The Hear and Now composed by Jon Raskin
Performers:
Strings: Myles Boisen- Electric Guitar, George Cresmaschi-Bass, Shoko Hikage- Koto, John Shiurba-Electric Guitar, Theresa Wong- Cello
Winds: Lizz Albee-Trumpet, Kyle Bruckman-Oboe/English Horn, Kiku Day-Shakuhachi, Jon Raskin-Sax, Sara Schoenbeck-Basson
Percussion:Harris Eisenstadt, Seth Warren, Karen Stackpole
Conductor: Gino Robair
The Hear and Now is composition for improvisers and draws on a method of group improvisation developed by Rova called Radar. It was commissioned and performed for the 2004 Other Minds Festival. Radar is a form of structured improvisation and composition in real time and what really differentiates the Radar series from most structured improvisation is that the cues, parameters, hand signals, and “rules” are predetermined- but the performers create the structure itself. The flow of sonic materials and content is decided in real time.
The Hear and Now adds additional material such as the 5 Chinese pitch sets Zhi, Shang, Yu, Jue and Gong which are used as a Radar improv and the basis for the composed solos for the musicians to use as they choose through out the work. It also incorporated a graphic section inspired by Wassily Kandisky's Point and Line to Plane which describes how much of his graphic language was drawn from music. I wanted to return the favor and use the ideas to create music.
Other parts of the work are: O/R drawn from concepts by Pauline Oliveras and Gino Robair, The Note and Chord Game, Drum and Sax, 15 Radar cues and 9 other cues that alter the material that a performer is playing.
The conductor plays the roll of shaping the music by deciding to bring performers in or our and what material to play by the use of cue cards. Performers are free to cue other performers as well.
The title is a bit of word play on a diagram called The Here and Now developed by the physicist Herman Minkowski to show his ideas on the idea of a space-time continuum. This was later used by Albert Einstein for his Theory of Relativity. (http://www.brown.edu/Students/OHJC/ma8/papers/minkowsk.htm)
It should be a special evening with a great ensemble of musicians from Los Angeles and the Bay Area so please come and check it out.
Jon Raskin
Wassily Kandinsky
“Goal of Theory and the goal of a theoretic investigation is
1. to find the living,
2. to make its pulsation perceptible, and
3. to determine wherein the living conforms to law.”
Herman Minkowski
"Henceforth, space by itself, and time by itself, are doomed to fade away into mere shadows, and only a kind of union of the two will preserve an independent reality."
Cost: $6-$10