Stet Lab featuring Corey Mwamba

Monday, 6 December 2010.

9:00 pm (doors: 8:45 pm)

Upstairs @ The Roundy [map…]
Castle Street
Cork, Ireland

€10 (€5)

Cork’s monthly improvised music event, Stet Lab, continues into its fourth year of on-stage mutations and hybrids on Monday, 6 December 2010, upstairs at The Roundy, Castle Street, Cork, Ireland. This unique meeting between novice and veteran improvisers welcomes the exciting, up-and-coming, Derby-based vibraphonist Corey Mwamba.

A performer of “wit and originality” (The Oxford Times), Corey Mwamba has been described as a “brilliant young black vibes player” (The Daily Telegraph) with “amazing originality and vigour” (All About Jazz). Heard at this year’s London Jazz Festival, Mwamba plays the vibraphone, dulcimer, electronics and small instruments, and his music and compositions embraces elements of jazz, folk from different countries, and electronica.

Mwamba has performed with Orphy Robinson, Pat Thomas, Evan Parker, Lol Coxhill, Andy Hamilton, Tony Kofi, the Master Drummers of Africa, the Quantic Soul Orchestra and Robert Mitchell‘s Panacea, as well as his trio with Joshua Blackmore and Dave Kane, solo performances and with his collective the Symbiosis Ensemble. He has also worked as a percussionist with Derby Concert Orchestra and the Birmingham Improvisers’ Orchestra.

Also performing at the event will be Stet Lab’s house band, The Real-Time Company (for the Ad-Hoc Association) Of…, consisting of Tony O’Connor (bass guitar) and Han-earl Park (guitar).

The event will begin at 9:00 pm (doors open at 8:45 pm) and entry is €10 (€5).

the performers

Corey Mwamba creates music using vibraphone, dulcimer, electronics and small instruments. His music contains elements of jazz, folk from different countries, and electronica.

Born in Derby and a former chemist and librarian, Corey is virtually self-taught in music having made the decision to take up vibraphone in his late teens after seeing a picture of Orphy Robinson in a book and taking five lessons with the orchestral percussionist Lewis Dyson.

Corey is primarily known as a highly creative improviser with a wide stylistic range: there have been appearances with Orphy Robinson, Pat Thomas, and Lol Coxhill; Andy Hamilton, Tony Kofi, the Master Drummers of Africa; Evan Parker, the Quantic Soul Orchestra, Robert Mitchell’s Panacea; as well as his own solo performances and with his collective the Symbiosis Ensemble. He has also worked as a percussionist with Derby Concert Orchestra.

Corey is seen as a skilled composer and band-leader; his commissions include Dhara Blues, a work for percussion and Kathak dancers for Derby Jazz: and with writer Bea Udeh and the Midlands-spanning group the Symbiosis Ensemble, Corey Mwamba’s literature and music piece Nature’s Glory, Fancy’s Child. This piece was selected for the regional Decibel Live! Showcase in 2004 and Derby Jazz Week 2005. The research for this work led Corey to present a talk on the creative presentation of history for the Black and Asian Studies Association at the V&A Museum in 2005. In the same year his solo improvisation, Three Two One, was selected for the Freeness album set up by CDR, Chris Offili, and the Observer Music Monthly. Corey Mwamba was selected for the Jerwood/PRS Foundation’s 2007 Take Five Initiative, a significant artist development scheme for emerging jazz musicians: he was also nominated for the 2008 BBC Jazz Award for Innovation. In 2009, Corey was selected by Arts Council England for The International Association of the Biennial of Young Artists from Europe and the Mediterranean (BJCEM) event in Skopje.

Improviser, guitarist and constructor Han-earl Park works from/within/around traditions of fuzzily idiomatic, on occasion experimental, mostly open improvised musics, sometimes engineering theater, sometimes inventing ritual. He feels the gravitational pull of collaborative, multi-authored contexts, and has performed in clubs, theaters, art galleries, concert halls, and (ad-hoc) alternative spaces in Denmark, England, Ireland, The Netherlands, Scotland and the USA.

He is involved in ongoing collaborations with Bruce Coates, and with Franziska Schroeder, fifteen year long associations with Alex Fiennes and Murray Campbell. Recent performances include ensemble Mathilde 253 (Park, Charles Hayward and Ian Smith) with Lol Coxhill, a duo concert with Paul Dunmall, a trio with Kato Hideki and Katie O’Looney, an improvisative meeting with Thomas Buckner and Jesse Ronneau, and the performance of Pauline Oliveros’ ‘Droniphonia’ alongside the composer. He has appeared at festivals including Sonic Acts (Amsterdam), the Center for Experiments in Art, Information and Technology Festival (California), dialogues festival (Edinburgh), Sonorities (Belfast) and VAIN Live Art (Oxford).

Park founded and curates Stet Lab, a monthly improvised music space in Cork, Ireland, and teaches improvisation at the UCC School of Music.

Stet Lab featuring Bruce Coates and Jonny Marks

Monday, May 11th 2009

9:00 pm (doors: 8:45 pm)

Upstairs @ The Roundy [map…]
Castle Street
Cork, Ireland

€10 (€5)

This month’s Stet Lab, Cork’s improvised music event, will take place at 9:00 pm on Monday, May 11th 2009, upstairs at The Roundy, Castle Street, Cork, Ireland. The event will feature saxophonist Bruce Coates (UK) and vocalist Jonny Marks (UK/New Zealand via China), plus Cork-based improvisers, Han-earl Park (guitar), Owen Sutton (drums), Paul Dowling (bass), Vicky Langan (electronics) and James O’Gorman (guitar).

