Maybeck Recital

After an enigmatic performance of all electronic media at the Luggage Store, I had the opportunity to perform at the Maybeck Recital Hall in Berkeley. I recorded and performed there with NIRUSU III about two years ago, so I know the space well. When I was booking concerts earlier this year it occurred to me that Songs of the Thirsty Sword 1 was pretty much designed to fit into that hall. I'd also heard from my close friend and NIRUSU III co-veteran, Susan Allen, that Gregory Moore (proprietor of the Hall) had recently performed an amazing vocal + electronics work - so I had the idea to split the marquis with him.

Greg was stellar. his performances were exciting and dynamic and I'm eager to hear more soon! I didn't know what to expect, but I knew, considering we were both educated in the same place and share many of the same musical philosophies, he'd be a sure bet. I also have to credit Susie for her endorsement - I trust her taste implicitly.

Songs was performed on the 7.5 foot grand with my back to the audience. I projected the video ambiently (sic) across the entire end of the hall so that the images became more surreal and environmental than distinctly recognizable - which proved to be really effective and dramatic. It cast shadows across the music and across my back, hands, onto the keys and through the inside of the piano while I played the stoic, melancholic strains of the piece. Greg complimented me on playing the specific instrument, as opposed to simply stroking the keys of a piano - I was up until 6am the night before recording Songs and had, of course, spent as much time as possible rehearsing and running the piece on that piano before hand. The truth is, I'm not a pianist, but I want certain things out of this piece when I perform it. In order for that to happen, I have to become very intimate with the instrument I play it on. I'm glad that carried.

Other un-official, verbal critiques were:

Pretty/Devastating! -Suki O'Kane

Different than any thing I've heard you do... a new direction! -Stephanie Lie

and

Like a really morbid Eric Satie! -John Benson

Glad to please! It was really tough to play, but the space was really accommodating and I think the listeners understood it environmentally as I intended. I have to say, they were the kindest, quietest audience I've ever encountered. Usually in an extensive, quiet piece of music, you will hear much scuffling, program waving and often coughing where the music is at its quietist. Last night, as I was sitting there sweating, holding my breath between infinitely soft and slow phrases, I could have heard a pin drop - I was tempted to turn around just to see if anyone was still there (or awake)! It's so hard performing with those eyes right on the back of your neck from just a few feet away. In Brno, I performed in a darkened hall on a small stage with the video blinding me from the gaze of the audience. I could just float away in that little pool of light on the stage, and I think I gave a great World Premiere for that reason (I was told it went over very well).

But last night - wow, I was in the room, just feet away from the listeners, I'm sure they could see the sweat on the back of my neck and I could watch the projections from the same angle that they could see them, spewing across the room, across my back and the piano onto the wall... it was a very different experience, sort of like driving a very large bus full of people on a very steep, windy, mountain road...

Luggage Store under the belt

After repeating Ngoma Lungundu - with some basic revisions - last night at the Music By the Eyeful opener, Luggage Store, San Francisco, I was tagged by Jimmy Howe for an on-street interview. He's got a great Blog, check it out at theatreoftheblind.net. You can also hear Keith Evans talk about his compelling live-analogue-video-sonic collab with Dylan Bolles. It was a great evening, well-attended, even if the general audience seemed a little at sea. It was a pretty esoteric exposition, come to think of it.

Thanks to Suki O'Kane, as usual doing an outstanding job of curating, hosting, introducing and generally Illuminating (sic) all our lives!



One thing not mentioned in the inner-view, Ngoma (as well as Thirsty Sword Pt.1) are really uncharacteristic works for me. Kadet Kuhne, who was in attendance last night (thanks for coming KK!) immediately noticed it and commented - "this is much different than anything you've done!" which is completely true. There are creative issues I'm still wrestling with, the first is - I have noticed that people who hear Ngoma without seeing the video have a much stronger response to it than those who have seen it mediated by the video. If the video is compromising the work, I'm inclined to axe the video for future performances; on the other hand, the video wouldn't go wasted because I am trying to collaborate with my friend Francesca Penzani, choreographer, to expand the piece into a dance work. The video would then become part of a complete performative construction.

I'm not worried about Thirsty Sword Pt.1 because any of my creative issues with that work will be addressed in Thirsty Sword Pt.2.

