Erin Rogers - Composer/saxophonist

Urban Composites: New Thread Saxophone Quartet

Saturday, November 17, 2012, @ 5:00pm, QUEENS. The New Thread Saxophone Quartet presents the premiere of Urban Composites by Erin Rogers at the Flushing Library, 41-17 Main Street, Flushing, NY 11355. The work depicts various urban landscapes in Queens within a full length, multi-sectional chamber piece. New Thread will frame the program with selections by New York based composers.

Free Admission!

Founded in 2011 in New York City, the NEW THREAD QUARTET is committed to the creation and performance of saxophone quartet repertoire from New York’s burgeoning new music scene. Members of the ensemble are active as composers, performers, educators, and industry professionals and hold degrees from the most prestigious conservatories and music schools in the US and Europe. In its inaugural year, New Thread presented 5 concerts of works by New York composers, with performances at George Mason University, Fairfax, VA, SUNY Potsdam, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ, and locally at South Oxford and Vaudeville Park, Brooklyn. The New Thread Quartet was selected from an international pool of saxophonists and performed at the World Saxophone Congress 2012, in St. Andrews, Scotland.

This program is made possible in part by the Queens Council on the Arts with public funding from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs and with support from D’Addario/Rico Reeds.

Cage100 Festival, day 2: The Noisy Cage
8:00 & 10:00pm

The John Cage Variety Show Big Band
directed by Miguel Frasconi (glass, electronics). Daniel Goode (clarinet), Kathleen Supové (piano), Chris McIntyre (trombone), Cristian Amigo (guitar), Richard Carrick (guitar), David Watson (bagpipes), Sara Schoenbeck (bassoon), John King (viola), Erin Rogers (sax), Guy Barash (computer), Shannon Fields (voice), Raz Mesinai (beats), Paul Pinto (voice), Damon Holzborn (ipad), and special guest TILT Brass (Gareth Flowers, Tim Leopold, Chris DiMeglio – trumpet; Jen Baker, Will Lang, James Rogers – trombones; Chris McIntyre – conductor).
Celebrating the composer on the day of his birth, 100 years ago. Pieces will include Sonata for Clarinet (1932), In a Landscape (1948), Fontana Mix (1958), Aria (1958), Music for Amplified Toy Pianos (1960), Variations II (1961), Atlas Eclipticalis (1962), Solos from Song Books (1970), Child of Tree (1975), c Composed Improvisations (1990),and an ensemble performance of 4’33” (1952).

Experimental collective Varispeed performs John Cage’s 12-hour Empty Words

Varispeed’s Empty Words
by John Cage

Fri., August 3rd, 8 PM – Sat., August 4th, 8 AM
Brooklyn, NY
8 PM – 10:30 PM

Part I: Roulette, 509 Atlantic Avenue
11 PM – 4:30 AM

Parts II & III: Exapno, 33 Flatbush Avenue, 5th floor
5 AM – 7:30 PM

Parts IV: Procession from Borough Hall over the Brooklyn Bridge

All parts of the performance are free and open to the public.

Following their acclaimed reimagining of Robert Ashley’s Perfect Lives as Perfect Lives Manhattan, Varispeed tackle John Cage’s epic, rarely performed Empty Words. This overnight realization on Cage’s centennial is a meditation on the voice’s power to transform language into music. Varispeed’s new arrangement will lead audiences on a 12-hour journey of sound, from an ensemble of electronically manipulated and mutated song in the concert hall of Roulette to the noise of naked voices on the Brooklyn Bridge at dawn.

Written in the early 70s, Empty Words stands as an epic culmination of Cage’s exploration of the “demilitarization” of syntax and the voice’s power to evacuate meaning and create music. Using Thoreau’s journals as his source text, Cage employed chance procedures to remove all syntax from the original, creating four separate movements through which the level of textual abstraction grows.

Part One (utilizing phrases, words, syllables, and letters) begins in the concert space of Roulette, employing multiple performers and theatrics to employ the musical extremes of language. The performance then moves to the new music community space Exapno, where Varispeed transform Part Two’s words, syllables, and letters into new spatial arrangements. Peppered with food (and perhaps a nap), Part Three scatters syllables and letters around the building in a performance that is both a participatory scavenger hunt and a solo lecture. In conclusion, listeners will become performers on a communal sound walk through Downtown Brooklyn across the Brooklyn Bridge at sunrise, vocalizing the letters of Part Four in equal partnership with the surrounding urban “silence.”

Varispeed’s premiere performance of Robert Ashley’s Perfect Lives Manhattan was listed on Time Out New York’s Best of 2011 list and received praise in the New York Times and Los Angeles Times. Varispeed has worked to discover new inroads into contemporary vocal music and opera in creating site-specific, sometimes-participatory, oftentimes-durational, forevermore-experimental events. As individuals, they are all multi-faceted performers, composers, songwriters, and thinkers who collaborate in ensembles such as thingNY, Panoply Performance Laboratory, and Cough Button. Varispeed is Paul Pinto, Gelsey Bell, Aliza Simons, Dave Ruder and Brian McCorkle.

