Han-earl Park, April 11, 2011: ‘Lab report 2007-2011: signing-out as curator’

“As previously announced, after thirty-two events over three and a quarter years, I’ve stepped down as curator of Stet Lab as of February 2011.”

Corey Mwamba, December 9, 2010: ‘Lab report december 6th 2010: thank you!’

“It always helps if the other people are wanting to do the same thing and I think that happened—there were some lovely moments where things really came together. I was even relaxed enough to go on the drums—which as I am sure you’ll hear, was a mistake, but a relaxed mistake.”

Susan Geaney, December 6, 2010: ‘Lab report november 15th 2010: let the rant begin…’

“We improvisers dig the ego or can’t escape it. Like a game of snakes and ladders, we chop and change direction every 2–5″.”

Colm Pattwell, November 23, 2010: ‘Lab report october 11th and november 15th 2010: humming, buzzing’

“One thing I want to hear is someone just grooving on something limited or ‘standard’ for want of a better word. For all the different music being played at the lab, sometimes it just doesn’t sound that different to itself!”

Han-earl Park, April 26, 2010: ‘Lab report april 12th 2010: consequences of actions’

“A single quote… can have interesting and problematic consequences for interaction. The effectiveness of the quote—to be able to collapse and redirect and improvisation—is also what makes them hard to deal with.”

John Godfrey, April 23, 2010: ‘Lab report april 12th 2010: kudos’

Han-earl Park, April 7, 2010: ‘Lab report march 8th 2010: 3+1 questions’

“Is ‘success’ (however that’s defined) a meaningful idea in approaching (as listener or performer) improvisation?”

Ruti Lachs, February 7, 2010: ‘Lab report january 11th 2010: get together and make weird noises’

“I played some stuff that I couldn’t recognise as a tune, but the audience seemed to recognise it as valid, cos they clapped, and even laughed once or twice at the funny bits!”

Han-earl Park, January 26, 2010: ‘Lab report december 7th 2009: futzing’

“Neither ‘intentional’ (‘deliberate’ and ‘authorial’) nor ‘noise’ (e.g. the Cagian denial of agency). These things—‘noise’/‘intention’—exist on a line, and it isn’t so much about riding the border between them, but steeping off that line. We want to enter a space that is not about control, nor the lack of it, but about surprises, densities and irregularities; about relationships—differences and negotiations….”

Han-earl Park, November 21, 2009: ‘Lab report november 10th 2009: history and lineage’

“I want, at bare minimum, to be able to play—to have a relationship with the guitar that is technically accomplished—but I also want to want to be heard—that listeners/audiences would seek out my playing and my performances.”

Han-earl Park, November 2, 2009: ‘Lab report october 12th 2009: a conversation with eliza’

“Most of my work in the last few years has been in the jam session mold. People fly in, or I fly out, and there’s an ad-hoc meeting. What I miss is the band.”

Piaras Hoban, October 20, 2009: ‘Lab report October 12th 2009: be no shelter to these outrages’

“tap
“low end light a little
“the
“blow tap tap wind
“blow tap tap wind tap
“on”

Han-earl Park, July 3, 2009: ‘Lab report June 8th 2009: play different’

“I did have fun, but I think I also realized (remembered?) why I’d been avoiding this particular mode of interaction. It’s too easy; the choices are the most obvious. It’s like movies that, uncertain of the intelligence of their audience, get loaded with too much exposition.”

Veronica Tadman, June 13, 2009: ‘Lab report June 8th 2009: the alarm will sound if you don’t back away’

“So, why was it annoying me? I think it’s because I love control. (Why then am I interested in performing improvisation?) I wasn’t in control of the alarm: one could argue that I wasn’t in control of my fellow improvisers, but my argument to that is, if I wanted to I could have pulled the plug and prevented power. Also as we were an ensemble my input had a consequence on what happened (especially with what Piaras [Hoban] was doing because i was linked to his computer). Likewise he was in control of what happened with my input so it was almost like equilibrium.”

