Angélica Negrón, introducing “Panorama”

Phyllis Chen and Rob Dietz

We love music boxes! “Mobius” by Phyllis Chen and Rob Dietz, with help from Andie and Evelyn.

We are thrilled to present Phyllis Chen, who will be joined by multimedia artist Rob Deitz. Fresh off the success of her newly-founded UnCaged Toy Piano Festival, unconventional virtuoso Phyllis Chen will perform original works for toy piano, music boxes, bowls, and electronics that exemplify her unique capacity for creating immersive musical experiences with unusual sounds.

TRANSIT co-founder Evelyn Farny will present a program exploring contemporary developments in solo cello writing, including the world premiere of “Panorama” by rising-star composer Angélica Negrón. She will also perform pieces by Alexandra Gardner, Caroline Shaw, and György Ligeti.

For this very special event, TRANSIT joins forces with the Kent Fine Art Gallery and its Mind the Gap exhibit, which takes its inspiration from Lise Patt’s description of W.G. Sebald:

If there is a Sebaldian method, in Austerlitz we are given the opening line: “mind the gap” between words, between and in images and text, but most significantly, mind the gaps in (not only between) signs. Look at the spaces between seeing and not seeing (where you’ll catch a glimpse of “the phantom traces created by the sluggish eye”). Notice the gaps between cards being dealt of pages of a book flipping by. Don’t turn away from the visual magma, after-images that “leak” out from their moving sides. Pay attention to the momentary arrest of language required by a period, a comma, an “aside.” Don’t ignore the “whispered” secrets of the last spoken syllable hanging in the air, or the last written word of a paragraph stranded on its own line. Study those photographs created in slips of the shutter or captured in concert with bodily sighs. These are the gaps that open the way to the production of thought itself, to awaking, not anesthetizing, the creative mind.

-Lise Patt, “What I Know for Sure,” in Searching for Sebald: Photography after W.G. Sebald (Los Angeles: Institute of Cultural Inquiry, 2007), pp. 81-82.

The artists featured in this exhibit are Dennis Adams, Joseph Beuys, Fernando Bryce, Heide Fasnacht, Charles Gaines, Hans Haacke, Richard Hamilton, Alfredo Jaar, Mark Lombardi, Antoni Muntadas, and Walid Raad. 

Kent Fine Art Gallery: 210 11th Avenue, 2nd floor (at 25th St.), NYC 10001

Map + travel info here

Public transit: A to 14th St; L to 8th Ave; C, E to 23rd St; M11 bus to 25th St

ph. 212-365-9500

The Mind the Gap exhibit opening will begin at 6:00, and our show will begin at 7:00. Admission is free and open to the public.

You can find it here.

Read more about it here!

Enjoy!

Love, TRANSIT

P.S. We’re looking forward to seeing you tomorrow at Glasslands!

Beyond Race Magazine showing us some love

Facebook invite 

New Amsterdam Presents 

Shout-out in Time Out NY

Also on the bill is Laurel Halo with FORMA and Lorna Dune!

Awesome, right? We know! Here are the details:

PopGun and New Amsterdam present Laurel Halo with Forma, Daniel Wohl’s Corps Exquis, and Lorna Dune

Tuesday, December 13th at 8:30PM. $10, 21+

at Glasslands Gallery (289 Kent Ave) – Brooklyn, NY

Tickets

It’s the first Corps Exquis show of the year and it’s happening on Tuesday, NOVEMBER 29 at PUBLIC ASSEMBLY in Williamsburg, Brooklyn!!!

Need a little extra inspiration to make it to this show? OK, you got it:

Also on the bill is DELUSION STORY (Ted Hearne’s awesome new band) and THE LOW END (a cool new project with Ken Thomson)!

All of this for the incredibly reasonable cover of TEN DOLLARS.

So, we’ll see you there!

