#maya bennardo

[sinceileftyoublog]

BCMC & andplay Live Show Review: 2/20, Constellation, Chicago

BCMC

BY JORDAN MAINZER

Tuesday night marked the beginning of the Peter Margasak-curated Frequency Festival, an annual event hosted by Constellation that focuses on contemporary classical and experimental music. Though this year's lineup is heavy on microtonal music, specifically string players, the headliner of night one was a guitar-and-synth-wizard supergroup. BCMC is guitarist Bill MacKay and Cave/Bitchin Bajas multi-instrumentalist Cooper Crain. They had been playing live together for a few years before releasing their debut album Foreign Smokes last year via Drag City. Unlike what I imagine was the experience of many folks in the crowd on Tuesday, this was my first time seeing BCMC live. Witnessing their performance after their album was released, meaning I had a number of months to digest it, gave me a greater appreciation for how the duo was able to, live, build off of their compositions.

BCMC started off with abstract sounds, gradually becoming more concrete before reverting back to rounded noise. MacKay's bluesy guitar riffs embedded within Crain's synthesizer hum, replete with a sense of motion akin to a chugging train, simultaneously swirling and gentle. At times, the songs turned percussive, via pulsations, as MacKay either meandered or ripped slide guitar licks. Even Crain got an opportunity to solo on the keyboard on "The Swarm". Simultaneously tactile and droney, BCMC were able to lull you into hypnosis and suddenly capture you at the command of their instruments.

andPlay

The opening set from NYC-based string duo andPlay, meanwhile, set the tone (no pun intended) for the rest of the festival's ethos. Violinist Maya Bennardo and violist Hannah Levinson performed the two pieces that make up their latest album Translucent Harmonies (Another Timbre), both of which use just intonation. Kristofer Svensson's "Vid stenmuren blir tanken blomma" (“By the Stone Wall, Thoughts Become Flower”) emphasized extremely short strokes of different lengths and volume, using pauses and ultimate silence to create a sense of tension and disintegration. At times, one player would play a note--a mere pluck--and the other would continue their stroke, resembling a sort of synaptic process. Ultimately, the piece was paradoxically meditative, consistent in its lack of consistency. Their second piece, Catherine Lamb's "Prisma Interius VIII", was comparatively deliberate, the players playing in tandem at times and not just off of each other. As a duo, in contrast to larger ensembles who have played on other recorded versions of the piece, Bennardo and Levinson were able to strip "Prisma Interius VIII" down to its essential elements. Though there were many contrasts between andPlay and BCMC--in instrumentation, in groove (or lack thereof), in space--the two acts shared a common desire to hold your patience and deep attention, toy with your expectations, and make you reflect.

[burlveneer-music]

JG Thirlwell & Mivos Quartet - Dystonia - I would not have guessed back in the Foetus days that he'd eventually write music for string quartet

"You’re about to listen to a powerful collection of string quartets written by JG Thirlwell, dynamically performed by the brilliant Mivos Quartet. Released collectively under the title Dystonia, they represent Thirlwell’s dark and jagged vision of past, present and future. Although Dystonia refers to a medical condition that causes involuntary contractions of the muscles, I can’t help making associations — Dys-Ton(e)-ia, Dissonance, Dysrhythmia, Destiny. All five works here project different shades of a bodily, psychological, and societal Dysfunction through a bold, insistent music that grabs you and takes you where it wants to go." — Michael Gordon Deeply challenging, even confrontational, to the classical string quartet format, composer JG Thirlwell's Dystonia is a leap forward not only for listeners, but for musicians as well. Mivos Quartet's fiery interpretation of these five pieces — each in its own way difficult, harrowing, engaging and uplifting — is also a tribute to their dedication, skill and sense of adventure as artists. Thirlwell works under many pseudonyms, including Manorexia, Foetus, Xordox, Steroid Maximus, Baby Zizanie, Hydroze Plus, Clint Ruin and Wiseblood. Over the course of more than thirty albums. If there's a common thread to his varied musical styles, it's a dramatic intensity and an evocative, cinematic quality. The same holds true for his approach to this astonishing project, which was conceived and developed over a period of years, beginning in 2014. As he succinctly puts it: “Hopefully Dystonia will challenge and inspire people to think differently about what a string quartet can be.”  Performed by Mivos Quartet: Olivia De Prato - violin Maya Bennardo - violin Victor Lowrie Tafoya - viola Tyler J. Borden - cello