I will be recording Thirsty Sword Pt.1 tonight at the Maybeck recital hall (where I'm performing it tomorrow night) on the Yamaha 7.5' grand. The finished recording will be released with Ngoma sometime in early 2009, probably January. Watch my various websites for details on that.

Again, I have to thank Suki and also a big shout to Ivo Medek who was such a fantastic host at the Janacek Academie.
Cha

Aloha from Vienna... Aloha?

October 20, 2008

My last day in Europe this trip and I am finally getting a chance to sit still and write. The tour has been phenomenal.

I’m writing from Vienna, and even though today is a prime tourist day, I have out-touristed myself and so am staying in (mostly) to catch up on work, composing, small technical revisions of the tour material and to take time to rehearse Ngoma and Songs in San Francisco.

Firstly, my time at the Janacek Academie was superlative – the students were stupendous and Ivo Medek, my host, was absolutely wonderful. Brno itself is a city only two hours from Vienna, built and designed by many of the same names who fashioned Vienna. For this reason, the city bears a marked resemblance to Vienna, but with a contemporary sincerity not apparent in Vienna. I will elaborate later.

Brno is stunning to look at and what’s more, the people are kind, the city is thriving and alive. Pubs are open late, serving food, every night of the week. Seated in the south of Moravia, it is situated within some of the most beautiful scenery I have seen in my life. An unscheduled/unpublicized concert in the city of Uesthti Rsheshti at the opening of a retrospective for artist Ludmila Karikarova offered me the chance to see some more of that country-side, and let me tell you – it’s not matched anywhere. I absolutely love the Czech countryside and the people fit it well. I won’t be shy in admitting I also drank my fair share of slivovice, a locally/regionally distilled plum brandy, and with that I think I could spend many happy days in Southern Moravia, drinking the local wine and eating at the local pubs.

The students at the Janaceck Academie – I must mention them again: they were wonderful, attentive (both my seminar and my concert were packed, the latter yielding standing-room only and running short on printed programs) and eager to share their work. The compositions I saw showed excellent skill and prescience and a desire toward innovation in whatever steps can be taken. I haven’t seen US students producing much that is more interesting. At least not more that remains in the realm of notes to which the composer is committed. This is something lacking in much experimentalism these days, leaving so much to theatrics and spectacle, the musical experience is very literally out-the-door. Don’t get me wrong, I’m the last person to espouse traditionalism, by the same token, I think a composer has a responsibility to compose (damnit) not simply to stand on a stage and … well, much of what is happening in the most ‘experimental’ halls of academia (read between the lines here) is a pale imitation of the worst ‘art-happenings’ of the late 60s and early 70s. That was an important time for Art (with a capital and scarlet letter ‘A’) but that time is also past – let’s get on with the music! Bearing in mind that my definition of ‘music’ is extremely broad.

In addition to all that, I had the unbelievable pleasure of improvising (video) with the incredibly talented composer/performer Lenka playing piano, for the Czech public, the press, and the Czech Minister of Culture. I accompanied her at Ms. Karikarova’s opening and I can tell you, it was absolutely simple to provide dynamic visuals to her improvisation. She was truly inspiring! It seems a very strong possibility we will work again together in the not-too-terribly-distant future.



So here I am in Vienna. I have enjoyed Vienna tremendously, I find it lacks the vitality that I require of a large city. Vienna owes its current opulence to its outrageous plethora of museums. I have seen so much Art here it very literally began to hurt my head yesterday. I would love dearly to wander down to the Belvedere and gander at a few more Klimts, but to be honest, I simply couldn’t stand to see another thing. I certainly paid my due, however: I spent nearly 45 minutes with “Life and Death” the other day and at least as much time contemplating the Beethoven Frieze, if not longer. These are things I have both read and written about and whose reason for being are the same reasons I create. That is to say, the men of the Secession were very much about departing from tradition and finding new means of expression. I think it would please Klimt to know that, of all the many museums in Vienna, the Secession House is the only one exhibiting non-conservation-oriented work – they are showing experimental, out-of-the-boundaries work with which one may or may not agree, and that in itself is exactly the point. It was the perfect palate cleanser to the extensive, but under-explained Van Gogh retrospective that I saw at the Albertina immediately prior.