Han-earl Park, June 10, 2009: ‘Lab report May 11th 2009: parking your idiom’

“…I want the listening experience to be rich and interesting. If you’re sharp, you’d have caught it, made connections, and patted yourself on the back for being a clever listener; if not, well, no biggie, hopefully there’s enough complexity to provide ear-candy and (unintended) connections.”

Han-earl Park, May 25, 2009: ‘Lab report April 14th 2009: little instruments’

“My mentors include those who enroll gargantuan complex of musical resources and those who do not. How do I figure in this equation? There are, of course, pragmatic dimensions to this… but nonetheless what are the political/ideological implications of subscribing to one position?”

Ros Steer, April 1, 2009: ‘Lab report March 10th 2009: beginner bassist’s blathering blog’

“Leaving aside any personal taste in the aesthetics of sound, I think it’s more fun to perform together. I don’t mean that the performers should always be ‘in tune’ with each other or mimicking each other but just in tune to each other.”

Han-earl Park, March 29, 2009: ‘Lab report March 10th 2009: the possibility of failure’

“There’s a logic to the… abandonment of safety nets. Their absence can reveal who you are (and might be) without those prothesis. In engineering terms, by removing a component, you can test out the behavior of the rest of the (cyborgian) system…. What I discovered wasn’t exactly wonderful.”

Han-earl Park, February 23, 2009: ‘Lab report February 10th 2009: train wrecks and other fascinating disasters’

“I’m not sure what ‘opposite’ might mean in a musical-performance context (never mind one in which identities and relationships are being (re)negotiated in real-time). Isn’t saying that this (performance infected by agendas, etc.) is not improvisation, akin to saying that polemical or ideological disagreements are not democratic?”

Andrea Bonino, February 22, 2009: ‘Lab report February 10th 2009: on playing and being played’

“In the best moments when music really works, I still have the impression that music is coming through the musicians, and the musicians receive it and transmit it more or less like a radio set… think about that weird and beautiful sound that came out of your instrument almost by accident, and that you are trying to recreate with no success and you get the picture.”

Han-earl Park, January 30, 2009: ‘Lab report 2007-2009: how to run an improvised music club’

“Whether you would want to organize a regular improvised music event depends on what you’re looking to gain from it. Stet Lab, for me, is partly a long-term scene-building exercise; it is, at times, a place of research into the pedagogical, sociological and political dimensions of improvisative practice; an excuse to bring over practitioners whose work I am excited about; and a place to play.”

Han-earl Park, January 18, 2009: ‘Lab report January 12th 2009: healthy disrespect for the comfort zone’

“I’ve been prone to sports metaphors in the past, but Murray [Campbell] came up with a new one: table tennis. A great game of table tennis is not one that you score points, but in which all your resources—your body, your mind, your training—tells you one thing, but circumstances outwit you. You reach for the ball, but it ball heads in a completely different direction. You loose a point, but you go wow, how did that happen?”

Veronica Tadman, January 18, 2009: ‘Lab report January 12th 2009: detoxes really do work’

“I cannot quite figure out what was the key factor that made this months Lab stand out above the rest: Was it Murray [Campbell]? Was it the large crowd? The press release that constantly went on about a party?”

Han-earl Park, December 16, 2008: ‘Lab report December 9th 2008: when is a cliché a cliché’

“Are my gestures the same size? are my ideas-per-minute constant? I think, on a good day, on the microscopic level, my playing exhibits (complex / interesting / infuriating / contradictory) variation, but I fear that, on a macroscopic level, it’s often (simple / boring / predictable / coherent) uniformity that rules the day. Am I getting too comfortable in this space?”

Kevin Terry, November 24, 2008: ‘Lab report November 10th 2008: mindful auto-pilot nonsense’

“The aspiration for this month’s Lab (though I admit I decided on it less that five minutes before playing) was to play quasi-logically; pick a strategy and don’t budge… So I decide early on… to shadow Andrea [Bonino] and try to limit myself to playing while he isn’t. This is then complemented/complicated by playing pianissimo lyrically when he is playing. This is maintained throughout.”

