Norway's Lofoten Islands

The EAR Duo traveled down to the Oberlin Conservatory of Music this weekend to work with composer Peter V. Swendsen on a new composition for alto saxophone, bassoon, live electronics and video. I have known Peter since 2005, when I commissioned a sudden change in the consistency of snow as a graduate student at Peabody. This new piece will be based on the hovering midnight sun in northern Norway's Lofoten Islands, a place I will be visiting during my residency in Norway this fall. Northern Circles (the tentative title) will complete a cycle of four works based around the seasons in Norway. We are very excited and honored to work with Peter on this project and can hardly wait to see what comes of this collaboration. Premiere of this work and eventually the entire cycle is slated for March/April 2011.

Music from the EMMI (Expressive Machines Musical Instruments) Collective

I spent the past weekend in Charlottesville hanging out with Scott Barton and Steven Kemper among others. Scott and Steven, two thirds of EMMI, invited me over for a live demonstration of their PAM, MADI and CADI robots. The EAR Duo is currently collaborating with and commissioning a series of robots from these guys so it was nice to finally see them in action. We recently collaborated with Troy Rogers, the third member of this group, at the Logos Foundation in Ghent, Belgium this past March. We are stoked to be collaborating with EMMI over the coming years and have some very exciting performances in the Spring of 2011 and beyond.

The legendary OT301 squat

We had a ton of energy coming off the performance trip to Belgium (see below) and were stoked for a trio of upcoming shows in the Netherlands. First up, a show with electronics guru Juan Parra as part of the Centraal Museum's U-EX(perimental) Series in Utrecht. We played two sets of improv. for a constantly changing audience of museum visitors. It's great to play this type of music in a setting where the audience is free to come and go. There were some really good moments in an overall solid afternoon of music.

I have been trying to play at OT301 since moving to Amsterdam. After being on the audience side of the action numerous times, it was nice to finally perform at this legendary Amsterdam institution. Our duo was booked on Ivo Bol's Wednesday night series alongside Buy the Shu Shu, a local experimental girl band. We performed a compact forty minute set of music by Terry Riley, Dana Jessen, Ivo Bol and Matthew Burtner to a large and very attentive audience. Buy the Shu Shu was awesome, and definitely the reason for most of the crowd.

We finished up our tour of the Netherlands at Yolanda Uriz's Wonderwerp Series at the Loos Foundation in Den Haag. We were joined again by Juan Parra (this time with a quadrophonic setup) for a more refined and compact version of our earlier explorations in Utrecht. Our set ended with a standard of ours, a performance of Terry Riley's Dorian Reeds alongside the experimental film Looking for Mushrooms by Bruce Connor. We're now in the planning stages of some very exciting and promising tours throughout the U.S. and Europe. Keep an eye out on this space for updates.

Meet the M&M Robot Orchestra's percussion section!

My duo trip to Belgium (with bassoonist Dana Jessen) went extremely well! We were in Ghent to perform a concert at the Logos Foundation and collaborate with composer Troy Rogers on a new work for alto saxophone, bassoon and the wind section from Logos' M&M Robot Orchestra. Troy is a current Fulbrighter in Belgium doing work and research at Logos on robotics with the end goal of finishing up his own vocal robot. Our collaboration with him was essentially a guided improvisation that took our sounds, analyzed them in real time and through an incredibly complicated algorithm implemented in Max/MSP, spit out a stream of data to which the robots reacted. After a stellar evening rehearsal of the piece we called it a day and went back to his flat for a St. Patrick's Day feast and healthy dosing of Belgium beers with his partner Lissa.

After a relaxing morning and quick jaunt around town we headed over to Logos for soundcheck. Aside from the collaboration with Troy our program featured works by Matthew Burtner, Cory Kasprzyk, Ivo Bol, Judith Shatin and Terry Riley. The entire evening was a success. I can really feel the duo improving even from our U.S. tours back in January. After the concert we went out for a Moroccan feast with Moniek Darge and Godfried-Willem Raes. We had seen hints of these two since arriving into town and were thrilled to spend an evening with the geniuses behind Logos. It was an amazing night filled with some very interesting conversations. Not quite ready to call it a night after dinner, Troy, Lissa, Dana and I went out for a few high gravity Belgium brews alongside a proper nightcap of whiskey. Another amazing trip in the books and the beginning of what hopes to be a long term collaboration with robot builder and composer Troy Rogers.

