Launching Spectrum’s new site with its 10th anniversary celebration, 26 & 27 February
Hello Spectrum Community,
Since our first event on 29 February 2012, we have presented over 2,400 different events, making us by some accounts the most-active avant garde venue in NYC.
Please come celebrate our 10th anniversary the last weekend of this month and help us launch our new location in Red Hook/Brooklyn:
7 PM Saturday 26 February: Gabe Zucker presents an evening of music by some of New York's most dynamic improvisers
3 PM Sunday 27 February: Tony Geballe hosts an evening of diverse, adventurous guitar music.
Our new space allows for social distancing while omicron wanes and the pandemic lingers. This largest-yet Spectrum is in the Brooklyn Waterfront Artists Coalition (BWAC), which is in a pre-Civil War warehouse overlooking the Statue of Liberty
481 Van Brunt, Door 7A
Hook, Brooklyn, 11231
Safety is paramount. All must bring proof of full vaccination (or submit in advance once Spectrum has the platform online). Additionally, all present should wear masks throughout the event, with the exception (when necessary) of performers while performing.
We will at first not have a high-quality piano due to the challenge of climate control, but are exploring options actively.
www.spectrumnyc.com
Here are the details:
Saturday 26 February
7 PM
Spectrum and Gabriel Zucker present an evening of music by some of New York's most dynamic improvisers:
— Amirtha Kidambi and Matteo Liberatore
— Lester St Louis and Chris Williams
— Gabriel Zucker and Henry Mermer
— David Leon's Birds Eye (Doyeon Kim, Lesley Mok)
Amirtha Kidambi and Matteo Liberatore’s duo of voice and guitar creates improvised aural landscapes that are glacial and highly evocative, unfurling through dynamic gestures that are at once spacious and restrained. Juxtaposed against the frenetic pace characteristic of the New York improv scene, the pair applies the compositional aesthetics of Feldman or Oliveros to a free environment. The project is set apart from Kidambi’s work with Lea Bertucci, Mary Halvorson or Elder Ones and Liberatore’s collaborations with musicians including Elliott Sharp, Mark Kelley and Catherine Sikora. Each piece explores the unique possibility space created by the union of voice and guitar, delving deep into specific permutations including registral extremes, detuning and quiet mouth sounds, all without the use of processing. After a prolonged period of isolation, the duo emerged to record and play together for the first time since the start of the pandemic. The music is nuanced, patiently developing as the subtleties of gradual seasonal change or the awareness of sound in meditation. Like shifting color gradients and patterns on a canvas of Agnes Martin, timbral shading and repetition form large scale impressions. Neutral Love investigates an emotional inner world, taking its name from The Passion of G.H. by Brazilian writer Clarice Lispector, a narrative monologue of a woman’s existential spiral. While Kidambi and Liberatore come from radically different backgrounds, they draw from universal sonic signifiers, like the ringing of the bell at a Hindu temple threshold or the echo of church bells across the piazza of a small Italian town, invocations to prayer and reflection. The duo’s interactions simmer beneath an anti-climax, begging the listener to observe one’s surroundings, turn inward, and confront the self.
Lester St Louis is a New York City born and based Multi-instrumentalist, composer and curator. Lester has worked in, performed and created in artistic environments in The United States, Canada, South America, Europe and China with groups and artists such as Dré Hočevar Trio, Jaimie Branch Fly or Die, Ensemble Adapter, TAK Ensemble and many more. As a composer, Lester has been commissioned by artists such as the JACK Quartet, Mahan Esfahani and Stefan Jackiw, RAGE THORMBONES, Lauren Cauley and others. Chris Williams is an interdisciplinary artist and educator based between NYC and LA and most at home collaborating with contemporary improvisers and experimentalists. He has toured extensively throughout the U.S. and Europe. His work explores the dyad of ancestral trauma and power existing in all Black Americans. Investigating this has led to the creation of the modular piece I Ain’t Got No Spare (2019) which interweaves performance, homemade electronics, sound and projection; presented at Clockshop with a second installation iteration at Shatto Gallery through CultureHub. Selected recent and upcoming projects include: mehahn a theatrical meditation on grief and hereditary dissonance created alongside director Natalia Lassalle-Morillo, Sans Soleil a duo with Patrick Shiroishi out on Astral Spirits (2021), On The Platform (2020) a collaboration with percussionist Booker Stardrum and animator Miranda Javid which premiered in the Netherlands at West Den Haag. Williams has received grants and/or been in residence with BANFF Centre for the Arts, Foundation of Contemporary Arts, CultureHub, Atlantic Center for the Arts, WasteLAnd, and others. Williams has collaborated with creators Eyvind Kang, Joanna Mattrey, Miriam Parker, Patrick Shiroishi, Bennie Maupin, Nicole Mitchell, Fay Victor, Wendy Eisenberg, Luke Stewart, Amanda Beech, Marjani Forte-Saunders, Eric Revis.
