"125 Party Pieces" receives European premiere

Thanks to a gift from Pierre Boulez, the group piece I participated in, along with 124 other composers, is being premiered in Leipzig on January 20,2016. Press release below...

On the initiative of the Forum of Contemporary Music Leipzig [FZML] 125 of the most distinguished contemporary composers created »Party Pieces«. On January 20th the world's largest group composition will finally experience its European premiere in Leipzig.

Patron: Pierre Boulez

20th January 2016 | 7.30 pm | UT Connewitz Leipzig

Kohlgartenstraße 24
04315 Leipzig, Germany
info@fzml.de
tickets: http://www.fzml.de/index.php?article_id=40&clang=0
fon: +49 - 341 - 24693 45
fax: +49 - 341 - 24693 44

New videos

Just posted a new video here: Descent Into Flatland. Performed by the WestEast Brass Quintet in November 2013. the video includes annotations about the piece.

Also, a video of me playing Impossible Animals on the Zeta violin, from a performance at CCRMA, Stanford University on 3/4/15.

"Library of Babel" at San Francisco Conservatory of Music

On Feb. 22, 2015, Jack Van Geem and Yi David Yang gave a virtuoso performance of my "Library of Babel", on a recital at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. The program ranged from Bach's Chaconne to arrangements of Super Mario Brothers video game themes!

Video and Violin Virtuosity

Karen Bentley Pollick's performance of "Cluck Old Hen Variations," performed in conjunction with Fred Kolouch's specially-created fanciful video, at the Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics (CCRMA) at Stanford University, November, 2014.

Early music

In the early 1970s, I was involved with a New York-based experimental bluegrass music scene that was remarkable in its energy and unbridled creativity. The music was Ivesian in its dynamic freedom and wealth of ideas, freely crossing stylistic boundaries while still having at its core a roots music soul. The time I spent playing, jamming and hanging out with these musicians made a lasting impression on my musical approach, though it was only after I worked with Henry Brant that I started to see a way to integrate it into my own compositions.

One of the musicians with whom I performed and recorded at that time was banjo virtuoso Tony Trischka. I just discovered that several tracks from his 1975 album "Heartland" are available as MP3 downloads at this link. I played on tracks 15, 16 and 22.* Other LPs I played on during this time period include "Bottle Hill - Light our way along the highway" (with whom I toured from 1973-1975) and "Stacy Philips - All Old Friends" (Stacy is an amazing dobro player), but neither of these recordings is apparently on line currently.

(*) The other musicians on these tracks are Andy Statman, John Miller, Harry Orloff, Barry Mitterhoff and Dave Schwartz, and (track 22) Kenny Kosek, Russ Barenberg, Andy Statman, Roger Mason and Richard Crooks.