[sometimes-music]

performed by Mivos Quartet

OLIVIA DE PRATO, violin

MAYA BENNARDO, violin

VICTOR LOWRIE TAFOYA, viola

TYLER J. BORDEN, cello

D-Will, the chase-down block, and other orderly butterflies by Cullyn Murphy (2019)

[hpmoon]

Music by: Alvin Lucier: Disappearances 2019 Mivos/Kanter String Quartet Composition Prize Winner Peter Kramer: Three Fragments Henry Threadgill: Sixfivetwo 2020 Mivos/Kanter String Quartet Composition Prize Winner Bethany Younge: Carving Our Wooden Bodies

Mivos Quartet are: Olivia De Prato & Maya Bennardo, violin Victor Lowrie Tafoya, viola T.J. Borden, cello http://mivosquartet.com

Videography & sound: H. Paul Moon Assistant videographer: Blair Kanghyuk Naujok

[cliffcrego]

READING: #essay The Little Clavier & the Idea of Sympathetic Resonance #pdf [.5Mb] bit.ly/1z0iNiN Key concept in the world of Nature

SOUNDS: Pharos [with ASKO Ensemble] & Violin Etude I [with Maya Bennardo]

[bloomsburgu]

URSCA takes center stage at regional symposium

Topics ranging from drone efficiency to translating neglected Viking sagas to the art of healing through color among those presented by Bloomsburg University students at the 9th annual Susquehanna Valley Undergraduate Research Symposium (SVURS) at Bucknell University.

The projects were a part of BU’s Undergraduate research, Scholarly, and Creative Activity (URSCA) program that funded nearly 30 projects this summer. Of them, Hannah Geczi’s work on “Police Lethal Shootings and Cases of Suicide by Cop: An Exploratory Study” earned her an award from the symposium.

Geczi was among the four oral presentation winners. SVURS also awarded winners for poster presentations and an audience favorite. Geczi was the lone Bloomsburg award winner. More than 100 students representing Bloomsburg, Bucknell, Susquehanna and Geisinger Health System participated in the symposium. 

URSCA provides an opportunity for Bloomsburg students to engage in a focused research or creative experience within their academic discipline to enhance their competitiveness for jobs and graduate school. The program provides summer student employment for work on the proposed project.

URSCA Projects

Arianna Ambrosio, anthropology major — “The Economic Foundations of Classic Maya Urbanism”

Nicholas Ashenfelter, computer science major — “BloomBus Project”

Guy Bennardo, psychology major — “Role of Dopamine D1-Like Receptors in Chronic Stress-Potentiated Relapse to Palatable Food Seeking Following Punishment-Induced Abstinence”

Stephan Budkin, chemistry major — “Template-Free Nanofabrication of High Surface Area Electrodes”

Hannah Bonomo, history major — “Why History Matters”

Laura Comstock, history major — “Egyptian Coptic Christians: Modernity, Missionaries, and Uncertain Identity”

Francesca Crimi, art history major — “LinLu Daku Project: The Art of Healing Through Color”

Michael Engle, digital forensics major — “Using OSINT Techniques for Human Trafficking”

Michael Facella, biology major — “The Extent of Microplastics in Chesapeake Bay Shrimp”

Tara Full, chemistry major — “Effects of BORIS on TERRA Transcription”

Hannah Geczi, criminal justice major — “Police Lethal Shootings & Cases of Suicide by Cop: An Exploratory Study”

Bailey Gemberling, history major — “Living Under the Canopy: Using LiDAR and Archaeology to Reconstruct the Settlement History of a Classic Maya Kingdom”

