This concert is a double-barreled CD release party, celebrating the first two releases on the UNLimited Sedition label -- the archival, large edition offshoot of
John Shiurba's limited-edition CDR label Limited Sedition.
John Shiurba's 5x5 is a project with too many fives in it. This huge opus, unfolding over a period of years, comprises five groups of five short pieces written for five players, whose composed sections are nuggets dropped into an improvised matrix. The first CD from the project, featuring Shiurba on guitar, ma++ ingalls on clarinet and violin,
Dan Plonsey on reeds, the late Matthew Sperry on contrabass and Gino Robair on percussion and violin, is titled "5x5 1.1=M" (The M is for Matthew.)
For this performance the quintet will comprise Shurba, Robair, Kyle Bruckmann on double reeds, Scott Rosenberg on single reeds and Morgan Guberman on bass.
Daniel Popsicle will present selections of "Music for Occasions of State," a set of a dozen or so miniature (mostly around 1 minute) fully composed pieces, which are embedded within a set of rhythm section and horn "vamps," featuring onsets of improvisation here and there. The ensemble is made entirely of composer/improvisers of all kinds of strange and prickly stuff: Liz Allbee, Kyle Bruckmann, Jenya Chernoff, Matt Ingalls, Matt Lebofsky, Plonsey, Scott Rosenberg, Shiurba, Ward Spangler, Lynn Wold, and Tom Yoder.
"Moving about, Humming, Still Our Flowers Are Blooming, Under the Old Portcullis" has something to do with the relationship between the Kingdom of Plants and the Kingdom of Animals. This hour-long piece attempts to trace consciousness (and its relationship with that which consciousness is conscious of) through its billion-year history (more poetically than scientifically), using as tools: 1) an hour-long melody which runs straight through the piece, and 2) imagery reflected in the title: a metaphoric storming of Kafka's impenitrable castle by plants, through the process of blooming in under the old portcullis. This CD can be purchased at the concert, or directly from Plonsey, or from
UNlimited sedition.
Cost: Free, donations accepted