Han-earl Park, November 20, 2008: ‘Lab report November 10th 2008: out of my depth’

“…By and large, if my adrenaline-choice-machine was doing anything, it was always looking for the nearest, most convenient route, avoiding interesting, circuitous options—the ones that lead off-the-edge into ugly-beutiful spaces and serendipitous-contradictory relationships.”

Veronica Tadman, November 19, 2008: ‘Lab report November 10th 2008: the rockstar wannabes’

“…As the only performer that doesn’t have an instrument that is material to hide behind, I often feel exposed and perhaps somewhat uncomfortable; this has consequently had a knock-on affect on my performance. However, not so much this month.”

Han-earl Park, October 16, 2008: ‘Lab report October 9th 2008: being paul desmond’

“Searching for a way to operate in this group, I was trying to reach Braxton’s Desmond in my musical personality (i.e. carefully considering many choices, but selectively executing only a small number of them). And that’s not a position I’ve tried to occupy in a long time…. It turned out, however, to be an interesting scheme for generating tactics in real-time, if not one that I feel compelled to return to.”

Tony O’Connor, July 30, 2008: ‘Lab report July 10th 2008: consequences of a noisy head’

“Perhaps it would be more accurate to say that the insurmountable difficulties of the situation forced my mind to give up and get on with it…. The problem, I think, is that this type of improvisation should be an immediate response, and every time a thought gets in the way, it puts a filter between the event and the response. There are times in the first piece where this barrier breaks down, like the strange antiphony section, but mostly I was just quietly panicking along to my own internal monologue. ‘An E major? What are you THINKING!? Oh great, some more string noise, yeah, that’ll win them over… Muppet.’”

Han-earl Park, July 25, 2008: ‘Lab report July 10th 2008: fitting the square piece into that triangular hole’

“You know… that you’ve lost the game in improvisation when you’re preempting the music. You don’t want to be thinking this is how it should be, goddamnit, and I will fit that square piece into that triangular hole. Much more fruitful is to approach the problem almost like resource management: given our context, what can we do? given our current location, where can we go? given where we’ve been, how we’ve travelled, what exciting places could this route(s) lead us? This becomes a question of possibilities—what we can make of what we have (and who we are).”

Melanie L. Marshall, July 7, 2008: ‘Lab report June 12th 2008: thoughts of a newbie improviser’

“Now I know what goes through a newbie improviser’s head, or at least through this newbie’s head: sheer terror.”

Han-earl Park, June 26, 2008: ‘Lab report June 12th 2008: being the odd-one-out’

“Secondary problem with this strategy: although ‘having plenty of time to think about my re-entrance’ is indeed a luxury, like a lot of ‘prepared means’, they come with Improviser’s Hazard No. 697: exactly when would be a good time to act?”

Eoin Callery, June 17, 2008: ‘Lab report June 12th 2008: noisiest “hoedown”’

“A special mention must be made of the vocal talents of two heavily intoxicated eastern european (they never quite managed to explain exactly where they were from!) who entered the fray at various points. People may say that you could never perform something like Zappa’s ‘Lumpy Gravy’ live—well given the right balance of whatever they were on, they may decide to stage it yet….”

My thanks also to all the guest artists who have shared the stage with us, generously contributing to, and transforming, this practice. There’s too many names to mention, but I’d like to thank, in particular, two club-runners, Bruce Coates (who with Sarah O’Halloran and I kicked-off Stet Lab in November ’07) and Mike Hurley for their advice, cautionary tales and encouragement; to Murray Campbell, Franziska Schroeder and John Godfrey who took time out of their busy schedules, and stepped-up when others would/could not; and to Corey Mwamba, Ian Smith, Justin Yang and Alex Hawkins for encouraging words, and an unwavering belief in grass-roots music organizations. Special thanks to Paul Dunmall, Mark Sanders and Don Malone; heavy-hitters who believed in the Lab enough to participate with neophyte improvisers in what must be, by their standards, a low-key event.

