The Conspiracy to Commit Beauty - Mar 29 - Flanders, NY

[mosc]

The Conspiracy to Commit Beauty: Flanders/New York
with Joseph Kubera

Monday, March 29th at 8 PM

a Roulette concert produced at the Flea Theater, 41 White Street, NY, NY 10013, (212.226.2407)
Ticket Price: $15; members are free

The Flea Theater is three blocks south of Canal Street (between Broadway & Church Street).
The nearby subway access includes the 1/9 to Franklin Street Station, 6, N/R, Q/W, and A/C/E to Canal Street Station.

Two Belgians and two Americans practice the lost art of beauty made audible thru the labors of Joseph Kubera, pianist. What do they have in common? Not a sound, not a method, not even a stylistic unity, but their collective dedication to beauty. It isn't really a conspiracy, in the sense of meeting in a darkened cellar and trying to reverse the course of history. It's more like the realization that there is something in common between these four rather diverse composers, ranging from hyperkinetic jazz-rock to nostalgic Euro-Zen, from the echoes of country music in an avant-garde structure to a neo-romanticism trailing shreds of pop music... and between Flanders and New York, how odd. Come and hear.

Peace for Piano by Boudewijn Buckinx
Serenades by Michael Sahl
Quilt Music by Beth Anderson
Sonata #3 by Frank Nuyts

Hailed by Village Voice critic Kyle Gann as one of “new music’s most valued performers,” pianist Joseph Kubera has been a leading interpreter of contemporary music for the past 25 years. He has been soloist at such festivals as the Berlin US Arts and Inventionen festivals, the Warsaw Autumn and Prague Spring, and the Ostrava New Music Days. In the U.S. this past year, he appeared in UC Berkeley’s Edgefest, Carnegie’s When Morty Met John, and Music in the Hamptons. Mr. Kubera has been awarded grants through the NEA Solo Recitalist Program and the Foundation for Contemporary Performance Arts. A leading proponent of the music of John Cage, Mr. Kubera is one of the few pianists performing the difficult works from the 50s through the 70s; he has recorded the complete Music of Changes and the Piano Concert, and has toured with the Merce Cunningham Dance Company at Cage’s invitation. In December 2002 he created, in collaboration with composer Michael Schumacher, an installation version of Cage’s Variations VI for the 16-loudspeaker sound environment at Engine 27 in lower Manhattan. Mr. Kubera is a core member of S.E.M. Ensemble, the Downtown Ensemble and Roscoe Mitchell’s New Chamber Ensemble, and he has performed with a broad range of New York groups from the Brooklyn Philharmonic to the New York New Music Ensemble to Steve Reich and Musicians. Solo recordings include Beth Anderson’s Piano Concerto on New World, Cage’s Music of Changes and Lucier’s Still Lives on Lovely Music, and Cowell’s Nine Ings on New Albion. He has also recorded for the Wergo, O.O. Discs, 1750 Arch, Mutable Music, Cold Blue, and Opus One labels. (OVER)

Beth Anderson (1950) is a composer of neo-romantic, avant-garde music, text-sound works, and musical theater. Born in Kentucky in 1950, she studied primarily in California with John Cage, Terry Riley, Robert Ashley and Larry Austin at Mills College (M.F.A./M.A.) and University of California at Davis. She is a member of Broadcast Musicians Inc. and is the current treasurer of New York Women Composers. She lives in Brooklyn and produces Women's Work, a concert series that enjoyed its premier season in February 2004, for Greenwich House Arts & New York Women Composers, Inc. Her new chamber music CD, Swales and Angels, will be out from New World in April 2004 thanks to The Aaron Copland Fund for Music and Phaedrus Foundation, and Pogus released an all-Anderson CD, Peachy Keen-O, last November. She was co-editor and publisher of EAR MAGAZINE in Berkeley 1973-75 and in New York 1975-1979. Ms. Anderson's publishers are Antes/Bella Music in Germany, Recital Music in England and E.M.I/Joshua Corporation Website: http://www.beand.com

Boudewijn Buckinx (1945) was dedicated to music from an early age. Since 1963 he introduced a lot of new music to Flanders with his group WHAM (Dutch acronym for Working Group for Contemporary and Topical Music). After his studies at the conservatory (graduate school for music) Antwerp, composition (serialism) with Lucien Goethals and Karlheinz Stockhausen, he graduated in musicology with a licentiate’s thesis on John Cage, in 1972. He was a teacher at the graduate school for art (Hasselt), the conservatory Antwerp and for one year held Frederic Rzewski’s course in Liege. He wrote many articles and published four books (e.g. De kleine Pomo on postmodern music, and Aria van de diepe noot on his own music). The 1001 Sonatas for Violin and Piano (BBWV 1988.09), lasting some 24 hours, is like a huge meadow full of small daisies. Buckinx’ BBWV (Boudewijn Buckinx Werk Verzeichnis) lists more then 800 works. He wrote Nine Unfinished Symphonies and several opera’s (Karoena, the Mermaid – Sokrates – Dhammapada e.a.). Website: http://www.boudewijnbuckinx.com

Frank Nuyts (1957) Belgian composer of orchestral, chamber, vocal, piano, and electroacoustic works; in more recent years, he has been active as a composer and performer in his ensemble Hardscore, which fuses elements of both classical and popular music. He has been awarded numerous times, including First Prize in the Tenuto Competition of BRTN (now VRT, 1979), First Prize at Le prix de la musique contemporaine du Québec, the Muizelhuis Composition Prize (both 1990), and the Prize for Music of Ghent (1995). He has written for many great ensembles and soloists, including cellist France Springuel (Belgium), marimba-player Robert Van Sice (USA) and the Songcompany (Australia). Dirk Brossé, Filip Rathé and others have also conducted his works. In 1989, Mr. Nuyts founded the trio Hardscore, a group that developed from his interest in bridging the gap between commercial and concert music. This ensemble now consists of mezzo-soprano, saxophone, bass guitar, digital piano, marimba, and drumkit, and there are currently six books of music completed for it, with a seventh in progress. The ensemble has toured in Austria, Belgium and the UK.
Website: http://www.hardscore.be

Michael Sahl is a composer of classical music, popular music, and something in between. He was born in Boston in 1934. From 1956 to 1966 he lived in Princeton, Italy, California, Spain, and Buffalo, and made a great effort to become an avant-garde composer, or at least a modernist. Then in 1968-69 he became the pianist and arranger for the Folk-rock artist Judy Collins, and jammed with many of the best rock musicians of that time. When he left that position, he wrote the String Quartet 1969, which is the first of his pieces to synthesize or digest the popular and classical strands in his background. He was Music Director for WBAI-FM ‘72-’73 during which time he composed Piano Sonata and Symphony. His operas include CONJURER, CIVILIZATION & ITS DISCONTENTS (which won the Prix Italia, Nonesuch), BOXES (which received the Seagrams Award, NMTN), JUNKYARD, and JOHN GRACE RANTER. His musical, RIO, was well received off-off Broadway. Musical Heritage released DOINA, COCKTAIL WANDERINGS, & SYMPHONY ‘83). He has had commissions from the Corning Glass Museum, the Allbright-Knox Gallery, and the NEA, (for STORMS, Amherst Sax Quartet). He has received grants from NYSCA, NYFA, the NEA, and the Cary Trust and currently teaches for Touro College. Website: http://www.geocities.com/bdrogin/Sahl.html

For more information call: 212 673-5017