reminder: Call them Improvisors! at Sonorities 2010

This evening (Sunday, November 7, 2010) at 6:00 pm: the closing event of Sonorities, ‘Call them Improvisors!,’ an ensemble performance led by Evan Parker takes place at the Sonic Arts Research Center (Queen’s University, Belfast, N. Ireland). [Details…] [Sonorities page…]

performance diary 11-01-10 (Belfast, Cork, Dublin)

upcoming performances
date venue time details
November 6, 2010 Sonic Arts Research Center
Queen’s University
Belfast, N. Ireland
9:30am
(my paper at 2:00pm)
Not exactly a gig, but a presentation, ‘Subject Matter: Improvising Cyborgs’ by Han-earl Park at the TWO Thousand + TEN symposium.
[Paper abstract…]
[Details…]
November 7, 2010 Sonic Arts Research Center
Queen’s University
Belfast, N. Ireland
6:00pm Call them Improvisors! Performance as part of an ensemble led by Evan Parker.
[Details…]
[Sonorities page…]
November 15, 2010 The Roundy
Castle Street
Cork, Ireland
9:00pm
(doors: 8:45pm)
Stet Lab’s third birthday event featuring Ian Smith (trumpet and flugelhorn).
Admission: €10/5.
[Details…]
November 25, 2010 Ó Riada Hall
UCC Music Building
Sundays Well
Cork, Ireland
8:00pm Performances by Matana Roberts (saxophone), Han-earl Park (guitar) and Mark Sanders (drums) as part of the UCC concert series. More info to follow…
Admission: €10/5. Matana Roberts will also be presenting a talk, ‘Coin Coin: a Blood Narrative in Blacks, Browns, Reds and Blues’ at the UCC Music Building at 11:00 am on the day. The talk is free, and open to the public. [Details…]
December 6, 2010 The Roundy
Castle Street
Cork, Ireland
9:00pm
(doors: 8:45pm)
Final Stet Lab of 2010 featuring Corey Mwamba (vibrophone).
Admission: €10/5.
[Details…]
March 30, 2011 Venue TBC
Dublin, Ireland
TBC Performances by Ishmael Wadada Leo Smith (trumpet) with Mathilde 253 (Charles Hayward (drums, percussion and melodica), Han-earl Park (guitar) and Ian Smith (trumpet and flugelhorn)). Presented with funding from the Music Network Performance and Touring Award and support from the Improvised Music Company. Details to follow…
March 31, 2011 Venue TBC
Cork, Ireland
TBC Performances by Ishmael Wadada Leo Smith (trumpet) with Mathilde 253 (Charles Hayward (drums, percussion and melodica), Han-earl Park (guitar) and Ian Smith (trumpet and flugelhorn)). Presented with funding from the Music Network Performance and Touring Award and support from the UCC School of Music. Details to follow…

Continue reading “performance diary 11-01-10 (Belfast, Cork, Dublin)”

performance: Call them Improvisors! at Sonorities 2010

Sunday, November 7, 2010, at 6:00 pm: the closing event of Sonorities, ‘Call them Improvisors!,’ an ensemble performance led by Evan Parker takes place at the Sonic Arts Research Center (Queen’s University, Belfast, N. Ireland).

See the performance diary for up-to-date info.

[Sonorities page…]
[facebook event page…]

On Saturday, November 6, 2010, I will also be presenting a talk,‘Subject Matter: Improvising Cyborgs,’ at the TWO Thousand + TEN symposium [Paper abstract…].

description

The final event in this year’s festival is a celebration of improvisation with one of the most renowned free improvisors of our time – saxophonist Evan Parker. A day of workshops and rehearsals led by Parker culminates in a public performance by an improvisation collective especially created for this event with musicians from around the world including Mark Trayle (electronics), Gascia Ouzounian (violin), Chris Brown (piano), Paul Stapleton (percussion), Dan Goren (trumpet), Don Nichols (percussion), Simon Rose (sax), Gustavo Aguilar (percussion), Han-earl Park (guitar), Ulrich Mitzlaff (’cello), Tasos Stamou (zither), Dominic Lash (double bass), Christopher Williams (bass), Nuno Rebelo (guitar), Richard Scott (synth), Steven Davis (drums), Pedro Rebelo (piano), Justin Yang (sax) and Franziska Schroeder (sax).

