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Improv 04

Subtropics Experimental Music & Sound Arts Festival
presented by SFCA’s interdisciplinary Sound Arts Workshop
in partnership with the
Miami Performing Arts Center

FESTIVAL SCHEDULE

Thursday, February 24, 2005 [7pm-9pm] Opening Reception
SOUNDS in SPACE: Works from the Diapason Archive
Curated by Michael J. Schumacher
co-presented by Diapason Gallery in New York City
Dorsch Gallery, 151 NW 24 St, Miami’s Wynwood Arts District
Gallery Hours: Friday, February 25 – Friday, March 4 [11am – 4pm]
Plus Monday & Tuesday, February 28 – March 5 [7pm – 9pm]
Free and open to the public
Curator Michael J. Schumacher, of Diapason Gallery in New York, has brought together twelve unique sound installations.  SOUNDS IN SPACE: Works from the Diapason Archive presents an astonishing range of strategies for the spatial manifestation of sound.  The installation conducted by a programmed computer will play different installations throughout the exhibition.  SOUNDS IN SPACE features the work of Tom Hamilton, Doug Henderson, Leif Inge, Tetsu Inoue, Jason Kahn, Alan Licht, Matthew Ostrowski, Marina Rosenfeld, Michael J. Schumacher, Carl Stone, Stephen Vitiello and Amnon Wolman.  The gallery hours are Friday, February 25 – Friday, March 4, 2005 from 11am - 4pm. Everyday. There will also be additional gallery hours on Monday and Tuesday night, February 28 & March 1, 2005 from 7-9pm.  An installation schedule will be available at the gallery.  Tom Hamilton’s London Fix, a sound installation featuring music that changes with the price of gold will be featured on opening night at 8 pm.  Special performances by Miami Performing Art Center’s street theater troupe, Urban Disturbance will also take place throughout the evening.

Thursday, February 24, 2005 [7pm-9pm]
E.A.R. UNIT: In Concert
Dorsch Gallery, 151 NW 24 St, Miami’s Wynwood Arts District
Admission: $15 general, $12 members/ students/ seniors
E.A.R. Unit, an acclaimed West Coast new music group, takes the stage at 9 pm following an opening night reception for SOUNDS IN SPACE. Performers of contemporary chamber music for 23 years, composers Dorothy Stone, Marty Walker, Daphne Chen, Erika Kirkpatrick, Vicki Ray, and Amy Knoles combine acoustic and computer-generated sounds, often with video components.  Consisting of winds, strings, percussion, piano and computer, E.A.R. Unit performs eclectic selections, ranging from austere minimalist works to lighter, more humorous pieces, and others with political content.  For Subtropics, E.A.R. Unit will perform a series of works.  Amy Knoles’ autobiographical Squint, with video by Richard Hines, explores the phenomenon of squinting your eyes while stuck in traffic in order to alter your environment, while absorbing the ensuing audio collage of myriad car radios.  Knoles is no stranger to Miami, having composed and performed the original music for Under Eden performed at the Eden Roc Hotel by choreographer Heidi Duckler commissioned and produced by Miami Light Project in 2001.  She is excited to bring the entire group to South Florida, and promises Miami audiences “an incredible mix” of new music.

Friday, February 25, 2005 [7pm]
SUBTROPICS MIX: Tom Hamilton, Fred Lonberg-Holm,
Michael J. Schumaker, Steven Schick
Dorsch Gallery, 151 NW 24 St, Miami’s Wynwood Arts District
Admission: $12 general, $10 members/ students/ seniors
SUBTROPICS MIX introduces Miami audiences to the work of four distinguished practitioners of contemporary experimental music: Tom Hamilton, Fred Lonberg-Holm, Michael J. Schumacher and Steven Shick.  Tom Hamilton has composed and performed electronic music for over 25 years, and he most often features older analog synthesizers in performance and recording, contrasting structure with improvisation.  Fred Lonberg-Holm is a reknowned cellist, active in a variety of musical genres, from avant-garde and experimental rock, to modern composition.  Michael J. Schumacher is a composer of electronic sound installations, computer controlled random structures, acoustic music realizing advanced formal schemes, taped and live music for prepared electric guitars, synthesizer.  He has composed works for piano, chamber ensemble, voice and orchestra.  Steven Schick has collaborated with pianist James Avery, the percussion group "red fish blue fish" and the Maya Beiser/Steven Schick Project. Schick is also the percussionist of the Bang on a Can All-Stars.
 
