Prepare for an evening of musical contrasts and creative surprises as eight Connecticut artists play songs by each other, rearranged in their own performance styles!
Each of the eight Rearrange Me artists will be secretly assigned one of the other artists. They will then choose a song and perform it as though it was their own. This means that a folk artist, if assigned a hip-hop artist, will rearrange and perform a song by the hip-hop artist in folk style… and so forth.
Each artist will only know their own Rearrange Me assignment, so the audience and the other performers will hear the pieces for the first time together.
What could a Hardanger fiddle player and a computer programmer possibly have in common? For Dan Trueman, an expert in both areas, it’s all just technology. And whether the eventual expression of his ideas requires old instruments or the invention of new ones, he is more concerned that the tools employed offer musicians the most engaging musical experience possible.
Real Art Ways presents the duo of Sō Percussion member Adam Sliwinski and Trueman in an exploration of some of humanity’s oldest and newest musical ideas.
Trueman, who is a programmer as well as a musician, has invented a fascinating new instrument, called the “bitKlavier,” which reinvigorates the piano for the digital age. His instrument sounds, looks, and is played like a piano, but runs through a laptop so that it can bend, multiply, and stretch the notes.
Trueman says, “Like the prepared piano, the prepared digital piano feels just like a piano under the hands and often sounds like one, but it is full of surprises; instead of bolts and screws stuck between the piano strings, virtual machines of various sorts adorn the virtual strings of the digital piano, transforming it into an instrument that pushes back, sometimes like a metronome, other times like a recording played backwards.”
Many of his compositional ideas come from an ancient instrument from Norway called the “Hardanger” fiddle. Dan will perform some traditional tunes on the fiddle, and Adam will perform Trueman’s set of etudes for the bitKlavier called “Nostalgic Synchronic.”
After the concert, Adam and Dan will be available to speak informally with audience members and answer questions.
This concert will appeal to fans of traditional folk music, cutting edge tech, and the classical piano tradition.
Find lots of interesting info about the duo, the bitKlavier, the etudes and more at their website.
Funding for this concert is provided by the Edward C. & Ann T. Roberts Foundation.
ABOUT THE ARTISTS
Dan Trueman Dan Trueman is a composer, fiddler, and electronic musician. He began studying violin at the age of 4, and decades later, after a chance encounter, fell in love with the Norwegian Hardanger fiddle, an instrument and tradition that has deeply affected all of his work, whether as a fiddler, a composer, or musical explorer.
Dan’s current projects include: a double-quartet for So Percussion and the JACK Quartet, commissioned by the Barlow Foundation; Olagón — an evening length work in collaboration with singer Iarla Ó Lionáird, poet Paul Muldoon, and eighth blackbird; the Prepared Digital Piano project; a collaborative dance project with choreographer Rebecca Lazier and scientist Naomi Leonard; ongoing collaborations with Irish fiddler Caoimhín Ó Raghallaigh and guitarist Monica Mugan (Trollstilt). His recent albums with Adam Sliwinski (Nostalgic Synchronic), Ó Raghallaigh (Laghdú) and So Percussion (neither Anvil nor Pulley) have met with wide acclaim.
His explorations have ranged from the oldest to the newest technologies; Dan co-founded the Princeton Laptop Orchestra, the first ensemble of its size and kind that has led to the formation of similarly inspired ensembles across the world, from Oslo to Dublin, to Stanford and Bangkok. Dan’s compositional work reflects this complex and broad range of activities, exploring rhythmic connections between traditional dance music and machines, for instance, or engaging with the unusual phrasing, tuning and ornamentation of the traditional Norwegian music while trying to discover new music that is singularly inspired by, and only possible with, new digital instruments that he designs and constructs. His tools of the trade are the first-of-its-kind Hardanger d’Amore fiddle by Salve Hakedal (played with a beautiful baroque bow by Michel Jamonneau), and the ChucK music programming language by Ge Wang.
Dan’s work has been recognized by fellowships, grants, commissions, and awards from the Guggenheim Foundation, the Barlow Endowment, the Fulbright Commission, the American Composers Forum, the American Council of Learned Societies, Meet the Composer, among others. He is Professor of Music and Director of the Princeton Sound Kitchen at Princeton University, where he teaches counterpoint, electronic music, and composition.
