…a celebration of the practice of improvisation in all its diversity, complexity and, perhaps, contradictions
We’re taking a short break for the summer, but Stet Lab will return in October 2009!
In the meantime, so that we can inform you of future events, please join the Stet Lab – announce, or subscribe to the web feed (news only or all blog posts). [More info…]
I’ve said previously that “I’d be lying if I said I did not have allegiances—in idiom, in tradition, and in practice—I do, but I want to stress the possibility of trans-cultural meetings and creative (mis)understandings.”
I don’t subscribe to a silly ideology of some impossibly impartial, neutral, transcendental performance, free of tradition, history, identity. I’m not necessarily saying any one performance is going to be better than another (although I won’t strongly dispute such a claim), but some are, for me, more (for lack of better word) worthwhile than others; they were worth doing, and worth participating in, for reasons of demonstrating promising avenues of future research, or for putting into motion the results of such research. Continue reading ‘Lab report June 8th 2009: play different’
As I approached The Roundy on Monday night, alarm bells were a ringing. “Surely someone will silence that alarm?” thought I. Ha ha, how optimistic. The power of the universe wasn’t with me unfortunately, and 50 minutes later, as Piaras Hoban, Francis Heery, Áine Mangaoang and I began our masterpiece, the alarm was still sounding. Continue reading ‘Lab report June 8th 2009: the alarm will sound if you don’t back away’
I’ve updated the Stet Lab site to WordPress 2.8. There are only a few minor interface changes behind the scenes, however, the K2 search and navigation feature has broken with this release, so I’ve (temporarily) reverted to the old search and navigation system.
Please let me know of any difficulties or bugs.
K2 has now been removed. The site now has a custom style (velvet lounge 0.2) based on Sandbox. As before, let me know of any bugs.
Minor style tweaks to compensate for IE (including a IE7 specific kluge).
Audio recordings of the June 8th Stet Lab are now online.
Thanks to everyone who, despite the conspiracy of noise (sirens from across the road, electrical hums and buzzes, thumping bass from downstairs, and the fire department), played on: Síofra Fitzgerald, Francis Heery, Juniper Hill, Piaras Hoban, Áine Mangaoang, Neil O’Loghlen, Han-earl Park, Veronica Tadman and Kevin Terry.
As always, special thanks to all who came to listen on the night, and a very special thanks to all who supported us through the year. See you in October!
As with all the recordings since December 2008, this month’s recordings are covered under the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License. [More info…]
Snippets from a conversation between three musicians:
“Man, I should play more free jazz.”
“It’s not an idiom at all…”
“…a tradition? …a practice?”
“Just play all over the keyboard.”
“It is so much fun.”
“Why don’t I do this all the time?”
“There’s nothing better.”
“There really isn’t.”
“And it’s the simplest algorithm: play all the time, and keep out of each others’ way.”
“That’s right; that’s the algorithm.” Continue reading ‘Lab report May 11th 2009: parking your idiom’
The final Stet Lab before the summer break takes place this coming Monday (June 8th 2009), upstairs @ The Roundy. [Details…]
The event will feature multi-instrumentalist and ethnomusicologist Juniper Hill and guitarist-constructor Han-earl Park; flautist Síofra Fitzgerald and guitarist Kevin Terry’s collision of interpretation and extemporization; and vocalist Veronica Tadman and technologist Piaras Hoban’s heterogeneous troupe.
Come along and make the Stet Lab 2008/9 season go out with a bang, fizz, clang, buzz, bloop and bleep!
Next Stet Lab will be on Monday, June 8th 2009, upstairs @ The Roundy, Castle Street, Cork, Ireland [map…]. Up-to-date details…
Monday, June 8th 2009
9:00 pm (doors: 8:45 pm)
Upstairs @ The Roundy [map…]
Castle Street
Cork, Ireland
€10 (€5)
Stet Lab’s final event of the 2008/9 season takes place on the 8th June 2009 at 9:00 pm, upstairs at The Roundy, Castle Street, Cork. Stet Lab again welcomes both regular and newcomers to the stage, bringing the familiar and unfamiliar together in a special season finale.
Curator and founder of Stet Lab, Han-earl Park (guitar) will perform with the exciting navigator of multiple improvisative traditions, Juniper Hill (voice and small instruments). Park has been described by the Computer Music Journal as “innovative” and by BBC – Collective as an “electro weirdo”, and has performed in Denmark, England, Ireland, The Netherlands, Scotland and the USA. Juniper Hill is a vocalist and multi-instrumentalist from Los Angeles and currently based in Cork. An ethnomusicologist who studies contemporary folk music, and the creativity and pedagogy of improvisation, Hill has been involved in free jazz and experimental music for many years and is especially interested in the use of voice in these mediums.
Newcomer to the Lab, Síofra Fitzgerald (flute) and Stet Lab regular, Kevin Terry (guitar) make up the other duo of the evening. With pre-composed parts written by Terry (with nods to sources as diverse as Anthony Braxton and Takemitsu Tōru), the performance will entail a clash of musical approaches—that of the classical-interpreter and that of the improviser—which does not resolve to a single whole but further shatters, fragments and divides.
Veronica Tadman (voice), another vocalist based in Cork, has been privileged to have performed alongside artists such as Paul Dunmall and Don Malone. She has guest curated Stet Lab, and this has given her the opportunity to perform with innovative new talent from Cork. This month, Veronica is collaborating with composer and member of the R.E.A.L. Ensemble, Piaras Hoban (laptop) who recently premiered his piece for soprano and electronics at the Sonic Arts Research Centre in Belfast. Hoban and Tadman will be joined by composer and the R.E.A.L. Ensemble founder, Francis Heery (electronics), and performer-theorist Áine Mangaoang (violin).
The event will begin at 9:00 pm (doors open at 8:45 pm) and entry is €10 (€5).
Stet Lab will return in October for more real-time, musical mutations and hybrids. Continue reading ‘Stet Lab June 8th 2009 (update)’
The next Stet Lab will be the final event before we break for summer (we’ll return in October). The event will take place upstairs @ The Roundy, Castle Street, Cork, Ireland, on Monday, June 8th 2009. [Details…]