May I suggest a much more promising line of investigation…. it is the musical process known as group improvisation. This offers an escape from a composer’s inevitable intentions forced on the hierarchically inferior performers (drones?) and leads to a unique sound event made by a group of equal individuals working in social equality in relation to the unique environment (acoustics, listeners, etc.) of the performance. (Evan Parker)

Thanks: Maynooth, Berlin and Vienna

Lichtblik Kino (Berlin) 10-23-10

Thanks to Jesse Ronneau of EIMM, Hilary Jeffery and Richard Scott of AUXXX, Marco Eneidi of the Neu New York / Vienna Institute of Improvised Music for organizing the performances, and for hosting this itinerant musician. Thanks also to Jaap Pieters whose films added an extra interactive complication (in the best possible sense) to the AUXXX performance, Richard Scott for the informal recording session in Berlin, and to all the performers who were involved in EIMM and Neu New York / Vienna Institute of Improvised Music.

And a big, big thanks to Richard Barrett for the pushing/pulling me. I’m in awe of Richard’s skill and craft, and I hope I managed to keep up with his energy and creativity. I recall, during our twenty-five minute duet, at least four points during which I fumbled the ball, but I still think he got some of the best playing out of me. It was certainly a mental and physical workout, and I leaned a lot during that performance. Hope to play again!

As always, thanks to all who came to listen/watch—it was a pleasure to share the journey.

reminder: Neu New York / Vienna Institute of Improvised Music

Tonight (Thursday, October 25, 2010) at 9:00pm: Performance by Han-earl Park (guitar) as part of the Neu New York / Vienna Institute of Improvised Music. The event takes place at the Celeste Jazz Bar, Hamburgerstrasse 18, Vienna, Austria 1050. [Performance diary entry…] [nenuvi page…]

reminder: Richard Barrett and Han-earl Park at AUXXX

Han-earl Park and Richard Barrett (original photos by Stephanie Hough and Luis Neuenhofer)
Han-earl Park and Richard Barrett (original photos by Stephanie Hough and Luis Neuenhofer)

Tonight (Friday, October 22, 2010) at 10:00pm (doors: 9:00pm): Performance by Richard Barrett (electronics) and Han-earl Park (guitar), plus Jaap Pieters (super 8 films) presented by AUXXX. The event takes place at Lichtblik Kino (Kastanienallee 77, 10435 Berlin, Germany). Donation: €5. [Details…] [AUXXX page…]

Very, very much looking forward to this one. Hope to see y’all there!

performance: Matana Roberts, Han-earl Park and Mark Sanders

Thursday, November 25, 2010, at 8:00 pm: University College Cork Concert Series presents an improvised music performance by Matana Roberts (saxophone), Han-earl Park (guitar) and Mark Sanders (drums). The event takes place at the Ó Riada Hall, UCC Music Building, Sundays Well, Cork, Ireland, and tickets are €10 (€5) (contact Music, School of Music and Theatre, UCC for ticket information).

Matana Roberts, Han-earl Park and Mark Sanders (original photos by Brett Walker, Stephanie Hough and Andrew Putler)
Matana Roberts, Han-earl Park and Mark Sanders (original photos by Brett Walker, Stephanie Hough and Andrew Putler)

See the performance diary for up-to-date info.

