Concerts
Upcoming Concerts:
Music in May – 701 CCA Plus Series presents 3 concerts this month!
All concerts start at 8 pm with doors opening at 7 pm.
Admission: $10 for non-members; $8 701 CCA members; $5 students.
Refreshments will be available for a small donation.
May 10, 2011: Starlicker
Rob Mazurek (cornet), John Herndon (percussion), and Jason Adasiewicz
(vibraphone) are deeply rooted in the Chicago and international avant garde, jazz and post rock scenes. Starlicker expels sound with pervading energy and other-worldly delicacy. Rob Mazurek leads, composes for and performs with the critically acclaimed Exploding Star Orchestra, Chicago Underground, São Paulo Underground, and Rob Mazurek’s Sound Is Quintet. John Herndon, a founding member or the iconic post rock collective Tortoise, creates waves of rhythm and maintains an abstract pulse that is uniquely his own. Jason Adasiewicz is a Chicago mainstay and Down Beat magazine rising star. Jason is a true original and plays in critically acclaimed groups such as his own Sun Rooms Trio, Exploding Star Orchestra, Rolldown, and Loose Assembly.
A Ross Taylor Production
May 16, 2011:Contemporary solo percussionist – Tatsuya Nakatani
Nakatani’s music is based in improvised/experimental music, jazz, free jazz, rock, and noise, yet his work retains the sense of space and beauty found in traditional Japanese folk music. The Japanese artist creates his own instrumentation using drum sets, bowed gongs, cymbals, singing bowls, metal objects, bells, and various sticks and bows.
A Tom Law/ bigSphinx Production
May 26, 2011: ZAHA – Music workshop and Concert
Avant Jazz Septet ZAHA, a chamber ensemble devoted to realtime composition, will bring its debut spring tour of the I-95 corridor to 701 CCA on Thursday, May 26. An afternoon workshop will reveal how they structure their adventures using Soundpainting. During the evening performance, director and composer Evan Mazunik will lead the group using Soundpainting, a live composing sign language created by composer Walter Thompson. New York-based ZAHA creates architecture for the imagination through installations, instant compositions, multimedia collaborations and educational outreach programs.
The workshop is from 4:30 pm –6pm; Admission for either concert or workshop alone, $10 for non-members, $8 for members, $5 for students; both workshop and concert, $16 for non-members, $12 for members, $8 for students.
A Charleston New Music Collective production
Past Concerts:
Tuesday, April 5, 2011: Shane Perlowin and Jacob Wick
701 Center for Contemporary Art, partnership with promoter Ross Taylor, presents a concert of the new duo of Shane Perlowin & Jacob Wick.
Perlowin & Wick will perform improvisations that embrace their wide-ranging influences, from Mississippi John Hurt to Christian Marclay to buzzing refrigerators.
Perlowin is an electric guitarist based in Asheville, N.C. Among his many musical enterprises are his avant-noise-rock project Ahleuchatistas, which has released six albums on Perlowin’s own Open Letter Records, John Zorn’s Tzadik Records and Cuneiform Records.
Brooklyn-based trumpet player Wick’s sound has been described as anything from “inhuman” (Chicago Reader) to “a Shakespeare soliloquy” (allaboutjazz.com). Aside from his solo trumpet performances, Swarm, Wick plays with Jason Ajemian’s outfit HighLife and others.
Sunday, January 16, 2011 Hush Arbors/Jason Ajemian: The Two of Us Riding Nowhere Tour
Tuesday November 16, 7pm-9pm: Katherine Young (solo bassoon) + Jacob Wick (solo trumpet).
In November, Brooklyn-based composer/improvisers Katherine Young and Jacob Wick will embark on a double solo tour throughout the East and Southeast performing material that explores and exploits the limits of their respective instruments.
Tuesday November 9, 2010, 7-9pm: World Symphonic Jazz Orchestra at USC
Thursday October 28, 2010, 7-9pm: Faun Fables. Faun Fables returns to Columbia as they celebrate their sixth release, Light Of A Vaster Dark, a vibrant collection of songs and sound excavations which has crawled out of the glittering caverns of the soul.
