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Master|Doctor

Master|Doctor is a new collaboration between Austin-based percussionists Scott Charvet and Elayne Harris. NMASS 2020 is their first performance together (sort of).

Scott Charvet (Master) is an active percussionist and educator in Austin, TX, teaching private lessons by day and performing across town by night. A California native, Scott is an alumnus of California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo (B.A. Music – 2011) and Bowling Green State University in Ohio (M.M. Instrumental Performance – 2017). As a performer, he touts a literal binderful of experience (some 100-200+ concerts so far) with a variety of groups and organizations, including the the Austin Brass Band, Density 512, Mongoose, the Pacific Conservatory of the Performing Arts, Fargo-Moorhead Symphony, the Santa Clara Vanguard, and even a few rock bands here and there. Scott has also participated in master classes with Steven Schick (U.C. San Diego), Matthew Duvall (Eighth Blackbird), Daniel Karas (Grand Rapids Symphony), the Boston Brass, and the Los Angeles Percussion Quartet. His music tastes range from the traditional to the surreal, but his absolute favorite is music with character, funk, and groove; the fun stuff that makes you dance. Outside of music, Scott thoroughly enjoys watching movies, writing screenplays, listening to podcasts, and eating vegan comfort food.

Elayne Harris (Doctor) is an active performer and music educator. She has performed with a variety of large ensembles and chamber groups, including: Ensemble X, Massanutten Brass Band, the Mid-Atlantic Wind Symphony, Finger Lakes Community Orchestra, Harrisonburg-Rockingham County Concert Band, University-Shenandoah Symphony Orchestra, the Staunton Music Festival, Austin Brass Band, and Inside Out Steelband. She has also been active in commissioning and performing new works for percussion in both solo and chamber settings. Elayne holds a Doctorate of Musical Arts from James Madison University, where she also received a Bachelor of Music, studying with Bill Rice, Michael Overman, and Marlon Foster. She received a Master of Music from Ithaca College, where she studied with Gordon Stout. She currently teaches piano and percussion at Armstrong Community Music School and applied percussion at Austin Community College in Austin, Texas.

Inventions 1-3 from Eight Two-Part Inventions for Percussion Duo by Daniel Levitan (b. 1953) Performed by Master|Doctor

“The form of a traditional piece or song even is that you have a theme or a tune, then you have your way with it, and then you repeat it, and now you’re done. But for these, there is a musical germ, or phrase. This musical germ was something that I came up with when I was taking out the garbage and accidentally started banging on the garbage can, something that I banged on the sink that came to me while I was waiting for the water to heat up…So, I would have these musical germs in my head all day, and I would be singing them everywhere and then suddenly I would realize, “oh, I’m in a different time signature,” or I was in a different part of the bar. I would sketch these ideas down, and then once I had enough, I would put these ideas together and form the piece. I didn’t care if it ended where it began. That was a real act of courage for me. I’m not going to end where I started. I don’t have to, so there. (Laughter)”

– Daniel Levitan, on Inventions Eight Two-Part Inventions for Percussion Duo (2006-2007) is a set of works for unspecified instrumentation that focuses on short rhythmic ideas traded between players with manipulation and embellishment of phrases that change the feeling of the music. Motives shift starting places within measures to alter perception of the beat, lengthen or shorten to inexactly resemble previous iterations, and undergo various meter changes. The effect is a metamorphosis of the same material, different yet sounding familiar.

Each player has a set of four sounds, ordered by relative pitch with one of the sounds having a long sustain. Instrumentation for different performances range from traditional instruments (e.g. snare drum, toms, cymbals, etc.) to nontraditional/found objects, and can vary for each invention. In true “stay-at-home” fashion, we opted to use a mix of sounds found in our homes–wine bottles, coffee cans, drinking glasses, metal–and instruments from our personal collections.

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Unintentional Intersections

“unintentional intersections” by John Alan Kennedy.

“intersections, where things meet, when times converge, in opposition and intervention, why things stall, why things accelerate. the natural world recycles itself without ever trying.

i’m deeply interested in the place where “the natural world” intersects with the evidence and residue that humankind heaps upon it. absent-minded interventions, unconscious inevitabilities that once took the form of thought and industry: these things are trash, are marks, are signals, are sigils, are evidence of mind. this is a conflict we are conscious of—occasionally—which leaves a residue on nature, on invention and each other. what is this one thing, of all the things, that cannot be ignored? it is the thing most unlike its environment. a stray thought, a lost ball, a disembodied sound, an empty bottle.

i’m repurposing these intersections by combining video of an improvised exploration through the rolling woods beyond my back gate with a soundtrack created by improvising musicians using that video as a score. no one will hear each other’s sonic contribution until the final project is realized, they will each be flying blind. because the position and perspective of the camera is quite foreign to that of my own eyes, the result will be a document of an event that even i never actually witnessed, accompanied by a soundtrack of unintentional intersections that the musicians never heard.”

John Alan Kennedy (Austin) is a multi-instrumentalist and multimedia artist who specializes in the composition of unusual sights and sounds. An avid improvisor, he has also been performing and recording experimental, electronic and electro-acoustic music as Cyclops Joint since 1991. He relocated to Austin in May, 2020.

musical collaborators:

Sandy Ewen (Houston) is a guitar player, video artist & architect currently based in Houston. She hates the pandemic.