This performance is funded in part by the 2012 Stefanos Tsigrimanis Artistic Scholar Award.

thingNY presents:

Seven Immediacies Series, Vol. 7

Sunday, July 15th
doors 7:00pm, performances ca. 7:45pm
Vaudeville Park
26 Bushwick Ave, Brooklyn

Featuring:
Leah Asher String Quartet + Tristan MacKay
Yoni Niv + Adam Kendall
Satoshi Takeishi +Shoko Nagai
with Michal Samama

Experimental music ensemble thingNY closes its Seven Immediacies Series with multimedia works, chamber music and an experimental opera. Leda is violinist Leah Asher’s graphic score for string quartet performed with Jeffrey Young, Meaghan Burke and Hannah Levinson, followed by pianist Tristan MacKay’s premiere of Leah Asher’s Lullaby. Then videoist and musician Adam Kendall, Vortex (Satoshi Takeishi and Shoko Nagai) and Michael Samama present a set of multimedia works for electronics, video and dance, including the premiere of the experimental opera in progress, Nach der Heilung.

The Seven Immediacies Series is thingNY’s first foray into curating a series as a group. Each Installment takes place at Vaudeville Park and will pair local visiting and emerging classical and experimental artists with a new work, difficult to program because of its extreme length or unusual ensemble.

Monday, July 23, 2012, 9pm – Sweet Soubrette Big Band show

“BROOKLYN’S FISHNET-CLAD FEMME FATALE” (BUST MAGAZINE) SWEET SOUBRETTE TO STRUT AT CAKE SHOP JULY 23

Sweet Soubrette – the inventive, Brooklyn-based, ukulele-strumming, indie pop performer – will perform July 23 at Cake Shop with her 6-piece backing band, previewing the August 14 EP ‘What’s My Desire?’

The EP’s dark and passionate title track was inspired by the book Henry and June by Anaïs Nin, a work based on Nin’s diaries when she was becoming a serious writer and romantically involved with author Henry Miller. Love, art and ambition collide in this powerful song.

The Philadelphia Inquirer has called Sweet Soubrette’s music “sensational…dark vaudeville-pop.” Time Out New York dubbed Sweet Soubrette “at once sweet and sassy, celebrating reckless behavior with a charmed wink.” The Deli Magazine has praised Sweet Soubrette’s “rock star command and intelligently crafted music.”

The show also previews a northeast August tour: http://www.sweetsoubrette.com/shows.php

WHO: Sweet Soubrette
WHAT: Preview show for ‘What’s My Desire?’
WHEN: July 23, 2012, 9pm
WHERE: Cake Shop, 152 Ludlow Street, NYC, (212) 253-0036
TICKETS: TBA

Sweet Soubrette w/ horns

Wed. Aug 29th
LIC Bar
45-58 Vernon Blvd.
Long Island City

http://www.licbar.com/

What’s My Desire? Sweet Soubrette Big Band Show

EP Release & Tour Kickoff

Tues, Aug 14th
The Living Room
154 Ludlow St, NYC

thingNY presents:

Seven Immediacies Series, Vol. 6 “Ladies Night”

Friday, June 29^th

Vaudeville Park
26 Bushwick Ave.
Brooklyn, NY

Doors @ 7pm

Sliding Scale donation: $5-15

Experimental music ensemble thingNY presents “Ladies Night” – Volume 6 of its Seven Immediacies Series, the program will include exciting new sets from saxophonist Rhonda Taylor, electronic sound artist n0izkmr, featuring visualist invaderbacca, and vocalist/multi-instrumentalist Sukato. The evening will finish with the premiere of “Wind Factory” a work for roomful of winds, by thingNY’s Erin Rogers.

This music series is thingNY’s first official foray into curating a series as a group. Each installment of the series will pair local and visiting emerging classical and experimental artists with a new work, difficult to program because of its extreme length or unusual ensemble.