Tuesday October 19, 2010, 7-9pm: The Tiptons. Based in New York and Seattle, the Tiptons perform original compositions and arrangements of world music on saxes, clarinet, voices and drums/percussion. With concerts that cover musical territory from New Orleans “second-line” to jazz, Afro-Cuban to Balkan, Klezmer and beyond, the Tiptons create some of the wildest sounds ever to come out of a sax quartet. Their dynamic, playful concerts feature high-energy interaction between members, and a repertoire that touches on soulful music from around the world. The Tiptons are celebrating the release of their newest CD, Strange Flower (Zipa! / Spoot Music). The CD includes 12 songs penned by each of the players, inspired by the lonely echo of train whistles at night, scientific findings on bees from Harper’s Magazine, and covering genres from micro-Big Band to Gospel, Bluegrass to Balkan, Whimsical Jazz to Nocturnal Funk. All these diverse styles are unified by the Tiptons’ solid instrumental and vocal talent, forged from 20 years of collaboration. The group features original members Jessica Lurie and Amy Denio, along with Sue Orfield, Tina Richerson and drummer Lee Frisari (Inner Princess and Electric Junkyard Gamelan).
Originally called Billy Tipton Memorial Sax Quartet, they have since shortened their name and expanded their repertoire. BTMSQ was named in honor of big band saxophonist and pianist Billy Tipton, following the post-mortem revelation that Tipton was actually a woman who lived as a man for more than 50 years. Many believe that this allowed Tipton to pursue a career in the male-dominated world of jazz. Not to be bound by convention, the Tiptons similarly do their own thing. Music from their previous CD, ‘Laws of Motion’ has been featured on US National Public Radio, Austrian National Radio, and on radio stations worldwide. They have been featured in Downbeat Magazine (February, 2010), and reviewed internationally. They have also received grants to compose music for saxophone quartet and 3 city busses; to research and perform compositions by women composers in Jazz; to collaborate with graphic artist Danijel Zezelj, and to collaborate with choreographer Pat Graney.
Monday September 20, 2010, 3-9pm: Michael Pisaro with Greg Stuart, promoter New Music Collective. The New Music Collective (NMC) is presenting the first decade-long North American conspectus of chamber music by the renowned Los Angeles-based composer and educator Michael Pisaro, a project curated by Jason Brogan and Sam Sfirri.
Sunday September 12, 2010, 7-9pm: Jeb Bishop Trio with Jason Roebke & Frank Rosaly.
Thursday July 29, 2010, 7-9pm: Aram Shelton Quartet. Aram Shelton, a multi-instrumentalist, composer and improviser was recently featured in DownBeat magazine because of his active ties to the creative music scene in the San Francisco Bay Area and Chicago. Shelton began his music career with the tenor saxophone while growing up in Florida but switched to the alto sax in college where he focused on classical techniques. After moving to Chicago in 1999, he developed his style on the saxophone, which critics have compared to that of Roscoe Mitchell and Anthony Braxton. The quartet is completed with Keefe Jackson on saxophone and clarinet; Anton Hatwich on bass; and Marc Riordan on drums.
Sunday, June 27, 2010, 7-9pm: The Friction Brothers. As part of their first North American tour, The Friction Brothers will perform on Sunday, June 27, at 701 CCA. The trio members have worked together in various configurations for more than 15 years; they formed The Friction Brothers in 2005 “to perform improvised works that explore their love of scraping, rubbing, hitting, and freezing various objects to the point of vibration”. Yep, all the sounds made by this unique Chicago trio are generated by some kind of friction.
June 22, 2010, 7-9pm: The Thing + Joe McPhee. The Smoked Meat and BBQ national tour will be making a stop in Columbia! The Thing + Joe McPhee will perform at 701 CCA on June 22. London-based magazine Uncut states, “The Thing converts nouveau punk and vintage garage rock into a roaring scream-up, but the sheer energy and love of the music keeps gimmickry at bay.” Now come on – this you gotta see!
Friday, May 21, 2010, 7-9pm: Gene Coleman and Ensemble N_JP (with Toshimaru Nakamura & Kenta Nagai). Using his interest in the culture of Japan and the relationship between music and architecture, Coleman explores the spaces between sound and vision and introduces new ways of thinking about global culture. The Philadelphia composer and musician has created over 50 works for various instrumentation and media. Innovative use of sound, image, space and time allows Coleman to create work that expands our understanding of the world. Since 2001 his work has focused on the global transformation of culture and music’s relationship with other media, such as architecture, video and dance.
