Conduction #2: guided improvisations for orchestra April 23, 2006

Conduction #2: Bay Area musicians present compositions and guided improvisations for orchestra. Featuring Gino Robair, Cheryl Leonard, Matt Ingalls & Tom Duff.

Orchestra pieces will be between 10 and 25 minutes long, depending on the choice of the conductor. These may involve the conductor "improvising" directions to the orchestra by hand cues or flash cards, or may involve sheet music, text instructions, crude pictures, video-projections or other methods.

Currently seeking orchestra participants: Please contact Matt Davignon ([email protected]) for more information.

Information about the Conductors:

Gino Robair is a percussionist, music journalist, and published composer living in the San Francisco Bay Area. Gino frequently tours North America and Europe as a soloist and often improvises in ad-hoc groups. He has performed and/or recorded with Anthony Braxton, Tom Waits, John Butcher, LaDonna Smith, Otomo Yoshihide, Eugene Chadbourne and John Zorn. http://www.rastascan.com/gino.html

Matt Ingalls: Perhaps known more for his dynamic yet "composerly" free improvisations, he is equally active in more traditionally notated new music. In addition to being an award-winning, internationally recognized composer, Matt has premiered over 50 works by other composers - many of which are unaccompanied solo pieces written specifically for his unique sound and performance style. Just what is this unique sound? No doubt it is influenced by matt's heavy involvement in computer music, both as a composer and as a music software programmer. The sounds and textures he is able to produce on the clarinet are often brittlely "electronic," but most striking about his performances is how he often structures rhythmic and formal elements in a way that clearly resembles computer music. For example, matt's solo improvisations often contain "glitches" and interruptions, or they will offer a number of simultaneous musical ideas that are then cut up, rearranged, or "windowed" just like granular synthesis or phase vocoding algorithms. http://www.sfsound.org/matt.html/

Cheryl Leonard: Glass shards and pinecones, glaciers, boxspring mattresses, a flock of accordions, circular saw blades, viola, the erhu, hyenas and whales and elk, Cheryl E. Leonard???s music finds its raw materials just about anywhere. From these diverse sources come works that embrace the spectrum of musical possibilities: improvised to composed, acoustic to electronic, diaphanous to bombastic, notes to noise. Many of Leonard???s works explore subtle textures and intricacies in sounds not generally considered musical. Recently these investigations have expanded to include the creation of instruments, primarily from found materials. http://www.allwaysnorth.com/

Tom Duff is one of the unspoken geniuses of Bay Area odd music. A fan of fluxus, he can be seen performing often on banjo or laptop computer. He also composes for and participates in the Cornelius Cardew Choir, and was told that he'd have to pay La Monte Young $100 if he'd like to feed hay into a piano during a past performance. http://www.tomduff.com/about.html http://www.4-33.com/sonic.chains/instructions.html

The Orchestra (so far):

Winds/Reeds/Brass:
Alan Anzalone - alto clarinet/soprano sax
Joshua Raoul Brody - accordion
Kyle Bruckmann - oboe
Ewan Dowpin - trombone
Matt Ingalls - clarinet
Alan Lechusza - woodwinds
Jacob Lindsay - clarinets
Rent Romus - alto/soprano/c-melody sax
Aram Shelton - sax
Toyoji Tomita - trombone
Elizabeth Torres - sax
Michael Zelner - clarinet, flute

Strings:
A.L. Dentel - cello
Tony Dryer - doublebass
Jeff Hobbs - contrabass
Carolyn Lechusza Aquallo - electric cello
Cheryl Leonard - viola
Marianne McDonald - harp
Bob Marsh - cello
Damon Smith - doublebass

Guitars
Shelley Doty - guitar
Vicky Grossi - bass guitar
Steini Gunnarsson - guitar
Ava Mendoza - guitar
David Michalak - lap steel guitar
Bart Stull - guitar
Tom Duff - banjo

Percussion:
Matt Davignon - found objects
Jacob Felix Heule - drums
John Hanes - drums
Peter Martin - percussion
Suki O'Kane - mallets
Steve Weems - percussion

Electronics/Other:
Christopher Fleeger - electronics
David "Bug" Leikam - moog synth
Tim Perkis - electronics

Official Website: http://bayimproviser.com/transbay_calendar.asp?summary=false&event_id=5065