Friday, February 25, 2005 [9pm]
TOSHI MAKIHARA & JIM MENESES: Electro-Acoustic Percussion Duo
Dorsch Gallery, 151 NW 24 St, Miami’s Wynwood Arts District
Admission: $12 general, $10 members/students/ seniors
Based in Philadelphia, MAKIHARA/MENESES, the duo project of percussionist Toshi Makihara and percussionist/midi marimbist Jim Meneses are celebrating a 20-year association with the release of their CD, Sonore.  Makihara and Meneses present dynamic and original electro-acoustic percussion soundscapes, using a variety of conventional and home-made percussion instruments, various discovered and invented sound media and digital sampling systems.  Their virtuosity conveys a spirit full of exciting quick changes and surprises, and presents music with all kinds of unusual sounds and timbres.  MAKIHARA/MENESES is one of the most original and unique duos in the realm of experimental free improvised music.
 
Saturday, February 26, 2005 [7pm]
MATHEMATICS OF RESONANT BODIES by John Luther Adams
Performed by Steven Schick
Dorsch Gallery, 151 NW 24 St, Miami’s Wynwood Arts District
Admission: $12 general, $10 members/ students/ seniors
Intent on revealing the “choirs of inner voices” latent in percussion instruments, composer John Luther Adams has created Mathematics of Resonant Bodies, which has been co-commissioned jointly by Miami’s SFCA’s interdisciplinary Sound Arts Workshop, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, WNYC (New York) and Meet the Composer.  This new work was written for and will be performed by Steven Schick, the percussionist of the Bang on a Can All-Stars. Adams has noted that “Like the listener, the soloist in these pieces is a solitary figure traversing enveloping landscapes of resonance.” Steven Schick has commissioned and premiered more than one hundred new works for percussion. A lecturer at Rotterdam Conservatory and the Royal College of Music in London.  Schick is Professor of Music at the University of California, San Diego and Lecturer in Percussion at the Manhattan School of Music. From his home in Alaska, John Luther Adams has created a unique musical world grounded in wilderness landscapes and indigenous cultures, and in natural phenomena from the songs of birds to elemental noise. His music includes works for orchestra, small ensembles, percussion and electronic media.
 
Saturday, February 26, 2005 [9pm]
jamJAM STRAWBERRY
Featuring Sony Mao, Sawako Kato, Dino Felipe and Otto Von Schirach
Curated by Edward Bobb
Co-presented by Artemis
Dorsch Gallery, 151 NW 24 St, Miami’s Wynwood Arts District
Admission: $10 general, $6 members/ students/ seniors
An unprecedented web-based band, jamJam Strawberry, aka Strawberry, aka The Strawberrys, aka Strawberry and the Strawberries, is an online, computer 'band' which improvises, layer by layer, from server to server, on the world wide web.  The first notes were 'sounded' with an .aiff file placed in the "sonymao" drop box on the Microsound list's hotline-client server, intercepted by Sawako Kato in Tokyo, passed back to Miami’s own Sony Mao, then to the "sonny browsers" uploads folder on a kdx-client server, picked up by Øivind Idsø in Oslo, Norway, and then swiftly routed back to Sony Mao. For their in-the-flesh world premiere, the Strawberries are Sawako, aka Tokyo Digital Mutation Girl, and Beta Bodega Coalition's agent of chaos, Sony Mao.  They are supported by solo performances from Miami's Prince of computer cabaret, the one-and-only Dino Felipe, and, fresh from a North American tour with the world-acclaimed Industrial band Skinny Puppy, the one-and-only Otto Von Schirach.