Kudos to Jesse Ronneau for supporting improvised music, and the aims of the Lab in particular, during his time in Cork. I apologize for the many whose name I’ve not listed, but y’all have my warmest thanks, and my sincerest admiration for your contributions—we are a better space for it!

Of course, the biggest thanks go to everyone who participated as listener (and I am thinking in particular of the regulars who come every month!), and to those brave ones who jump-in the deep-end!

Signing-off as curator: Thanks, thanks, thanks and thanks to y’all!

BTW, some of my observations about running this space around the half-way point of my tenure as curator are at ‘Lab report 2007-2009: how to run an improvised music club’.

The Vortex, London, November 22, 2009

Ingrid Laubrock leans forward, the tenor just about balanced on her right thumb. She shakes the horn, her fingers barely press the keys. There’s a flurry of (imagined? quasi? pseudo?) notes.

Sonic Arts Research Centre, Belfast, May 16, 2009

First time I hear Justin Yang play, I hear something similar. His approach is nothing like Laubrock’s, but, in Justin’s sound, I hear an approach that seems almost exclusively made-up of these complex of gestures.

To call them ‘extended techniques’ would be problematic; techniques extracurricular to orthodoxy might be a better description.

If I’m making Justin out to be anything like John Butcher, that would also be misleading.

The Vortex, London, November 23, 2009

Henry Grimes is not walking, he’s not playing lines, he’s not holding tones. His left hand shifts in steps, but what you hear is something else. His free fingers—‘articulate’ is so much the wrong word, ‘delineate’ ain’t much better—draw out problematic complexes—clouds of… stuff.

Stet Lab, Cork, December 7, 2009

And Marian Murray does something that’s not a million miles away from Grimes’ technique. Sliding her left hand on the fingerboard, her fingers moving ‘randomly’ (which is not quite the right word), and her bow draws out unexpected harmonics sound one register then another. She creates unpredictable, angular, jumpy phrases through deploying a, when you break it down, simple technique.

The term ‘randomly’ articulates the problematic of improvisation in our consciousness.

If I were to switch on my Composer’s Brain™ (© 1971, Pierre Boulez Inc.) for a moment, I might have heard echos of Ligeti in Grimes’ playing.

…or maybe Xenakis.

Chick Lyall once remarked that improvisers are, in a sense, lazy. He claims an inspiration in Xenakis, but responds to this inspiration with his own improvisative ‘shortcuts’ to obtain analogous results.

These terms (‘lazy,’ ‘shortcut,’ ‘random,’ etc.) articulate the problematic of improvisation in our composerly consciousness.

Another one of my teachers, Richard Barrett, also sees Xenakis as an inspiration—as model—and also problamtizes the boundary between improvisation and composition.

And how did I and Justin arrive here? Both of us with teachers from both the AACM and (so-called) New Complexity?

Department of Music, Edinburgh, date uncertain, 1996?

I remember watching Pedro Rebelo hit some clusters on the piano.

Let me rephrase that.

I remember watching Pedro Rebelo ripple some clusters on the piano. It’s almost fractal—characterized by a self-similarity—a technique for embedding detail and information at different scales.

The effect is almost an information over saturation while avoiding the homogeneity of noise.

On the guitar, I first encounter a technique for generating this kind of complexity in Fred Frith’s playing, and later, almost by accident, I’d find a technique to do that myself.

I’d later call these techniques, for lack of an, AFAIK, existing term, ‘futzing.’

Teaching this technique—‘throwing your hands around the fingerboard and hoping for the best’ or ‘sweeping though the strings and catching a surprise’—turned out, I’d later discover, to be a difficult thing to do.

