Join us on Tuesday 9/25 for another incredible night of experimental music. This one features the return of ASAC alum Mike Bullock, along with some very special guests.
Tuesday 9/25
Upstate Artists Guild
247 Lark St.
Albany
8pm
suggested donation of $5
MAWJA (Bullock/Rawlings/Kerbaj)
+
HEENAN/KOCHER
Mawja formed in 2004 in Boston, MA, USA, when Beirut
trumpeter Mazen Kerbaj met bassist Mike Bullock and cellist Vic Rawlings at
their first gig. The group has since performed in cities across the eastern US.
Mawja was an ensemble in residence at STEIM in Amsterdam, Netherlands, during
Kerbaj's curatorship there in 2007. They have released two CDs, on Kerbaj's al
Maslakh and Bullock's Chloë imprints. Their music incorporates customized
electronics, extensive instrument modifications, and modular synthesis.
Mazen Kerbaj, born in 1975, lives and works in
Beirut. His main activities are comics, paintings and music. He published 11 books and many short stories and drawings in
anthologies, newspapers and magazines in Lebanon, Europe, and the USA, and
exhibited his work both in solo and in collective exhibitions in Lebanon,
France, England, Spain, Sweden, Germany, Switzerland, Australia, Dubai,
Malaysia and the USA.
Mazen Kerbaj is also one of the founders of the Lebanese
free improvisation scene, both as a trumpet player and as an active member in
the MILL association that organizes the annual Irtijal festival (www.irtijal.org) in Beirut since 2001. In
2005 he launches Al Maslakh, the first label for this music in the
region (www.almaslakh.org). In 2009,
after fructuous collaborations with Lebanese cult punk rock band Scrambled
Eggs he launches a new sub-label, Johnny Kafta’s Kids Menu (www.johnnykafta.com) to produce
alternative and experimental rock music from Lebanon.
Between 2000 and 2011, Mazen Kerbaj played in solo and with
various groups in the Middle East, all around Europe, and in the USA. Regular and occasional partners includes: Sharif Sehnaoui,
Christine Sehnaoui, Raed Yassin, Charbel Haber, Franz Hautzinger, Lê Quan Ninh,
Bertrand Denzler, Stéphane Rives, Mats Gustaffson, Guillermo Gregorio, Gene
Coleman, Michael Zerang, Fred Lonberg-Holm, Jim Baker, Jack Wright, Michael Bullock,
Vic Rawlings, David Stäckenas, Martin Küchen, Axel Dörner, Ricardo Arias, Jason
Khan, The Ex, Jarrod Cagwin, Thomas Lehn, Joe McPhee, Raymond Boni, John
Butcher, Martin Blume…
Mike Bullock is a composer, improviser, intermedia artist, scholar
based around Boston, MA. His modes of work include electroacoustic composition,
installation, drawing, and video. Bullock performs across the US and in Europe,
collaborating with a huge range of artists including Pauline Oliveros,
Christian Wolff, Steve Roden, Bhob Rainey and Greg Kelley of nmperign, Mazen
Kerbaj, and Theodore Bikel.
In 2010 he and Linda Aubry
Bullock co-founded Shadowselves, a platform for their new media work.
Bullock’s music has been released by numerous labels including Intransitive,
Important, Winds Measure, Sedimental, Grob, 1.8sec, al Maslakh, and Homophoni.
He received a PhD from the Arts Department at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
in Troy, NY, and has taught and lectured in the US and Europe on
field recording and improvisation.
More info at:
More info at:
Vic Rawlings (cello/ electronics) employs a still and unstable sound language
ranging from visceral excess to extreme austerity. He uses an amplified cello
augmented with extensive and invasive preparations of his design, adapted from
Baroque-era designs. On this instrument he has developed a vocabulary of
extended techniques, approaching near-total abstraction from the cello. As an
entirely separate unit, he uses and continually develops a modular electronic
instrument with a highly unstable interface, acoustically realized by an array
of exposed speaker elements. His writings on music/ instrumentation and
contemporary music education have been published in Leonardo Music Journal and
Intransitive Magazine. He has authored sound-based music and listening
curricula that engage students at all levels in participatory experiences in
which they often encounter unfamiliar experiential/ aesthetic territory. He
presents in settings ranging from Ivy-League Universities to juvenile detention
facilities.
Chris Heenan (Berlin) and Jonas
Kocher (Biel/Bien) work with the unlikely pairing of contrabass clarinet and
accordion using improvisation to create worlds of changing depth and mood that
both expand upon and fixate on particular sonic zones while simultaneously
belying the instrumentation of the duo. Sudden shifts in texture and tempo
become to areas of quiet and stasis, a reprieve from constant movement that
gives way to a burst of loud focused activity.
Accordion player and composer born in 1977 (CH), Jonas Kocher studied a.o. with
Teodoro Anzellotti, Pierre Sublet and Georges Aperghis. He collaborates
regularly as an accordionist in improvised and conceptual contexts with
musicians such Michel Doneda, Christian Wolfarth, Olivier Toulemonde, Alfredo
Costa Monteiro, Luca Venitucci, Duo Diatribes, Jacques Demierre, Christian Kesten,
Gaudenz Badrutt, Chris Heenan… Jonas Kocher's work explores the relationships
between tone, noise and silence and the processes of listening. As composer he
realizes projects that are situated between composed theater, installation and
concert pieces. His compositions has been played at Biennale Bern 2010, Theater
Basel, Zentrum Paul Klee, Festival Encuentros Buenos Aires, Umlaut Festival
Berlin, Centre Dürrenmatt Neuchâtel, Festival Concentus Moravie, Zagreb
Biennale. He composes also for hörspiel, dance and theater. Jonas Kocher is
also involved as an organizer of different events in Switzerland and runs the
label flexion records.
www.jonaskocher.net
Chris Heenan (Washington D.C., 1969) lives in Berlin and is an active composer/
performer and organizer of experimental music. He performs on alto saxophone,
contrabass clarinet, and analog synthesizer in contexts ranging from solo to
large groups and in various ongoing projects. He uses these instruments to investigate
new musical forms, noise, and improvisation both in his solo work and in
collaboration with composers and performers such as actors, musicians, dancers,
and visual artists. Heenan has developed a formidable solo voice on his wind
instruments, particularly with the contrabass clarinet where he uses extended
techniques, often incorporating multiphonics with surprising results, to reveal
the subtleties inherent to the instrument. Heenan’s regular projects include
Nordzucker (with Michael Maierhof, Birgit Ulher, and Lars Scherzberg), PIVOT
(with Liz Allbee), Trigger (with Matthias Müller and Nils Ostendorf), Team Up
(a trio with Jeremy Drake and a revolving third member percussionist), Phantom
Limb and Bison (with Chris Forsyth, Jaime Fennelly, and Shawn Hansen), a duo
with zitherist Dimitra Lazaridou Chatzigoga and a contrabass clarinet and
percussion duo with Michael Vorfeld.
Chris Heenan and Jonas Kocher are performing with the support of Pro Helvetia, the Swiss Arts
Council.
