NOW Orchestra Blog

Cameron/Hutzulak/Cooke @ 1067 April 24

Electronics musicians Allison Cameron (Toronto)

and Lee Hutzulak(www.leehutzulak.com), and

saxophonist Coat Cooke www.coatcooke.com

perform an evening of improvisations at the new

1067 loft (the new address is 1115B East Hasting

- entrancearound the side on Glen Drive).

Cover is $5 Start time: 9 pm

(Photo of Allison Cameron at play)

Here is something on Allison:

Allison Cameron is a composer of chamber works

that have been performed throughout Europe and

North America; she is also an experimental performer.

Her works have been performed at numerous festivals

and numerous ensembles have commissioned her.

She co-founded the Drystone Orchestra in 1989 and

founded the Arcana Ensemble in 1992, both dedicated

to the performance of experimental music in Toronto.

During 2000-2005, she was the artistic director of the

Arraymusic ensemble where she created the Scratch!

festival for experimental music. Her chamber music

has been released on XI records, CRI, Spool, Donemus,

Hevhetia, Musicworks and Rat-Drifting. Allison is

also a member of the Association of Improvising

Musicians of Toronto (AIMT) and since

2000 has been improvising with small, amplified

objects in collaboration with many of Toronto’s finest

musicians and internationally respected performers.

In 2007, Allison Cameron was awarded a prestigious

Chalmers Arts Fellowship to explore compositional

methods and indeterminate notations used in art

rock, jazz, free-improv, contemporary and folk musics.

Since that time she has formed the group known as

The Allison Cameron Band (with Eric Chenaux and

Stephen Parkinson) that rehearses regularly on new

compositions. In 2010 their first CD was released on

the Rat-Drifting label, Toronto.

Recent projects include: a CD recording of the trio

c_RL with Germaine Liu (percussion) and Nicole

Rampersaud (trumpet), along with performances at

the Tone Deaf Festival in Kingston, Ontario, The

Cameron House and Somewhere There in Toronto;

a digital release of a new piece Mach Shorn for the

Allison Cameron Band engineered by Sandro Perri;

solo performances at The Stone in New York City

and the Tranzac in Toronto; and, a future recording

project of experimental music with singer/songwriter

Thom Gill of Is This Thomas. This is her first solo tour

(April 2012 - Canada Council for the Arts) at six

venues across Canada.

Web info:

http://soundcloud.com/allisoncameronmusic

http://theallisoncameronband.bandcamp.com/album/the-allison-cameron-band

http://www.myspace.com/curl.trio

http://www.allisoncameronmusic.blogspot.com/

Orkestra Futura: Music is the Invisible Art

Orkestra Futura: Music is the Invisible Art

Friday the 13th of April, 2012

8 pm

The Roundhouse - Vancouver

Dave at Pacific Avenue

I'm getting really excited about our spring show,

the first of our 35th Anniversary Year.

I hope you can join us.

I have such a wonderful community of improvisors in

Vancouver to populate the ensemble and for this show

it's no different.

We have a chamber choir with four great

singer/improvisors.

First off, we have Christine Duncan.

Ms. Duncan lives in Toronto but is a citizen of the world

and comes out for this show to share the gift of her amazing voice.

We worked with her was in 2007 when she sang with the

Orkestra singing pieces withour guest Amina Claudine Myers,

as well as 2009's L.E.D. by the Light show that featured

Stefan Smulovitz' masterful piece Mad Scientist Machine as well

as my In the Belly of the Beast. Christine brings the broad pallette

of someone that sings mainstream jazz, gospel, 20th and 21st

contemporary music aswell as the highly developed vocabulary

of a truly gifted improvisor. She really is a treat to behold.

http://www.barnyardrecords.com/bio%20christine.html

Christine Duncan photo: www.chrisrandlephotography.com

We also have the inimitable DB Boyko. DB was also involved

the the Amina Claudine Myers chamber choir, Voices of Joy

project, the L.E.D. by the Lightas well as our Meeting of the

Minds and Shake the Walls. DB has an amazing vision of

what it means to be a unique improvisor with the courage

to try ideas and be willing to take risks like very few improvisors

of any stripe. She always shows amazing heart and powerful

technique. If you don't knowher work this is a great

opportunity to hear her in full flight.

http://www.actuellecd.com/en/bio/boyko_db/

DB Boyko photo: www.chrisrandlephotography.com

Viviane Houe is another amazing vocalist/improvisor.

Viviane has worked on all of our choral projects over

the last five years and always brings a beautiful spirit

and and a story teller's sense to her work. She always

takes you on a journey that is heartfelt and satisfying.

If you can listen to her CD of 13 duets with a wide array

of improvisors; violin, guitar, cello, saxophone, percussion.

