Author: COTFG Assistant

Friday, July 22nd 6:00pm at Crashbox (2022)

A performance featuring students from the
UTSA Marching Band playing fluxus-style works
by Pauline Oliveros and Yoko Ono. 

Supported by Collide Arts

Sunday, July 24th 5:00pm at Crashbox (2022)

Demon Bear is an instrumental Austin-based project from Phillip McJunkins, a veteran pedal steel player and multi-instrumentalist who has worked with artists including Milton Mapes, Mice & Rifles, and Moving Panoramas. Demon Bear’s music exists in the haunted spaces between atmospheric ghost country and melodic shoegaze metal, driven by pedal steel guitar. The first Demon Bear album “Primitive” was released in 2016; the follow-up “Artifacts” arrived in early 2022.

Saturday, July 23rd 6:00pm at Crashbox (2022)

Future Museums is the moniker of Austin TX based producer Neil Lord. the project prominently features a rotating cast of collaborators from around the country.

This set in the New Media Art & Sound Summit on Saturday, July 23rd will feature : Neil Lord (guitar), Mari Maurice (bass vi), Walter Nichols (saxophone/synth), Michael C Sharp (drums/synth), Kristine Reaume (flute), Nicolas Nadeau (guitar), and Grainger Weston (modular synth).

Friday, July 22nd 8:30pm at Crashbox (2022)

WANG Ziyu is a composer currently residing in Phoenix, Arizona. She was born in Tianjin, China. She is interested in transcultural influences in music, musical metaphors, and portrait doodling, and her works have been performed at the Nief-Norf Summer Festival (Knoxville, TN), and the SPLICE Festival (Kalamazoo, MI), as well as in Italy and China. Her works feature acoustic instruments and ensembles, as well as electronics and multimedia. She is currently a doctoral candidate in Music Composition at Arizona State University, and she teaches music theory and composition. Before studying composition, she completed her Bachelor’s Degree in Engineering and was a Formula Student racer.

In this multi-media presentation of compositions and visual art by Ziyu, she will be joined by James Tabata performing her piece ‘A Monkey Reaching for the Moon’ (2021)

James Tabata is a composer-songwriter and the founder of Less Than <10 Music. James’ music is characterized by sensitivity to evolving tone color, developing expressive motivic lines, and interdisciplinary collaboration. With the subject matter of his music often reflecting on attacks on heritage, race, and sexual orientation, James writes primarily to inspire empathy and hope through means of intimate, engaging sound worlds and visceral poetry.  James’ music has been performed in Alice Tully Hall in New York, Italy, Toronto, and the Utah Museum of Fine Arts. James has received honors from the ASCAP Morton Gould Young Composers Awards and was a featured artists for The Church of the Friendly Ghost in their 2019-2020 artists series based in Austin, TX.

Saturday, July 23rd 5:00pm at Crashbox (2022)

Crystal Voyager is an Austin electronic artist who’s music can be somewhat described as “psychedelic alien wave.” She started using the name Crystal Voyager since 2013 and as her vibe continues to transform , some of her bigger vocal influences are The Knife, Cocteau twins, Prince Rama, and Panda Bear, and her bigger beats/synths influences are Daniel Avery, Telepath, New Order, Yellow Magic Orchestra, and 808 State. In 2019 Crystal Voyager began a once a month synth show called “Eclectic Electro” and Vision System would do the light show for each event. They began a few video projects together which you can find on the YouTube and Vimeo links below. They continue to perform together and look forward to their next video project.    

Paul’s links : https://vimeo.com/visionsystem/ | @vision_system
Ellie’s links : YouTube| Instagram

Friday, July 22nd 7:40pm at Crashbox (2022)

The Lombo Combo is a percussion ensemble under the direction of Nick Lombard. Using pre-recorded loops controlled by a percussion sample pad, the project features 5 additional percussionists including Danny Mee, Adam Sharp, Cassie Baker, and Alan Lauer.

Taking heavy influence from exotica music, static and repetitive melodies drive the pieces in sharp contrast to a freewheeling array of auxiliary percussion that can transform the context of the tunes measure to measure. Bells! Whistles! Pops! Sizzles! A single note can be chopped to bits with a well-placed tom pattern.

A cowbell is just a cowbell until it is fed through a synthesizer. The most syncopated arpeggio can melt into a droney sheet under the malleted wash of a deep dark ride cymbal. Natural reverb is the wind at our backs. Maple, mahogany, brass, bronze and steel are the sails dragging us ever forward to the dusky echoey horizon.

Cassie Baker is a composer, performer, and private teacher of music in Austin. Her primary instrument is percussion and she is naturally drawn to found sounds and unusual timbres, implementing them into her compositions and performances. 

Daniel Mee (drumset) has performed in a variety of styles, ranging from indie rock to experimental music to African marimba. He is currently a member of the Houston sludge metal band Omotai, and leads his own experimental project, Mister Smile. Daniel is a native of Atlanta and has lived in Austin since 2008. 