Sunday, February 27, 2005 [1pm]
TALK WITH YOUR MOUTH FULL…
about Experimental Music & Sound Art
Co-presented by Artemis
Dorsch Gallery, 151 NW 24 St, Miami’s Wynwood Arts District
Free and open to the public
Leaders in the arts scene from Miami, New York, Chicago and other cities convene to discuss trends in experimental music & sound art. Curators, artists and critics as well as the general public are invited to join the discussion of the experimental music & sound art and its role in the larger contemporary music and arts community.
 
Wednesday, March 2, 2005 [7pm]
BODY OVER WATER by Maria Jose Arjona
Co-presented by Artemis and FIU’s Frost Art Museum
As part of Wednesdays After Hours
FIU’s Frost Art Museum, SW 107th Ave & 8th Street, Miami
Free and open to the public
Body Over Water is a new work by Maria Jose Arjona inspired by the passage of time. “When I think about water, generally, I think of life. Life as a fluid element that changes in stages generating a rhythm and multiplying itself endlessly over time,” states Colombian-born Arjona who has been working in performance and installation since 1997.  A graduate of the Higher Academy of Art in Bogota, Arjona has participated in solo and group shows in Bogota, Miami, Marfa (Texas) and New York City.  Arjona’s performance will be during Mark Klett’s exhibition Ideas About Time organized by the Arizona State University Art Museum and curated by Marilyn A. Zeitlin.

Thursday, March 3, 2005 [7-11pm]
TRANSFERS by Matt Roberts
Pick ups in and around South Beach.
Taxi rides range between $5-$20.  For reservations, call 305.981.0600.
Perhaps inspired by composer Phillip Glass, digital media artist Matt Roberts, a member of DeLand’s duo DropBox, has taken up the same avocation: driving a TAXI.  Roberts can facilitate traveling to, from and around Miami Beach during Subtropics.  However, he offers no ordinary cab ride.  Customers will have a chance to create their own unique multi-media works by directing Roberts to their destination of choice.  As the taxi travels, the passenger will experience a real-time manipulation of live video and audio.  Utilizing GPS technology coupled with custom real-time audio/visual manipulation software, Roberts enhances the mundane experience of a cab ride marrying its own locomotion with the passing visual environment.  
 
Thursday, March 3, 2005 [7pm]
SHARED FREQUENCIES by Kabir Carter
Miami Beach Cinematheque, 512 Española Way, Miami Beach
Free and open to the public
Shared Frequencies is a public art project which had its genesis in New York City.  A mobile electro-acoustic studio produces a constantly changing sound installation culled from acoustic transmissions and environmental sounds which are then modulated by sound artist Kabir Carter.  Carter's work zeroes in on the confluence of speech, urban environmental noise, acoustic feedback, analog sound synthesis, transmissive acoustics, specialized microphone technologies, tone sequences, and other sound events germane to General Mobile Radio Service (GMRS) and Family Radio Service. His compositions, live performances, and sound installations have been presented at PS122 and d.u.m.b.o. arts center.  Carter has received awards and grants for his work from Media Alliance and Rhizome.org, and has been an artist-in-residence at Atlantic Center for the Arts and Lower Manhattan Cultural Council/Workspace at 120 Broadway.