It is a CD that shows Viviane's willingness to take chances

and it really pays off. The CD is produced

by this project's violinist, Jesse Zubot ,on his prolific

high quality label, Drip Audio. The CD is called Treize.

Check it out at: http://www.dripaudio.com/releases.php?release=22

www.vivianehoule.ca

Peter Hurst is an amazing baritone singer and improvisor.

He is a very charismatic performer that is a real risk taker

when it comes to offering extemporaneous text, stylistic

parody, and blender in a vocal section. He is also a great

listener – the essential ingredient as an improvising artist.

We have had Peter working with us on projects over the last

five years, and he is a joy to work with.

I hope you come to here him at play.

photo: www.chrisrandlephotography.com

Jesse Zubot can accurately be described as a multiple threat.

He is a great violinist, an improvisor with a highly developed

and expressive vocabulary, a composer, producer, a bandleader

and a much sought after collaborator.

Come and hear him. Simple as that.

www.dripaudio.com

photo: www.chrisrandlephotography.com

When it comes to bass trombone players, Brad Muirhead

is an evolved musician. Brad brings it every night to every gig.

He is an amazingly focused musician that is also a unique

artist and an inspiring improvisor.

photo: www.chrisrandlephotography.com

Soressa Gardner is a highly imaginative electronics

musician and vocal improvisor.She functions with

razor-like perception, great musical acumen and a

well developed wit. All of this is greatly needed for

the great power that an electronics wielding musician wields.

This is our first time working with Soressa with Futura

and we look forward to many more collaborations.

www.soressa.com

photo: www.chrisrandlephotography.com

Lee Hutzulak is an unusual visual artist as well as a

truly gifted musician that brings the story tellers

purpose to everything he creates. He has a beautifully

developed sense of understatement that enhances

in ways the are utterly unpredictable in the sonic realm.

www.leehutzulak.com

photo: www.chrisrandlephotography.com

Tommy Babin is a great acoustic and electric bass player.

He is truly a force of nature with his intent, his obvious

total love for music, and his contribution

to every musical situation that he inhabits.

Tommy is truly a wonderful musician and

improvisor.

photo: www.chrisrandlephotography.com

Skye Brooks has a beautiful touch on the drums.

He is also a modern improvisor that is not afraid

to groove and finds a way to be utterly

recognizable as himself. One of Vancouver's

great drummers.

photo: www.chrisrandlephotography.com

Joe Poole brings an incredible range as a musician

and improvisor; he’s got a real ferocity when it’s

called for; a hugely nuanced touch on the whole kit;

and a way with cymbals that conjures an alchemists

intent. He can groove and shade colouristically

with the best of them.

Joe Poole in flight

photo: Penelope Blair

Coat Cooke is a saxophonist that always intends to

speak his heart. He has a tremendous dynamic

and emotional range and is not afraid of silence

or to jump into the fray with abandon.

www.coatcooke.com

photo: Marc L'Esperance

luxmatic.com/

Composer Stefan Smulovitz

The incredibly talented musician and compoer Stefan

Smulovitz will have the world premiere of a new work

for this concert. It features words written by Vancouver's

great writer, Tom Cone. The words werewritten

for Stefan in 2004,and is called "The Right Amount".

In Stefan's words, "For years the words have

been percolating, and I even wrote a complete score

for voice and guitar using this text. It wasn't quite the

right amount. Orkestra Futura with 4 singers, violin, bass, sax,

trombone, 2 drummers and 2 electronics performers is,

I hope, the right amount. Hope to see you there."

Music: The Invisible Art Orkestra Futura Press Release

NOW
Celebrating 35 Years of Great Canadian Music
Presents
Music: The Invisible Art
Orkestra Futura

“the orch huffed, grunted, and blew blue flames from its nostrils” Plank Magazine

Music is the Invisible Art. It’s the powerful force that can affect all beings through sound vibration.

Orkestra Futura, under the direction of Coat Cooke, presents Music: The Invisible Art with special guests Futura Chamber Choir at The Roundhouse Community Centre, Friday April 13, 2012, 8pm.

Invisible Art is a full-length evening concert focused on developing a personal improvisational vocabulary and process, and featuring exciting world premieres from Stefan Smulovitz and Coat Cooke. The voice is the first human instrument and electronics the most recent, and in this program
Orkestra Futura explores the terrain between them. Special Guests include the Futura Chamber Choir, Christine Duncan, DB Boyko, Viviane Houle and Peter Hurst. Featuring 2 Electronics - 2 Strings - 2 Horns - 2 x 2 Voices - 2 Percussion, the band will be playing musical pairs.

Orkestra Futura features the unique electronics vision of Lee Hutzulak and Soressa Gardner and the high flying improvising vocalist chamber choir. Add the remarkable strings of Jesse Zubot and Tommy Babin, the breathtaking horns of Brad Muirhead and Coat Cooke, and a rocking percussion
section of Joe Poole and Skye Brooks for spice. Now you have a truly modern ensemble, with the capability to build from a strong foundation of tradition and set course for a blueprint of the future using modern composed forms at the beck and call of a world-class improvising ensemble.