CORPS EXQUIS
@ Public Assembly
70 N. 6th St.
Williamsburg, BKLN

NOV 29
8:00 The Low End
8:45 CORPS EXQUIS
9:45 Delusion Story

$10 at door, 21+

http://www.publicassemblynyc.com/?wtpage=event&id=2013

http://www.ktonline.net

http://www.tedhearne.com/delusionstory.html

You can get a recording of Jason’s piece plus two of our other favorite pieces by going here.

TRANSIT BLOG (TB): Daniel, thank you so much for agreeing to take part in TRANSIT’s first ever composer blog-interview! As a founding member of TRANSIT, you know that the ensemble puts a heavy emphasis on advocating for young composers, so it’s hard to imagine a better place to start than an interview with you!

On May 28, 2011, the TRANSIT DoubleBill Series featured ‘Pixelated,’ a work you composed for piano/percussion duo and electronics. Could you share with us a little bit about where the inspiration came from for this particular work?

DANIEL WOHL (DW): This piece started as an idea for a particular sound and texture. The thought of having a very blended sound between the toy piano, the piano and the glockenspiel appealed to me a lot. Also, having a tightly choreographed piece of music in which the electronics and the acoustic instruments merge completely is often at the center of the music I make.

TB: TRANSIT has had the pleasure of working on a number of commissions with you over the last several years. Almost all of these works have involved electronics. Can you share a little bit about how important electronic elements are in your compositional process and how you go about creating the electronic sounds that you use in your work?

DW: The use of electronics implies an unlimited wealth of new timbral possibilities, and is as such a great creative starting point for me. Much of my material comes from the instruments themselves – for instance in ‘Pixelated’ – I manipulated samples of the piano pedals, the resonance of a glockenspiel note, or the key clicks from the toy piano.

TB: As a Brooklyn-based collective, TRANSIT has been inspired by both the musical history of and current developments in the new music scene in New York City. As a Paris-born composer who studied in the USA before moving to New York, can you discuss what (if any) affect New York City has had on your compositional life?

DW: New York City has been hugely influential in my life. I more or less spent all my twenties under its influence in some way or another. But this city is an incredibly diverse place where vastly different styles can coexist. Probably the most influential aspect of this city has been its “do it yourself” attitude; many of us here are working out new paradigms both musically and professionally, and that’s been very inspiring.

TB: The TRANSIT DoubleBill Series presents the work of emerging composers from around the world alongside new works from young composers in New York. From the outset, you have had a hand in curating this series. Why is it important to you as a young composer to be involved with presenting a series?

DW: I think what is most gratifying for me is the act of giving back to the community in some way. Being a composer is a solitary endeavor for much of the time, and it’s nice to be able to step out of yourself and put together an event that helps promote the music of people you admire.

TB: Do you think that the classical/new music model is shifting in a permanent fashion away from traditional venues and series and towards more home-grown events such as the DoubleBill Series?

DW: I hope not! I think traditional venues are still very interested in new music and will hopefully expand their programming in the years to come. I think the past season has shown that contemporary music events can still draw a large crowd. Home-grown events are and will continue to be an important way to get new voices out there, but I think that’s always been the case.

TB: Your most large-scale collaboration with TRANSIT to date has been Corps Exquis, the 35-minute multimedia electro-acoustic work that received its premiere at Galapagos Art Space last October. Do you have plans for further multimedia works in the future, and what lies ahead for the Corps Exquis project?

DW: Corps Exquis has a big show coming up presented by Harvestworks on July 3rd, which I’m very excited about! An album of this music is in the works and many more appearances in New York and elsewhere. I’m very excited about this multi-media project, and it’s been a lot of fun working and with thses visual artists.

TB: Finally, we know that you are in high demand aside from your work with TRANSIT. What other projects are you working on currently that you’re really excited about?

DW: New pieces for So Percussion, Two Sense and the Albany Symphony are keeping me busy!

TB: Thanks so much for your cyber time Daniel! See you in the TRANSIT-verse sometime very soon!

——
Dear readers–  Keep checking back with transitnewmusic.com for more composer interviews in the future!

In the meantime, you can find out more about Daniel Wohl here:

www.danielwohlmusic.com

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