tonyyoungblood

Saturday at Noa Noa: New Experimental Series feat. Lyrebird, Brady Sharp, Age – 03/30/2013

Mar 282013

Noa Noa house is back from a long winter break with our first spring show, Saturday, March 30th at 8:30pm.

We’re kicking off a new experimental series featuring three innovative acts: Lyrebird (Jeremy Bennett & Craig Schenker), Brady Sharp, and Age (Josh Gumiela & Luke Rainey).

All three artists use live sampling and computer processing to continually evolve an improvisational set, never being completely sure where the ping pong between acoustic instrument and electronic modification will take them.

All have appeared on Theatre Intangible at one point or another. Check out Lyrebird’s improv set recorded at Theatre Intangible / Noa Noa headquarterers, Brady Sharp’s work in this T.I. “all guitars” episode, and the Josh Gumiela / Luke Rainey improv featured in the video below. Josh and Luke’s partnership is especially interesting because they start with a single sample and toss it back and forth throughout the set, further manipulating and transforming it, having no idea where it will lead.

All this is happening in the Noa Noa basement. Park in the front yard and surrounding business lots. More info on the Facebook event page. Stay in touch with all the Noa Noa happenings by “liking” our Noa Noa Facebook page.

re: Process
An evening of improvisation and live sampling/processing featuring…
Lyrebird (Jeremy Bennett & Craig Schenker)
Brady Sharp
Age (Josh Gumiela & Luke Rainey)

Doors at 8:30pm, show at 9pm sharp
Suggested donation $3-$5, split between bands.
BYOB. Park in front yard and surrounding business lots.

We want Noa Noa to be a safe and comfortable environment for everyone. You don’t have to know the Noa Noa house owners to attend. If you feel harassed or threatened in any way, let one of the house owners know (Tony Youngblood and Tommy Stangroom) and we will take care of the situation.

Noa Noa (house)
620 Hamilton Avenue
Nashville, TN 37203

_____________________________

Lyrebird
is a new project by electronic artist Jeremy Bennett (SAURuS, Santa’s Workshop) and saxophonist Craig Schenker (Square People Jazz Maturity, Arclyte, Cenobium). Jeremy live samples Craig’s saxophone playing and intermixes field recordings, electronics and samples while Craig improvises new sounds in response to Jeremy’s processing.

_____________________________

Brady Sharp
discovered improvised music in the mid-90s, and has had the fortune of playing with the reputable likes of Peter Kowald, Chris Cutler, LaDonna Smith, Gino Robair, Susan Alcorn, Tatsuya Nakatani and many others. He plays prepared electric guitar using extended techniques with various found objects. This will be the debut of him incorporating PureData live audio processing software into his setup.

_____________________________

Age
is a horizontal sound composition process by Josh Gumiela and Luke Rainey, based in Nashville, TN. They begin each session with the same palette of samples. One player samples the arrangement and adds new flourishes to the mix. The original player samples him, and continues the shaping process. The process remains constant, but the resulting compositions are always very different.

VORTEX Percussion Performs George Antheil’s “Ballet mécanique” feat. 8 Robotic Pianos! April 7th at Blair School of Music

Concerts, Visual Arts No Responses »

Mar 232013

I’m going to call it. The April 7th Blair School of Music event VORTEX and the Bad Boy! will be the most ambitious, satisfying, and important Nashville event of 2013. People will talk about it for years. Those who miss it will regret it for years.

How can I be so sure about that?

Well, for starters:

Blair Percussion VORTEX director Michael Holland organized last year’s John Cage Centennial, the most important event of 2012. This lobby musicircus featured over 75 performers, and that was just the pre-show!
The April 7th event centers around the groundbreaking 1924 experimental film and musical composition Ballet Mécanique, directed by Fernand Léger and Dudley Murphy and scored by George Antheil.
The film will be projected with LIVE orchestration, featuring 8 PLAYER PIANOS, 13 live musicians, xylophones, bass drums, electric bells, airplane propellers, and more!
This is the original restored orchestration and film in its southeaster US premiere, only the 6th US production featuring the original orchestration with the film.
The daylong symposium features a myriad of events, including a Q&A with Paul Lehrman who used robotics and MIDI processing to make the original Ballet mécanique playable again; an Antheil documentary; a presentation by MuTant project director Arshia Cont on how computers have learned to play along with human musicians; and a lecture by Rice University Art History professor Gordon Hughes, author of “The Painter’s Revenge: Fernand Léger For and Against Cinema.”
A invading army of robots will take over the Blair campus, presented by the Middle Tennessee Robotic Art Society.
The lobby features an interactive movie installation by Greg Pond and Benton C. Bainbridge, featuring custom-designed 3D printed parts.
The lobby also features interactive audio compositions by Liz Clayton Scofield.
The concert program features 6 additional compositions including works by Brian Blume, Henry Cowell, Nigel Westlake, John Cage and Lou Harrison, and Felix Mendelssohn.
Mendelssohn’s Saltarello-Presto will be played by 8 robotically controlled pianos, arranged by Paul Lehrman.
Brian Blume’s Strands of Time [video] and Nigel Westlake’s Moving Air [video] combine live percussionists with prerecorded soundscapes.
The entire event is FREE and OPEN TO THE PUBLIC!

I STRONGLY suggest you come early to secure your seat. With the success of last year’s John Cage Centennial and the enormous buzz around VORTEX and the Bad Boy, Ingram Hall may reach capacity well before showtime.

You can find out more on the Vanderbilt Blair School of Music website.

