Nick Deyoe on A New Anxiety
a new anxiety for 20 players – Nicholas DEYOE Loud. Fast. Aggressive. When Chris Rountree invited me to compose a piece for wild Up, he asked for something loud, fast, aggressive, and inspired by Slayer or Meshuggah. With styles existing at opposite ends of a particular spectrum, I took this as an opportunity to engage with forms of acoustic intensity and brutality rather than
Prepared Piano for Kids!
Chris Kallmyer and Melinda Rice — teachers. Awesome.
Richard Valitutto talks about playing Messiaen
Richard Valitutto talks about playing Messiaen, Highland Park roosters, and being a librarian.
Ornithology Premiere: double tui
double tui piano and ‘small orchestra’ of winds and percussion ~ ~ ~ the fantasy of being mobile finds you cycling through the night to find the dawn chorus which turns out to be quite complicated as the farewell symphony {to the wondrous memory of maurice till – a fantastically enabling and generous mentor} ~ ~ ~ double tui is part of a series of compositions i’ve written
Ornithology Premiere: Andrew Bird arrangements
I am nowhere nearly as hip as anyone else associated with wild Up, including the guy who tends the bar. So when Chris contacted me about orchestrating some Andrew Bird songs I had to take an auditory crash-course through the artist’s body of work. Fortunately, being a fan of acoustic indy pop in the Elliot Smith tradition and self-overdubbing madmen like Jon Brion,
Ornithology Premieres: Bird of Paradise (in Paradise)
I was browsing through a Charlie Parker tunebook to get some ideas for the upcoming wild Up concert when the title “Bird of Paradise” caught my eye. To be honest I was originally interested because it reminded me of those amazing Planet Earth documentaries involving unique birds, but soon after the notes became attractive as well. The tune has a simple four-bar melody played
Ornithology Premieres: this nest, swift passerine
I often work with field recordings, but i don’t often work with chamber orchestras. I make recordings of rivers, trains, farms, cows, trees, wind, fog horns, church bells, traffic noise, and coffee shops. These mundane things yield the most rigorous and beautiful sounds that I use in installations, and compositions. When asked to work on a piece for wild Up, I jumped at the
Ornithology Premieres: Fake Palindromes
“Fake Palindromes” is the first song I ever heard by Andrew Bird, and it is my mind’s aural portrait of him. The title’s reference to palindromes calls to mind one of Messiaen’s trademarks: the “non-retrogradeable rhythm”, or a rhythmic palindrome. With the inclusion of Bird’s music on this wild Up concert featuring Messiaen’s Oiseaux exotiques [Foreign Birds], I knew I had to arrange this particular
The Salt of the Earth – a record release awaits…
We’re working hard on releasing a limited number of vinyl copies of the recording that’s just been remastered from last May’s show at the Jensen Rec. Center. It includes Shostakovich’s Chamber Symphony, Op. 110a, and the B-side is Rzewski’s Les Moutons de Panurge.
Reviews: LA vs. Brooklyn vs. Love
After the shows last week, we all went into Turkey-Hybernation. Here’s the recap: It all went pretty noisily. There were some reviews: Mark Swed – Los Angeles Times / Brian Holt – Out West Arts and a Brooklyn-Micro-Blog-Hell of tweet reviews of the review: which were all reviewed here: Out West Arts: “California Love” We also participated by eating celebratory and peaceful persimmons.
