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TILT SIXtet // Preview of Chris Jonas’ “Cities” ::Kick-off of TILT Brass collab. with composer/video artist Chris Jonas ::Preview of music/video from Jonas’ intermedia work Cities ::2nd hearing of an important recent work by Anthony Coleman
Tuesday, August 10, 2010 8:00pm, $10 The Stone [map] Corner of Ave C and E. 2nd St, NYC |
 Chris Jonas |
 Anthony Coleman |
 GARDEN Ch. 1, "Night" (Del Sol String Quartet) |
New York, NY - At The Stone on Tuesday, August 10, 2010, TILT Brass presents its SIXtet project playing a work by Anthony Coleman as well as the launch of a collaboration with Santa Fe-based composer, saxophonist, and video artist Chris Jonas, previewing music and video from the new intermedia work Cities (GARDEN, Chapter 2).
PROGRAM
The preview on August 10 of Jonas’ Cities (GARDEN, chapter 2), which was recently awarded commissioning support by Meet The Composer, features the composer on soprano saxophone, projected video (also created by Jonas), and a quartet of TILT Brass musicians derived from SIXtet, including Russ Johnson on trumpet, Curtis Hasselbring and McIntyre on trombone, and Joe Exley on tuba. According to Jonas, the new work “consists of imaginary/surreal ‘cities’ and landscapes created to explore atmospheric, metaphoric, psychological and cross-cultural realms of place, dwelling, urban identity and the human landscape.” He continues:
“Inspired by author Italo Calvino's Invisible Cities, Cities examines identity within human ecosystems. Working with a range of assumed and assigned identities, Cities addresses the experiences of being an outsider, expatriate and refugee (identities assumed, acquired, transposed, hardened by time, corrupted and dissolved), how the human landscape grows from conflicting and obsessive details, and the structures of civilization as they undergo aging, corruption and decay.”
Cities is the second chapter of GARDEN, a set of three music-driven intermedia performance/installations developed over 3 years that use linear-immersive media (live music, installation, transparent screens and projected video). The first Garden chapter was a collaboration between Jonas and the Del Sol String Quartet (San Francisco).
Premiered by SIXtet in November 2009, Anthony Coleman’s Acute Coryza is the second composition written for TILT Brass by this venerated performer/composer. Coleman’s brief program note helps contextualize this compelling work:
“The term Acute Coryza is the technical name for the common cold (I had a bad cold when I wrote this piece). Acute Coryza has some similarities with the other piece I wrote for TILT (the bigger version), Set Into Motion. In composing both works, I let my mind wander through associations I have with brass instruments and brass music, and eventually things started to happen. There's definitely some strange Copland influence here - Fanfare For The Common Cold? But much more important is the fact that I've started reintroducing elements of Open Form back into my Chamber Music - teaching that music (especially the Christian Wolff Exercises) really helped me figure out a way to do that. A lot is given - a lot is not. There's no "Improvisation", exactly. But much is left up to the performer - and having the background of an improviser definitely helps in realizing and playing this piece.”
BIOGRAPHIES
TILT Brass
TILT Brass is a Brooklyn-based experimental music organization dedicated to expanding the world of contemporary brass music by producing innovative concert programs and recording projects, and by commissioning new works for its two ensembles, Creative Brass Band and SIXtet. Since forming in 2003, TILT Brass has presented the work of over 50 composers, including group members and local colleagues, as well as established masters. TILT’s repertoire engages its audience with musical experiences ranging from sonorous soundscapes to the raucous strains of a street band, from freely improvised explorations to the precision and clarity of fully notated chamber music (often combining the latter two within a single work).
TILT SIXtet
Russ Johnson, Nate Wooley - trumpet
Curtis Hasselbring, Chris McIntyre - trombone
Joe Exley, John Altieri - tuba
Formed in 2007 by New York-based organization TILT Brass, TILT SIXtet is a six-piece "triple duo" of trumpets, trombones, and tubas, one of the most distinctive ensemble sounds on the chamber music scene. The group features an all-star line-up including Russ Johnson (The Other Quartet, Lee Konitz Nonet) and Nate Wooley (Anthony Braxton, Akron/Family) on trumpet, Curtis Hasselbring (New Mellow Edwards, Gloria Deluxe) and TILT Director Chris McIntyre (Ne(x)tworks, Zeena Parkins) on trombone, and Joe Exley (Anti-Social Music, SEM Ensemble) and John Altieri (Alarm Will Sound, Red Baraat) on tuba. SIXtet's repertoire includes original works by Alpert Award winner John King, Downtown legend Anthony Coleman, Director Chris McIntyre, saxophonist Chris Jonas (Braxton, Cecil Taylor), and Bessie Award winner Pete Drungle (Michael Portnoy, Sarah Michelson). Future plans include collaborations with Chris Jonas, David First, and Raz Mesinai, and the recorded release of its original repertoire.
Chris Jonas
Composition, performance, new media
Since moving to Santa Fe from NYC in 2001, Jonas has worked as a composer and video artist, receiving many commissions for large scale intermedia projects in the US and abroad, including works for chamber groups, new media projects and installations. Among Jonas’ recent commissions are multiple pieces for the Santa Fe Opera,“In Situ” performances for SITE Santa Fe biennials, live soundtracks for silent films (for the Library of Congress and others), RUTA a 'bus' opera, the GARDEN series and a collaborative music and video work for the Mexican Museum of Anthropology (Mexico City).
Throughout the 1990s in NYC, Jonas worked internationally touring and recording with Cecil Taylor, Butch Morris, William Parker, the Brooklyn Sax Quartet and his own ensemble, Sun Spits Cherries. From 1996-1999, Jonas worked as an assistant to MacArthur fellow Anthony Braxton, co-producing, performing and conducting many of Braxton’s “creative orchestras” around the world. During these years, Jonas recorded over 30 albums and toured cities worldwide as a performer, guest conductor and composer.
Jonas has taught at Wesleyan University, the College of Santa Fe and currently teaches New Media Arts at the Institute of American Indian Arts. Recent awards include the 2008 New Visions/New Mexico Award for the Santa Fe Opera commission "Memorylines" and the 2009 United States Artists Award for music. Jonas is currently Vice President of the Board of Directors for Anthony Braxton's Tri-Centric Foundation.
Anthony Coleman is a composer, improvising keyboardist and teacher, born in New York City on August 30th, 1955. His ensembles have included the trio Sephardic Tinge (three CD's: Sephardic Tinge (1995), Morenica (1998), and Our Beautiful Garden is Open (2002) - all on Tzadik) and Selfhaters Orchestra (two CD's: Selfhaters (1996) and The Abysmal Richness of the Infinite Proximity of the Same (1998), both on Tzadik). Other CD's include the cycle by Night (1987 - 1992), a series of works inspired by Coleman's experiences in (the ex-) Yugoslavia (Disco by Night, Avant 1993), Shmutsige Magnaten (Tzadik), a live solo performance from the Krakow Jewish Culture Festival, Summer, 2005 which features interpretations of the songs of Mordechai Gebirtig, and Pushy Blueness (Tzadik) and Lapidation (New World), both recordings of his chamber music. Coleman has toured and recorded with John Zorn, Elliott Sharp, Marc Ribot, Shelley Hirsch, Roy Nathanson and many others. Coleman is currently on the NEC faculty in the Contemporary Improvisation Department, where he also teaches Jazz and Composition students. His CD, Freakish: Anthony Coleman Plays Jelly Roll Morton was recently released by Tzadik.
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