A Page from Mark Applebaum's The Metaphysics of Notation

Better late than never, here's a quick rundown of the whirlwind that was my California tour. The trip started off with a guest lecture and concert at the University of the Pacific in Stockton on Wednesday afternoon. I was graciously hosted by composer and faculty member Robert Coburn, who had also composed a piece for me to premiere that evening. The lecture went extremely well, helped along the way by a very astute and inquisitive group of undergraduate students from the composition department. After a break for sushi with composer Cole Ingraham I headed over to the recital hall. The crowd really turned out for my show that evening with seventy to eighty people in the audience. I've started to gauge the success of these concerts by the length of time the crowd lingers after the performance. All around a great day.

The next afternoon I made the drive to San Francisco for an evening improv. set with Matt Ingalls, Ken Ueno and Ted Coffey. I first heard about The Luggage Store during my last tour of the West Coast in April of 2008. It's on the eastern side of San Francisco, located on the one thousand block of Market Street. A few of us met up before the concert for some highly authentic Mexican food where, for the first time, I ate grasshoppers. Crunchy! Stuffed, we headed off to The Luggage Store. I was extremely lucky to be joined by clarinetist Matt Ingalls, vocalist Ken Ueno and electronic guru Ted Coffey that evening. The vibe of the crowd and the varying backgrounds of the musicians provided a very surprising evening of music (listen to excerpt below). Thanks guys!



It was an early one the next morning as I headed out south from North Oakland to Stanford University. I met up with my duo partner for the afternoon, Ted Coffey, before heading over to the Cantor Arts Center. For an hour, beginning at noon, we were slated to perform Mark Applebaum's huge, expansive and brilliantly notated graphic score The Metaphysics of Notation. Taking our places on the hour, we proceeded to unleash our subtle vibe on the ears of the literally hundreds of gallery visitors who flowed in and out of the main atrium. Laying it down, this event alongside the solo show in New Haven, were the most exciting and effective performances of my six weeks in the U.S. Too bad there was no time for reflection after the show. I was heading into the final leg of what a few of my friends have called pulling a Straus, three shows in three separate cities with starting times less than twenty four hours apart. A perfect storm of sorts as I headed three hours south that afternoon to Fresno.

Exhausted and temporarly lost, I finally made my way to the Fresno branch of California State University. I was there to perform Robert Coburn's emptiness [reflection] for alto saxophone, video and electronics as part of the Orpheus Chamber Music Ensemble's Mixed Media Concert. The concert went well, with a good group of excited community members in attendance. The next morning I headed north to Berkeley in preparation for the final concert of my six week U.S. tour. Unfortunately the audience wasn't as strong as some of the previous shows. Oh well. The evening turned into a workshop/demonstration of sorts. A very relaxed and pleasant way to end my U.S. travels. Special thanks to Ken Ueno and Dan VanHassel for their help in and around the CNMAT complex. I'm back in Amsterdam now, preparing for performances throughout the Netherlands and Belgium over the next two months while awaiting news on several promising projects.

Yale University's Calhoun College (my abode for two nights)

A quick one before heading off to California. I spent the last five days in New Haven, Connecticut lecturing and performing at and around Yale University. It was another awesome trip full of amazing energy. I presented a Wednesday afternoon lecture on interactivity in the arts for a group of non-music students from Juraj Kojs' Composition and Performance of Music, Multimedia Art, and Technology Class. On Friday night, I joined a host of amazing musicians from New Haven and NYC for some improv. at Brooklyn's IBeam. Rounding out the trip I performed a solo set of music for saxophones, video and electronics at Carl Testa's absolutely packed Uncertainty Music Series. Again, another solid trip in the books. Thank you to everyone involved in making this trip happen!

