Songs of Joyce's Ulysses
Saturday, June 16, 2007
8:00 p.m.
First Central Congregational Church, Omaha, NE
Admission: FREE (Suggested Donation, $7)
Ted Stevens (Cursive, Mayday) leads a concert program in commemoration of Bloomsday, the annual celebration of the life of James Joyce and his landmark novel. Ted has partnered with Dan McCarthy (McCarthy Trenching, Mayday) to perform many of the songs referenced in Ulysses.
Joseph Drew, Darci Gamerl & John Klinghammer of ANALOG will perform a variety of works based on Joyce's writings and referenced in Ulysses. Donations will help support ARTSaha! 2007 and The Stephen Center, which offers shelter and recovery services to Omaha.
 Program
Bloomsday Prelude (Joseph Drew)
Introit & Gloria (Plainchant)
"Dance of the Hours" (Amilcare Ponchielli, from La Giaconda)
"Quando Corpus" (Gioachino Rossini, from Stabat Mater)
"Solo for Voice 84" (John Cage, from Song Books)
Thema (Omaggio a Joyce) (Luciano Berio)
"Goldenhair" (Frank Bridge)
"Golden Hair" (Syd Barrett)
Love's Bitter Mystery (Ted Stevens)
The Croppy Boy (Traditional, adapted lyrics by Carroll Malone)
Variation on "La Ci Darem La Mano" (W.A. Mozart, from Don Giovanni)
"Love's Old Sweet Song" (James Molloy, Lyrics by Clifton Bingham)
Variations on "M'appari" (Friedrich von Flowtow)
"Nighttown" (Ted Stevens)
"Yes" (Ted Stevens)
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Field Recordings - Found Sound
Wednesday, April 25, 2007
10:30 p.m.
Galapagos Art Space, Brooklyn, NY
Admission: $5 (Doors open at 10 p.m.)
Johnny & Joe curate an evening of found sounds & field recordings with Loop 2.4.3 and members of Object Collection & Arsenic-Free Music. Featuring a mix of original music and works by Samuel Beckett, LaMonte Young, Velvet Underground, and more, the evening winds up with an after-hours remix by various artists experimenting with some of the program’s source material.
Program
Samuel Beckett, Quad (Arranged by J. Drew)
Johnny Chang, LOS ANGELES TRANSCRIPTIONS6: il corral
Joseph Drew, Arena
Joseph Drew, Cocktail
Devin Maxwell, TBD*
Oznog Petersen, Slideshow
Velvet Underground, The Gift
* World Premiere |
Field Recordings - Found Sound
Sunday, March 4, 2007
4:00 p.m.
Dangerous Curve, Los Angeles, California
Admission: $7-10 (Sliding Scale)
ANALOG arts ensemble makes its Los Angeles debut with a program curated by Johnny Chang & Joe Drew based on found sound and field recordings. Featuring everything from oscillators, ambulators, and escalators, to birds and bathtubs, the program featured collaborations with seven LA-based artists in an intimate and eclectic afternoon concert.
Program
Donut, Untitled
Johnny Chang, LOS ANGELES TRANSCRIPTIONS3: Echo Park Plaza
Johnny Chang, Two Violins + Found Sounds
Jonathan Marmor, Untitled (violin, trumpet, five guitars, playback devices)
Joseph Drew, Cocktail
Joseph Drew, Arena
Samuel Beckett, Quad (Arranged by J. Drew)
Raven Chacon
Johnny Chang, violin, harmonica, movement
Joseph Drew, trumpet, electronics, harmonica
Chelsea Green, guitar
Nigel Lundemo, electronics
Marc Nimoy
Marc Sabat, violin
Felix Salazar, guitar
Tashi Wada |
ASLSP
Tuesday, February 6, 2007
10:00 a.m. - 10:00 p.m.
Epworth-Euclid Church, Cleveland, Ohio
Admission: FREE
Joe Drew performed a 12-hour version of John Cage's ASLSP (As SLow aS Possible) at the historic 'Oil Can Church' on Cleveland's University Circle. Epworth-Euclid Church features a 1928 E.M. Skinner organ.
Program
Personnel | Notes | Pics | Organ Specs
Written in 1985 for the University of Maryland International Piano Festival and Competition, ASLSP stands for "As SLow(ly) and Soft(ly) as Possible". The title also refers to the opening line in the final paragraph of Finnegan's Wake, "Soft morning city. Lsp!".
Bearing in mind the utter tedium of competition judging, John Cage thought his open score would be as much a challenge for performers as it would be a change of pace for the judges. The piece consists of eight small movements, one of which is to be omitted, and one of which is to be repeated at the performer's discretion, a format which insured the competition judges would never hear the same performance twice.
ASLSP is currently being performed in Halberstadt, Germany over the course of 639 years. In the same epic tradition, Joseph Drew, a veteran of long form improvisation and performance with groups like numun and Loop 2.4.3, offers an experimental reading of the piece, which explores the full timbral range of the Epworth-Euclid organ.
Audience members are encouraged to use the sonic atmosphere to relax, read, meditate, sleep, or in whatever way they choose. They may freely come and go throughout the performance. |
Ordo Superman
Saturday, February 3, 2007
7:30 p.m.
