Princeton Sound Kitchen Presents
Songs on the Theme of Knowing: Michelle Nagai
Performing New Works by:
Michelle Nagai
Location: Taplin Gallery, Arts Council of Princeton’s Paul Robeson Center For The Arts
Ticketing: Free admission
Date: Tuesday, October 16, 2013
Start time: 1:30 pm and 8:00 pm
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PSK presents new work by Princeton composer Michelle Nagai.
Dan Trueman, Director
Michael Pratt, Resident Conductor
SONGS ON THE THEME OF KNOWING
New work by Michelle Nagai
PROGRAM
MICHELLE NAGAI
Work/Rest
1:30pm – 4:30 pm
Taplin Gallery
Composer Michelle Nagai, in collaboration with percussionists Michael Evans and Andrew Drury, presents part 1 of Work/Rest. The performers will collect and categorize sound objects throughout the day in a performative work-in-process set in the Taplin Gallery. Arts Center visitors are invited to drop in and observe, ask questions, and help gather and organize sounds and objects. The installation of instruments in the gallery culminates with a live performance as part of the evening concert Songs on the Theme of Knowing (see below).
MICHELLE NAGAI
Songs on the Theme of Knowing
8:00pm
Taplin Gallery
An evening of new music composed by Michelle Nagai, and inspired by the rhythms and ethos of Japanese rural farm life. After Preface, the first work on the program, is a setting of the poem Preface by Japanese poet Kenji Miyazawa. Scored for an unusual combination of traditional instruments and more familiar sounds, After Preface features voice (Kyoko Kitamura), acoustic guitar (James Moore), futozao shamisen (Kenta Nagai), and shakuhachi (Elizabeth Brown). The piece is presented here in its U.S. premiere. Work/Rest (part 2) rounds out the program and features an array of sound objects that have been assembled in the gallery over the course of the day by percussionists Michael Evans and Andrew Drury. Composed together and meant to be heard that way, this pair of works touches on the mysteries of enlightenment, agricultural routine, seasonal change, and the wisdom of elders. Doors open at 7:30 pm.
ABOUT THE PERFORMERS
Elizabeth Brown combines a successful composing career with an extremely diverse performing life, playing flute, shakuhachi, and theremin in a wide variety of musical circles. A Juilliard graduate and Guggenheim Fellowship recipient, her music has been heard in Japan, the Soviet Union, Colombia, Australia, South Africa and Vietnam as well as across the US and Europe. She has received grants, awards and commissions from Orpheus, St. Luke's Chamber Ensemble, Newband, the Asian Cultural Council, the Japan/US Friendship Commission, Meet the Composer, the Electronic Music Foundation, the Cary Trust, and NYFA. Brown is celebrated both here and in Japan for her compositions and performances combining eastern and western sensibilities. She was Grand Prize Winner in the M. Yutaka Composition Competition for Japanese traditional instruments, and also a prizewinner in the SGCM Shakuhachi Composition Competition 2010. Music from Japan presented her in recital in New York City and at the Smithsonian in Washington, D.C. She has been Artist-in-Residence in the Grand Canyon, working on a series of solo shakuhachi pieces inspired by particular places in nature. In 2008/2009, she lived in Japan on a Cultural Exchange Fellowship supported by the US/Japan Friendship Commission. Brown was an invited performer at the World Shakuhachi Festivals in 2008 in Sydney, Australia, and in 2012 in Kyoto.
Andrew Drury is a drummer/composer whose work encompasses a stunning range of tradition and exploration while manifesting a core of rhythmic savvy, intense energy, and meticulous sonic control. A former student of the legendary drummer Ed Blackwell, Drury is known for a swinging and lyrical approach to the drum set, and for being able to leave audiences spellbound with his use of extended techniques. One of few percussionists performing at a world class level in both jazz and in experimental idioms that don’t obviously spring from jazz, Drury has appeared in 25 countries and on 40 cds as a soloist, as a bandleader, and in groups with artists such as Myra Melford, Chris Speed, Elliot Sharp, and Andrea Neumann. Currently he leads a quartet with Briggan Krauss, Ingrid Laubrock, and Brandon Seabrook. He performs with 10^32K (featuring Frank Lacy), Jason Kao Hwang, Jack Wright, TOTEM>, IRON DOG, JD Parran’s clarinet ensemble, Dan Peck, Daniel Blake, and others.
