronics and video projections. This is a rare opportunity to see and hear some truly fine musicians explore and expand their traditions through bold interdisciplinary compositions and the magic of improvisation. See a sample of Coleman’s music video work “Future City” here
Bios:
Gene COLEMAN is a composer, musician and director. He has created over 50 works for various instrumentation and media, often using complex notations and improvisation in the same score. Innovative use of sound, space and time allows Coleman to create work that expands our understanding of the world. Since 2001 his work has focused on the global transformation of culture and music’s relationship with other media, such as architecture, video and dance. He studied painting, music and film making at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, where his principle teachers included legendary experimental film artists Stan Brakhage and Ernie Gehr, as well as Robert Snyder (music) and Barbara Rossi (painting). His work has been commissioned by the top musicians, ensembles and organizations throughout the world and has been composer in residence in Tokyo, Beirut, Taipei, Berlin and many other places.
Chao-Ming TUNG is a Taiwanese-born composer and gu-zheng player (Chinese zither) based in Taipei City. His music encompasses stage, instrumental, vocal, and electro-acoustic works, and multimedia-performances with visual arts and dance. Since 2000 he has gradually incorporated Chinese instruments into his music, and improvises with guzheng and live electronics in concerts. In 1988 he began composition studies with Chien Nan- Chang in the Chinese-Culture-University Taipei. He continued his training from 1990 -1997 at the Musikhochschule Koeln Germany with Johannes Fritsch and Mauricio Kagel, and later at the Folkwang-Hochschule Essen with Nicolaus A. Huber, where he graduated with distinction. Since 1999 he has worked as a freelance composer and musician, and facilitates East-West cultural exchanges. Tung’s work has been presented in concerts of numerous festivals throughout Europe, Asia, and the USA. He has collaborated with choreographers, dancers, painters, musicians, ensembles, sound-, media- and video artists, e.g. Annegret Heiln, Rene Pieters, Bernhard Gal, Klang Forum Wien, Ensemble Ictus, Ensemble Modern, ensemble 2e2m, Ensemble On-Line Vienna , ensemble DEDALO, and Chai Found Music Workshop. He was awarded the Bernd Alois Zimmermann Scholarship for Composers from the City of Cologne in 1999, the Scholarship of National Culture and Arts Foundation Taiwan in 2001 and Stipendium of Villa Aurora Los Angles 2004. He is now composer in residence of Chai Found Music Workshop in Taipei and a professor of music composition at Ciao Tung University in Taiwan.
Evan LIPSON (b. 1981) has been active as a bassist and composer since adolescence. In an on-going pursuit of all things ecstatically oblique and unknown, Lipson acquired an early interest in the lateral arenas of underground music — eventually seeking to push beyond even the furthest idiomatic extremities. This chosen left-hand path has afforded him the opportunity to work in a variety of contexts and styles, with roots predominantly based in modernist classical, outsider pop, jazz, noise, punk, as well as various modes of improvisation. Lipson has been invariably focused on transcending the politics of genre. Following his own forms of occult research and pragmatic synthesis, Lipson’s efforts strive towards cultivating a uniquely rarefied, esoteric, and iconoclastic world of music. With a central emphasis on working directly with his own bands (including regular tours and regional performances), Lipson’s music, as well as his modus operandi, has always been based on the intuitive search for the liminal zones where intellect and instinct, history and myth, and creative and destructive forces intersect. Lipson counts both Michael Formanek & Robert Kesselman as his primary mentors. He’s undergone additional studies under the tutelage of Mark Dresser, Mark Helias, Robert Black, and Renaan Meyer. Despite his formal background, Lipson considers himself to be largely self-taught.
He has worked with composer Gene Coleman numerous times, most recently in their sold out appearance at MOMA with the film “A Page of Madness”.
Alex WATERMAN is a founding member of the Plus Minus Ensemble, based in Brussels and London, specializing in avant-garde and experimental music. In New York he performs with the Either/Or Ensemble. Alex has worked with musicians such as Robert Ashley, Richard Barrett, Helmut Lachenmann, Keith Rowe, Marina Rosenfeld, Anthony Coleman, Elliot Sharp, Ned Rothenberg, Gerry Hemingway, David Watson, Chris Mann, Alison Knowles, Thomas Meadowcroft, and Michael Finnissy. He has performed as guest musician with numerous ensembles, including Trio Event (Berlin), Champs d’Action-Antwerp, Q-O2-Brussels, and Magpie Music and Dance Company. Waterman has made music for numerous European ballet and modern dance companies including Freiburg Ballett/Pretty Ugly, Scapino Ballet, Nederland Dans Theater III, and others. As a curator he has organized events at Les Bains:Connective in Brussels, OT301 in Amsterdam, Miguel Abreu Gallery and The Kitchen. His duo projects with the dancer Michael Schumacher have toured in Switzerland, Italy, Holland, the Opera of Monaco and most recently in all 5 boroughs of New York in a Joyce Theater production in association with the City Parks Foundation in July of 2008.
Ensemble Noamnesia is a group that plays new and experimental music. Founded by composer Gene Coleman in Chicago in 1987, the group now consists of about 10 musicians who work on a project-by-project basis in Philadelphia, Chicago and New York. Many of the players come from a classical music background, but are equally versed in new types of interpretation and sound production, as well as improvisation. Over the years a stellar cast of international guest artists and composers have worked with them, including Jim O’Rourke, Helmut Lachenmann, Otomo Yoshihide, Luc Ferrari, George Crumb and many others. The group is devoted to playing music that invites new ways of listening and understanding our experience of the world.
About Soundfield
Soundfield is a not for profit organization founded in 2000 by composer Gene Coleman. Soundfield is a producer and presenter of new music in Philadelphia, New York, Chicago and other places, with a strong emphasis on international cultural exchange and collaboration. By working with a large network of local and international organizations, Soundfield is able to produce public programs that express the value of innovation and Art as a means of global understanding, appreciation and cooperation.
Admission is FREE
