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EXPERIMENTS IN OPERA
— the curiously refreshing composer collective —
announces
MATTHEW WELCH
The Stone Residency
A dizzying week of concerts featuring the wildly eclectic
music of composer/performer Matthew Welch
FEATURING SIX WORLD PREMIERES:
Dhammapada Cantata for mixed chamber ensemble
12 Etudes for solo piano
The Library of Babel for bagpipes, electric guitar, drums
The sound of the waves against Castle Duntroon: for bagpipes/percussion quartet
Scenes from And Here We Are, an opera in progress
Bhima Swarga for Gamelan Ensemble
PERFORMANCES BY:
SUZANA BARTAL • DAN FRIEL • WILL NORTHLICH-REDMOND
TOBY DRIVER • JEREMIAH CYMERMAN • MATTHEW WELCH
CANTATA PROFANA • GAMELAN DHARMA SWARA
CLOCKS IN MOTION • MANTRA PERCUSSION
and BLARVUSTER, Welch's longtime chamber band of bagpipes, gamelan & rock
featuring drummer BRIAN CHASE of the YEAH YEAH YEAHS
December 8-13, 2015
Daily Concerts, 8:00 p.m. and 10:00 p.m.
The Stone
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“I have been working as a musician and composer in New York for almost 20 years, exploring my interests in bagpipe music, Indonesian Gamelan, improvisation, opera, noise rock and new music. I am excited to bring all of these interests together for this one week celebration of my musical world. It’s not often that a composer gets a chance like this and I have decided to take advantage of the moment with six world premieres. As a creator of new music, conjuring and exploring new musical worlds is what it is all about.â€
– Matthew Welch
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Experiments in Opera co-founder MATTHEW WELCH launches his first residency at the East Village avant-garde haven The Stone from December 8-13, 2015—a jam-packed premiere-filled series of 13 concerts over 6 days. Concerts take place daily at 8:00 p.m. and 10:00 p.m. (except 12/13) with tickets ( $15-$20 general admission) at the door.
The residency showcases Welch's exceedingly eclectic, otherworldly, "border-busting" and "catchy" (The New York Times) compositional sound. His music will be performed by many superb players including his longtime chamber band Blarvuster on December 9, 11 and 12, with drummer Brian Chase from the Yeah Yeah Yeahs. Blarvuster plays an infectiously ecstatic blend of Scottish bagpipes, Balinese gamelan, minimalism, improv and rock.
Welch himself is a virtuoso of the Highland Bagpipe and has been hailed by Indie rockers as "the Eddie Van Halen of the bagpipes." His solo bagpipe show is on December 9.
Among the many highlights of the residency: on December 12, Experiments in Opera presents Welch's full-length opera in progress, And Here We Are, with a libretto by Daniel Neer. This opera is based on the wartime memoirs of Welch's uncle who was interned in a Filipino prison camp.
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Matthew Welch
Stone Residency Details
All concerts take place at The Stone (corner of Avenue C and 2nd Street)
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DAY 1: Tuesday, December 8
8:00 PM
Cantata Profana plays Welch
$15 General Admission at the door
The fearless young chamber group Cantata Profana plays work from Welch’s catalogue of chamber music, including the premiere of Welch’s Dhammapada Cantata featuring text from the Buddha.
ARTISTS
Jacob Ashworth, violin, conductor
Kate Maroney, mezzo-soprano,
John Taylor Ward, baritone,
Hannah Collins, cello
Arash Noori, guitar
Gleb Kanasevich, clarinet
Doug Perry, percussion
Dan Schlosberg and Lee Dione, piano
***
10:00 PM
Suzana Bartal Plays the Piano Music of Welch
$20 General Admission at the door
The Romanian-born and Paris-residing Suzana Bartal is a brilliant young pianist. She presents a program of Welch’s solo piano music, including the premiere of 12 Etudes for piano. |
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DAY 2: Wednesday, December 9
8:00 p.m.
Matthew Welch (solo bagpipes)
$15 General Admission at the door
Matthew Welch plays selections from the traditional and modern repertoire.
***
10:00 p.m.
The Library of Babel
$15 General Admission at the door
Shredding and tremulous micro-rhythms of perpetual bagpipe ornamentation and electric guitar heavy metal tapping make the surface of this monolithic and ever-expanding polytonal plane. Welch’s premiere is inspired by the infinitely repeating architecture and books in Jorge Luis Borges’s “The Library of Babel.â€
ARTISTS
Blarvuster
Brendon Randall-Myers, electric guitar
Matthew Welch, bagpipes
Brian Chase, drums
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DAY 3: Thursday, December 10
8:00 p.m.
Clocks In Motion plays the percussion works of Welch
$20 General Admission at the door
Young and hungry percussion wizards from Madison, Wisconsin, Clocks in Motion make their New York debut in a program dedicated to Welch’s classical percussion compositions. Featuring his epic mallet quartet Looking at Loch Fyne and his newest The Sound of the waves against the Castle of Duntroon, a premiere for bagpipes and percussion quartet bringing Pibroch and Surf Rock together.
