OPENSOUND: improvised and experimental music

Opensound, a monthly concert series of improvised and experimental music

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Ensemble Tzara: horn, cello, synthesizer
playing new works by Robert Ashley, Timothy McCormack and David Sonton

Dave Gross, saxophone

David Michael Curry, viola & electronic accessories
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Tuesday, Dec 17, 2013

Third Life Studios33 Union SquareSomerville, MA(Almost at the heart of Union Square, on the segment ofSomerville Ave. coming into Union Square from Porter Square)

For directions and parking:http://www.thirdlifestudio.com/directions.html
Doors open at 7:45. Music at around 8:00 p.m.$8 admission
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Opensound is a Greater Boston concert series featuring improvisers and interpreters of avant-garde, experimental, acoustic, and electro- acoustic music. We program monthly concerts featuring local and touring musicians, sound artists, and the un-categorize-able. Hailing from disparate backgrounds, styles, and genres, our musicians, dancers, video and performance artists, form a vibrant community that presents unique events in Somerville, Massachusetts.
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Some Bios

Robert Ashley (born March 28, 1930), is a contemporary American composer, best known for his operas and other theatrical works, many of which incorporate electronics and extended techniques. Along with Gordon Mumma, Ashley was also a major pioneer of audio synthesis. From 1961 to 1969, he organised the ONCE Festival in Ann Arbor with Roger Reynolds, Gordon Mumma, and other local composers and artists. He was a co-founder of the ONCE Group, as well as a member of the Sonic Arts Union, which also included David Behrman, Alvin Lucier, and Gordon Mumma. In 1969 he became director of the San Francisco Tape Music Center. In the 1970s he directed the Mills College Center for Contemporary Music. His notable students include Maggi Payne.

Dave Gross: Labeled as "one of boston's steadfast explorers," by bob blumenthal of the boston globe, saxophonist david gross has been transforming the saxophone, for nearly a decade, into exactly what it is: a metal tube with keys, mouthpiece, and a reed. he has worked with a wide range of internationally recognized musicians including le quan ninh, eddie prevost, steve roden, john olson (of wolf eyes), gino robair, martin tetreault, kaffe matthews, glenn spearman, raphe malik as well as members of the boston free-improv scene including bhob rainey, greg kelley, and laurence cook. reviews of his recordings have been as varied as "the range of textured noise that he cajoles from his instrument is impressive" to "lengthy episodes of fingernails ripping at a blackboard". he has performed throughout the us including at festivals as diverse as the knob (witchita, ks), big sur festival of experimental music (ca), high zero (baltimore, md), improvised and otherwise (nyc) and autumn uprising (ma) which he created in 1997.

Timothy McCormack's music is largely preoccupied with and informed by the physicality behind sound production, and obsessively explores the relationship between the body and the instrument. His music exhibits highly dense textures and abnormal forms comprised of sounds which are constantly in flux, often violently so. The structures in his "Interfacing with the Surface" is quite the other way round: The game of breaking-through a seemingly impervious, voluminous sound carpet consists of, on the one hand, holding on to the constancy, but on the other hand it becomes an act of liberation, the individual’s breaking loose from the cohesion. The piece is based on Manchester-based artist Angela Guyton’s triptych of the same title. The three panels of her triptych have no prescribed orientation or relationship towards one another, yet, no matter the chosen organization, they coalesce into an extremely unified amalgam.

David Michael Curry: I play viola and other instruments in rock bands & improvisational groups, including Empty House Cooperative, Thalia Zedek Band, Willard Grant Conspiracy, Metal & Glass Ensemble, Hidden Tooth, Grizzler, and others. I'm interested in music for theater, dance, and film & looking to do more. Empty House Cooperative is improvised music with DMC and friends, most often including cellist Jonah Sacks, guitarist Chris Brokaw, and others.

David Sontòn draws his inspiration mainly from the fields of architecture and mathematics. While the architect divides spaces into smaller and smaller units, the composer proceeds using parallel methods in respect of time: The "big picture“ is being processed into even smaller ones, whereas the fascination about multi-layered sound can be threatening and persuading at the same time. In ‚La métta da fein – Solo for violoncello, French horn, and synthesizer’ the trio of instruments blends into one single part, resembling the voice of the "métta da fein“, a dreadful figure from a Rhaeto-Romanic legend about the female ghost of grain who frightened the children with her creepy murmur and kept them from running through the sensitive new grass of blooming meadows.
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Upcoming Concerts

Saturday, January 18, 2014: Ken Ueno, voice and Frances-Marie Uitti, cello | Morgan Evans-wailer, violin | Mike Bullock, bass | More TBA
Saturday, February 8, 2014: Orlando Cela, flute, plays Sciarrino and more | Bats from Pogo: Walter Wright, electronics, Andrea Pensado, voice, laptop | more TBA
Saturday, April , 2014: Ben Hersey, more TBA | curated by Arkm Foam