Michael Evans is an improvising drummer/composer whose work investigates and embraces the collision of sound and theatrics, combining ordered systems with intuitive choices of sound making using found objects, homemade instruments, the theremin and various digital and analog electronics. He has worked with a wide variety of artists nationally and internationally including EasSide Percussion, Fast Forward, Fulminate Trio, Alexander Hacke (Einsturzende Neubauten), Susan Hefner, Gordon Monahan, Evan Parker, William Parker, Psychotic Quartet, LaDonna Smith and Peter Zummo.
Kyoko Kitamura is vocal improviser and composer who has performed and/or recorded with many distinguished musicians including Anthony Braxton, Reggie Workman, Jay Clayton, Steve Coleman, Jim Staley, and Taylor Ho Bynum. Mostly recently, she appears on two Anthony Braxton albums, the opera "Trillium E" (New Braxton House 2011) and the "Syntactical GTM Choir (NYC) 2011" (New Braxton House 2012). Also known for her interdisciplinary projects, she released her first solo album "Armadillo In Sunset Park" (KK 2011) last year, a collection of songs written for Mark Lamb Dance. Kitamura has garnered critical praise for her “great vocal range, veering from wordless vocalese to near operatic feats” (AllAboutJazz) and her “smoky alto that at turns belongs to a children’s storyteller, slam poet or blues singer” (New York City Jazz Record), with All Music Guide describing her as “an expressive vocalist who knows how to be quirky and eccentric but is also quite musical.” http://www.kyokokitamura.com/
James Moore is a versatile guitarist and multi-instrumentalist. A native of the San Francisco Bay Area, he has been immersed in New York's creative music community since 2006, earning the title of "local electric guitar hero" by Time Out NY and "model new music citizen" by the NY Times. James is a founding member of the electric guitar quartet Dither, and performs internationally as a soloist and ensemble player. Current projects include performances and recording of John Zorn's Book of Heads for solo guitar, playwright Richard Maxwell's critically acclaimed theater piece Neutral Hero, and PLAY/PAUSE, a collaborative piece for BAM's Next Wave Festival with composer David Lang and choreographer Susan Marshall.
Kenta Nagai is an audio-visual artist and performer, originally from Niigata Japan. His keen sense of physicality is reflected in his current exploration of the physical properties of sound and its impact on human emotion and the body. This interest has led to numerous collaborations with dancers and artists across diverse media, in New York City and abroad. Nagai's original work, and collaborations, have been presented at major venues including Carnegie Hall, Roulette, Judson Church, Dance Theater Workshop, The Kitchen, Lincoln Center Out Door Stage, Rubin Museum, Hershhorn Museum at the Smithonian Institute, Sculpture Center, The Whitney Museum, and The Japan Society. Nagai is the guitarist for Trophies, a Berlin-based musical trio featuring composer/vocalist Alessandro Bosetti and drummer Tony Buck (of The Necks). The band has released two albums since 2010 - 'Become Objects of Daily Use' (Monotype Records) and 'A color photo of the horse' (D.S. al Coda). A third album is due for release this autumn. In 2011, Nagai made a year-long sojourn back to Japan, where he studied shamisen with Tsuruzawa Asazo the 5th and participated in the daily routines and cultural traditions of rural Japan.
Composer/sound artist Michelle Nagai creates original music and sound for electronics and live players, ephemeral performance events, video, dance and theater. In tandem with her work as a composer, Nagai's published writings reflect a deep engagement with the intersection of words, sounds, places and ideas. In 2012, Nagai lived in rural Japan, the recipient of a creative artist fellowship from the Japan-United States Friendship Commission. She now resides in rural New York State, where she continues to explore connections between sound and place, while working toward completion of a doctoral dissertation in composition at Princeton University. Nagai’s work has been presented in North America, Japan and Europe with the support of numerous institutions including the American Composers Forum, the Deep Listening Institute, Harvestworks, Eyebeam, the Interdisciplinary Laboratory for Art, Nature and Dance, the Jerome and McKnight Foundations, Meet the Composer, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the New York State Council on the Arts.