What a perfect time to float down to Miami for a couple of university talks and a solo show. While mother nature was pounding the East Coast with snow, I was sipping mixed drinks on South Beach... In reality this was an incredibly busy trip with little time for sightseeing. I arrived in Miami Wednesday afternoon and was graciously hosted by fellow saxophonist Matt Taylor. After a tour of campus we headed back to his apartment for an amazing French dinner (think lots of onions and butter) before an evening stroll near the beach. At this point the upcoming Super Bowl festivities, still four days away, were already in full swing. Exhausted, we headed back to the apartment for a much needed night of sleep.

I spent the majority of Thursday at the University of Miami rehearsing and practicing. With such nice weather outside (especially compared to Amsterdam this time of year) it was essential that I stay focused on my upcoming performances. One break in the day lead us to Versailles, a classic Cuban restaurant on 8th street. Giant piles of pork, fried skin, onions, rice and plantains should have satisfied our appetites. It did, but we were ready to eat and decided to top lunch off with some key lime pie and a hit of cafe cubano. After loosening the belt we headed back to campus for my talk. That evening I presented a lecture/performance for an enthusiastic group of students from the University of Miami. A bottle of Stone IPA helped finish off the long day.

I hooked up with composer Juraj Kojs Friday morning before heading off to Florida International University. There I presented a guest performance/lecture as part of their weekly composition seminar. The talk went extremely well and the students were especially excited and responsive to the repertoire I presented. Special thanks to Paula Matthusen and Orlando Garcia for hosting this event. After packing everything up I spent most of the afternoon rehearsing Juraj's Aiael's Gold for tenor saxophone and interactive electronics.

The previous two days of talks were in place to promote my Saturday evening concert at the Harold Golen Gallery of Art in Miami's Wynwood Arts District. The program consisted of several new additions to my repertoire this concert season. The turnout was more than I expected and judging by the lingering audience after the show the event was a success. All and all it was a great first trip to Miami. Next time I'll have to rent a convertible, enjoy the sights a bit more and make the drive down to Key West.

Performing SXueAk by and with Matthew Burtner at The Bridge PAI in Charlottesville, VA

For nearly two weeks, bassoonist Dana Jessen and I toured a program of new and experimental music for saxophones, bassoon, electronics and film down the East Coast. During our travels via minivan from Hanover, New Hampshire to Greensboro, North Carolina we got the chance to perform, hangout and interact with dozens of amazing people. Here's a rundown of what happened -

01.12.10 @ 8:00 P.M. in Cambridge, MA - The first stop of the tour was Inman Square's Outpost Performance Space. We threw everything we had at the audience for this premiere event. The show went well, we took notes on what we could improve on and prepared for the next day. Highlights from the night included our performance of G. Douglas Barrett's A Few Silence with special guests and a very intense rendition of Dana Jessen's In Flux. Guest performers included Jennie Gottschalk (composer & author of Sound Expanse), Peter VZ Lane (composer & bassoonist) and Linda Kernohan (composer, pianist & author of Miss Music Nerd). Post-concert beer = Sierra Nevada Celebration Ale.

01.13.10 @ 12:30 P.M. in Hanover, NH - After a solid four to five hours of sleep we awoke in West Roxbury, MA to make the trek up to Dartmouth College. The scenery north of Boston was absolutely stunning. Our concert was graciously hosted by Dartmouth's Vaughan Recital Series. We had devised a compact, pre-concert warm up of the program for the tour. We were already familiar with all of our gear and had a nice choreographed routine that would get us up and running in less than an hour. With that said, we were moving a bit slow that afternoon, partially due to lack of sleep. Come concert time we were ready to go with a nice audience of around forty to fifty people. The clear highlight of the afternoon was our performance of Matthew Burtner's SXueAk with faculty member Spencer Topel. It was stunning to see how many different sounds he could produce from our arsenal of toys! A small technical glitch at the beginning of the Riley was the only hiccup in an otherwise solid performance. After packing up the gear in record time we were barreling down the highway for a 5:00 P.M. sound check in Jamaica Plain, MA. Post-concert beer = N/A.