Artistic Director Coat Cooke has toured Canada, the USA, Mexico and Europe, collaborated on memorable projects with spoken word, dance and mixed media artists, and performed with many of the world’s great improvisers including George Lewis, Marilyn Crispell, and Wadada Leo Smith.

Orkestra Futura

Music: The Invisible Art
April 13, The Roundhouse Community Centre, Pacific and Davie St, Vancouver
Tickets: $20; members $15; students $5, visit orkestrafutura.com or 604.683.7033

Media Contact: Coat Cooke 604.644.4019 | coat@noworchestra.com

Circle of Sleep @ Western Front/Jan 20+21

As usual, the Western Front, here in Vancouver, is doing the unusual, compelling and worth checking out.

This Friday and Saturday you can experience, "Circle of Sleep", an overnight concert,

a meditation on sleep and dreaming that’s also a marathon of cutting-edge Canadian electronic music.

Featuring nine artists from ambient music, new media, conceptual art, and improvisation,

Circle of Sleep guides the audience through dream states from 10pm to dawn.

For more information http://front.bc.ca/newmusic/events/3421

Alvin Curran in Vancouver/November 2011

Alvin Curran in Vancouver, British Columbia - November 2011

Highly esteemed composer and creative musical spirit, Alvin Curran

(www.alvincurran.com) was in Vancouver, British Columbia recently

to sprinkle a little magic dust into our area of the world.

He was in town to do several shows, including a solo piano/electronics show,

“The Alvin Curran Fake Book”, at the venerable Western Front Lodge’s

Grand Lux. Alvin was busy during his stay, so we were fortunate getting

him to facilitate two workshops as part ofNew Orchestra Workshop's

annual Music Improvisation Workshop Series. www.noworchestra.com

These workshops were a wonder of generosity of spirit. It was a great

privilege to partake in these few hours with a masterful musical storyteller.

These workshops had Alvin sharing his history, and with this a sense of his

journey and growth from a young ambitious person with considerable curiosity

and a penchant for risk taking, to the mature composer and deepspontaneous

music maker that he has become. One of the exciting by-products of the

orientation that he spontaneously assembled was the considerable sense of,

among other things, dynamics, orchestration,spatial awareness, and intention

that he was able to catalyze in the musicians participating in the workshop

without seeming to crack a sweat.

With his honesty and candour, Alvin touched and inspired many of the players.

The first of two sessions consisted of eleven musicians and was quite low-key

in presentational style, hence the working encounter tended to explore a quieter

dynamic and thoughtful sense of space. I find that artists are almost always

touched by the choice to explore quieter spaces, as it encourages a more

personal exploration of the inner landscape to generate materials for expression.

In the context of group situations, this less common and hence can be more affecting.

It certainly was in this case. Many of the participants spoke of being stimulated by

the nature of Alvin’s ideas as well as his own personal way of communicating them.

This was certainly evident in the recent rehearsals for the workshop participant concert

soon to be performed. There were several pieces that were generated by ideas

that Alvin shared. His ideas have an immediate life after these workshops.

It was really exciting to meet him and to experience his approach.

The second of the two workshop sessions saw twice the number of participants.

Alvin professed to be nervous, but in short order he seemed totally at ease and was

regaling us with stories and events completely different from the earlier session.

His freewheeling style helped set the tone that allowed the more than twenty musicians to be

enlisted in a series of dynamic exercises that emphasized listening more than playing, thinking

and sensing andbeing in the moment. This kind of focus seems to be an important

hallmark of Alvin’s music making.

Alvin’s solo performance was even more powerful. In reflection, it was really one of the

most provocative performances that I’ve seen in years. In this sixty minute set, Alvin Curran

played exactly who he is. There was no guile. It was the straight goods. He played his work

so that it displayed the considerable prowess of the years of research that he has done

with sound, combined with the immediacy of the honesty of a lifetime of personal musical truth

seeking. Take it or leave it. The music encompassed wickedly silly humour, unabashed romanticism,

unnerving virtuosity, and astounding complexity.

Alvin had his laptop computer connected to a Yamaha- Disclavier grand piano. With this technical

setup, he was able to programand assign multiple samples to each key. This allows a different

sample to be triggered by the velocity with which he struck any key. He played pieces from the

American songbook using this arsenal of hundreds of samples. In this hour-long set he played

Cole Porter, Gershwin, Fats Waller and many more. Some pieces he played in fairly straight forward

fashion, except that it would be layered with samples of poetry spoken in Russian, train hoots,

Bugs Bunnyesque boings, unknowable whooshes and sounds layered in a way that cannot be

described in words.He would also explore a note or phrase repeatedly with different velocity creating

varying sample landscapes each time even though the note or phrase was the same on the piano.

