An Evening of Experimental Music Works
Friday February 19, 2016 8:00PM
David Morales Boroff, violin
Min Xiao-Fen, pipa
Ned Rothenberg, alto saxophone, bass clarinet
David Taylor, bass trombone
Denman Maroney, piano
Gerry Hemingway, drumset
Sam Pluta, computer, electronics
Doug Van Nort, computer, electronics
Mark Dresser, bass, composer
Sarah Weaver, conductor, composer
Program:
“Newtown Char” by Mark Dresser
“Universal Synchrony Music” by Sarah Weaver
The SLM Ensemble will perform TransForm, an evening of experimental music works integrating influences of jazz, contemporary music, improvisation, computer music, and the innovative individual languages of the performers. “Newtown Char” (2015) was composed as a musical response to the tragic events of Newtown, Connecticut and Charleston, South Carolina. In the spirit of John Coltrane’s “Alabama” this title creates a performative context. An invocation by the bass clarinet leads into a slow ostinato in 15/8, with cross-flowing descending triads. A plaintive melody lends itself to expressionistic improvisational developments and soloism into layers of musical and emotional interdependence. “Universal Synchrony Music” (2013-2016) is a multi-year electroacoustic project in collaboration with the NASA Kepler Mission and NASA ArtSpace exploring musical, technological, and metaphorical realizations of synchrony. Sonification of data on stars and planets in the Kepler field 1000-3000 light years away is utilized for presence across distance, inherent expressions of multiplanetary habitable systems, and interactions for synchrony. TransForm expresses new synthesis and creation through this music into the future.
The SLM Ensemble is a New York City based experimental music large ensemble created by co-artistic directors bassist/composer Mark Dresser and conductor/composer Sarah Weaver. The SLM Ensemble performs and records works for large ensemble, film/multimedia, and the telematic medium via the internet by Dresser, Weaver, and at times collaborating composers. The modular roster is composed of diverse pioneering musicians of our time. The name SLM is an acronym “Source Liminal Music” as well as a tri-consonantal root of words from several languages that mean “peace”.
The SLM Ensemble was formed in 2014 from years of New York and international projects since 2007, Dresser and Weaver’s online collaborations, and longer term collaborations among the musicians, including concerts at The Stone, Roulette, Iridium Jazz Club, BMCC Tribeca Performing Arts Center, Austrian Cultural Forum, New York University, United Nations Headquarters in New York, and telematic concerts with Abu Dhabi, Banff, Beijing, Belfast, Jerusalem, Nairobi, San Diego, South Korea, Stanford, Stony Brook, and Switzerland. The SLM Ensemble continues this work at the forefront of experimental music, expressing synthesis of the innovative improvisation languages of the musicians, the diverse intersections within the ensemble, and forging new realizations for interconnection. The SLM Ensemble is managed by Liminal Music Inc. www.slmensemble.org