[facebook event page…]

Matana Roberts will also be presenting a talk, ‘Coin Coin: a Blood Narrative in Blacks, Browns, Reds and Blues’ at the UCC Music Building at 11:00 am on the day. The talk is free, and open to the public.

description

Get ready for a truly international musical exploration of technique, craft and tradition by three extraordinary improvisers. Chicago-born, New York-based saxophonist Matana Roberts, leading Birmingham-based drummer Mark Sanders, and Cork-based Korean-American guitarist Han-earl Park perform as part of the University College Cork Concert Series on Thursday, 25 November 2010 at 8:00 pm in the Ó Riada Hall, UCC Music Building, Sundays Well, Cork. Tickets are €10 (€5 concessions) and available from Music, School of Music and Theatre, UCC.

The event marks Matana Roberts’ first performance in Ireland. Hailed as the one of the “brightest lights of the new Chicago wave” (The Wire) and an “eloquent, dramatic tone-warping free-jazz artist, right out of Ayler’s anti-bebop tradition” (John Fordham, The Guardian), Matana Roberts represents the younger generation of African-American experimentalists. She is a member of the New York chapter of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians and the Black Rock Coalition. Roberts’ work traverses jazz, rock, music theater and acoustical engagements with architecture. Coin Coin, a multi-movement “blood narrative” about her family tree including Marie Therese Coin Coin, is widely acknowledged as her most important composition.

Mark Sanders has been heard in Ireland on tour with the great Charles Gayle and William Parker, performing in groups with Paul Dunmall, and with Paul G. Smyth and Hannah Marshall at the National Concert Hall. In free improvisation and avant-rock circles, Sanders is arguably the most sought-after drummer of his generation. A sensitive and skillful collaborator, he has been called upon by musicians as diverse as Evan Parker, Derek Bailey, John Butcher, John Tchacai, Peter Brötzmann and Jah Wobble.

Han-earl Park teaches improvisation at the School of Music and Theatre, UCC. As an improviser, he is fascinated by the collision of improvisative traditions, ideologies and agencies, engaging on-stage with the high-energy free jazz of Paul Dunmall, avant-rock back-beats of Charles Hayward, downtown ambient noise of Kato Hideki, and, shortly, with Richard Barrett’s patchwork complexity and Leo Smith’s creative world music.

“I was very excited when I heard that Matana Roberts was to play here! She is undoubtedly one of the brightest voices in improvisation today, and we’re incredibly lucky that her first performance in Ireland will be in Cork. The trio with the incredible Mark Sanders and Cork’s own musical powerhouse Han-earl Park is going to be pure dynamite. UCC has been a centre for improv for years, but this is going to be one of my top highlights!” says John Godfrey, lecturer and composer at the School of Music and Theatre, UCC.

With a trio representing diverse strands of present-day improvised musics, prepare for a performance that fragments and recombines musical histories, and explores the revolutionary potential of real-time music.

Matana Roberts will also be presenting a talk, ‘Coin Coin: a Blood Narrative in Blacks, Browns, Reds and Blues’ at the UCC Music Building at 11:00 am on 25 November 2010. The talk is free, and open to the public.

further information

Music, School of Music and Theatre, UCC: www.music.ucc.ie

Matana Roberts: www.matanaroberts.com images: www.centralcontrol.co.uk/press
Han-earl Park: www.busterandfriends.com images: goo.gl/photos/E5bJLD6ris5ixVPUA
Mark Sanders: www.marksanders.me.uk images: www.marksanders.me.uk/photographs.html

event summary

concert: Matana Roberts, Han-earl Park and Mark Sanders
Date: Thursday, 25 November 2010.
Time: 8:00 pm.
Venue: Ó Riada Hall, UCC Music Building, Sundays Well, Cork, Ireland.
Performers: Matana Roberts (saxophone), Han-earl Park (guitar) and Mark Sanders (drums).
Tickets: €10 (€5) from Music, School of Music and Theatre, UCC, tel: +353 (0)21 490 4530, email: podonnell@music.ucc.ie.

talk: Matana Roberts ‘Coin Coin: a Blood Narrative in Blacks, Browns, Reds and Blues’
Date: Thursday, 25 November 2010.
Time: 11:00 am.
Venue: Ó Riada Hall, UCC Music Building, Sundays Well, Cork, Ireland.
Admission free.

