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Michael C. Bell: CD Release Party

From composer/pianist Michael C. Bell:

Masterful storytelling told through piano and orchestra
Tender, emotional music, laced with beautiful melodies
A journey that can be experienced actively or passively by the listener
Sit back, close your eyes, or let yourself fall gently to sleep as you listen to this elegant collection of songs from newcomer Michael C. Bell

CD Release Party @ Starbucks - Sat. Nov. 14 from 7pm to 9pm
435 Peachtree Pkwy
Suite 400
Cumming GA 30041

www.michaelcbellmusic.com

400 - Exit 13
Across from the Avenue

I need a bassist

Hey, Darren Nelsen here. I need a bassist for my fusion ensemble, someone who can read standard notation and play in odd time sigs.

The style of music is like King Crimson, Electric Kompany, and Frank Zappa, among others.

My immediate need is for an upcoming Dec. 11th gig at Eddie's Attic. I plan to do 3-4 rehearsals before then.

Please let me know if you or someone you know is interested. I need someone *quick*! :)

Thanks!

"Irreplaceable Doodles" - Tuesday, Nov. 17

and other flights of musical fancy

an evening of meaningfully unaccompanied musical modernism

featuring the irrationally exuberant music of
Karl Henning

and the tastefully delicious world premiere of “Smorgasbord” by
Nicole Randall-Chamberlain

as performed by the composers themselves

Karl Henning, clarinet & Nicole Randall-Chamberlain, flute

Tuesday, 17 November 2009 at 8:00 p.m.
within the acoustical accoutrements of
Emory Presbyterian Church
1886 North Decatur Rd. NE, Atlanta, GA 30307

$10 general admission / $5 students with I.D.
at the door
(sorry, we are unable to accept credit/debit cards)

for more information, click here (Facebook event page)
or e-mail concerts@luxnova.com
or (if you absolutely must) tel. 404-654-3918 (Google Voice number)

Local Composer Seeks Volunteer Singers (Eyedrum Art Gallery)

From Daniel Clay:

Hello,

I am a composer and performance artist living and working in the Atlanta area.

I am seeking volunteer singers to perform with my vocal ensemble on Saturday November 14 at the Eyedrum Art and Music Gallery in Atlanta. The performance will be one of many at Eyedrum's First Annual Earball, a day-long festival of music and sound-based artworks and performances.

The compositions to be performed are, simply put, rounds for any large group of singers (of any ability, range, age, gender, etc. much like a church congregation) to perform. More specifically, the pieces are composed to explicitly demonstrate the physical and spatial aspect of group singing. Singers will be divided into groups and strategically placed around the gallery. When the pieces are performed audience and performers alike will experience the music "moving" throughout the gallery space.

I will be teaching the pieces to the ensemble shortly before the performance. In order to successfully perform the pieces I need as many voices as possible to participate. If you are interested in performing with my ensemble please contact me for more information.

The following is a schedule for the performance:

Saturday November 14 - Eyedrum Gallery

1:00 pm - Performers arrive at Eyedrum Gallery

1:30 - 2:30 - instruction and practice singing of the music

2:30 - 4:00 - break to observe other performances, grab a bite, etc.

4:00 - 5:00 perform!

Please contact me if you have any questions about my work or the event. This is an opportunity not only to perform new works by a local composer but to support and contribute to the richness and variety of Atlanta's art and music scene. Additionally, by participating you will be supporting Eyedrum Gallery, a bastion of underground and experimental art in Atlanta for more than a decade now. Eyedrum recently narrowly escaped closing its doors due to financial hardship.

Hope to hear from you, many thanks

Daniel Clay
daniel AT danielclaymusic DOT com
danielclaymusic.com

http://atlanta.craigslist.org/atl/muc/1451148438.html

neoPhonia New Music Ensemble: Nov. 9, 2009

Join us for the second concert of our 15th Anniversary Season! Our program is entitled "PENTE: Music for Quintets." Featured works include:

Devil Sticks for 5 clarinets by Scott McALLISTER

Six Bagatelles for Woodwind Quintet by György LIGETI

Clarinet Quintet for Clarinet in A and strings by Piet SWERTS

Date: MONDAY, NOV. 9, 2009

Location: Kopleff Recital Hall

Note the special start time: 7:00 PM

It will be a slightly shorter program than usual (sorry no reception this time) because we want to encourage students and audience members to attend the GSU Wind Ensemble concert that takes place at 8 PM that same night in the Rialto Center. They will be featuring the music of composer John Mackey.

Hope you can attend both concerts!

For more info (including directions to venues, parking, etc.) visit the GSU School of Music website at : http://www/music/gsu/edu

Sonic Generator Concert

Georgia Tech’s chamber music ensemble-in-residence, Sonic Generator, presents
their opening concert of the season at the Georgia Tech Alumni House:

The French-American Connection
Monday, November 16th, 2009 @ 8 p.m.
190 North Avenue
http://www.sonicgenerator.gatech.edu/upcoming_concerts/monday_november_16_2009.html
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=161272953309&ref=mf


The concert, which is free and open to the public, features compositions by
Philip Glass, Pierre Jodlowski, Steve Reich, François Sarhan, Edgard Varèse,
and John Zorn.