Gabriel Zucker presents the debut of a new duo, with Zucker on piano, synths, and vocals, and Henry Mermer on drums. The duo will perform excerpts of Zucker's new long-form work, Confession, a reflection on love, loss, and memory written during the height of the pandemic — portions of which appeared on Zucker's recent release with Attila Gyarfas on Hunnia Records. Zucker is a pianist, composer, and multi-instrumentalist from New York, whose work combines maximalist compositions with the progressive improvisation of New York’s creative music scene. His music has received two ASCAP composition awards, and has been praised in Downbeat (4.5 stars), All About Jazz (4.5 stars), Stereogum, Jazzwise, and the New York City Jazz Record. A Yale graduate and Rhodes Scholar, Zucker has performed throughout New York at such venues as Carnegie Hall, The Stone, Roulette, and the Jazz Gallery, as well as in 22 countries around the world.
Bird’s Eye is the latest project from saxophonist and composer David Leon with Doyeon Kim on gayageum and Lesley Mok on drumset & percussion. Inspired by the folkloric musics of Cuba and Korea, the compositions weave rigorous ensemble writing and guided improvisation to investigate collectivity.
Sunday 27 February
3 – 7 PM
Tony Geballe hosts an evening of diverse, adventurous guitar music.
3 PM CHORD is deeply immersive, noisy, slowly evolving heavy electric guitar music. Performed by Nick Didkovsky (Doctor Nerve, Vomit Fist, Eris 136199, Fred Frith Guitar Quartet, Alice Cooper) and Tom Marsan (Delta Garage, The Handler's Hand), CHORD uses amp distortion, feedback, tone shaping, and musical artifacts created on the edges of gesture. A viscous universe of ecstatic, immersive textures that reward careful, detail-rich listening.
Nick Didkovsky is a guitarist, composer, and music software programmer. He founded the rock band Doctor Nerve in 1983, the metal bands Häßliche Luftmasken and Vomit Fist in 2011 and 2013 respectively, the free metal guitar duo CHORD in 2018, and is a member of the Fred Frith Guitar Quartet. He has composed for Bang On A Can All-Stars, Meridian Arts Ensemble, ETHEL, and others. He has performed with DITHER Guitar Quartet, John Zorn, Billion Dollar Babies, and Blue Coupe. His compositions and guitar work appear on over 50 records. Album credits include Alice Cooper "Paranormal", released July 28, 2017. His Erdős number is 4.
4 PM Max Kutner is a Brooklyn-based guitarist and composer originally from Las Vegas, NV. He is a co-founding member of Android Trio alongside Eric Klerks and Andrew Niven which recently released its sophomore album "Other Worlds" on Cuneiform Records in October 2021. Previously, he led the experimental jazz trio Evil Genius (2012-18), the avant folk group, The Royal US (2011-18) and the mutant Klezmer septet known as Bubbeleh (2010-16). In addition to his numerous projects as a leader or co-leader, he has worked alongside a diverse roster of notable artists including Mike Keneally, Sofia Gubaidulina, Ulrich Krieger, the former members of Oingo Boingo, The Grandmothers of Invention (Zappa alumni), The Magic Band, Alphonso Johnson, Lili Haydn, Matt Darriau and many more. He previously taught guitar for non-majors at California Institute of the Arts.
5 PM Tony Geballe has recorded, performed, produced, studied, and taught music of many kinds all around the world. He is a member of the avant-garde trio Zero Times Everything, and the progressive darkwave band Braindance, and has also performed and recorded with the Trey Gunn Band, Toyah Willcox, The Hellboys, The League of Crafty Guitarists, The Crown, and many others. A member of La Compagnia de’ Colombari since 2004, Tony has designed sound, composed music and performed in numerous theatrical productions in New York City, Italy, and elsewhere, working on over 20 shows with director Karin Coonrod since 1993. Tony’s solo 12-string guitar CD Native of the Rain was released on Robert Fripp's DGM label. You can find Tony at http://www.tonygeballemusic.com/.
6 PM Reg Bloor is a veteran NYC experimental guitarist/composer known for frantically dissonant solo work as well as a long tenure as Glenn Branca's Concertmaster/musician wrangler/right hand. Founder of the bands The Paranoid Critical Revolution and Twitcher, Reg began performing as a solo artist in 2014, including at The Red Bull Music Academy New York Festival, the OFF Festival, and Basilica Drone. Reg continues to run Branca's ensemble and the label they founded together, SYSTEMS NEUTRALIZERS, which released a second solo recording Sensory Irritation Chamber and Branca's posthumous The Third Ascension. Reg is currently working on a third solo album and will appear on the soundtrack to the upcoming TROMA film Shakespeare's Shitstorm.
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