performers’ bios (150 words each)

Chicago born Matana Roberts is a saxophonist/composer/performer who works in various mediums of improvised sound and performance, and has been active in New York since 2001. A Vanlier and Brecht Forum fellow, and a 2008 and 2009 nominee for an Alpert Award in the Arts, she has appeared on numerous recordings, and performances worldwide with her own, as well as collaborative, ensembles such as Sticks and Stones, Burnt Sugar, Exploding Star Orchestra, Oliver Lake Big Band, and the groups of Julius Hemphill, Myra Melford, Jayne Cortez, Merce Cunningham and Savion Glover. In 2008, the success of her leader debut, The Chicago Project, led critics to call Roberts “one to watch” (Jazzwise) and “an eloquent, dramatic, tone warping free jazz artist right out of Ayler’s anti bop tradition” (The Guardian). She has also recorded as a side woman on recordings with a large smattering of influential ensembles.

Improviser, guitarist and constructor Han-earl Park (박한얼) 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 and concert halls in Denmark, England, Ireland, The Netherlands, Scotland and the USA.

He is involved in ongoing collaborations with Bruce Coates, and with Franziska Schroeder, long-standing associations with Alex Fiennes and Murray Campbell. Recent performances include 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, 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).

Recently heard in Ireland with saxophonist Charles Gayle and bassist William Parker, and with saxophonist Paul Dunmall and guitarists Han-earl Park and Jamie Smith, Mark Sanders has played with most of the UK’s major improvisers including Evan Parker, Derek Bailey, Paul Rutherford, Barry Guy, Lol Coxhill, Phil Wachsmann, John Butcher and Keith Tippett.

He has also played with Roswell Rudd, Tim Berne, Ned Rothenberg, Charles Gayle, Sirone, William Parker, Mark Dresser, Butch Morris, John Tchacai, Leo Smith, Peter Brötzmann, Jah Wobble and Springheel Jack. He is a member of The ZFP with Carlos Zingaro, Simon Fell and Marcio Mattos, a trio with Frode Gjerstad and John Edwards, and a trio with Lotte Anker and Peter Friis Nielsen. Sanders is also a member of SPEEQ with Hasse Poulsen, Luc Ex and Phil Minton / Sidsel Endresen.

Sanders has released over 100 CDs, and has performed at numerous festivals across the world.

performance: Richard Barrett and Han-earl Park at AUXXX

Friday, October 22, 2010, at 10:00pm (doors: 9:00pm): Performance by Richard Barrett (electronics) and Han-earl Park (guitar), plus Jaap Pieters (super 8 films) presented by AUXXX. The event takes place at Lichtblik Kino (Kastanienallee 77, 10435 Berlin, Germany). Donation: €5.

See the performance diary for up-to-date info.

[AUXXX page…]
[facebook event page…]

Han-earl Park and Richard Barrett (original photos by Stephanie Hough and Luis Neuenhofer)
Han-earl Park and Richard Barrett (original photos by Stephanie Hough and Luis Neuenhofer)

about the performers

Richard Barrett is equally active in electronic free improvisation and notated composition. Recent compositions have been premiered by the London Sinfonietta and the Symphonie-Orchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks, and in 2010 he has performed at the Venice Biennale, Inventionen (Berlin), Jazz em Agosto (Lisbon), Spark (Minneapolis), Muziekgebouw aan ‘t IJ (Amsterdam), MusikTriennale Köln and elsewhere. He is currently a guest professor at the Instituut voor Sonologie in Den Haag, where he leads a workshop in electroacoustic improvisation. Current work in progress includes CONSTRUCTION, a two-hour composition for voices, twenty instruments and electronics, which is the latest result of his twenty-year collaboration with the Elision Ensemble and whose premiere is planned for November 2011. He and Paul Obermayer have been working together as the electronic duo FURT since 1986 and formed the electroacoustic octet fORCH in 2005. He also performs regularly with vocalist Ute Wassermann, in the Evan Parker Electroacoustic Ensemble and in many other contexts, and has recorded for NMC, Matchless, Unsounds, ECM, Creative Sources, Psi and others.