For more information about Sonic Generator and this concert (including
directions), please visit:

http://www.sonicgenerator.gatech.edu

We hope to see you there!

Maximum Exposure

Dear Atlanta Composers and Performers,

The following message came in an e-mail from Derek Sivers, the guy who founded CD Baby. You might find it useful. I would love to see your comments posted here. --Mark Gresham


Ariel Hyatt of Ariel Publicity just released a great free PDF/ebook collecting the best advice on how a musician can get maximum exposure in 2009:

http://www.hypebot.com/IndieMaxExpFinal.pdf

Download, read and use some of the ideas in there. Enjoy!

--Derek Sivers http://sivers.org

duoATL performs works by composers in our lifetime

On Sunday, October 25 at 3pm at MacLean Auditorium in Presser Hall at Agnes Scott College in Decatur, GA I will be performing with Dr. Brian Luckett in concert. We will be performing a new program. All works are by composers who's lifetime overlapped ours:

Lost Hollow Road by Brian Chamberlain (Atlanta Composer)
Sonatina Mexicana by Carlo Domeniconi
New Castle Parade by Brian Luckett (Atlanta Composer)
Acrobats by David Leisner
Serenata al Alba del Dia by Joaquin Rodrigo
Six Pieces for Flute and Guitar by Annette Kruisbrink
Suite Buenos Aires by Maximo Deigo Pujol

Admission is free. Be sure to visit our new website for more concerts and information: http://www.duoatl.com

CD Reviews

Hi all -

Brian Skutle was kind enough to write some good, fair reviews of my CDs here.

You can listen to my CDs on Last.FM, and of course I would be ecstatic if you liked them and wanted to buy a copy, or a couple tracks on iTunes!

Late Frost (New Age/minimalist piano)
Parallel Lives (electroacoustic/experimental)


In other news, I am preparing my PhD applications. I put my contenders for my portfolio on my latest blog. If you have time and want to put in your two cents on the pieces, I would be very interested to hear them!

Thanks,
asn

neoPhonia Concert TONIGHT!

Apologies for the late notice on this one. Tonight we kick off the 15th Season of the neoPhonia New Music Ensemble featuring special guest artist, saxophonist John Sampen. The program, entitled "Mysterious Morning" is a multi-media show designed as an exciting "seamless" musical experience. It features projected visuals, interactive electronics and theatrical elements. Composers featured on the concert include: John CAGE, Toru TAKEMITSU, Morton SUBOTNIK, Fuminori TANADA, Marilyn SHRUDE, William BOLCOM and Mark BUNCE.

The concert begins at 7:30 PM in the GSU Kopleff Recital Hall. It's FREE and open to the public. There will also be a reception afterwards hosted by the GSU Student Chapter of SCI.

Curtis Bryant Song Cycle Receives New York Performance

Tuesday, September 29, 2009
8:00 PM
Saint Peter's Church, 619 Lexington Ave (at 54th St.)
New York, NY

Atlanta baritone James Robinson and pianist Jo Kroger will present a recital including works by Rossini, Mozart, Peter Cornelius and Atlanta composer Curtis Bryant. Featured on the recital is Bryant's song cycle "The Marriage of Heaven and Hell," based upon the 1793 mystical book of the same title by William Blake. Bryant composed the set of five songs in 1983 for American bass-baritone Peter Harrower, who premiered them the following year. Other performers of "The Marriage of Heaven and Hell" have included Atlanta bass-baritone Oral Moses and New York bass-baritone Rhys Ritter.

Works by KSU Faculty Composers

Featuring music by Laurence Sherr, Jen Mitchell, and Drew Dolan

Wednesday, September 23, 2009
8:00pm
Bailey Performance Center at Kennesaw State University
Free and Open to the Public
Directions and Map

With Performances By:
Paul Brittan • John Lawless
Jana Young • Helen Kim • Benjamin Wadsworth
Caleb Herron • Olivia Kieffer


Program to Include:

SHERR: Four Short Pieces
Dhammapada Verses
Duo Concertante

MITCHELL: Chakras of on Automaton: Duet for Percussion and DJ

DOLAN: Extreme City

Collaborative Project

Hi everyone!

ASN, your favorite Atlantan-in-self-imposed-exile here. I am posting to solicit participants in a possible collaborative project.

Back in 2007, I started a project of flute solos with hip-hop beats. This has been shelved for some time, and I want the project to have a life. I am now proposing an “EP” of sorts with 6-8 tracks, and I am looking for composer-performer soloists.

How this will work:

1. I will supply you with a backing track and a melodic line/theme.

2. You will compose variatons on my melodic line.

3. You will record the “theme and variations.”

4. I will edit and mix the tracks together.

This will be a genre-bending exercise, as the music is influenced by hip-hop, classical, rock, Celtic, reggae, electronica, etc. I hope that your variations will be just as exciting and style-defiant.