How do you teach something that is so under theorized? (and how did Coltrane, Taylor, Sanders learn/develope it?) Neither ‘intentional’ (‘deliberate’ and ‘authorial’) nor ‘noise’ (e.g. the Cagian denial of agency). These things—‘noise’/‘intention’—exist on a line, and it isn’t so much about riding the border between them, but steeping off that line. We want to enter a space that is not about control, nor the lack of it, but about surprises, densities and irregularities; about relationships—differences and negotiations… maybe cyborgs.

As someone said elsewhere:

Let me put my cards on the table at this point and say, that for me, virtuosity is a significant element in how I relate to the instrument, how I relate to performance, and how I approach improvisation. Leave aside that vision of a raw, competitive, athletics concept, and I might argue for virtuosity as an interface between the instrument and the instrumentalist. If performance in general, and improvisation in particular, is the (re)enactment and (re)negotiation of identities, boundaries and relationships, then the space between actors (human and non-human) must be a site of (re)construction and (trans)formation.

I suppose what I might be arguing for is, taking my hat off to Donna Haraway, a cyborg improviser—the (un)natural, contradictory, partial identity that is techno-organism (Haraway, 1991). Should I insist on the stable category of human (me), or the stable category of the artifact (guitar), or the hard-edged boundary that separates us, no music can be made. It is in the re-negotiations, and the fluid motions, of the boundaries, the (temporary) creation of hybrids and networks that music (as side-effect) can be improvised.

Virtuosity, to me, means the confusion and connectedness of the (blurry) categories of the musical, the social, the cultural and the technological. On a good day I’m not sure where the cultural ends and the technological starts. Sometimes I wonder if my body stops at my fingertips, or whether it continues through to the fingerboard….

references

Haraway, Donna J. (1991), ‘A Cyborg Manifesto: Science, Technology, and Socialist-Feminism in the Late Twentieth Century’ in Simians, Cyborgs, and Women: The Reinvention of Nature (New York: Routledge), pp. 149-181.

Neil O’Loghlen, Han-earl Park, Justin Yang and Paul Dowling (photo: © 2009 Julia Healy)

A big thanks to our guest artist Justin Yang for making the journey down to Cork to perform with us.

Kudos to the Stet Lab (ir)regulars who performed on the night (Paul Dowling, Susan Geaney, Marian Murray, Neil O’Loghlen, Han-earl Park, Kevin Terry and Veronica Tadman) and to newcomer Scott Wade, and thanks again to Julia Healy (assisted by Cian Ó Beacháin) for the photography  [see the photographs (new window)…].

Last but not least, thanks to all who came to support this event. We hope to see you again next year!

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…]

Performing with Yang will be Stet Lab (ir)regulars including Han-earl Park, and the event will open with The Real-Time Company (for the Ad-Hoc Association) of… Susan Geaney, Marian Murray and Veronica Tadman.

With compelling and dramatic real-time interactions, it’ll be an appropriate end to 2009. Hope to see you there!

In the meantime, here’s a sample of Yang’s work (with Yang on tenor saxophone and Florian Hollerweger on piano) in the outer-reaches of the fuzzy boundary between composition and improvisation:

final Stet Lab event of 2009

Monday, December 7th 2009

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

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

€10 (€5)

The final Stet Lab event of 2009 will take place on Monday, 7th December, upstairs at The Roundy, Castle Street, Cork, Ireland. The event will feature the innovative Belfast-based improviser-composer, multi-instrumentalist and computer artist, Justin Yang.

The club’s very first cover band will comprise Justin Yang (saxophones and electronics) and Han-earl Park (guitar). Park remarks, however, that “who we’re covering, and how we’re covering it, is a little bit of a secret. Consider it a challenge to the audience to discover it themselves.”

A native of California, Justin Yang is currently exploring the use of real-time computer animation as notational and interactive constructs at the Sonic Arts Research Centre in Belfast. He is a musician who eschews the prioritization of pitch, rhythm or timbre and instead utilizes communication as the driving factor in his work. A student of both Anthony Braxton and Brian Ferneyhough, Yang says his work “lives in the spaces between composition / improvisation; jazz / classical / vernacular; electro-acoustic / instrumental; notated / graphically-scored / freely-improvised; [and] performance-art / sound-art / installation-art”.