Adam Sliwinski Adam Sliwinski has built a dynamic career of creative collaboration as percussionist, pianist, conductor, teacher, and writer. He specializes in bringing composers, performers, and other artists together to create exciting new work. A member of the ensemble So Percussion (proclaimed as “brilliant” and “consistently impressive” by the New York Times) since 2002, Adam has performed at venues as diverse as Carnegie Hall, The Bonnaroo Festival, Disney Concert Hall with the LA Philharmonic, and everything in between. So Percussion has also toured extensively around the world, including multiple featured performances at the Barbican Centre in London, and tours to France, Germany, The Netherlands, South America, Australia, and Russia.
Adam has been praised as a soloist by the New York Times for his “shapely, thoughtfully nuanced” playing. He has performed as a percussionist many times with the International Contemporary Ensemble, founded by classmates from Oberlin. Though he trained primarily as a percussionist, Adam’s first major solo album, released in 2015 on New Amsterdam, is a collection of etudes called Nostalgic Synchronic for the bitKlavier, an invention of Princeton colleague Dan Trueman. In recent years, Adam’s collaborations have also grown to include conducting. He has conducted over a dozen world premieres with the International Contemporary Ensemble, including residencies at Harvard, Columbia, and NYU. In 2014, ECM Records released the live recording of the premiere of Vijay Iyer’s Radhe Radhe with Adam conducting.
Adam writes about music on his blog. He has also contributed a series of articles to newmusicbox.org, and the Cambridge Companion to Percussion from Cambridge University Press features his chapter “Lost and Found: Percussion Chamber Music and the Modern Age.”
Adam is co-director of the So Percussion Summer Institute, an annual intensive course on the campus of Princeton University for college-aged percussionists. He is also co-director of the percussion program at the Bard College Conservatory of Music, and has taught percussion both in masterclass and privately at more than 80 conservatories and universities in the USA and internationally. Along with his colleagues in So Percussion, Adam is Edward T. Cone performer-in-residence at Princeton University. He received his Doctor of Musical Arts and his Masters degrees at Yale with marimba soloist Robert van Sice, and his Bachelors at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music with Michael Rosen.
Breathing The Everyday is a visual haiku reflecting on the everyday and ordinary. Digital photography mimics vintage style, exploring extraordinary qualities within the subjects.
Take a breath Hold it Breathe out See the everyday
Featured Image: Breathing the Everyday 24 (2016, digital print)
New York City-based new music chamber group loadbang is building a new kind of music for mixed ensemble of trumpet, trombone, bass clarinet, and baritone voice.
Since their founding in 2008, they have been praised as ‘cultivated’ by The New Yorker, ‘an extra-cool new music group’ and ‘exhilarating’ by the Baltimore Sun, ‘inventive’ by the New York Times and called a ‘formidable new-music force’ by TimeOutNY. Their unique lung-powered instrumentation has provoked diverse responses from composers, resulting in a repertoire comprising an inclusive picture of composition today.
Group members are William Lang on trombone, Carlos Cordeiro on bass clarinet, Jeffrey Gavett singing baritone and Andy Kozar on trumpet.
They will perform selections from their “Monodramas,” featuring dramatic works by composers Andy Akiho, Hannah Lash, and loadbang’s trumpeter, Andy Kozar.
-Andy Akiho’s rhythmically intense Six Haikus sets texts by the composer to rhythms inspired by his experience as a virtuoso steel pan player.
-Hannah Lash’s Stoned Prince follows the exploits, real and imagined, of Prince Harry in her romantic avant-garde style.
-Andy Kozar’s uniquely explosive Mass dramatizes the composer’s questioning of faith in a jump-cut sequence of leaps across musical registers and styles.
THREE FREE CONCERTS TO CELEBRATE 40 YEARS OF MUSIC!
Funding for RAW Jazz is provided by The Evelyn W. Preston Memorial Trust Fund, Bank of America, N.A., Trustee; and Edward C. & Ann T. Roberts Foundation.