01.13.10 @ 7:00 P.M. in Jamaica Plain, MA - We were holding up quite well going into our third concert in less than twenty-four hours. Setup went smoothly, we played a bit and got ready for another jammed packed evening of music. We split the show with the awesome Boston-based improv./new music collective Meltdown Incentive. Highlights from our set included a squirrelly, on the edge performance of Peter VZ Lane's Triptiek and a version of Judith Shatin's Grito del Corazon for two saxophones, bassoon, clarinet, electric bass, voice, piano and organ! Thanks goes out to Peter VZ Lane, Del Case, Meltdown Incentive, Jorrit Dijkstra and everyone else at Hope Church for making this show happen. On top of all this, we got reviewed in the Boston Music Intelligencer. Post-concert beer = Stone Imperial Russian Stout.

01.15.10 @ 8:00 P.M. in Silver Spring, MD - After a rest day (which included 550 miles of driving and more rehearsing) we found ourselves at the Pyramid Atlantic Art Center. For the next two shows we decided to team up with long time collaborator Erik Spangler (a.k.a. DJ Dubble8). Our last show with Erik was an epic evening of music at the Musicbox Nightclub in Lisbon, Portugal. It was a transcendental experience that will remain in my mind forever. We split this particular evening with two local groups, Trio O and Mindbreath Trio. Setup was tight with limited space but we managed to fit everything on stage. I was quite surprised by the turnout, apparently due to some good local press. The venue was packed with a very attentive crowd throughout the night. Erik, with his new Ableton/Akai setup, added a very tight layer to the mix. Post-concert beer = Smuttynose IPA.

01.16.10 @ 8:30 P.M. in Baltimore, MD - We went into our show at the Red Room with the idea of laying it all out. It was our fifth show in five days and we were ready to take a few risks, a very important step in our learning process. This is one of the many wonderful things about performing a work beyond its premiere. For me, it was the first show of the tour that lacked the necessary energy from the audience and us. We had a few glitches, most noticeably in Cory Kasprzyk's 09.04.09. If there was a highlight from this evening it would have come somewhere during the second set of this nearly two hour long show. Special guests included saxophonist Sheri Oyan and the always rock solid DJ Dubble8. Post-concert beer = Sierra Nevada Pale Ale.

01.20.10 @ 7:30 P.M. in Greensboro, NC - After a few days of rest, we were off to the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. We spent the evening prior to the show in neighboring Durham, hanging out with composer Alex Kotch. The next morning we made the hour long drive to Greensboro. Mark Engebretson had graciously arranged us an afternoon lecture/performance with students from the saxophone, bassoon and composition studios. The students were great, prodding us with a range of interesting questions about our duo, extended techniques and Fulbright experiences in Amsterdam among many other topics. Of all the places we played on the tour, UNCG's recital hall was the most legit. A great sound system, amazing acoustics and large audience added to what was probably the best performance of the tour. Guest performers included the gnarly saxophonist Susan Fancher and composer Alex Kotch. Post-concert beer = Abita Purple Haze.

01.21.10 @ 8:00 P.M. in Charlottesville, VA - The final show of our tour was hosted by the University of Virginia's CCT Forum on Electroacoustic Improvisation in conjunction with the Music Department Colloquium Series. The event was held at the cozy downtown art gallery/music venue The Bridge PAI. We performed a short set of composed/improvised music followed by a group improvisation with students and faculty members from the University of Virginia's Center for Computer Music. The improvisation was a brief mashup of just about every imaginable style of music. Thanks to Matthew Burtner, Ted Coffey and all the Ph.D. students at UVA for a wonderful end to a very awesome tour! Post-concert beer = Smuttynose IPA and the lethal Tunnel88.

A page from Matthew Burtner's Endprint for nine tenor saxophones

This past Saturday, Portals of Distortion made their official debut performing the music of Matthew Burtner and Ken Thomson at the Conservatorium van Amsterdam's Bernard Haitinkzaal. The entire day of rehearsing, performing and hanging out was a blast. The concert also provided us with a much needed demo recording to shop around to venues throughout The Netherlands. Thank you to all that attended and please enjoy these two clips from the performance if you weren't able to make it.