Austin-based drummer and bassist Alan Lauer doesn’t come from a tradition of experimental music. A member of Austin’s Big Bill for over 10 years, the inspiration for his punk-tinted genre-bending comes from transitional albums produced by bands passing through the mainstream. He’s influenced by Refused, The Dismemberment Plan, Lagwagon — and more locally by The Paper Chase, Those Peabodys, and White Denim. He’s played bass in ska bands and drummed in Neal Young, Built to Spill, Ramones, and Wipers cover bands.

Alan’s participation in The Lombo Combo is an opportunity to push into the electronic music realm. Ableton and a trigger pad make up most of his stripped-down live production set up. The experiment comes in the form of building the rig that elegantly enables the performance, removing the barriers around creative flow. His role is one of electronic auxiliary percussionist and simplified keyboardist.

Adam Sharp was born and raised in Chicago Illinois and moved to Austin in 2010. Shortly after arriving he joined the punk band Those Howlings. A few albums and tours later he and Those Howlings bassist Jolie Cota Flink started Mean Jolene. Since then they’ve shared the stage with bands such as Shonen Knife, Harlem, and Peach Kelli Pop. Adam has also enjoyed stints with local Austin band Basketball Shorts and Sour Notes.

Sunday, July 24th 8:00pm at Crashbox (2022)

Atlas Maior creates original music that combines elements of Progressive Jazz, Middle Eastern, Latin American, and Indian music traditions. For NMASS 2022, their live performance will be based on concepts and musical approaches they employed while making new album Hadal (slated for release, fall 2022) and 2014’s Palindrome, exploring different methods of improvisation and cosmologies of sound. Many of these exercises utilized themes of symmetries in sound through different instrumental arrangements. This performance features special guest Indrajit Banerjee (sitar) along with Joshua Thomson (alto saxophone, flutes), Josh Peters (oud), Gary Calhoun James (bass), and Aaron Parks (drums).

Indrajit Banerjee:

Sitarist Indrajit Banerjee is one of the leading exponents of the Maihar Gharana. He was born in a musical family, unique due to the large number of accomplished artists in Hindustani Classical Music. Some of these family members include his guru, Pandit Kartick Kumar (Sitar), Pandit Barun Kumar Pal (Hamsa Veena), Niladri Kumar (Sitar), Partho Das (Sitar), Aparna Roy (Surbahar). He got inspiration from his sitarist mother, Manju Banerjee, who was a disciple of late Nikhil Banerjee, and afterwards, Santosh Banerjee. Indrajit’s training began with his maternal grandfather, Bankim Kumar Pal, who was the disciple of Inayat Khan, and Birendra Kishore Roy Chowdhuri (Kochi Babu). He then took training under Pandit Manilal Nag of Bishnupur Gharana. Later on, he took intensive training from his uncle, Pandit Kartick Kumar, who is a senior disciple of Pandit Ravi Shankar. All of this training developed a strong foundation for Indrajit’s music, and creative individuality. Indrajit has a special touch on Sitar combined with technical virtuosity and sensitivity.

Indrajit takes a special interest in teaching, he has some outstanding students and a following across the world in this regard. Presently he teaches in Rhythm and Raag (an Institute for Indian Performing Arts) in Chicago (www.rhythmandraag.org) for the spring and fall semesters and summer in Samhati (France) and in Kolkata India. His highly acclaimed instructional DVD’s are distributed worldwide.

Roberto Paolo Riggio:

Atash’s musical director Roberto Paolo Riggio crosses many boundaries as a violinist and composer, immersing himself in musical languages of the world while developing his own unique voice.  Mentors and influences include Simon Shaheen, Pandit Ram Narayan, Dr. L. Subramaniam, Francois Rabbath, Ustad Ali Akbar Khan, and Marcel Khalife.  He has toured with international stars such as Youssou N’Dour, Fathy Salama, Fairuz, Kazem Al-Saher and the Gypsy All-Stars (family of Gipsy Kings) and has collaborated with cutting edge composers such as Aashish Khan, Eyvind Kang, Kai Eckhardt, Fareed Haque, Bassam Saba and Fared Shafinury.  He is a founding member of the National Arab Orchestra under Michael Ibrahim, has guest-directed “Bereket” (the University of Texas Middle Eastern Ensemble), is first violinist and string arranger for Oliver Rajamani’s Mondsee Orchestra and has founded various groups, including the East Austin Youth Orchestra and the Austin Global Orchestra.  Roberto also works as a producer, and composes symphonic and chamber works that cut across genres and styles.–

Atlas Maior:

Atlas Maior creates original music that combines elements of Progressive Jazz, Middle Eastern, Latin American, and Indian music traditions.  Band members Joshua Thomson (alto saxophone, flutes) & Josh Peters (oud, lavta) create a unique sound that balances intimate moments of sincerity with powerful melodies and incendiary rhythmic passages, bolstered by a top-notch rhythm section, Atlas Maior writes original melodies exploring maqamat (Middle Eastern modal system) and harmonic progressions found in American jazz. The group composes with a wide variety of rhythms and incorporates traditional instruments including the Indian tablas, Middle Eastern dumbek, & Peruvian cajón.  