Blair Percussion VORTEX presents the Southeastern U.S. premiere of George Antheil’s restored Ballet mécanique
Sunday, April 7
Blair School of Music (across from the intersection of 25th and Blakemore/Wedgewood, Nashville, TN)
1:30-5 p.m., Ballet mécanique mini-symposium, Choral Hall
6:45 p.m., Robotics, Music, New Media Art, Ingram Lobby
8 p.m., VORTEX concert, Ingram Hall

Scott Smallwood’s Solar Powered Sound Installation “hideout” opens Friday at Seed Space

Circuit-Bending, Visual Arts 1 Response »

Mar 142013

Nestled in the heart of Nashville’s burgeoning arts community NoHo* (NOrth of HOuston Street), Chestnut Studios gallery Seed Space continues to book exciting sound and video art. If Seed Space curates it, it’s definitely going to be interesting.

But when I read about the Scott Smallwood installation opening this Friday, my jaw dropped. Scott’s a sound artist, composer, inventor, and performer, and he’s worked with some serious badasses: Pauline Oliveros, John Butcher, Joe McPhee, Cor Fuhler, Phil Gelb, Todd Reynolds, and Mark Dresser.

Scott builds his own electronic instruments, sound installations, and even musical video games. hideout, the piece he’s unveiling Friday night at the opening reception is

a quiet, immersive soundscape based on environmentally-empowered sound circuits. Evoking the structural acoustics of hidden, safe zones in nature and architecture, these sounds can evoke feelings of safety and security, as well as a heightened sense of intrusions from outside sources. As one adapts to the quiet sounds that are often masked or silenced by the presence of crowded social spaces, the piece is also subtly interactive, as the sounds are directly responsive to the presence of light in the space and changes of light distribution through the presence of shadows, reflections, and absorption caused by movement through the space.

If Scott’s previous creations are any judge, hideout will be an art opening you won’t want to miss. Salivate over the video clips of Scott’s work below and then go over to the Seedspace page for more info.

Scott Smallwood’s hideout
Opening Reception Friday, March 15th, 6-8 pm.
hideout will show March 15 – April 29.

Seed Space Gallery
427 Chestnut Street, Nashville, 37203

Sync or Swim I from Scott Smallwood on Vimeo.

Black Box from Scott Smallwood on Vimeo.

* Yes, I made that up. Yes, I am shamelessly trying to make it stick.

Space Music at The Stone Fox: Auroric Dreams (Tony Gerber and Bryan Burnett), DJ James Cathcart, Josh Gumiela on visuals, Wednesday, March 13th

Concerts No Responses »

Mar 052013

On Wednesday, March 13th at The Stone Fox, space music legend Tony Gerber joins forces with electronic music’s next generation Noize Index (aka Bryan Burnett) in their new band Auroric Dreams. The show also features DJ James Cathcart spinning “spacy minimal synth to freaked out earthy commune jams” and Circuit Benders’ Ball alum Josh Gumiela projecting trippy OpenGL visuals. James recently teamed up with Third Man Records and the Belcourt Theatre for a monthly experimental film series called The Light and Sound Machine. Josh just unveiled his newest art installation (which involves water dropping into an old metal pan in increasing frequency) at Boheme Collectif’s Future Night. He hopes to have the installation up again at another venue soon.

In addition to all of that, this concert is a big deal to me because of Tony Gerber’s massive contributions to the Nashville music scene. Many are unaware of Nashville’s ties to the development of space music, the genre of ambient experimental music popularized by the Hearts of Space public radio show. Vanderbilt Department of Fine Arts faculty member Don Evans began the Vanderbilt Media Experimentation Center in 1969 and fostered a spirit of exploration and rule-breaking in the many students who took his video art, multimedia, photography, and computer graphics courses.

Tony Gerber moved to Nashville from Northern Indiana in the early 80s and developed a friendship with Don. In a 1999 interview with Aural Innovations, Tony said:

I had also started collaborating with Don Evan’s at Vanderbilt University in the early 80s. Don is well known for his multimedia work in the 60s and continues to this day. He has a huge collection of esoteric electronic music recordings and is a great supporter of electronic music. He had been using eMusic composers with his performances since the 60s and it was a natural for me to start working with him. Thus I was introduced to multimedia performance in conjunction with eMusic.

Tony formed Space for Music, a Hearts of Space listening group that eventually evolved into a radio show, music festival, and label. The listening group helped foment Nashville’s space music community, with notable members including Jack Tamul, Gil Trythall, William Linton, Robin Crow, Allen Green, and Giles Reaves, whose 1986 album Wunjo made Electronic Musician magazine’s list of top electronic albums of all time. In 1996, Tony formed the influential space music group Spacecraft with Lexington, Kentucky’s John Rose (later adding Diane Timmons).

Tony continues to innovate. As his avatar Cypress Rosewood, he hosts a weekly Ambient Sunday concert on the virtual realty world Second Life. Tony and his brother Todd talk about their musical accomplishments and the Nashville music community on episode 90 of Theatre Intangible.

The Facebook event page states Auroric Dreams is “an electro-acoustic music duo group with members Bryan Burnett of Noize Index and veteran live space music performer Tony Gerber. Instruments include synthesizers, guitars, EWI (Electronic Wind Instrument), native flutes, computers, ipads, iphones and vocals.”

I’m incredibly excited for this show, and I hope to see you there!

Auroric Dreams
DJ James Cathcart
Josh Gumiela (OpenGL visuals)

@ The Stone Fox
Wednesday, March 13th, 9pm, $5
712 51st Ave N, Nashville, TN 37209

Older Entries Newer Entries