The Mills College Music Department and the Center for Contemporary Music present
Mills Music Now 2018-2019
Las Sucias (
Danishta Rivero and Alexandra Buschman)
and
Laetitia Sonami, Zeena Parkins,
John Bischoff, and
James FeiExperimental noise duo Las Sucias (
Danishta Rivero and Alexandra Buschman) shares a program with Center for Contemporary Music composers
Laetitia Sonami, Zeena Parkins,
James Fei, and
John Bischoff who join forces for a set of improvised electro-acoustic pieces. This is a first-time meeting for these four musicians.
Saturday, November 3, 2018
8:00 pm
Littlefield Concert Hall
Admission:
$15 general, $10 seniors and students
Buy tickets at the door, or online at:
https://www.boxofficetickets.com/bot/wa/event?id=330933
For detailed information, please visit the Music Now webpage:
http://musicnow.mills.edu
Please like and share our Facebook page:
https://www.facebook.com/events/317033258849711/
Wheelchair accessible
Free parking on campus
Mills College
Music Department
5000 MacArthur Blvd
Oakland, CA 94613
------------------
Program:
Improvistion
Zeena Parkins: harps and electronics
Laetitia Sonami: electronics
John Bischoff: laptop
James Fei: woodwinds
Las Sucias
------------------
Las Sucias
Muerto Rico
“Tropical Noise Duo Las Sucias is an Experimental Caribbean Cacophony from the hands and lungs of hysterical brujas
Danishta Rivero and Alexandra Buschman-Román, from Venezuela and Puerto Rico respectively. Rooted in Santería, Afro-Caribbean and Mestiza consciousness, through hybrid rhythms that include Raggaetón and Cumbia, Las Sucias booty smashes the limits put upon the brown female body by the patriarchy. Through powerful chanting and ritualistic vocal catharsis, they conjure the unapologetic screams of a loca, the deep-voiced lady screaming bible verses in the streets through a broken mic, and the wounded voices of the colonized.” - Hildegard Von Bingen
------------------
John BischoffJohn Bischoff (b. 1949) is an early pioneer of live computer music. He is known for his solo constructions in real-time synthesis as well as his development of computer network music. Bischoff studied composition with Robert Moran, James Tenney, Robert Ashley, and David Behrman. He has been active in the experimental music scene in the San Francisco Bay Area for over 40 years as a composer, performer, and teacher. His performances around the US include NEW MUSIC AMERICA festivals in 1981 and 1989, Roulette and Experimental Intermedia in New York, and Lampo in Chicago to name a few. He has performed in Europe at the Festival d'Automne in Paris, Akademie der Künste in Berlin, STEIM in Amsterdam, and Fylkingen in Stockholm among other places. He is a founding member of the League of Automatic Music Composers, the world's first computer network band, and co-authored an article on the League's music that appears in Foundations of Computer Music (MIT Press 1985). From 1985 to the present he has performed and recorded with the network band The Hub. In 1999 he received a $25,000 award from the Foundation for Contemporary Arts in New York in recognition of his music. He was also named a recipient of an Alpert Award/Ucross Residency Fellowship in 2002. In 2004, noted media theorist Douglas Kahn published A Musical Technography of
John Bischoff in the Leonardo Music Journal (Vol. 14, MIT Press). Two important retrospective CD packages documenting computer network music were released in 2007 and 2008: The League of Automatic Music Composers: 1978-1983 (New World Records) and 3-CD set of recordings by The Hub titled Boundary Layer(Tzadik). Recordings of his work are also available on Lovely Music, 23Five, Centaur, and Artifact Recordings. A solo CD titled Audio Combine was released a few years ago on New World Records and was picked as one of the "Best of the Year 2012" by WIRE magazine. Bischoff was also listed in Nate Wooley's "guide to American weirdos" (WIRE, July 2016). He is Professor of Music at Mills College in Oakland, California.
James FeiJames Fei (b. Taipei, Taiwan) moved to the US in 1992 to study electrical engineering. He has since been active as a composer and performer on saxophones and live electronics. Works by Fei have been performed by the Bang on a Can All-Stars, Orchestra of the S.E.M. Ensemble, MATA Micro Orchestra and Noord-Hollands Philharmonisch Orkest. Recordings can be found on Leo Records, Improvised Music from Japan, CRI, Krabbesholm and Organized Sound. Compositions for Fei's own ensemble of four alto saxophones focus on physical processes of saliva, fatigue, reeds crippled by cuts and the threshold of audible sound production, while his sound installations and performance on live electronics often focus on electronic and acoustic feedback. Fei received the Grants for Artists Award from the Foundation for Contemporary Arts in 2014 and he is president of Anthony Braxton's Tri-Centric Foundation. Fei has taught at Mills College in Oakland since 2006, where he is Professor of Electronic Arts, Music Department Chair and Head of the Art and Technology Program. www.jamesfei.com
Works by Fei have been performed at Merkin Hall, The Kitchen, Knitting Factory, Tonic, Roulette, Experimental Intermedia, MATA Festival, Engine 27, The Stone, Issue Project Room (all New York), SFMoma, Empty Bottle (Chicago), Akedemie der Künste (Berlin), Beurs van Berlage (Amsterdam), Steim (Amsterdam), Overtoom 301 (Amsterdam), JFC Club (St Petersberg), Super Deluxe (Tokyo), Shinjuku Pit Inn (Tokyo), Osaka Arts–Aporia, Bridge (Osaka), and National Recital Hall (Taiwan). Fei has lectured at Columbia University, Wesleyan University,The Art Institute of Chicago, Taipei Normal University,Taipei National University of the Arts, San Francisco Conservatory of Music, Theremin Center (Moscow), Pro Arte (St. Petersberg), Krabbesholm (Denmark), IAMAS (Ogaki, Japan) and NUAS (Nogoya, Japan).