Performing alongside this special guest at Stet Lab is the club’s founder and curator, Cork-based guitarist and improviser Han-earl Park.

Opening the event will be three performers reunited on the Stet Lab stage: Marian Murray (violin), Susan Geaney (flute) and Veronica Tadman (voice). They have been improvising for many years as individuals and as part of larger improvising ensembles but this is the first night for the trio to perform together as a unit.

“I am really looking forward to, and delighted to be, performing with Marian and Susan,” says Tadman who is no stranger to Stet Lab. “I have missed having the two of them at Stet Lab the past year and it will be fantastic to be able to perform with them.”

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

Stet Lab will return in 2010 with Istanbul-based improviser and electronic musician Korhan Erel on Monday, 11th January.

the performers

Justin Yang belongs to a generation of artists which can alternatively be thought of as post-idiom, post-scene, post-fame, post-artistic role (maybe as Morton Feldman suggests post-music). Like many of his contemporaries, Yang’s work lives in the spaces between composition/improvisation; jazz / classical / vernacular; electro-acoustic / instrumental; notated / graphically-scored / freely-improvised; performance-art / sound-art / installation-art; and it is developing within a contemporary movement towards an ontologically new notion of art. Yang’s work, reflecting contemporary practices across the artistic spectrum, is characterized by an intensive exploration of technology. Whether, like Evan Parker or John Butcher, it is the mechanical technology of Adolphe Sax, or the digital world engendered by Max Matthews; as McLuhan after Benjamin posits, the artistic merit of this work is inseparable from its means of production. It is a live art whether free-improvisation, materials algorithmically triggered in real-time, or a collection of electronic oscillations which only make sense when combined acoustically. It is characterized by interactivity, produced by a decentralized, multi-nodal network of operators, making not only the materials an extemporaneous expression but the means of organization an in-the-moment invention as well. The trappings of this work, its essential backbone, is no longer scales or motives, rhythms or timbres, but infrastructure—how to compellingly engage the performer in a network of communication and interaction with other performers, whether it be man or machine—moving the performance model from one of expression/production to that of navigation/exploration; what Anthony Braxton would call ‘the mystery of navigation through form’.

Yang’s 3VDB, inspired by the Morton Feldman composition Three Voices and the work of improviser Derek Bailey, is a self-contained system for performer with live electronics. It is made up of a live microphone, live processing software, two amplified speakers on each side of the performer, programmable foot controllers, and screen-based animated graphic feedback.

Han-earl Park works from/within/around the traditions of idiom-agnostic, experimental improvised musics, sometimes engineering theater, sometimes inventing ritual. He prefers collaborative, multi-authored contexts, and has worked with animators, film makers, poets, theater and mime performers, dancers and installation artists. As a musician (guitar, banjo, bass guitar, piano, electronics and software) he 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, and has performed with Ishmael Wadada Leo Smith, George E. Lewis, J. D. Parran, Paul Dunmall, Pauline Oliveros, Kato Hideki, Mark Sanders, Chick Lyall, Jan Langedijk, Stu Ritchie, Koen Nutters, Pedro Rebelo, Elspeth Murray, Mark Trayle and Hannes Raffaseder. He is also the constructor of io 0.0.1 beta, an interactive musical artifact, and cofounder of the Church of Sonology.

Park is a recipient of grants from the Arts Council of Ireland, and a recipient of the Ahmanson Foundation Scholarship and the Calarts Scholarship. 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). In addition to numerous self-released CDs, his work has been released by Owlhouse Recordings, frimp.co.uk and Frog Peak Music. He has performed live on Resonance FM (London) and on Drift Radio (at mediascot.org), and his recordings have been featured on Kalvos and Damian’s New Music Bazaar (Vermont), and You Are Hear (at www.youarehear.co.uk) which was selected as Critics’ Choice by The Independent (UK).