Requirements:

1. You can play a melodic instrument competently.

2. You have access to a decent instrument.

3. You have access to decent recording equipment.

I plan to release this through CDBaby and for digital download. I will give you a percentage of the sales, copyright, and performing rights. It will allow some cross-promotion, which can’t hurt!

Feel free to comment here with questions, or contact me directly [adamscottneal at gmail] to get involved. I look forward to hearing from you!

Back to Iraq

Dear Friends,

Once again, I'm heading back to Iraq, but this time it will be for at least a year. First of all, I really appreciate those of you who reached out last year to help with the new music workshop. I could really use your help again this year in establishing an Academy for language and arts in the north. Please feel free to forward this along to anyone you know in the community who might be interested in helping.

Soulbird advocates and advances human rights and social justice through community engagement in the arts (soulbird.org new Web site forthcoming). In most of Iraq, being a singer, musician, dancer, or any other creator of the arts can have grave consequences. Hundreds of artists have been targeted for torture and murder since 2003, while many have since fled the country (85% of singers).

We are opening an Academy in the relatively safer Kurdistan region of Iraq to provide a safe place for Arab and Kurdish artists to work on projects without fear of imminent death or danger. In addition to providing courses in language and the arts, the Academy will serve as a base for some of Soulbird's important human rights and community organizing work, especially working to address the plight of artists in Iraq today.

We would be very grateful for any in-kind donations, such as CDs (any kind of music), DVDs (operas, musical performances/concerts, musicals, dance performances, artist biographies, hollywood or indie films, documentaries on social movements, etc.), books (anything arts-related; social movements, etc.) and music scores (from standard repertory to 20th and 21st century composers). You can receive a tax-deduction for these items through our fiscal sponsor. You can mail them to me, which I will take with me to Iraq on October 17th. My address is

R. Timothy Brady/Soulbird
29 Peachtree Pl NW
#5
Atlanta, GA 30309
United States

We also accept tax-deductible cash donations to help pay for the rent, diesel for generator (electricity), and transportation. You may visit our fiscal sponsor's Web site to make a contribution (https://www.thefield.org/ContributionToSA.aspx?) We are listed as "Soulbird" for the sponsored artist. They process all donations for us.

If you have any questions. please contact me at +1 646.833.8840 or tim@soulbird.org. Our new Web site, soulbird.org, should be up later this week.

Thanks and hope all of you are doing well.

R. Timothy Brady

Founder, Executive Director at Soulbird

Composers and the "relationship-making business"

An article by Alex Shapiro, posted today, well-worth reading even if you're not a composer:

Blogger Book Club III: Selling Everything, 2.0—The Jig Goes Public

"Those of us who are musicians and composers might think that we're in the music-making business, but we're actually in the relationship-making business. [...] One of the limitations of the new music world is its self-referential nature, whereby accepted norms are...accepted norms, and fewer participants think outside of the taco shell. I find myself most stimulated and inspired by the observations of those who are not part of the arts scene, who see the larger trends in society and in the way people communicate." —Alex Shapiro [READ MORE]

author: Alex Shapiro
source: www.artsjournal.com
date: July 27, 2009

Topic for discussion: How can composers best build responsive relationships for their art outside of the new music community?


[This post also appears in my own EarRelevant blog. --mg]

Eyedrum threatens to move or close

Music critic Pierre Ruhe examines the current status of Atlanta's most iconic alternative performance/exhibit space:

Mired in money troubles, Eyedrum threatens to move or close

The innovative multi-disciplinary arts space Eyedrum, an invaluable asset to Atlanta's arts scene, is in financial trouble. ... [READ MORE]

author: Pierre Ruhe
source: artscriticATL.com

Topic for discussion: Are alternative venues in Atlanta shrinking in number or growing?


[This post also appears in my own EarRelevant blog. --mg]

"An architect puts Bach in a musical cocoon"

MANCHESTER, England — A rewarding experiment in creating an ideal space to hear some of Bach’s most intimate music... http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/14/arts/music/14bach.html

author: Anthony Tommasini
source: NYTimes.com 13 July 2009)


Topic for discussion: How do you choose (or create) a venue best suited to your own music?

Nothing to waste: The advantage of being under-funded

Entrepreneur and programmer Derek Sivers, founder of CD Baby, talks about marketing as simply "being considerate" without need for fancy trappings:

Nothing to waste: The advantage of being under-funded

Source: sivers.org
Author: Derek Sivers


[This post also appears in my own EarRelevant blog. --mg]

The Music May Not Want to Be Free

In the upcoming July 6, 2009 issue of The New Yorker, reviewer Malcolm Gladwell takes on the technological utopian assumptions of WIRED editor Chris Anderson's book, Free.

Malcolm Gladwell reviews Free by Chris Anderson: Books: The New Yorker

Source: www.newyorker.com
BOOKS review of “Free: The Future of a Radical Price” (Hyperion; $26.99) by Chris Anderson. ... READ MORE in THE NEW YORKER

[This post also appears in my own EarRelevant blog.]