ARTISTS
Sean Kleve, Dave Alcorn, Michael Koszewski, James McKenzie, percussion
Matthew Welch, bagpipes
***
10:00 p.m.
Dan Friel and Matthew Welch
$15 General Admission at the door
Dan Friel and Matthew Welch worked together in Dan’s indie band, Parts and Labor, blending their compatible approaches to sound color, melody and texture. First time as a duo!
ARTISTS
Dan Friel, electric guitar
Matthew Welch, bagpipes
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DAY 4: Friday, December 11
8:00 p.m.
Blarvuster
$20 General Admission at the door
Welch’s long-time ensemble presents the New York premiere of Welch’s “The Finger Lock.â€
ARTISTS
Matthew Welch, bagpipes, sax, voice
Will Northlich-Redmond, electric guitar
Ian Riggs, bass guitar
Brian Chase, drums
***
10:00 p.m.
Will Northlich-Redmond and Matthew Welch
$15 General Admission at the door
Intense improvisations from the frontmen of Blarvuster. First time as a duo!
ARTISTS
Will Northlich-Redmond, electric guitar
Matthew Welch, reeds
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DAY 5: Saturday, December 12
8:00 p.m.
Matthew Welch’s
“And Here We Areâ€
with Blarvuster and Mantra Percussion
$20 General Admission at the door
Experiments in Opera presents Welch’s full-length opera in progress, And Here We Are. This new work explores imprisonment and the impact of cultural collisions. The story covers Welch's family’s internment in the Santa Tomas concentration camp in WWII Philippines. The text focuses on the horrifying accounts of his great-uncle Edgar, an opera singer isolated by his move to Asia and internment (1942-45). Featuring Welch’s long-time ensemble Blarvuster with Mantra percussion.
ARTISTS
Kate Maroney, mezzo-soprano
Daniel Neer, baritone
Ben Holmes, trumpet
Joe Bergen, vibraphone
Emily Manzo, piano
Ian Riggs, bass guitar
Brian Chase, drums
Matthew Welch, conductor
***
10:00 p.m.
Matthew Welch, Jeremiah Cymerman, Toby Driver
$15 General Admission at the door
As downtown improvisers, each of these musicians has played in projects of the others, however never as a trio. Together the dukes of mope play the most melancholy music in the world.
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DAY 6: Sunday, December 13
8:00 p.m.
Welch’s compositions for Balinese Gamelan
$15 General Admission at the door
Featuring Welch and NYC’s Gamelan Dharma Swara. Welch re-interprets the ritual of death and the afterworld through a cross-cultural re-mapping of ancient bagpipe funeral laments. In his composition Bhima Swarga, he uses evocations of ancient Balinese cremation gamelans, all on a modern Balinese Gamelan Semara-Dana. The program includes key traditional works as context.
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Regarded as “a composer possessed of both rich imagination and the skill to bring his fancies to life†(Time Out NY), Matthew Welch’s compositions run the gamut from traditional-like bagpipe tunes to electronic pieces, improvisation strategies and fully notated works for solo instruments, chamber ensembles, orchestras, gamelans and other non-western instruments.
His works have been commissioned, performed and recorded by Ethos Percussion Group, the maverick Flux Quartet, Ensemble Proton (Switzerland), Transient Canvas, Clocks in Motion, Hotel Elefant, The Orchestra of the S.E.M. Ensemble, Ostravska Banda (Czech Rep.), and Gamelan Dharma Swara. Additionally, he has received commissions from Iktus Percussion (2012-13), the Ethos Percussion Group (a 2008 Jerome commission), RedShift (2010), Transit Ensemble (2008), Percussia (2008), Dither Electric Guitar Quartet, Odd Appetite Duo (2006) and the CSU Percussion Ensemble (2004 and 2012). Matthew’s eclectic bagpipe and rock-based ensemble, Blarvuster (2002-present), has been praised by The New York Times as “border-busting; catchy.â€
Along with composers Aaron Siegel and Jason Cady, Matthew co-founded the New York-based Experiments in Opera in 2011. EiO produces experimental operas in various stages and allows collaborative intersections and idea-sharing an effective place to develop.
His own operas, Borges and the Other (2007-2012) about Jorge Luis Borges and The Three Truths, a Robot Micro-Opera (2012) have been met with critical acclaim. Most recent opera productions include his ReAnimator Requiem (2013), a choral opera/requiem mass, The Mutt (2014), a radio opera, Barbarella (2014), a film opera. His current large-scale opera-in-progress, And Here We Are, is based on his families memoirs of their internment in a Japanese concentration camp in WWII Philippines.
Matthew has released six albums dedicated to his compositions. Dream Tigers (Tzadik, 2005) contains his critically lauded string quartet, Siubhal Turnlar, and made both Time Out New York’s classical and non-classical top-ten CD lists for the year 2005.
Matthew holds degrees in Muic Composition from Simon Fraser University (BFA), Wesleyan University (MA), and is a doctoral candidate at Yale University’s School of Music.
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For further information, press tickets, photos, and to arrange interviews,
please contact Aleba & Co. at 212/206-1450 or aleba@alebaco.com. |
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