It was a truly masterful display of technology, beautiful cinematic sensibility, love of the traditional

American song and blinding love of spontaneous music making.

Having attended the workshops helped me understand more deeply how personal this performance was.

I’m tremendously grateful for both experiences. I encourage you to go to his website, www.alvincurran.com,

or go to You Tube and listen to some of his work.

If you get the chance though, go hear him in person.

That’s where you’ll really have the experience of the man and his music.

Coat Cooke

November 2011

Workshop concert last night

We had a great show at the Western Front last night.

All of the participants in the Improvisation Workshops,

now in its 18 year at the Western Front, played compositions

and improvisations in a wonderfully focused and joyful concert

to a full house of appreciative listeners.

I want to send out a big thank you to all of the extraordinary facilitarors

that came led the workshops, DB Boyko and the Western

Front, Allyson McGrane and Left Right Minds, the NOW Board

of Directors for their support, the wonderful audiences and

to the wonderful musicians that participated in the ten week

program of workshops.

I look forward to next year already.

NOW Workshop Concert/Dec 5

The NOW Music Imrpovisation Workhshops at the Western Front

are nearing an end.

It has really been a stellar year of music making

and learning. As my dear friend and long time teacher, Clyde Reed

said to me, in workshops and classrooms the teacher inevitably

learns more than anyone else involved in the process.

I'm tremendously grateful to all of the participants for their tremendous

goodwill, focus, imagination and effort. I also send a great thanks to all

of the facilitators that led the workshops; Lan Tung and Yu-Chen Wang,

Giorgio Magnanensi, Carol Sawyer, Torsten Muller, Alvin Curran and

Lee Hutzulak. The breadth and depth of the experience and wisdom

that this group of musicians shared is truly extraordinary. I'm really

grateful to you all. Thank you.

That said, we still have some business to take care of, in the form of the

final concert. Please come and hear the music that this wonderful group of

musicians will make on December 5th at the Western Front, 303 East 8th

Avenue. The two sets start at 8 pm. NO ADMISSION CHARGE.

Join us.

Monday, December 5th at 8 pm

Western Front

303 East 8th Avenue

Vancouver, BC

NO ADMISSION CHARE - FREE

Phoenix Rising ... Big Thank You

Our Hear It NOW 2012: Phoenix RIsing show happened last weekend and I want to

give a big thanks to all involved. The incredible musicians in Orkestra Futura: DB Boyko/voice,

Chad MacQuarrie/guitar, Lee Hutzulak/electronics, Brad Muirhead/bass trombone, JP Carter/trumpet,

Chris Gestrin/keyboards/recording, Tommy Babin/bass and Skye Brooks/drums all played brilliantly!

I'm so appreciative to have such great musicians playing in the band. Also, a big thank you to Terry

at the Roundhouse for his work, Shane Krause our volunteers, and Allyson, Victor, Daneille, Kirstie, Shane

at LRM for all of their hard work too. To make a show like this happen is a lot of work and it takes a dedicated

and hard working crew tomake it fly.

Last, but not least, I'd like to thank Rainer Wiens and Joane Hétu for their wonderful new compositions that

they wrote for the occasion and for their great energy and playing.

Till next time.

Look for for our next show, Orkestra Futura: Invisible Art on Friday, April 13, 8 pm at the Roundhouse

Community Centre.

See you then!

Orkestra Futura Tonight at the Roundhouse

All of the hard work is for tonight's show with Orkestra Futura.

Both Joane Hétu (Pour ne pas désespérer seul) and

Rainer Wiens (Deepen the Mystery) have created amazing

new pieces for our show Phoenix Rising.

I'm also really happy with my new piece

Fukushima Breakdown (Arise Dear Phoenix).

Put together a great band: DB Boyko, Chris Gestrin,

Lee Hutzulak, Chad MacQuarrie, Brad Muirhead,

JP Carter, Tommy Babin and Skye Brooks and you

have the recipe for a wonderful concert.

See you there.

For details go to:

www.noworchestra.com/events

Rainer Wiens Workshop

Really looking forward to Rainer Wiens' workshops today at the Western Front.

www.noworchestra.com/workshops

He is a truly inventive artist exploring prepared guitar, gamelan influences and

pygmy music rhythms.

You have to hear him.

He has written a new piece, Deepen the Mystery for Orkestra Futura to be played

in concert this Saturday, November 12 at the Roundhouse.

www.noworchestra.com/events

Tix are only $5 for students.

Hope you can make it out.

We also have the amazingly creative saxophonist and composer Joane Hétu

presenting her new work Déspérer. We're lucky enough to have her perfoming too.

I'll blog some more about her tomorrow.

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