Nakamura is a Japanese musician, active in free improvisation music and media art. He began his career playing rock and roll guitar, but gradually explored other types of music, eventually abandoning the guitar. He uses a mixing console as a live, interactive musical instrument, which he calls the ‘no-input mixing board’ — by connecting the input of the board to the output, then manipulating the resultant audio feedback.
Nagai is a musician and sound artist born in Japan and living in the USA. He works with acoustic and electronic sound, visual media and plays the shamisen, a traditional Japanese string instrument.
The experimental Ensemble N_JP was created in 2001 by composer Gene Coleman as a vehicle for his ongoing work with musicians from Japan. The main goal of the group is to explore and define new relationships between traditional and experimental aesthetics and to create a platform for cultural exchange between Japan and the West. Both the 701 CCA lecture and concert will explore this exchange. NJ_P is made up of about 10 musicians who work with Coleman on a project-by-project basis, uniting traditional, experimental and contemporary classical Japanese musicians with musicians from Europe and the USA. For the 701 CCA concert, Coleman will perform on bass clarinet with Toshimaru Nakamura, no-input mixer, and Kenta Nagai, shamisen and electronics. Ensemble N_JP has performed at important festivals and venues in Japan, the Unites States and Europe. This performance is produced by the New Music Collective of Charleston, S.C.
Wednesday, May 5, 2010, 7-9pm: Barbez.Barbez,a Brooklyn, NY-based punk chamber ensemble, weaves a haunting mosaic of old-world cabaret, Eastern European folksong, contemporary classical and experimental rock into a uniquely beautiful and personal soundscape. With its unconventional lineup mixing a rock rhythm section and theremin, clarinet, and classical percussion, one can hear echoes of such like-minded musical iconoclasts as Kurt Weill, Godspeed, you black emperor! and Russian composer Alfred Schnittke.
Described in The New Yorker as conjuring “…an imaginary place full of narrow, crooked streets that are paved with ancient, damp cobblestones,” the music of Barbez has roots in the old world but is a modern, fresh approach to the sound. “She’s amazing,” said John Fitz Rogers, director of the University of South Carolina’s groundbreaking Southern Exposure music series. A theremin is an electronic instrument played without the musician ever touching the instrument. Instead, the player moves her hands near two antennas that emit signals, in doing so controlling pitch and volume and creating an often eerie sound.
The band recently released its fourth album Force of Light on John Zorn’s Tzadik label under bandleader Dan Kaufman’s name. The album was inspired by and uses the poetry of the great Romanian-Jewish poet, Paul Celan. Barbez is comprised of the following musicians: Pamelia Kurstin, theremin, who has performed and recorded widely with numerous artists including John Zorn, David Byrne, and Jim Thirlwell (Foetus); Dan Kaufman (guitar) who also performs with downtown New York chanteuse Rebecca Moore and avant-vocalist Shelley Hirsch and is the Barbez’s main songwriter; Peter Hess (clarinet) who plays with a variety of groups including the Slavic-inspired Balkan Beat Box and World/Inferno Friendship Society; Andrew Jones (bass, electronics); and John Bollinger (drums), a West Coast native who plays for numerous groups including Antony and the Johnsons and the Sway Machine.
Thursday, February 18, 2010, 7-9pm: Jason Ajemian, A Solo Concert with Upright Bass and Voice. Ajemian captivates an audience by drawing sounds from the bass not usually heard.
Wednesday, February 3, 7-9pm: Opposite of a Train. The Opposite of a Train is a multi-instrumental trip comprised of Bill Carson (guitars, banjo, bicycle), Nathan Koci (accordion, brass, keyboards, metronome), and Ron Wiltrout (marimba, drum set, crash cymbals). Celebrating the release of their new album, The Opposite of a Train is coming to the Olympia exhibition in 701 CCA’s gallery. Put your ear to the tracks, and listen for the crash cymbals.
701 Center for Contemporary Art 