Rut (2009) by Ken Thomson for three alto, three tenor and three baritone saxophones

Endprint (2004) by Matthew Burtner for nine tenor saxophones

Post master class shot at Southeastern Louisiana University

Griff Campbell and I had a wonderful time teaching, performing and hanging out with the saxophone students at Louisiana State University, Southeastern Louisiana University and Nicholls State University during our tours of southern Louisiana. It was an amazing experience that allowed me to continue work on both my performance and teaching chops in an area generally passed over by the new music community. There is an amazing amount of good and interesting work happening in Louisiana and I wonder how many composers and/or performers out there have ever presented their music in the bayou state (those twenty-five not involved in this project)? With that said, we were lucky enough to have at least one composer present at each of our four concerts. Dan VanHassel traveled the farthest, coming all the way from Oakland to hear his hundred second gem Hysteriology in New Orleans. The whole project was such a success we plan to make this an ongoing duo. Consider this a second call for scores if you missed out the first time around.

I was exhausted as I boarded the plane to Richmond and once on the ground in Virginia, had around thirty-six hours to get through two performances and two nights of condensed sleep. On five hours of rest, I loaded up with hotel coffee and headed over to the beautiful University of Richmond campus for an 8 A.M. soundcheck and 10 A.M. concert. The concert was a bit of a blur, as are most early morning contemporary music shows. There were saxophones, trampolines, video projection, lots of kids, surround sound electronics, members of eighth blackbird and other oddities floating around the Cousins Studio Theater that morning. Special thanks to Benjamin Broening for taking a chance and inviting me to perform at 3rd Practice along with J. Anthony Allen, Ted Coffey and Matthew Burtner for their continued support in my interpretations of their amazing music. After a quick meeting with composer Juraj Kojs and a bite to eat I drove down to Colonial Heights for a concert with the quux collective.

Generally, if I am anywhere near southern Virginia, I always try to meet up and perform with the quux collective and/or quartet. In this case they invited me along for a performance of fellow group member and composer Roland Karnatz's Loop the Loop, an open improvisation for unspecified ensemble and kyma. It was a blast as always! With my seventeen day trip to the United States nearly complete, I began thinking about and preparing for another round of heavy performing in January/February. This touring is all so new to me, it's tough to find that groove, but I am sure it will come with time, practice and more importantly patience. In the meantime, come on out to a show! I have a performance of A Few Silence by and with G. Douglas Barrett & Friends on Friday at Amsterdam's Theater Perdu. Thanks to Doug, you can download the score and view several interpretations of the piece here.

An octet of saxophones for two!

Griffin Campbell and I have been hard at work here in Louisiana rehearsing the Ant's Elbow Duo Project. After six days of saxophone juggling, we are ready to unveil this long anticipated project to the public. The performance will consist of twenty-five new works for two saxophones, any combination of soprano, alto, tenor or baritone, some with electronics and all under one hundred seconds in length. We will be ambushing audiences all over Louisiana next week performing in venues ranging from my alma mater Louisiana State University to New Orleans' Blue Nile on the legendary Frenchmen Street. We'll also be teaching lessons and giving master classes throughout our travels so keep an eye out if you are in the area. Special thanks goes out to all the very talented composers involved in this project. For a complete list of performances head on over to shows.

Download the concert program here.

Portals of Distortion - Amsterdam's one and only saxophone nonet

I'm focusing on chamber music this year in an extreme way. One of my newest groups is Portals of Distortion, a mixed nonet of up and coming saxophonist mostly living in Amsterdam. We had our first rehearsal this weekend and the group is beginning to take shape. We did some heavy work on both of Matthew Burtner's compositions for nine tenor saxophones with just enough time left to run through Ken Thomson's Rut. Our conductor Roberto Genova (who is equally adept on the saxophone) ran a very focused and highly productive rehearsal. POD's members include saxophonists Harry Cherrin, Erik Nestler, Annelies Vrieswijk, Ivo Ronkes, Nina van Helvert, Kristin Niederstrasser, Ryan Lemoine, Peter Leung and myself. We have two rehearsals coming up in November with a possible concert or two before the winter holidays!