Tholl/Misfits – Where Eagles Dare, featuring Maggie Hasspacher
wild Up | Tholl/Misfits – Where Eagles Dare, featuring Maggie Hasspacher Sean Robertson took this from the audience of our Nov. 19th show. wild Up | Barlow, punk rock and player piano music
Oh bondage…
I’m working on an arrangement of this: ”My mother said, little girls should be seen and not heard — Oh Bondage Up Yours” A great feminist manifesto. In terms of an aural analysis of the recording the fascinating part starts at that moment: for the next three minutes she proceeds to scream phrases about being dominated that go completely unheard. It’s as if the
Our new recording is here. It’s loud, live, and FREE.
wild Up: A New Shostakovich, Chamber Symphony Op. 110a
Porch of July
The Porch of July is a folk music singalong held annually at Machine Project, your friendly Echo Park art-collective//storefront//FryBQ-headquarters. Laura Steenberge, Ezra Buchla, Adrian Tenney, and Heather Lockie put together a song book, and performed for/with about 50 people who showed up to sing, stomp feet, bang on frying pans, and have a great time. The event was like the best parts of
Music Review 6.26.2011: Morton Feldman’s “for Philip Guston”
In attempting to review a concert like this one can only think: what I just heard, what I just experienced, is more than enough to make language submit, revealing its futility and clumsiness – particularly in its written form. Recalling Guildenstern’s pondering from Tom Stoppard’s play, though, it is verily so: “Words, words. They’re all we have to go on.” How does one write
chile relleno-tastic planning
damn. california beer + california food + california music = california band. we are making chile rellenos and planning for the new wild up season. very exciting stuff in the works with great music, tons of great beer, and perhaps a shared musical experience with our friends to the east… stay tuned!! – Chris Kallmyer and Chris Rountree
ojai // camping // sounds
5am :: deep fog // cows waking up // coyotes howling // birds chirping // dew falling from the oak above onto our tent. I escaped LA this weekend to Ojai (90 minutes from LA) to find a small campsite overlooking a field of blissed-out-cows. I recommend this to anyone who enjoys wine, grilled veggies, and sleeping in earshot of cattle. California.
New Music Concert – Practically Free
Yes, it is possible to hear a good performance of high caliber music and musicians for cheap. This coming Wednesday, June 22 at 8 p.m., you can hear a solidly full program of new and recent music at the illustrious Royal/T Café in Culver City. It is part of the $2 Shows recently instated New Music Series, and as advertised, the admission is indeed
The Clock @ LACMA
A few weeks ago I went to see Christian Marclay’s new work, The Clock, at LACMA. A departure from his more well known role as a sound artist/turntablist, Marclay’s The Clock is a 24 hour film, synchronized to the local time of the location at which it is screening. It is a collection of brief moments from thousands of films, assembled into a narrative
#tuxonstage
Many folks weighed in late last week about the tuxedo via twitter. I had a hard time getting out some of these thoughts in 140 characters, so decided to write up some of my ideas here. I hope you enjoy, its a great discussion. The orchestra is a gigantic, antiquated, hulking, financially unsustainable, mannered, ceremonious, unapproachable, beautiful, opulent, complicated beast. Its like a manatee;
Music Review 6.10.2011: PARTCH @ REDCAT
The obligatory titular capitals of the event’s ensemble and venue could not be more appropriate for last night’s performance. From beginning to end, PARTCH exclaimed, cursed, laughed, wailed, and cavorted through several varied scores by the “iconoclastic American Maverick” Harry Partch (1901-1974). PARTCH, led by guitarist/composer/singer/radio-personality John Schneider, have been spreading the gospel of Partch since their REDCAT debut in 2004. The group is
On being at Ojai.
I’m sitting in the coffee shop across from St. Thomas Aquinas Thrift on the main drag in Ojai. It’s full of well dressed summer people holding rolled program booklets, bobbling around talking about electric string quartets and a dinner joint, Feast which apparently has fries described as ambrosia or something equally celestial. The contemporary music lover is everywhere. A gestalt animal identified by the
The nuance runs heavy here, Intelligentsia, Venice.
http://vimeo.com/12703545 about wild Up
about wild Up
…from the sheer joy of living.
wild Up & Christopher Rountree – Chamber Symphony, Op. 110a: II – Allegro molto
wild Up & Christopher Rountree – Chamber Symphony, Op. 110a: II – Allegro molto A New Shostakovich Chamber Symphony op. 110a