Pro Arts
150 Frank H Ogawa Plz Oakland
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Oakland Freedom Jazz Society presents Microfestival of Instant Composition

Featuring the Vienna Bay Instant Composers' Ensemble and conductors:
Michael Fischer (Vienna)
gabby fluke-mogul (Tuxedo)
Phillip Greenlief (Golden Gate)
Matt Ingalls (Oakland Ave / Harrison)

Instant composition, or conducted improvisation: both terms for an activity that exploits the advantages of two seemingly opposed approaches to creating music, composition and improvisation. The Microfestival of Instant Composition is inspired by ancestors like Morton Feldman's indeterminate scores, Pauline Oliveros' Sonic Meditations, and the sonic experimental community of Chicago's AACM, with members Roscoe Mitchell, Anthony Braxton, and Muhal Richard Abrams among others. More recent exponents include John Zorn and Bay Area stalwarts ROVA.

For this evening's music, Oakland welcomes Viennese composer/improviser Michael Fischer, who will lead the all-star ensemble via his "praxis of 'instant composition conducting'" which springs from the pioneering work of the late Butch Morris, whose work with downtown New York musicians in the 1980s Morris dubbed "Conductions®." Michael's work focuses on the meaning of sound and gesture.

The evening's program will be filled out with local conductors:

gabby fluke-mogul's ‘memory i’ is a score for improvising ensemble, conduction, and the duration of 2 days.

Phillip Greenlief will conduct his work INDEX (2016), composed for any ensemble or artistic discipline. INDEX is a text score of interlocking word fragments designed to inspire improvisers.

Matt Ingalls will conduct the ensemble using intuition and simple hand cues, allowing inspired accidents and emergent surrealism.


Vienna Bay Instant Composers' Ensemble:


Brett Carson
Tom Djll
Karl Evangelista
Michael Fischer
gabby fluke-mogul
Jordan Glenn
Phillip Greenlief
Jacob Felix Heule
Matt Ingalls
Aurora Josephson
Kevin CK Lo
Lisa Mezzacappa
Kanoko Nishi-Smith
Kim Nucci
Gino Robair
John Shiurba


Biographical information for the conductors

Michael Fischer musician-composer-instant composition conductor, works on the speech immanence of sounds, their sculptural and dramatic evidence, in contemporary improvised and experimental music on tenor saxophone, violin, soundscapes and conducted instant compositions. Since 1999 connecting the electro-acoustic phenomenon feedback to his work, he contextualized the tenor saxophone as/within an ephemeral sound-noise-speech sculpture, based on an analog, no-effect set-up (ZKM Karlsruhe a.o.), the feedback-saxophone. He has worked with key-figures in improvised music and outstanding artists in experimental poetry, conceptual art, visual poetry and dance/performance. In 2004 he launched the Vienna Improvisers Orchestra and works as instant composition conductor with numerous international large ensembles/choir for festivals, universities a.o. Performances, tours, guest-lectures all over Europe, Libanon, Japan, the USA and Canada. m.fischer.wuk.at/works.htm

gabby fluke-mogul is an improvising violinist, composer, & educator living in Oakland, CA. they speak through languages of the jazz continuum, avant-garde, & folk traditions, deeply embodying the violin in their solo & ensemble playing. Through composing/performing, gfm hopes to create space for individual & collective intersectional process, intimacy, & vulnerability. they are interested in the sensual nature of sound—how queer desire & eroticism are embodied & translated within the political & poetic contexts of improvisation. gabby holds a BA from Hampshire College (Amherst, MA) where they studied Improvised Music & Composition with Marty Ehrlich, Jamie MacDonald, Dan Warner, & Becky Miller and a MFA in Music Performance and Literature with Improvisation Specialization from Mills College (Oakland, CA) where they worked with Pauline Oliveros, Jennifer Wilsey, Zeena Parkins, India Cooke, Fred Frith, Roscoe Mitchell, Kala Ramnath, W.A. Mathieu, & Kara Davis. gabby holds a Deep Listening certificate from Pauline Oliveros’s Deep Listening Institute. Recently gabby has been collaborating with Nava Dunkelman, Kanoko Nishi-Smith, Lisa Mezzacappa, Jacob Felix Heule, Jordan Glenn, Kyle Bruckmann, Fred Frith, Tom Weeks, & Bruce Ackley.
http://www.flukemogul.com

Since his emergence on the West Coast in the late 1970s, Evander Music founder and saxophonist Phillip Greenlief has achieved international critical acclaim for his recordings and performances with musicians and composers in the post-jazz continuum as well as new music innovators and virtuosic improvisers. He has performed and recorded with Wadada Leo Smith, Meredith Monk, Rashaun Mitchell and They Might Be Giants; albums include LANTSKAP LOGIC with Fred Frith and Evelyn Davis (Clean Feed) and THAT OVERT DESIRE OF OBJECT with Joelle Leandre (Relative Pitch). He is the recipient of a San Francisco Bay Guardian Goldie Award. His critical writing has been published in Artforum, Open Space (SFMOMA), and Signal to Noise.

Oakland musician Matt Ingalls is a composer, clarinetist, concert producer, and computer music programmer. Often incorporating elements of improvisation, his music is heavily influenced by his long involvement in computer music. His composerly solo improvisations explore extended clarinet techniques that interact with the acoustic space, often as combination tones. Matt is the founder and co-director of sfSound, a new music series, ensemble, and internet radio station devoted to new ideas and traditions of experimental music, performance art, live electronic music, Bay Area composition, and the various facets of contemporary improvisation.



Show starts @ 9PM
$7-$15 Suggested Donation

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Videos featuring musicians playing at this event