Steve Swell’s Kende Dreams Friday, September 16 | 7:30 PM *At Asylum Hill Congregational Church, 814 Asylum Ave, Hartford, Connecticut,www.ahcc.org The group will play compositions inspired by the music of Hungarian composer Bela Bartok. “Kende” refers to the spiritual leaders of tribes in a region that became modern-day Hungary. According to Steve Swell, “It is never too late for we humans to collectively overcome our more negative inclinations, as I believe we are wired to fulfill the destinies of our best selves. That is my Kende Dream.”
Steve Swell – Trombone; Rob Brown – Alto Saxophone; William Parker – Bass; Gerald Cleaver – Drums
“ …Swell and his cohorts have created a spry and individual take on the improvised language of human interaction, whether drawn from folk musics or rigorous study.”– Clifford Allen, Jazz Right Now
Mario Pavone, Street Songs/The Accordion Project Saturday, September 17 | 7:30 PM At Real Art Ways A suite of earthy tunes recalls music heard in the ethnically diverse neighborhoods of postwar Waterbury. Bassist/composer/bandleader Mario Pavone has a stellar reputation among fans of avant-garde jazz. His inspiration for these pieces was, “going to the drugstore for my aunts and my mother, hearing the various musics, Italian, Portuguese, Polish. I called it front-stoop music, and much of it was based on the accordion.”
Mario Pavone – Bass/Compositions; Dave Ballou – Trumpet/Arrangements; Tony Malaby – Tenor and Soprano Saxophones; Adam Matlock – Accordion; Peter McEachern – Trombone; Ben Stapp – Tuba; Leise Ballou – French Horn; Carl Testa – Bass; Mike Sarin – Drums
“ …Mr. Pavone’s sharp attack and forceful presence, was kinetic.” – Phillip Lutz, New York Times
Trio 3 Sunday, September 18 | 3 PM At Real Art Ways A group where music is the leader. The unconventional collaboration of internationally-recognized jazz masters, formed to centralize the members’ creative energies and promote a single governing principle: organic improvisation. Everyone is a distinct soloist but it’s definitely an unadulterated group-based effort. Deeply rooted in the tradition, these jazz veterans describe their sound as “futuristic music within the idiomatic continuum of jazz.” Like musical alchemists, Trio 3 boldly carries the music forward spinning 3-dimensional jazz, reconfiguring conventions of compositions, harmony, meter and melody.
Trio 3: Reggie Workman – Bass; Oliver Lake – Saxophone, Flute; Andrew Cyrille – Drums
“ …free jazz as rigorous discourse, and a direct response to nothing beyond its own brimming potential.”– Nate Chinen, New York Times
A Collection of Vernacular and Found Photography from Michael Shortell
Michael Shortell has been integral to the Hartford art scene for decades. From his framing shop to his gallery to his personal collections, he has demonstrated his keen taste and committed support of artists. We celebrate his contributions with an exhibition curated from his personal collection of casual and found photography. The exhibit will reflect the progression from rigidly posed tintype portraits to everyday snapshots taken with simple, inexpensive cameras.
Photos will be grouped in deliberate ways – similar poses, subjects or angles – such as one series showing two sisters in repeated identical poses over time as they grow up. Other groups include couples in prom attire and people showing off newly-bought clothing with strikingly similar poses and expressions.
At the end of the exhibit, viewers will be invited to print out and add their own selfies to the wall, contributing to the ongoing history of the snapshot.
Many artists get their most creative ideas while preoccupied with another task – a long drive being one of the best. The three artists in Distracted Driving make work that is idea based; work that is not always what it first appears. Whether contemplation on language, self-representation or morality, each piece takes you on a ride of discovery.
Joe Bun Keo – (Hartford, Connecticut) Cecil Gresham, Sr. – (Bloomfield, Connecticut) Scott Penkava – (Brooklyn, New York)
Curator: David Borawski
About the Artists
Joe Bun Keo lives and works in Hartford, Connecticut. His sculptural, installation and conceptual works utilize semantics to bring forth issues of cultural identity and the evolution of language. He has participated in or assisted with projects in Germany, the United Kingdom and France, and has exhibited all over the United States. He was selected for SLIDE SLAM at Real Art Ways in 2010. Keo received his BFA from the Hartford Art School. He was selected as a candidate for The Mountain School of Arts (2012; Los Angeles, CA), nominated for the Wellesley College Alice C. Cole ’42 Fellowship (2013-2014; Wellesley, MA) and is currently pursuing his MFA. “The kitschy aesthetic of mass-produced novelties and the everyday utility of household items serve as vessels to deliver visual punchlines that touch base on cultural identity, and the complexities of linguistics.”