Morning coffee, looking down at the Amstel, from my rooftop

Aside from the usual concert attending, performances, bike riding, reading, grant writing, being broke, traveling, eating, drinking and other things a mid-twenty something year old musician living in Amsterdam does, I have some very exciting projects in the chute this year. Always chugging along, most agree, that the concert season starts on September 1st. Below is a 2009 - 2010 concert season snapshot of sorts.

The Ant's Elbow Duo Project - This fall, Griff Campbell and I will premiere some thirty new pieces for two saxophones (any combination of soprano, alto, tenor or baritone) between one and one-hundred seconds in length. We've been working on this project for nearly a year and are stoked with the results. We're now faced with learning an absolutely chaotic program of composed and improvised music, some with electronics too. David Franzon's piece creatively used all eight saxophones in a hair under the time limit. Others hit the mark with nearly eight pages of highly complex, nearly impossible baritone sax playing. Based on our interpretation, we'll probably have the end the concert with this one from a friend in Oregon:

For Cornelius Cardew by Brian McWhorter

Disassemble saxophones
in the way sound
bathes silvery light.
Keep score. Doddling
usually results in a 2 point
penalty.

WAYLA? Fund - Kicking into high gear this year, the What are you looking at? Commissioning Fund unleashes it's first consortium undertaking - Dry Cell for soprano saxophone, electronics and video by composer J. Anthony Allen and visual artist Arie Stavchansky. The piece takes place in a super futuristic old-west when nothing is left except batteries. The batteries revolt, form an uprising and freak out. It's an amazing piece of sonic and visual art, something I see generating interest in the saxophone community (you guys/gals out there?) and beyond. Consortium members Erik Rönmark, Jan Berry Baker, Vicki Purslow, George Weremchuk, Alex Sellers, Matthew McClure, Ryan Lemoine, Griffin Campbell, Joey Trahan and myself will start premiering the work October 1st, 2009.

rare degree - The group moves to a duo format this concert season to premiere an entirely new program of works for saxophone(s), bassoon and various electronic setups. We're working with Dutch composers Ivo Bol and Anne La Berge on new compositions and arrangements focused around improvisation. Across the Atlantic, back in the U.S., we're teaming up with young twenty-something year old composers Cory Kasprzyk, Peter VZ Lane and Alex Kotch. All this music will be presented alongside Matthew Burtner's Sxueak and a new piece from duo member/bassoonist Dana Jessen. After a ten-day tour of the east coast (from New Hampshire to North Carolina) in January 2010, we'll head back to Europe for performances throughout Holland. There will be guests too! Turntablist DJ Dubble8, soprano saxophonist Susan Fancher, bass guitarist Billy Sokol and most of the composers involved will join us at some point.

Portals of Distortion - About a year ago I co-organized a show with Matthew Burtner at Baltimore's Red Room. We presented over two hours of his music including rare performances of his two pieces for nine tenor saxophones. Nine months later I found myself in New York City for the annual BOAC Marathon. On the program? Ken Thompson's Nine-Headed Saxophone Monster performing his piece Rut for nine saxophones (three altos, three tenors and three baritones). See what I'm getting at? With three pieces in the repertoire and some creative programming (James Tenney's Saxony and LaMonte Young's Composition 1960 #7) I now have to come up with a nonet of saxophonists, who own the right combination of instruments, in Amsterdam (the trombonists did). It's beginning to take shape with the help of co-director Harry Cherrin and conductor/saxophonist Roberto Genova. Portals of Distortion, the name of the group and Matthew's first piece for nine tenor saxophonist, was premiered in Amsterdam ten years ago this month. Quite fitting. Keep an eye out for our Amsterdam debut this fall!

Video still from Matthew Burtner's (dis)Locations

I spent one of my last days in the U.S. this summer working on and recording some music in southern Virginia. I really enjoy the trips down to Charlottesville, a very eclectic, mid-sized town housing the massive University of Virginia campus. All the usual perks of university life exist - great ethnic food, coffee shops and loads of bike riders.