Zeena Parkins
Electro-acoustic composer/performer, multi-instrumentalist, improviser, and pioneer of contemporary harp performance, Zeena Parkins re-imagines both the acoustic harp and an evolution of her original electric ones, through the use of expanded playing techniques, preparations, and custom designed processing. Within a shifting constellation of improvised/composed/gesture/touch/ space/sound/noise/music, Parkins is engaged in translations of sonicity within environments: architectural/emotional/topographical/social.
Parkins has received commissions from Whitney Museum, Tate Modern, Sharjah Art Foundation, Montalvo Arts Center, NeXtWorks Ensemble, Either/Or Ensemble/Ensemble Son, Donaueschinger Musiktage, Sudwestrundfunk, Bang on a Can Spit Orchestra, Merce Cunningham Dance Company, iLand, Neil Greenberg Dance, Thin Man Dance, Mega-Gloss, Human Future Dance Corps, and Body Cartography Project.
Awards include Doris Duke Artist Award, DAAD Fellowship, Foundation for Contemporary Arts, MAP Fund grants NYFA Fellowship, Atlantic Center for the Arts Master Artist-in-Residence, Herb Alpert/Ucross Prize and three New York Dance and Performance Awards, “Bessies” for her groundbreaking work with dance,
Parkins has performed and/or recorded with include, Bjork, Ikue Mori, John Zorn, Fred Frith, Christian Marclay,
James Fei, Butch Morris, Elliott Sharp, William Winant, Brian Chase, Nate Wooley, Nels Cline, Yuka C. Honda, Tony Buck, Magda Mayas, Mette Rasmussen, Steve Beresford, Barry Guy, Cyro Baptista, Bob Ostertag, Okkyung Lee, Matmos, Yoko Ono, Yasunao Tone, Pauline Oliveros, Kim Gordon, Thurston Moore, Lee Renaldo, ROVA Saxophone Quartet, Myra Melford, Miya Masaoka, George Lewis, Joan La Barbara, David Behrman, Jeff Kolar, and Green Dome with Ryan Sawyer and Ryan Ross Smith.
Laetitia SonamiLaetitia Sonami is a sound artist, performer and researcher. Born in France, she settled in the United States in 1975 to pursue her interest in the emerging field of electronic music and studied with Eliane Radigue, Joel Chadabe, Robert Ashley and David Behrman.
Sonami’s sound performances, live film collaborations and sound installations focus on issues of presence and participation. She has devised new gestural controllers for performance and applies new technologies and appropriated media to achieve an expression of immediacy through sound, place and objects.
Best known for her unique instrument, the elbow-¬‐length lady’s glove, which is fitted with an array of sensors tracking the slightest motion of her hand and body, she has performed worldwide and earned substantial international renown.
Recent projects include the design of a new instrument, the Spring Spyre, based on the application of neural networks to real-time audio synthesis; an improvisation duo, Sparrows and Ortolans, with
James Fei; and Le Corps Sonore, a fully immersive sound installation on six floors of the Rubin Museum, NYC in collaboration with Eliane Radigue and Bob Bielecki.
Upcoming projects include Peripheral Vision, a text based performance piece and a new live film project with Sue-C based on Italo Calvino Cosmicomics.
Sonami has received numerous awards among which the Herb Alpert Awards in the Arts and the Foundation for Contemporary Performance Awards.
Sonami has performed in numerous festivals across the United States, Canada, Europe, Japan and China, among which the Ars Electronica Festival in Linz, the Bourges Music Festival in France, the Sonambiente Festival in Berlin, the Interlink festival in Japan, Bang-on-a Can, The Kitchen and Other Minds, S.F.
Awards include the Alpert Award in the Arts (2002), Foundation for Contemporary Performance Arts Award (2000), the Civitella Ranieri Fellowship (2000), Studio Pass-Harvestworks residency (2001) and a Creative Work Fund award (2000) for a collaboration with Nick Bertoni and the Tinkers Workshop.
Sonami lives in Oakland, California and is a guest professor in the Music department at Mills College, CA and the Milton Avery MFA program at Bard College, NY.
Videos:
Las Sucias
https://sucieria.bandcamp.com
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RDlTgY5n5_c
Laetitia SonamiMagneticMemories
https://vimeo.com/92628907
Zeena Parkins
Zeena Parkins at MOCAD, part 1
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z-Mmf5hqw1w
Cost: $15 general, $10 seniors and students