Cecil Gresham, Sr. currently lives and works in Bloomfield, Connecticut. His abstract work has been described as both “unconventional” and “bold.” His unique style combines digital print work with various techniques and materials in experimental ways. Inspired by such artists as Basquiat, Arbus, Bacon and Driskell, Gresham delves into the marginal aspects of his subject material to enter another conceptual realm. There the viewer is invited to confront all the layers of meaning that underscore the most ordinary of surface representations. “I like to think that my creativity is one big gift box, full of surprises and disappointments. I love those challenges in the creative process. In the end, I blow out the candles with the hope others will find meaning and depth of enjoyment from my work.”
Scott Penkava was born in rural Minnesota at the tail end of the Carter Administration, and headed up to urban Minnesota a few years after Kurt Cobain died. He finished undergrad in Minnesota and moved to Brooklyn before everyone had smart phones and got his Master’s from Hunter as Facebook was becoming a pretty big deal. He currently lives and works in Brooklyn, NY. He is likely to be found watching “Ironman” and welding on something functionless, or building something highly functional against a backdrop of philosophy podcasts.
Solo exhibition of the fabric-text constructions of Southbury, Connecticut artist Rita Valley. Quilted and sewn “paintings” carry the phrases of a downward spiraling economy, such as “Wage Slave” and “No Future.” The irony is not lost on these declarations juxtaposed upon decorative patterned fabric.
Curator: David Borawski
About the Artist
Rita Valley lives and works in Connecticut. Her works explore issues of inequality, the waging of war and financial disparity, with recent economic trends providing further fodder for her studio investigations.
She studied at Bard College and graduated from Bennington College with a degree in Studio Art and a minor in Literature. She has shown throughout New England and in New York City.
She has received two State of Connecticut Individual Artist Grants and recently was commissioned by a collaboration between Yale University Art Gallery and Artspace (New Haven) to create an original artist’s book, Better Guns and Gardens. Her work has recently been shown at Odetta Gallery in Brooklyn.
“Abstract is not a style. I simply want to make a surface work.” – Joan Mitchell
Surface Work brings together five contemporary women artists working in the tradition of abstraction, each of whom are moving it forward in new directions exploring line, texture and color within as well as on the surface.
Deborah Dancy – (Storrs, Connecticut) Janet Lage – (Old Lyme, Connecticut) Alyse Rosner – (Westport, Connecticut) Rosa Valado – (Brooklyn, New York) Amy Vensel – (Newtown, Connecticut)
Curator: David Borawski
Featured Image: Janet Lage – TRASHED, Stubborn Love (detail)
Join us for the fourth installment of Spectacle at Real Art Ways. Since 2014, we have gathered an intergenerational group – mostly different each time – of improvisors in the spring.
Expect a mix of groupings small and large and, likely, a small orchestra rounding out the afternoon.
“Contemporary creative music often seeks to balance the energy of spontaneous real-time exploratory playing with the design potential of structure and form. Morris and Haynes have brought together a pool of talented musicians and the without-a-net framework and unexpected combinations are likely to inspire exciting playing.” – John Adamian, CTNow Read the complete article here.
Participating Musicians: William Parker /contrabass violin and more Hamid Drake / drums and percussion Mixashawn Rozie / saxophones, flutes Daniel Carter / saxophones, trumpet Fay Victor / voice Jin Hi Kim / komungo Jerome Deupree /drums and percussion Sarah Hughes / alto saxophone Rex Bennett / trombone Gabe Terracciano / violin Jacob Means / mandolin and mandocello Rob Oxoby / contrabass violin Stephen Haynes / cornets, flugelhorn, alto horn Joe Morris / guitar, contrabass violin
Join us for an artist talk and discussion with Mohamad Hafez, followed by a Q & A session with audience members. This is a free event!