Improviser, guitarist and constructor Han-earl Park (박한얼) 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.

performances: Maynooth, Berlin and Vienna

Updates on upcoming performances in October 2010: Maynooth, Berlin and Vienna. See the performance diary for up-to-date info.

Hope to see y’all at these events!

performance diary 10-14-10 (Belfast, Berlin, Cork, Dublin, Maynooth, Vienna)

upcoming performances
date venue time details
October 21, 2010 Renehan Hall
NUI Maynooth
Maynooth, Ireland
8:00pm Performance by Han-earl Park (guitar) with others as part of EIMM (Evenings of Improvised Music, Maynooth).
Admission free.
October 22, 2010 Lichtblik Kino
Kastanienallee 77
10435 Berlin, Germany
10:00pm
(doors: 9:00pm)
Performance by Richard Barrett (electronics) and Han-earl Park (guitar) plus Jaap Pieters (super 8 films) presented by AUXXX.
Donation: €5.
[Details…]
[AUXXX page…]
October 25, 2010 Celeste Jazz Bar
Hamburgerstrasse 18
Vienna, Austria 1050
9:00pm Han-earl Park (guitar) performs as part of the Neu New York / Vienna Institute of Improvised Music.
[Details…]
November 6, 2010 Sonic Arts Research Center
Queen’s University
Belfast, N. Ireland
9:30am
(my paper at 2:00pm)
Not exactly a gig, but a presentation, ‘Subject Matter: Improvising Cyborgs’ by Han-earl Park at the TWO Thousand + TEN symposium. More info to follow…
[Paper Abstract…]
[Details…]
November 7, 2010 Sonic Arts Research Center
Queen’s University
Belfast, N. Ireland
6:00pm Call them Improvisors! Performance as part of an ensemble led by Evan Parker. More info to follow…
[Details…]
November 15, 2010 The Roundy
Castle Street
Cork, Ireland
9:00pm
(doors: 8:45pm)
Stet Lab’s third birthday event featuring Ian Smith (trumpet and flugelhorn).
Admission: €10/5.
[Details…]
November 25, 2010 Ó Riada Hall
UCC Music Building
Sundays Well
Cork, Ireland
8:00pm Performances by Matana Roberts (saxophone), Han-earl Park (guitar) and Mark Sanders (drums) as part of the UCC concert series. More info to follow…
Admission: €10/5. Matana Roberts will also be presenting a talk, ‘Coin Coin: a Blood Narrative in Blacks, Browns, Reds and Blues’ at the UCC Music Building at 11:00 am on the day. The talk is free, and open to the public. [Details…]
December 6, 2010 The Roundy
Castle Street
Cork, Ireland
9:00pm
(doors: 8:45pm)
Final Stet Lab of 2010 featuring Corey Mwamba (vibrophone).
Admission: €10/5.
[Details…]
March 30, 2011 Venue TBC
Dublin, Ireland
TBC Performances by Ishmael Wadada Leo Smith (trumpet) with Mathilde 253 (Charles Hayward (drums, percussion and melodica), Han-earl Park (guitar) and Ian Smith (trumpet and flugelhorn)). Presented with funding from the Music Network Performance and Touring Award and support from the Improvised Music Company. Details to follow…
March 31, 2011 Venue TBC
Cork, Ireland
TBC Performances by Ishmael Wadada Leo Smith (trumpet) with Mathilde 253 (Charles Hayward (drums, percussion and melodica), Han-earl Park (guitar) and Ian Smith (trumpet and flugelhorn)). Presented with funding from the Music Network Performance and Touring Award and support from the UCC School of Music. Details to follow…

Continue reading “performance diary 10-14-10 (Belfast, Berlin, Cork, Dublin, Maynooth, Vienna)”