Thursday, March 3, 2005 [9pm]
SUBTROPICS VIDEOS: Selections from the Festival for Art on Film
Curated by Seth Thompson
Co-presented by the Miami Beach Cinematheque
Miami Beach Cinematheque, 512 Española Way, Miami Beach
Admission: $10 general, $6 members/ students/ seniors
Curator Seth Thompson has pulled together a varied program of video works by national and international artists. Kristen Baumliér’s Antenna is a 3 minute work investigating the nature of communication technology. Francesca N. Penzani’ s Donne, Citta' ed in Vestito Nero (Women, Cities and a Black Dress), is a trilogy of short dance videos performed by three women in three different cities wearing the same dress. Regis Ferguson Collective from Minneapolis presents Gesture Lesson, which knits together disembodied gestures, digital sound and algorithmic imaging. Arielle Javitch’s  No One, is a visual meditation on the genocides that occurred in Bosnia and Rwanda told through dance. Mimi Garrard’s Omagbitse is a suite of three pieces created for dancer Omagbitse Omagbemi. Everything is Art by Zev Robinson conveys ideas about art without a conventional narrative. Texture Mapping II by Claudia Esslinger exposes the interaction of organisms and industry reliant on water and the ensuing ecological dangers. Mark Freeman’s Lines in the Sand follows the activities of Encinitas, CA artist Kirk Van Allyn who creates public art on the pacific shore. Deborah Kuleff, from Australia, will show Salomon, the record of a woman’s journey to rediscover her past.

Friday, March 4, 2005 [7pm]
DIALOGS by Fred Lonberg-Holm
Dorsch Gallery, 151 NW 24 St, Miami’s Wynwood Arts District
Admission: $12 general, $10 members/students/ seniors
Fred Lonberg-Holm is a renowned cellist, active in a variety of musical genres, from avant-garde and experimental rock, to modern composition.  Born in Delaware, raised in Sweden, he performed in and led various ensembles in New York City including his quartet PEEP, and has worked with Anthony Braxton and John Zorn.
 
Friday, March 4, 2005 [9pm]
SOUND MESS & other poems by Be Blank Consort
Dorsch Gallery, 151 NW 24 St, Miami’s Wynwood Arts District
Admission: $12 general, $10 members/students/ seniors
The Be Blank Consort - John Bennett, Michael Basinski, K.S. Ernst, Scott Helmes, Carlos M. Luis, and Michael Peters collectively – will perform SOUND MESS & other poems. The works in SOUND MESS convert the raw material of spoken signs and messages to produce a cacophony which is really a new language, with its own rhythms, structures, and signifyings. The simultaneity of texts and meanings produces a three-dimensionality of language which is ordinarily absent in writing and speaking. In this way, the members of Be Blank subvert the linearity of conventional language and offer an experience more akin to music. Born in June 2001, The Consort was formed to perform innovative texts, many created collaboratively, and scored for multiple voices, in ways that would reveal new resonances and possibilities in them. Concurrent with their performance, a loose, extended consortium of more than twenty artists will install works of “vispo”, or visual poetry, in the gallery. This mixed media exhibition includes works on paper, reliefs, constructions, slide projections and power point presentations.
 
Saturday, March 5, 2005 [7–11 pm]
SUBTROPICS 17 MARATHON Closing Concert
Dorsch Gallery, 151 NW 24 St, Miami’s Wynwood Arts District
Admission: $12 general, $10 members/students/ seniors
One of the most popular events at Subtropics Experimental Music & Sound Arts Festival, the Subtropics Marathon unites - in one lively evening - artists and sound practitioners who come to the medium from varied roots and disciplines. Over the years, the unique “prepared spontaneity” of the Marathon has been a catalyst and springboard for collaborations that are subsequently recorded and produced beyond the Festival. This year’s Marathon features the work of Rene Barge (Miami), Kabir Carter (New York), Charles Recher (Miami), Guillermo Gregorio (Argentina/Chicago), John Vanderslice (Miami), Rodney Waschka (Burlington), Absolute Zero (Miami) and Gustavo Matamoros (Miami) with the S.E.E. the Saw band (USA) composed of Don Metz (Buffalo), Ryan Agnew (Columbus) and Stephanie Lei (San Francisco). The FIU New Music Ensemble (Miami), under the direction of Orlando Garcia, will perform works by Guillermo Gregorio, Earle Brown and Orlando Garcia. New works created during a SAW residency will be premiered by Absolute Zero (Miami) with Jim Meneses (Philadelphia), and by cellist Fred Lonberg-Holm (Chicago).


 For more information, call 305.981.0600 or email info@subtropics.org.