Mohamad Hafez was born in Damascus, raised in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, and educated in the Midwestern United States. A New Haven-based architect, Hafez uses plaster, rigid foam, paint and found objects to create three dimensional architectural streetscapes, installations and wall murals of his native Syria that are deeply personal, photorealistic and surreal. Expressing the juxtaposition of East and West within him, Hafez’s art represents the urban fabric of the Middle East, and serves as a backdrop for his own political and social expression.
This show takes place at Infinity Music Hall & Bistro, 32 Front Street, Hartford, CT 06103
Two of Hartford’s favorite sons of Jazz, Grammy winning bassist Luques Curtis and award-winning pianist Zaccai Curtis, are bringing their band to Infinity Hall for a hometown throw down!! Between the two brothers, they’ve worked with Cindy Blackman-Santana, Gary Burton, Ralph Peterson, Donald Harrison, Christian Scott, Ray Vega and Hartford Hero of Jazz Jimmy Greene to name a few.
Up and coming Hartford Artist, Orice Jenkins warms up your ear drums for this special evening of Hartford-Grown Latin Jazz.
Beginning Monday, February 22, artist Alina Gallo will paint a life-sized egg tempera mural directly onto the walls of the Real Room, re-creating Keleti Station, a train station in Budapest, Hungary where thousands of refugees (many from Syria and Afghanistan) were stranded on their way to Germany, Sweden, and other European destinations during the summer and fall of 2015.
On Sunday, February 28 from 3 – 4:30 PM Real Art Ways’ members will have an opportunity to meet Alina and our Visual Arts Coordinator, Zoe Allison. There will be light refreshments.
Heidi Lau creates sculptures and paper works exploring Chinese folk archetypes, unexplainable superstitions, and inherited memories.
For her exhibition at Real Art Ways, Lau presents a selected body of highly textured and glazed ceramic sculptures, some monumental and some miniature. All are embedded with elements from nature and folklore, carrying the memories of many forces.
The “Dream Pool” pays homage to Shen Kuo, who wrote Dream Pool Essays in 1088 AD which explained supernatural events, and the inability of empirical science to explain everything in the world.
– Vestiges from a Dream Pool has been covered by the Huffington Post at this link:
About the Artist
Heidi Lau grew up in Macao, currently lives in New York and works in Brooklyn. Her ceramics and works on paper have been exhibited nationally and internationally in venues such as the Macao Museum of Art, Wave Hill, Boston Center for the Arts, Tiger Strike Asteroid New York, Kniznick Gallery at Brandeis University and Aljira Center for Contemporary Art.
Her practice has been generously supported by numerous residencies and awards: Bronx Museum Artist In the Market Place Program, Emerging Artist Fellowship at Socrates Sculpture Park, Center for Book Arts Workspace Residency, Martin Wong Foundation Scholarship, among others. She is a recipient of the Joan Mitchell Foundation Painters and Sculptors Grant in 2015.
Artist and architect Mohamad Hafez creates sculptures representing Middle Eastern streetscapes and buildings besieged by civil war, deliberately contrasted with verses from the Holy Quran.
His work reflects the political turmoil in the Middle East through the compilation of found objects, paint, and scrap metal in miniaturized installations that are architectural in their appearance, yet politically charged in their content.
About the Artist
A Syrian artist and architect, Mohamad Hafez was born in Damascus, raised in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, educated in the Midwestern United States, and now lives in New Haven. Expressing the juxtaposition of East and West within him, Hafez’s art reflects the political turmoil in the Middle East through the compilation of found objects, paint and scrap metal.
Using his architectural skills, Hafez creates surrealistic Middle Eastern streetscapes that are architectural in their appearance yet politically charged in their content. Hafez’s recent work depicts cities besieged by civil war to capture the magnitude of the devastation and to expose the fragility of human life. Hafez’s work reflects his deep interest in the cross-disciplinary exploration of street art and the realistic, yet ironic sculptural work.
Artist Alina Gallo spent over a week painting a life-sized egg tempera mural directly onto the walls of the entire Real Room. The work re-creates Keleti Station, a train station in Budapest, Hungary where thousands of refugees (many from Syria and Afghanistan) were stranded on their way to Germany, Sweden, and other European destinations during the summer and fall of 2015.
Using imagery sourced from traditional and social media, anti- and pro-migrant graffiti, and disparate first-hand accounts, Gallo has created a composite graphic rendering of Keleti Station.