I commissioned (dis)Locations for alto saxophone, video and computer sound from Matthew Burtner in 2007, a big step forward in the progression of the What are you looking at? Series. Best described by a recent Red Room show review from Hurd Audio - "Matthew Burtner has a sax obsession. A fetish that achieved an audio-visual apex with (dis)Locations as the accompanying video sequence of Selmer parts found within a natural environment were lovingly re-assembled into the instrument of the evening. A complicated, yet sensuous, combination of body, key pads, rods and mouthpiece with only the reflection upon the surface of the instrument itself to reveal a human form distorted along its winding, curved form."

Matthew recently developed a duo version of the piece, adding himself on tenor for a series of shows we did with percussionist Morris Palter and vocalist Haleh Abghari in NYC during the 2007 - 2008 season. We're still not sure which version works best (even after eighteen performances!), so we continue to present it in both forms. After a few hours in his studio, we had a solid recording of the alto saxophone part. Matthew recently started his own record label EcoSono, imaginative sound art for a sustainable future. Head on over and buy a t-shirt!

Video still from the mind blowing tetralemma by Ted Coffey [music], Eric Knisley [animation] and Mike Houston [drawings]

After a tasty Thai lunch, I spent some time working with composer and intermedia artist Ted Coffey. I've been increasingly interested in integrating three way collaborations into the WAYLA? Series. tetralemma for tenor saxophone, video and live electronics will feature Ted's music alongside drawings by Mike Houston and the animation work of Eric Knisley. The piece will exist in four major sections. After initial sketches and lots of work, we've mapped out each of these sections. I've very excited about this piece as it's pushing (sometimes past) the boundaries of my performance abilities. The video is quite trippy and absolutely stunning! I'll be premiering tetralemma alongside the new[er] version of dis(Locations) on November 7th at the Third Practice Electroacoustic Music Festival in Richmond, Virginia.

Yale's Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library

I traveled to New Haven this weekend to put the final touches on Aiael's Gold for tenor saxophone, small objects and electronics by the interdisciplinary artist and composer Juraj Kojs. After a very pleasant train ride from Washington D.C. we headed over to the Yale Music and Technology Lab. These very roomy studios are housed in an absolutely beautiful building in tandem with the musicology and theory departments.

Juraj and I finished integrating a mini percussion setup into Aiael's Gold (small chimes, tin can, sheet of paper and nails) while working on other notational details in the tenor saxophone part. We continued our work on the stage choreography, another important element in the piece. After over three hours of work we went out for Mexican food before meeting up with a few people en route to a concert at Never Ending Books.

A burgeoning and vibrant scene, the used bookstore/experimental music venue is alive and well. Never Ending Books is without exception. As a previous tenant of Baltimore I was immediately reminded of the historic Red Room, a place I have performed at and visited numerous times. The first set featured series curator and outstanding bassist Carl Testa, a local improviser and member of Anthony Braxton's 12+1tet. Set two showcased the spectacular talents of instrument builder and vocalist Lesley Flanigan. It provided to be an all around awesome and very welcoming night of music. Thank you Carl and Lesley!

After a good night of sleep I spent most of the late-morning and afternoon sightseeing. I ate at the legendary Pepe's Pizza, an old school Italian pizzeria that's been around for almost ninety years. I strolled through campus, taking in all the famous sights, eventually arriving at the University Art Gallery. Absolutely amazing! Every famous artist from the last two hundred years (Dali, Warhol, Pollock, Van Gough, Rothko, ect...) had at least one piece in the collection. Aside from the Van Gough, it was nice to see few other Dutch pieces too. Juraj and I did a little more detail work on Aiael's Gold in the late afternoon before heading out to the train station.

I'll be premiering and touring Aiael's Gold in Connecticut, Florida, California and the Netherlands this concert season. My trip to New Haven alongside these performances are supported in part by an American Composers Forum Encore Grant. I'll be returning to New Haven in February 2010 for a lecture and concert. Can't wait!