Friday March 22, 8:00, All Saints Parish, 1773 Beacon St, Brookline, MA 02445
The Vortex Series for New and Improvised Music is proud to present a varied program that will include new vocal music by composer John Heiss featuring soprano Jessica Cooper with pianist Scott Nicholas. The acclaimed New York based percussion duo, Loop 2.4.3 will present original acoustic and electro-acoustic works which blend classical jazz and rock influences. The program will also feature the Black Brunel and Carlson Trio, presenting new works for viola clarinet and piano by Libby Larsen, Gordon Jacob and the world premiere of 'Focal Point' by composer Pamela Marshall. In keeping with the Vortex tradition of musical experimentation, the evening will also feature first time improvised collaborations by featured artists.
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| Loop 2.4.3 |
Loop 2.4.3 creates
uniquely American music with a rock and roll heart and skills
informed by classical training, jazz, poetry, and experimentalism.
Praised for their “intricate, energetic performances,” (New
York Times) and their “taut compositions with a stunning
improvisational sense,” (Time Out Chicago) virtuosic percussionists
and composers Thomas Kozumplik and Lorne Watson create evocative
narratives using percussion, electronics, voice, strings, and more.
Their “transportive percussion odysseys” (Boston Phoenix) journey
through grounded primal energy to cosmic atmospheric reaches in
“dramatic, layered, colorful, and brilliantly constructed” (First
Coast News.com) compositions most often compared to the music of
Steve Reich, Terry Riley, and Harry Partch. “Kozumplik and Watson
never sound like makers of arbitrary music...It all sounds like part
of a well-thought-out tradition. Only the tradition has never existed
until now.” (Fresh Air, NPR)
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| Jessica Cooper |
Soprano Jessica Cooper is a San Diego
native who holds her Master’s degrees in Opera and Voice Performance
from the New England Conservatory, where she was graduated with honors
in performance and academic distinction. Jessica Cooper has earned
critical acclaim in Boston for her rich and agile soprano voice, and
for her fine artistic instincts. Ms Cooper has performed as a soloist on
the concert stage with a number of New England’s leading orchestras and
organizations including Boston Cecilia, Emmanuel Music, Portland
Symphony and Chorus, Opera Providence, Chorus Pro Musica, Boston
Civic Symphony Orchestra, Newton Symphony, Wellesley Symphony, and
Nashua Symphony, and in recital live on 89.7 WGBH radio. Jessica was
also a Bach fellow for the Pacific Music festival, and has appeared as a
soloist in Sapporo City Hall, Kitara Concert Hall, as well as the La
Jolla Symphony and Chorus, and Florida Northwest Symphony
Pianist Scott
Nicholas is on the faculty of Emerson College and Suffolk
University. His affinity for playing the Spanish repertoire has
led him to appearances in L’ Antigua, Guatemala at the Mosaico
festival, and also a command performance for the President and First
Lady of El Salvador. Locally, he has been heard on WGBH Boston,
live- radio broadcast, and has appeared with the Borromeo String
Quartet, the New England Chamber Orchestra, and the Airforce Band of
Liberty Chamber ensemble. He currently performs as a soloist in the
Boston Secession.
Violist Anne Black enjoys an active career as
both a musician and visual artist. She performs with the Boston Pops
Esplanade Orchestra, as well as with the Boston Symphony and Boston
Pops as an extra violist. She is principal violist of the Pro Arte
Chamber Orchestra of Boston, and the orchestras of the Cantata
Singers, Concord Chorus, and Metropolitan Chorale. A frequent
performer of contemporary music, Black is violist of the Dinosaur
Annex Music Ensemble. She also performs with Collage New Music and
can be heard on Collage’s Grammy-nominated recording of John
Harbison’s Mottetti di Montale. She appeared as viola
d’amore soloist in Meyerbeer's opera “Les Huguenots” with the
American Symphony in 2009.
Paul Carlson performs frequently in the Boston area both as a
solo recitalist and as a collaborative musician. Freshness
characterizes his programs, which strike a careful balance between the
familiarity of great music of the standard repertoire, and the exciting
discovery of new or neglected works. Beginning with his doctoral work
at Boston University, he has studied the piano performance style of
Claude Debussy, including extensive analysis of early sound recordings
made by pianists close to the composer, as well as by the composer
himself. In addition to performance of Debussy, Dr. Carlson is keenly
interested in the playing of pianists active during the three or four
decades before World War I. His recitals often feature music from this
period, as well as unfairly neglected music from the early
20th-Century. Music of living composers also forms a strong component
of many of his performances, as was shown by his premiers of works by
Hayg Boyadjian, John McDonald and Marti Epstein. He also performs
frequently with the Lexington Symphony, with whom he has played
concertos by Darius Milhaud and Amy Beach. Dr. Carlson’s teachers have
included Tong-Il Han, Raymond Hanson, Maria-Clodes Jaguaribe, Boris
Berman and Fred Broer. He has taught at Gordon College, the Boston
University Tanglewood Institute and the Lexington Music School. He also
serves as President of the Chromatic Club of Boston, a 123-year-old
club dedicated to providing performance opportunities to some of the
most talented emerging musicians in the Boston area.
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| Todd Brunel |
Todd
Brunel is a critically acclaimed clarinetist, sax player and concert
producer who performs extensively as a classical and jazz musician.
Fascinated by modern music and all its possibilities, he started the
Vortex Series for New and Improvised Music in 2005 for which he has
received grants from the Massachusetts Cultural Council, the
Cambridge Arts Council and Art Without Borders. As
a guest artist, Brunel's appearances include: Carnegie Hall, the
SEAMUS festival, Mobius, the International Woodwind Festival, the
American Festival of Microtonal Music, CBGB's Gallery, the Longy
School and the Academy of Music, Dance and Art in Plovdiv, Bulgaria. He
is a member of the Armenian folk jazz ensemble Musaner and several
modern music projects including: Garrison Fewell's Variable Density
Sound Orchestra, Jerry Sabatini's Sonic Explorers, the Know Orchestra, the Rock
Flint Contemporary Ensemble, the Meltdown Incentive, The Circadian
Rhythm Kings and Sonic Sandbox. He has recorded for PBS, numerous independent films and collaborated extensively with the late Butch Morris. Todd also champions the music of the swing jazz era with a project called 'Benny and Beyond' with pianist Joe Reid.
Admission: $15.00 general, $10.00 for students and seniors
All Saints Church is wheel chair accessible.
Nave Gallery in Somerville and we are so grateful to the Somerville Arts Council and the Massachusetts Cultural Council for their support. In our latest Vortex news, The Vortex Other Dimension Ensemble will be teaming up with Lisa Linde and her students at Newton South High School on January 11. In this incarnation of the VODE, we will feature mezzo soprano Sara Bielaski, cellist Rob Bethel, clarinetist Todd Brunel and percussionist Gary Fieldman.