May’s Stet Lab will see a bold mix of familiar and unfamiliar faces. Returning will be Birmingham-based Bruce Coates, founder of FrImp and the Birmingham Improvisers’ Orchestra, and a saxophonist with a sound both daring and inviting. Having worked with musicians as diverse as Christian Wolff, Lol Coxhill, Tony Oxley, John Edwards, Chris Hobbs, and previous Stet Lab guests Paul Dunmall, Mark Sanders and Mike Hurley, Coates regularly negotiates the intersection between avant jazz, free improvisation and post-Cardew experimentalism. A Stet Lab veteran, he performed twice before at the Lab—in November 2007 and December 2008.

Making his Irish debut at this event will be Jonny Marks from New Zealand via Mongolia and the UK. Marks is an experimental vocalist and throat singer who has worked with Damo Suzuki, Thomas Lehn and Takashi Harada, and with bands such as The Verlaines and Thrashing Marlin. He has appeared at the Wellington International Jazz Festival and the Melbourne International Jazz Festival.

Joining Coates and Marks will be Cork-based improvisers, guitarist Han-earl Park, and the young, up-and-coming drummer Owen Sutton.

The evening will be opened by a trio comprising bassist Paul Dowling, Vicky Langan on electronics, and newcomer to the Stet Lab stage, guitarist James O’Gorman. This eclectic ensemble will showcase three radically divergent approaches to improvisation.

The event will begin at 9:00 pm (doors open at 8:45 pm) and entry is €10 (€5).

Stet Lab will return in June with more real-time, musical mutations and hybrids.

Stet Lab’s final event of 2008 featuring saxophonist Bruce Coates

Monday, December 8th Tuesday, December 9th 2008

9:00 pm (doors: 8:45 pm)

Upstairs @ The Roundy [map…]
Castle Street
Cork, Ireland

€10 (€5)

Following the successful first birthday celebrations, Stet Lab, Cork’s monthly improvised music event, returns to The Roundy, Castle Street, on Monday, 8th Tuesday, 9th December. The final event of 2008, the lineup comes full circle and the Lab welcomes the return of Birmingham based saxophonist Bruce Coates who performed at the very first event in 2007.

Bruce Coates is a saxophone player with a solid foundation in avant jazz, free improvisation and experimental music. Coates is the founder of many projects in the city of Birmingham including the free jazz / free improv concert series FrImp, and the Birmingham Improvisers’ Orchestra. Furthermore, he has performed with many of best known names in improvised and experimental music including Paul Dunmall, Lol Coxhill, Christian Wolff, Mark Sanders, John Edwards and Mike Hurley (whom Stet Lab featured in July). The deft and accomplished technique of Coates is his own: creative, innovative yet approachable allowing any sax lover to identify with the sonic timbre.

Joining Coates will be a group of Cork-based improvisers including composer, performer and installation artist Sarah O’Halloran and improviser-guitarist Han-earl Park, plus the young, up-and-coming double bassist Neil O’Loghlen.

The event will begin at 9:00 pm (doors open at 8:45 pm) and entry is €10 (€5).

Stet Lab will return in January 2009 with more real-time, musical mutations and hybrids.

updates:

12-05-08 change date of December Lab from 8th to 9th.

Stet Lab

featuring Mike Hurley
plus The Real-Time Company (for the Ad-Hoc Association) of…

Thursday, July 10th 2008

7:30pm [earlier start time!]

Ó Riada Hall [new venue!]
UCC Department of Music
Sundays Well
Cork, Ireland

€10 (€5)

Following the success of June’s convention, Cork’s monthly improvised music event—Stet Lab—continues its Summer 2008 season of on-stage mutations and hybrids on Thursday, 10th July, at the Ó Riada Hall, UCC Department of Music, Sundays Well. This regular, yet unique meeting between novice and veteran improvisers alike welcomes the co-founder of the Birmingham Improvisers’ Orchestra, Mike Hurley to the rostrum.

Stemming from the bright lights of Birmingham, Hurley is an exciting and innovative young pianist, capable of both furious extemporizations and the “angelic piano” (Downtown Music Gallery, NY), who has quickly established himself as an original voice in the free improvisation scene. A mover and shaker within the English improvised music community, according to the Birmingham Post, Hurley is “making quite a mark in the British free jazz arena, and has already played with such stalwarts of the scene as Lol Coxhill and the Pauls, Rutherford and Dunmall.” This is Hurley’s first performance at Stet Lab and will see him performing both as a soloist and with the local musicians. However, he is no stranger to the Lab’s style having founded his own fortnightly free improvisation event FiZZLE, and curates, in association with Birmingham Jazz, the quarterly Invention Convention.

Also performing at the event will be Stet Lab’s house band; a group of Cork-based improvisers appearing as The Real-Time Company (for the Ad-Hoc Association) of…. Audience members are welcome to participate in association with the programmed artists; please introduce yourself to the Stet Lab curator on the night.

Stet Lab gratefully acknowledges the support of the UCC Department of Music in providing a venue for this month’s event.