As an ensemble, Atlas Maior has released 5 studio albums, most recently RIPTIDE, voted a 2019 Top 100 Austin release by The Austin Chronicle. The group has garnered positive reviews and media placement from Public Radio International (PRI The World), New York Daily Music, Jazz Journal U.K., Medium,  Afropop Worldwide, KUTX Austin’s NPR Affiliate, All About Jazz, Tokyo Jazz Site, Song Lines, UTNE Reader, Glide Magazine, Earmilk, Midwest Review, and more. Atlas Maior has toured internationally in France, Spain, and Turkey, and has received hometown recognition as 2019 Creative Ambassadors to the City of Austin. Other accolades include placement in the Marrakech Biennale 5 in 2014 (Marrakech, Morocco), and recipient of the City of Austin’s Proclamation: March 27th, 2014 as “Atlas Maior Day” by Austin’ City Council.  

The group has opened for internationally acclaimed artists Kaki King, Vieux Farka Touré, Tal National, and have performed at music festivals including SXSW, Austin Days (Angers, FR), Pueblos Blancos (Andalusia), Wobeonfest, Art Outside, and the City of Austin’s F1 Fan Fest. Atlas Maior has collaborated with a host of talented musicians in Angers, Austin, Barcelona, Istanbul, and from around the world, including Lou Lou Ghelichkhani of Thievery Corporation, Raquy Danziger, Ali Pervez Mehdi, Fared Shafinury, Indrajit Banerjee, Alán Chehab Quartet, The University of Texas at Austin Middle East Ensemble Bereket, The Austin Global Orchestra and many more.

Sunday, July 24th 12:00pm -2:00pm at Crashbox (2022)

This app is best thought of as a kind of simulation of remembering, forgetting, reconstructing, and reimagining the sonic details of lived experience.

Learn to use a new Max app created by Thomas Echols and perform it with your fellow attendees. To prepare for your experience at our workshop, please download the app here and experiment with it at home so that you will be ready to demonstrate and experiment with the group in the workshop session.

RSVP for the workshop here.

Thomas Echols‘ work is an amalgam of classical, modernist, and pop music forays. Accepted at age 16 into the College of Music at the University of Colorado at Boulder, he went on to earn a Master’s of Music from the University of Texas and a Doctor of Musical Arts from the University of Southern California, and was a prizewinner in the Portland International Guitar Competition and the Donald Miller Concerto Competition.

 

Friday, July 22nd 7:00pm at Crashbox (2022)

Through Lightwells is a collaboration between Marissa Ayala and Brent Crosson. They initially met at the East Austin Writing Project, which Marissa founded and runs. Brent shared recent recordings of his sound composition with Marissa, who wrote poetry while listening to them.

The project combines the poems of Marissa and Brent with sounds created by Brent using field recordings, guitars, saxophones, keyboards, and other instruments.

Brent Crosson is an Associate Professor of Religious Studies and Anthropology at the University of Texas- Austin. He seeks to combine poetry and sound in ethnographic and creative settings. His poetry has been published in Bacopa, Anthropology and Humanism, and American Religion. His book Experiments with Power (University of Chicago Press 2020) won the Clifford Geertz Prize from the American Anthropological Association, and his poetry won prizes from the Society for Humanistic Anthropology and the University of Toronto’s New Arts of Persuasion.

Marissa Anne Ayala is a poet & artist based in Austin, TX. Her poetry combines language and visual art crafting color-drenched narratives. She’s currently writing a poetry collection informed by meditation and color theory. Her work has appeared in the Poets of Queens Anthology, Fugue Literary Journal, Pen + Brush Literary Magazine, Pen + Brush Art Gallery, Tupelo Press, & more. You can find her color meditations, collage, and photography on Insta: @chroma_note. She runs the East Austin Writing Project and the East Austin Writing Project Poetry Club.

Saturday, July 23rd 12:00pm -2:00pm at Crashbox (2022)

Join Malika Boudissa as she discusses the basics of modular synthesis and shares her sound design experience. This class is open to everyone, no previous knowledge of synthesizers or electronic music is required. 

We will explore how to synthesize and shape sound in this hands-on workshop with the Teenage Engineering POM-400 hardware modular synthesizer. We will cover the building blocks of subtractive synthesis, and you will leave the class with a better understanding of how to create, process, modulate, and sequence sound! 

• POM-400 modular systems and all materials provided. 
• Please bring your own headphones with a standard 3.5mm aux end.
• 8 students maximum

RSVP here

The workshop will begin promptly at noon. Please plan to arrive for parking at 11:30am