It seems to me that Vienna is very much a City Under Glass, resting on the laurels of past glories. It is a beautiful city, but everywhere I go I am reminded that I am in a case, a vitrine, a picture-perfect, scrubbed and polished monument to eras far long gone. Although visiting Vienna is fun, I cannot imagine living here, for the same reasons I can’t imagine living in Berlin: the past weighs so heavy on the present, there is no sight of the future, or at a future that is a thriving, dynamic thing.

This is my perspective coming from the West Coast of the US. Everything is still so incredibly new there, and we are still innovating, researching, finding, fighting our way in the wilderness and pioneering new standards. Remember, Morton Subotnick, Harry Partch, Terry Riley, John Adams, John Cage, Kronos Quartet, Lou Harrison all came from the West – and that only names a few.

I have taken a small eating break and now have much, much work to do before I pack up to catch my 7am flight to San Francisco. I will write more from there…

Nicholas Chase - World Premieres of Ngoma Lungundu & Songs of the Thirsty Sword

October 14 - SETKAVANI NOVE HUDBY PLUS: International Festival of Contemporary Music Plus - Brno, Czech Republic
October 23 - Music By The Eyeful - Luggage Store, San Francisco, California
October 25 - Maybeck Recital Hall - Berkeley, California
October 31 - DIVA Center, Eugene, Oregon

Nicholas Chase embarks on a debut solo tour premiering Ngoma Lungundu (Voice That Thunders) and Songs of the Thirsty Sword Part I (For Lucky Mosko). Chase's interactive visual work with the improvising trio NIRUSU III has been acclaimed by the LA Weekly as "pushing the edge of audio/visual improv", and his interactive audio/visual composition Transmission was featured last Spring with the Illuminated Corridor's NOVA at the 2008 Whitney Biennial. This concert circuit, Chase continues his exploration of dynamic, spontaneously composed visual narratives and music with the premieres of Ngoma Lungundu (Voice That Thunders) for 4-channel electronics and interactive film/animation/video, and Songs of the Thirsty Sword Part I (For Lucky Mosko) for solo piano with 4-channel interactive electronics and video. For more information please visit www.nicholaschase.net.

October 14
SETKAVANI NOVE HUDBY PLUS: International Festival of Contemporary Music Plus
7:30pm
Janacek Academie of Music and Performing Arts
Brno, Czech Republic
Chase will be in residence at the Janaceck Academie of Music and Performing Arts from October 13-17 as part of the Academie's month-long 12th international music festival. Chase gives the World Premiere performances of Ngoma Lungundu and Songs of the Thirsty Sword.
This residency is funded in part through the Foundation for Contemporary Arts

October 23
Music By The Eyeful
8pm
Luggage Store
1007 Market Street at 6th
San Francisco, CA 94103
tickets: $6-10 Sliding Scale
www.myspace.com/musicbytheeyeful
Nicholas Chase, Dylan Bolles and Keith Evans will open the Music By The Eyeful audio/visual performance festival at San Francisco's legendary Luggage Store. This performance will reprise Chase's premiere of the epic Ngoma Lungundu for solo laptop in 4-channel sound with interactive video. The Festival hosts a bevy of cutting-edge aritsts through April, 2009, all at the Luggage Store.

October 25
Nicholas Chase and Gregory Moore: New Works
Private Concert - If you would like to attend RSVP rsvp@nicholaschase.net
Maybeck Recital Hall
1847 Euclid Avenue at Buena Vista
Berkeley, CA
www.handprintseries.com
Nicholas Chase and Gregory Moore present an evening of New Works. Chase reprises Songs of the Thirsty Sword Part I for solo piano and interactive video and electronics

October 31
Nicholas Chase and Spark Applied to Powder - An Evening of Electronic Mu(sic) and Video
8pm
DIVA Center
110 W. Broadway, Eugene
$5-7 suggested donation
www.divacenter.org
Chase and Eugene sound-artist Spark Applied to Powder share an evening of eclectic and unusual non-synth-pop electronic music. Chase reprises Ngoma Lungundu (Voice That Thunders) for multi-channel electronics and interactive video after premiering Ngoma in Europe and San Francisco. Spark Applied to Powder (aka Kevin Spahn) offers his signature analogue-artistry with new sonic expressions and ambient drone works.