MUSIC

The contemporary music group Musiqa in collaboration with the Mitchell Center and the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston present a world premiere museum performance Answers to Questions with works by composers Bill Ryan, Michael Lowenstern, David T. Little, Ingram Marshall, Nick Zammuto all performed by composer and violinist Todd Reynolds. Two works on the program include video, Nick Zammuto’s Fast Pasture and Reynolds’ own Outerborough, which will accompany a film by Bill Morrisson.

Part of the Musiqa loft series of informal, intimate concerts, this concert is produced in conjunction with and in response to the CAMH exhibition Answers to Questions: John Wood & Paul Harrison, the first United States museum survey of work in video by this British artistic team.

LOCATION: Contemporary Arts Museum Houston, 5216 Montrose Blvd
ADMISSION: Free

Answers to Questions program titles, composers, and notes:

Beginner's Mind - Todd Reynolds
Did you ever wonder what music would be like when completely generated from no preconceived notions? Just from one note and nothing else? A multi-layered meditation on coming to music making with "beginner's mind."

New Work - Bill Ryan (world premiere)

Crossroads - Michael Lowenstern (from Todd's new CD Outerborough)
Captured and cut-up violin figures prominently in this duet with the legendary blues singer and guitarist Robert Johnson.

and the sky was still there - David T. Little (from Todd's new CD Outerborough)
Evocative melodies weave through the textual narrative of a soldier's very personal observations on the depersonalization of the military, told by the soldier herself, Amber Ferenz.

September Canons - Ingram Marshall
A poetic, large-scale composition written a year after September 11th which uses live, electronic sound reproduction to create almost an orchestral atmosphere. Though not a direct narrative, Ingram Marshall has somehow exquisitely captured the gravity and complexity of the event's resonance with a purity that transcends sentimentality. Please see this NPR feature link to hear an excerpt from and read more about this piece:
http://www.npr.org/2010/01/24/122857456/sacred-songs-and-djs-new-classical-cds

Icy Sleeves of Green - Todd Reynolds (from Todd's new CD Outerborough)
A modern repurposing of the old English tune Greensleeves using real-time recorded loops. Equal parts improvisation and composition. 

Fast Pasture - Nick Zammuto (from Todd's new CD Outerborough)
(Performed with video)
Written by one of the members of the extraordinary electronica duo, The Books, Fast Pasture was filmed and recorded simultaneously, then cut into a perpetual motion for two Todd's, one virtual, one real.

Outerborough - Todd Reynolds (from Todd's new CD Outerborough) 8 min. (Performed with video)
The title cut from the new CD Outerborough was written to a film of the same name by Bill Morrison. The film is a reworking of an 1899 biographical film called "Across the Brooklyn Bridge". It was shot on 68mm stock, a long defunct gauge that only recently was restored to a viewable 35mm format. MoMA commissioned Bill to make a film for the re-opening of the museum in Manhattan. The British Film Institute loaned him the 35mm master to transfer to a digital format and edit before the master was returned to the BFI.

http://toddreynolds.com
http://twitter.com/digifiddler
http://myspace.com/toddreynoldsmusic
http://blog.toddreynolds.com
http://facebook.com/toddreynolds
http://reverbnation.com/toddreynolds 

The Contemporary Arts Museum Houston presents Answers to Questions: John Wood and Paul Harrison, on view February 12 - April 24, 2011. Answers to Questions: John Wood and Paul Harrison is the first United States museum survey of work in video by this British artistic team. Wood and Harrison make video works that elegantly fuse advanced aesthetic research with existential comedy. The artists' spare, to-the-point works combine the actions of their own bodies and a wide range of static and kinetic props to humorously illuminate the triumphs and tribulations of making art and a life.

Composer, conductor, arranger and violinist, Todd Reynolds is a longtime member of Bang On A Can, Steve Reich and Musicians and an early member of Yo-Yo Ma’s Silk Road Project. His commitment to genre-bending and technology-driven innovation in music has produced innumerable collaborations with artists that regularly cross musical and disciplinary boundaries, regularly placing him in venues from clubs to concert halls around the world.

A forerunner in the expansion of the violin beyond its classical and ‘wood-bound’ tradition, Reynolds electrifies in concert, weaves together composed and improvised segments, and makes use of computer technology and digital loops to sculpt his sounds in real time, seamlessly integrating minimalist, pop, Jazz, Indian, African, Celtic and indigenous folk musics into his own sonic blend. As a cross-genre improviser and collaborator, he has appeared and/or recorded with such artists as Anthony Braxton, Uri Caine, John Cale, Steve Coleman, Joe Jackson, Dave Liebman, Yo-Yo Ma, Graham Nash, Greg Osby, Steve Reich, Marcus Roberts and Todd Rundgren, and has commissioned and premiered countless numbers of new works by America’s most compelling composers, including John King, Phil Kline, Michael Gordon, Neil Rolnick, Julia Wolfe, David Lang, Evan Ziporyn and Randall Wolff. His interdisciplinary work includes ongoing collaborations with SoundPainter Walter Thompson as well as media artists Bill Morrison and Luke DuBois and sound artist Jody Elff.

His current string quartet featuring all-stars from New York’s new music scene is currently on tour with Meredith Monk’s Songs of Ascension and engaged in collaborations with composers and performers such as Kenny Werner, Neil Rolnick and Theo Bleckmann. Current commissions include music for dance, theater and orchestra, as well as a double CD to released on September 28th by the Innova label.

Founded in 2002, Musiqa (www.musiqahouston.org) is a non-profit organization dedicated to the performance of contemporary classical music. Led by five composers, Musiqa aims to enrich and inspire the community through programs that integrate contemporary music with other modern art forms. Musiqa celebrates modern creative arts through inter-disciplinary concerts that highlight modern music and its connections to literature, film, dance, art, and more. With its innovative collaborations and educational programming, Musiqa strives to make modern repertoire accessible and vital to audiences of all ages and musical backgrounds.

Major support for Musiqa is provided by the Houston Endowment, the City of Houston through the Houston Arts Alliance, the Texas Commission on the Arts, the Simmons Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Aaron Copland Fund, Anne and Albert Chao, the Cullen Trust for the Performing Arts,

Photo credit: Bill Ryan (detail above, full image below).