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

Featuring the saxophonist, composer-improviser and digital artist Justin Yang, this will be the final Lab of 2009. The event will mark two firsts: the first Stet Lab cover band (Justin Yang with Han-earl Park) and the first Stet Lab all women band (Susan Geaney, Marian Murray and Veronica Tadman).

To be informed of future events, please join the Stet Lab – announce, or subscribe to the web feed (news only or all blog posts). [More info…]

In addition, The Real-Time Company (for the Ad-Hoc Association) of… guitarists Han-earl Park and Kevin Terry will open the event.

It’ll be an exciting evening of real-time mutations and hybrids. Stet Lab would like to thank all who participated (performers, audience and behind-the-scenes helpers) over the last two years. Hope to see you over the next coming months!

about Stet Lab Year Three

Stet Lab (Cork’s monthly improvised music event) enters its third year (details below)!

To be informed of future events, please join Stet Lab – announce, or subscribe to the web feed (news only or all blog posts). [More info…]

Tuesday, November 10, 2009

Upstairs @ The Roundy, Castle Street, Cork, Ireland
9:00 pm (doors: 8:45 pm)
Admission: €10/5.

Stet Lab’s third birthday! Featuring Filario Farinoppo: Dario Fariello (saxophones, viola, electronics and little instruments), Filippo Giuffrè (guitar and electronics) and Antonio D’Intino (bass, electronics and little instruments), plus The Real-Time Company (for the Ad-Hoc Association) of… Han-earl Park and Kevin Terry (guitars).

Monday, December 7, 2009

Upstairs @ The Roundy
9:00 pm (doors: 8:45 pm)
Admission: €10/5.

Me, Bailey; You, Parker: Justin Yang (saxophones) with Han-earl Park (guitar), plus The Real-Time Company (for the Ad-Hoc Association) of… Susan Geaney (flute), Marian Murray (violin) and Veronica Tadman (voice).

Monday, January 11, 2010

Upstairs @ The Roundy (TBC)
9:00 pm

Featuring Korhan Erel (electronics). Details to follow….

Monday, February 8, 2010

Upstairs @ The Roundy (TBC)
9:00 pm

Featuring Evan Dorrian (drums). Details to follow….

Monday, March 8, 2010

Upstairs @ The Roundy (TBC)
9:00 pm

Featuring Paul Stapleton (new musical instruments / sound sculptures). Details to follow….

about Stet Lab

Since November 2007, Stet Lab has successfully brought together improvising musicians with varied experiences and from far afield. Cork, Ireland’s monthly improvised music event, Stet Lab is a space in which improvisers (novice, veteran; student, teacher; part- or full-time; amateur, professional; local or visitor) can meet, play and learn from one another.

about Stet Lab: Year Two

Looking back at the 2008/9 season, Stet Lab founder and curator, Han-earl Park says, “Stet Lab’s second year has been a triumph. We’ve been privileged to have hosted such a variety of improvising musicians: veteran of the international improvisation scene, Paul Dunmall, heavy-hitters such as Mark Sanders, the extraordinary Franziska Schroeder, the dramatic Katie O’Looney, the virtuoso Jamie Smith, and the… indescribable Jonny Marks. It’s also been a time to renew musical relationships with the mutant fiddle-playing of Murray Campbell, and the Cornelius-Cardew-meets-Joe-Harriott sound world of Bruce Coates.

“And we’ve witnessed the real burgeoning of young, local improvisers. The year has been a success beyond what we could have hoped for when we entered year two back in November [2008], and I look forward to musical interactions above-and-beyond.”

what to expect: Stet Lab Year Three

The 2009/2010 season promises to expand and diversify the improvisative geo-politics of Stet Lab. November will see the Lab welcome Filario Farinoppo—a trio of improvisers from Bologna, Italy—and the December event features the Californian composer-performer Justin Yang. Through 2010, the Lab will host visits by improvisers including Paul Stapleton (N. Ireland), Alexander Hawkins (England), Korhan Erel (Turkey) and Evan Dorrian (Australia).