Lisa Cameron (Austin) uses amplified/acoustic percussion and strings to locate resonant frequencies in space to create oscillating overtones, which are then employed as sound sources for live improvisation.

Chris Cogburn (Mexico City / Austin) is a percussionist who works mainly in the field of improvised music. Current practices focus on the threshold between acoustic and electronic sounds, their differing timbral qualities, and their sites of resonance. The tension between just intonation and the unfettered resonances of objects is a burgeoning concern informing his most recent work. He has organized the annual No Idea Festival since 2003.

Parham Daghighi (Austin) is an Iranian-American multi-instrumentalist active in contemporary improvised music. Recent foci include electric guitar, alto saxophone, and instruments from the Persian art music tradition including setar, dozaleh, and tombak.

Rebecca Novak (Houston) explores sound through a constellation of instruments and objects including piano, cornet, melodica, Autoharp and shortwave radio. Her interdisciplinary approach extends to text-based & visual scores that merge writing, movement, acting, drawing, sculpture, photography and sound.

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Nail Club

“Nail Club grew out of isolation. In many bedrooms over many years. A musician that plays solo, Sara Nicole Storm, brings her own past, in relationships and locales, to Nail Club. First picked out on small keyboards or an old guitar with vocals whispered the way you might if someone was sleeping in the next room, soon, the music grew with new equipment and a voice more comfortable being heard, equal parts forlorn and defiant. Sometimes the music feels like a forgotten piece of a varied music history and at other times, like some of the most stimulating music, electronic or otherwise, being made today. Dance music for
desolation.” – Lynn Stevens | New Orleans, LA | 7/4/2020


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Natalia Rocafuerte & Jeannelle Ramirez

Treinta Años en un Tren is a short film created virtually by Natalia and Jeannelle as a visual and audio exchange during the 2020 Pandemic. The short film combines sounds and visuals created during live instagram and Facebook sessions, rescored everytime using elements of water, trains, and carribean drums. The surrealist visuals are paired with our contrastingly different experiences and memories of Latin America, imagining trains going through islands and floating fish in the sky. Collaboratively, Jeannelle and Natalia work as Las Raras, an experimental synthesis collective aiming to awaken a transcendent consciousness.

Jeannelle Ramirez is an Austin-based multimedia artist and ethnomusicologist. Her foggy, ambient soundscapes are composed from densely textured layers of found sounds and synthesized melodies that evoke a cyclical stasis. Theory and praxis are in constant dialogue through her work as an artist-scholar, with recent electro-acoustic works like “Oceanography” exploring migration and heritage through live-processed sound and video. Since completing formal musical training as a vocalist at NYC’s New School for Jazz, she has continually moved towards more experimental modes of creative practice. In 2019, she founded Future Traditions Festival as a platform for Latinx artists to explore intersections between experimental multimedia and traditional music and dance. She is also a founding member of Las Raras, a Latina experimental audio-visual artist collective. As part of Las Raras she has performed at various events hosted by Me Mer Mo Monday, COTFG, Cheer Up Charlies, and the Museum of Human Achievement. 

Natalia Rocafuerte is a Mexican-American new media artist, filmmaker and community organizer creating work on perception, analog technology, and spatial identity. Born in Cuidad del Carmen, Campeche to a pianist and ballerina, Rocafuerte was encouraged to expand her techniques in visual art from an early age. Rocafuerte was part of the 2018 Young Latinx Artists exhibit highlighting immigrant and Latinx artists at the Mexic-Arte Museum as well as being awarded a performance grant from Jolt Texas. She is also a recent fellow for the New York Foundation for the Arts Immigrant Mentorship program and current artist in residency for The Line – Big Medium Residency. “

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Transitory Sound and Movement Collective

The Transitory Sound and Movement Collective, based in Houston, Texas, founded by Lynn Lane (artistic director/sound artist) and founding member Jennifer Mabus (choreographer/movement artist) create experiential work based in sound/movement and multimedia arts. For this new work, “Collective Isolation #5”, part of their “Collective Isolation” series, they have brought in Federico de Michelis (bass-baritone/guitar), Ben Roidl-Ward (bassoon), Carson Marshall (violin) and Jade Devault (movement artist) to explore this idea of creating during a time of pandemic and using Edgar Allen Poe’s poem, “Dream Within A Dream” as an inspiration and guiding point for this improvisational work created with artists located in Canada, Illinois and Texas. 

Lynn Lane: Lynn Lane is a sound/intermedia artist based in Houston, Texas and the founder/artistic director of the Transitory Sound and Movement Collective. 

Jennifer Mabus: Jennifer Mabus, the founding choreographer/movement artist of Transitory Sound and Movement Collective, has had a long performing career in NYC and Texas, and is now also the dance program director at the University of St. Thomas, Houston. 

Federico De Michelis: Federico De Michelis, bass-baritone born in Argentina has appeared on some of the world’s  most renowned stages singing a vast variety of repertoire. 

Ben Roidl-Ward: Ben Roidl-Ward is a bassoonist and improviser based in Chicago as well as a founding member of the Transitory Sound and Movement Collective. 

Carson Marshall: Originally from western Massachusetts, violinist Carson Marshall aims to inspire audiences in both conventional and creative concert settings. 

Jade Devault: Jade Devault is a movement artist based in Houston, TX with a BFA in Dance from Texas State University, and she has danced with regional companies and artists, such as Pilot Dance Project and Noble Motion Dance.