New Mexico based saxophonist Rhonda Taylor will start at 8pm with Pre-Millennium Tension, a collection of solo saxophone works originally written between 1983 and 2000, exploring the extraordinary timbral and textural possibilities of a single voice. Works featured will be El Avion Grande and Audition, both by Rick Burkhardt, Anubis et Nout by Gérard Grisey, Interstice by Avi Tchamni, and Not Pitch by Ben Grosser. n0izmkr will follow with a structured improvisational noise set, including circuit bent instruments, handmade synthesizers, custom midi controllers, environmental samples, and a contact mic orchestra, the set will be interpreted by visualist invaderbacca. Finally, Sukato will perform an electric-saz and voice set with back-up electronic tracks and the program will finish with the premiere of “Wind Factory” a work for roomful of winds, by thingNY’s Erin Rogers.
Rhonda Taylor is dedicated to the creation and performance of meaningful sonic art of our time. Her solo recordings can be found at cdbaby, iTunes, and amazon.com. Upcoming projects include working closely with Steve Takasugi on a new work for solo saxophonist and electronics, premiering a new work for alto saxophone and electronics by Avi Tchamni, and taking part in a consortium commission of a new work for baritone saxophone and electronics by Nathan Davis. Dr. Taylor has been on faculty at New Mexico State University since 2003, where she is the College Assistant Professor of Saxophone and Music Theory. Rhonda Taylor is a Conn-Selmer artist and plays on Selmer Paris saxophones exclusively.

Nicole Carroll (n0izkmr) is a classically trained electroacoustic composer, who also works with video and handmade electronic instruments. Through her music and video works, Carroll seeks to build relationships with audiences though multi-disciplinary art experiences.  She utilizes circuit bent toys and hacked hardware in performance to provide a visual element to the electroacoustic performance process.  Her compositional focus is exploring sonic and artistic possibilities, while presenting material in manner that is accessible to her audiences.

Carroll resides in Brooklyn, NY, where she freelances as a sound designer for theater, and builds custom midi controllers and hacked instruments for electronic musicians and digital media artists. During her free time she explores nature and collects sounds from unlikely sources, in unlikely places.  As n0izmkr, she performs live electroacoustic sets for whoever is listening.

Invaderbacca sees the colors that nobody sees. His approach to visualizing the sounds around him is almost sonic itself in nature, whether he’s creating frenetic glitchnes sets or creating his own spasmodic video blasts.

Sukato is a vocalist, multi-instrumentalist, composer and improviser. She studied at the Juilliard School, and later, at Eastman School of Music, became interested in ethnomusicology and the possibilities of the voice. She collaborated with composer/poet Kala Pierson on Axis of Beauty, an evening-length performance in memory of Iraqis killed since the U.S. invasion, featured at the Tribeca Center of the Performing Arts. She appeared as Moby’s video “I love to move in here” (as an extra).

Sukato premiered and recorded composer Christopher Bailey’s “Mergurs Ehd Ffleweh Bq Nsolst” for voice and electronics (“Immolation Ritual”, Innova #695). She has one insane and incomprehensible double CD, “Sukato”,
available on CD Baby.

From Alberta, Canada, now based in New York City, Erin Rogers is a saxophonist and composer. Her works have been performed by New York-based groups such as the Gotham Ensemble and IKTUS as well as Austin Symphony concertmaster Jessica Mathaes, Chicago’s Anubis Quartet and Madrid’s Tribuna Sax-Ensemble. She has performed with ensembles such as the Lost Dog Ensemble and Fireworks and is a founding member of thingNY and the New Thread Saxophone Quartet, an ensemble of elite musicians committed to the creation and performance of saxophone quartet repertoire from New York’s burgeoning new music scene. Erin completed undergraduate studies at the University of Alberta and, in 2005, received master’s degrees in composition and performance from Bowling Green State University. Visit www.erinmrogers.com for more information.

New Thread Quartet’s mission to spread the word and to bring these talented, creative voices beyond Gotham will reach a milestone this summer as we take to the international stage. Please help us get there! Support our pledge campaign to help us get to Scotland and receive exciting rewards in return. Visit our Rockethub campaign to donate: http://www.rockethub.com/projects/7742-new-thread-quartet-goes-to-scotland

Every little bit helps!

Please join the New Thread Quartet at The D’Addario NYC Studio on Friday, June 9^th, for a season finale concert and fundraiser. We have a lot planned for the event: music from an exciting group of NYC-based composers, a great line-up of guest performers and a generous selection of silent auction and raffle items provided by D’Addario. Hors d’oeuvres and refreshments are complimentary, including wine and beer.

Saturday, June 9, 4-7pm
The D’Addario NYC Studio

The Collective School of Music
123 West 18^th Street, 7^th Floor, New York, NY 10011
Admission: $25, $15 for students
All advanced tickets are $20
Reserve tickets by supporting our online fundraising campaign Click Here

Concert will feature works by Martin Bresnick, Richard Carrick, Gilbert Galindo, Anthony Gatto and Erin Rogers.

The fundraiser is aimed at covering our travel and lodging in St. Andrews, Scotland this July.  We’ve been selected from an international pool of saxophonists to participate in the World Saxophone Congress 2012.

It’s a tremendous honor for us to be chosen for this opportunity, and your support will help us get there.

We would love to see you on June 9th. Please reserve your ticket(s) online by supporting our Rockethub fundraising campaign. Every little bit helps! http://www.rockethub.com/projects/7742-new-thread-quartet-goes-to-scotland