Gallo creates large-scale murals using tempera, an ancient technique for creating fast-drying, long-lasting paintings from pigment mixed with a binding medium (usually egg yolks). Examples of tempera painting still in existence date back to the 1st century AD, and it was the primary method of painting until the invention of oil paints in the early 1500s.
Alina Gallo, originally from Long Island, New York, is based in Rome, Italy. Her large site-specific installations and contemporary miniature paintings have chronicled the representation of events in the Middle East and North Africa since the onset of the Arab Spring.
Alina’s work samples and combines imagery and information from a multitude of raw footage, photographs, and documentary snippets, as well as network media sources, reflecting both a fragmented understanding of these accounts and the conscious and unconscious attempts to recompose a potential reality.
Multiple Impressions is an exhibition of 23 artists who make prints using a variety of printmaking processes, ranging from traditional (intaglio, relief, lithography, and screen printing) to experimental (textile, sculpture, and installation). Their works address a variety of topics concerning design, representation, and abstraction. Some artists in this exhibition are painters who make prints, while others are designers who use printmaking to execute ideas.
Real Art Ways and the Mark Twain House co-present artist and author KAREN FINLEY at the Mark Twain House.
No other artist captures the drama and fragility of the AIDS era as Karen Finley does in her 1990 classic book Shock Treatment. “The Black Sheep,” “We Keep Our Victims Ready,” “I Was Never Expected to Be Talented,”–these are some of the seminal works which excoriated homophobia and misogyny at a time when artists and writers were under attack for challenging the status quo.
This twenty-fifth anniversary expanded edition features a new introduction in which Finley reflects on publishing her first book as she became internationally known for being denied an NEA grant because of perceived obscenity in her work. She traces her journey from art school to burlesque gigs to the San Francisco North Beach literary scene. A new poem reminds us of Finley’s disarming ability to respond to the era’s most challenging issues with grace and humor.
KAREN FINLEY’s raw and transgressive performances have long provoked controversy and debate. She has appeared and exhibited her visual art, performances, and plays internationally. The author of many books including A Different Kind of Intimacy, George & Martha, and The Reality Shows, she is a professor at the Tisch School of Art and Public Policy at NYU.
Tickets are $20, and $15 for Mark Twain House and Real Art Ways members
The Hartt School and Real Art Ways co-present a performance by the Bang on a Can All-Stars at the Hartt School’s Lincoln Theater as part of their Richard P. Garmany Chamber Music Series.
Bang on a Can are legends of contemporary music. Founded in 1987 by Julia Wolfe, David Lang, and Michael Gordon, Bang on a Can pioneered experimental mixed-instrumentation composition and performance. In 1992, the Bang on a Can All-Stars came together as an internationally renowned category-defining amplified ensemble.
Freely crossing between classical, jazz, rock, world and experimental music, the All-Stars have worked in close collaboration with some of the most important and inspiring musicians of our time, including Steve Reich, Ornette Coleman, Burmese circle drum master Kyaw Kyaw Naing, Tan Dun, DJ Spooky, and many more.
As part of their United States tour, the All-Stars will perform at the Hartt School’s Lincoln Theater. This performance is made possible in part by a grant from the Richard P. Garmany Fund at the Hartford Foundation for Public Giving.
The program will include:
Tan Dun: Concerto for Six
Julia Wolfe: Believing
Kate Moore: The Hermit Thrush and the Astronaut
Michael Gordon: Gene Takes a Drink
Steve Martland: Horses of Instruction
Philip Glass: Closing
The Bang on a Can All-Stars are Ashley Bathgate, cello; Robert Black, bass; Vicky Chow, piano; David Cossin, percussion; Mark Stewart, guitars; and Ken Thomson, clarinets.
Preview a piece the All-Stars will be performing on the 20th:
Collaged signs & symbols of everyday virtual speech, commonly known as Emojis, make up Gannis’ contemporary reinterpretation of Hieronymous Bosch’s 16th century masterpiece The Garden of Earthly Delights.
The massive digital c-print matches the scale and proportion of the original piece. Gannis, a resident of Brooklyn and a Professor of Digital Art at Pratt Institute, said she wanted to explore the way “popular customs and communications…can be integrated into art.”