Church of the Saviour, Cleveland, Ohio
Admission: $8 adult/$5 students (Tickets available at the door)
ANALOG arts ensemble makes its Cleveland debut with its narrative concert based on Hildegard's legendary mystery play Ordo Virtutum. Hildegard's chants will be performed by members of the Church of the Saviour Chancel Choir, while ANALOG trumpeter Joseph Drew performs an intoxicating mix of contemporary solo works, many written expressly for him.
Program
Karlheinz Stockhausen - Entrance & Formula
Hildegard - "Who are these...?"
Hildegard - "O Ancient Holy Ones..."
Giacinto Scelsi - Four Pieces for Solo Trumpet: III, II
Hildegard - "Hasten and help me..."
Hildegard - "O Soul..."
Chiyoko Szlavnics - Not Having Moved At All 
Giacinto Scelsi - Four Pieces for Solo Trumpet: I, IV
Hildegard - "Foolish! Foolish!"
Hildegard - "O bewailing loudly"
Hildegard - "What is the power..."
Hildegard - "I and my companions"
Hildegard - "We, however..."
Hildegard - "I, Humility..."
Karlheinz Stockhausen - Upper Lip Dance
Hildegard - "Flee..."
Hildegard - "If you help us..."
Hildegard - "I, Contempt of the World"
Radiohead - "How to Disappear Completely"
Hildegard - "O Glorious lady"
Pauline Oliveros - String-Utopia
Johnny Chang - TBD*
Hildegard - "You Know Not..."
Hildegard - "How could this touch me"
Istvan B'Racz - Four In Stance
Laurie Anderson - "Oh Superman"
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Hildegard - Procession
* World Premiere | Notes | Pics
Ordo Virtutum, the morality play by Hildegard (1098-1179), centers on the defense of a soul by Virtues such as the deliciously medieval 'Contempt of
the World'. The competing impulses which form a protective network around a mortal life can also be its undoing, as virtue turns to vice, and the Devil, who plagues the soul throughout the play, gains his foothold.
Tonight's program is framed by selections from Hildegard's epic, each rendered in a different style, and each bridging the sometimes broad gaps in style among these modern female voices. Laura Kaminsky (b. 1956), founder and artistic director of Musicians' Accord, addresses grief in a straightforward solo trumpet piece, Elegy for the Silenced Voice (1995), written for an instrument that is usually emblematic of brute force and aggression, rather than heartfelt loss.
ANALOG member Johnny Chang's microscore project has been running for two years, yielding loads of challenging music, none of which can exceed thirty seconds. Canadian expatriate Chiyoko Szlavnics' submission calls for a single sustained glissando.
Look Little Low Heavens (1994) takes its title from Gerard Manley Hopkins' "Spring", representing the "low heavens" of the title in its arch form. Welsh composer Hilary Tann makes use of a few extended techniques like valve tremolos and doodle tonguing in this lyrical entry in the solo trumpet genre.
In 2000, Iceland's electronica princess Björk, who'd come up singing post-punk with her groundbreaking band The Sugarcubes, decided to make her acting debut in Lars von Trier's "Dancer in the Dark". Much of what drew her to the role is the maternal instinct of self-sacrifice in protection
of children, especially given her notorious attack on a photographer in an airport, when she felt her child was being threatened. "I've Seen It All" is powerful dialogue between a mother who stands ready to end her life to protect her child and a nimble tempter who tries all the tricks he knows to convince her to give in to the temptation towards self-preservation.
"The Witness" takes the concept of self, explored in "I've Seen It All", and tests its limits. Pauline Oliveros' text score calls for the performers to employ physical, sonic or theatrical gestures, in any
combination to explore themselves and their partners. Eventually, the process becomes unfettered by the bounds of time and space, and the performers are encouraged to give witness to their own actions in as universal a way as possible.
Libby Larsen's "Fanfare for the Women" is the first direct acknowledgement of the true patriarchal lineage of the primary instruments on tonight's program. (It was even written to unveil a sports arena!) Instead of celebrating the fanfare's unbridled masculinity, it is offered up, by the audience, a transgressive gesture that signals the journey's end is in sight.
"interAKtiv/sterEo" is heard for the first time on this program. Composed ANALOG member Heather Frasch, it deconstructs the concept of a fanfare, and explores the fringes of extended trumpet technique. Clicking keys, and stylized breathing take over the piece, which is constructed as an enormous dimunition.
"Oh Superman" remains the most unlikely #1 hit in history. Laurie Anderson's electronic classic is an embrace of the inescapably fragmented identity of a modern female, and ANALOG uses the minimalist motives of the song to construct a Reillian improvisation piece. Anderson's titular evocation of Nietzsche's ubermensch is never sublimated by a similarly powerful female construct, but rather a detente is reached, which is simultaneously barren and cozy, a true snapshot of modern gender identity.
Anderson's plaintive finale, "So hold me, Mom, in your long arms. Your petrochemical arms. Your military arms. In your electronic arms," is an electroacoustic reworking of the closing lines of the final Processional from Hildegard's play, "Father, behold, I am showing you my wounds," bringing the modern, incompatible voices into a harmony by proximity, the only true consonance left in the world.
-- Rene Edmunds
ANALOG Annotator 
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