Robert Grow, exercise science major — “The Comparison of Barbell Velocity between Linear Position Transducer and iPhone Application during Squat”

Kyle Mausteller, biology major — “Investigating the Role of CTCF on Telomere Replication”

Ashley Moreno, anthropology and nursing dual major— “Infant Mortality Rates and Maternal Education in the Arusha Region of Tanzania”

Hosanna Mullen, psychology major — “Adolescent Mental Health and Youth-Led Interventions”

Michael O’Donnell, computer science major — “BloomBus Project”

Samara Osburn, undeclared — “Continuing Explorations: Translating Neglected Viking Sagas”

Jessica Paoletti, biology major — “Parental Foraging Effort of Tree Swallows (Tachycineta Bicolor) in Different Chick Age Classes”

Austin Pasquel, digital forensics major — “How Virtual is a Virtual Machine?”

Sweetie Patel, anthropology major — “The Wall: Perceptions of Flood Protection and Residential Responses in Bloomsburg, Pennsylvania”

Janae Renno, sociology major — “Teens Leading toward Greater Mental Health”

Michael Rumbough, digital forensics major — “Drone Efficiency, Investment, and Consequences of Use”

Hannah Sheppard, art history major — “The Struggles and Successes of Donald De Lue and his Exploration of Printmaking”

Adam Shultz, psychology major — “Role of Dopamine D1-Like Receptors in Chronic Stress-Potentiated Relapse to Palatable Food Seeking Following Punishment-Induced Abstinence”

Sierra Smith, biology major — “The Extent of Microplastics in Chesapeake Bay Shrimp”

Kirsten Snyder, anthropology major — “The Effects of the Amazigh Movement on Amazigh Women”

Kayla Sompel, biology major — “Associating melanoma tumor cell plasticity with resistance to clinically relevant MAPK inhibitors”

Leah Topping, environmental geoscience major — “Use of UAV Technology in Reconstructing the Alluvial Architecture of Triassic-Jurassic Stratigraphy, Colorado Plateau, Arizona and Utah”

Mitch Troutman, history major — “The Bootleg Coal Rebellion: Bootleg Coal Mining in Pennsylvania 1925-1942”

Jordan Wyant, digital forensics major — “Riding the digital highway with outlaw motorcycle gangs: Applying OSINT techniques to assess member criminality and connectivity”

Samantha Yeick, criminal justice major — “Lycoming County Drug and DUI Court Evaluation”

[thoregil]

Ambrose Akinmusire kom med en konsert virkelig utenom det vanlige – Jazz og rap finurlig sydd sammen med en klassisk strykekvartett. En av de konsertene som vil bli huska fra årets festival.

Ambrose Akinmusire – trompet Nappy Nina – vokal Sam Harris – piano/keyboards Kweku Sumbry – trommer

Mivos String Quartet: Maya Bennardo- fiolin Olivia DePrato – fiolin Victor Lowrie – bratsj Tyler Borden – cello

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2019-07-16 Ambrose Akinmusire – Origami Harvest – Storyville, Moldejazz Ambrose Akinmusire kom med en konsert virkelig utenom det vanlige – Jazz og rap finurlig sydd sammen med en klassisk strykekvartett.

[burlveneer-music]

JG Thirlwell & Mivos Quartet - Dystonia

Performed by Mivos Quartet: Olivia De Prato - violin Maya Bennardo - violin Victor Lowrie Tafoya - viola Tyler J. Borden - cello

[burlveneer-music]

Mary Halvorson - Belladonna - the other of her two new albums

Belladonna is a set of five compositions written for Halvorson on guitar plus The Mivos Quartet: Olivia De Prato (violin), Maya Bennardo (violin), Victor Lowrie Tafoya (viola), and Tyler J. Borden (cello). It is Halvorson’s first time writing for a string quartet. Mivos’ parts are through-composed and augmented by Halvorson’s guitar improvisations.

[sinceileftyoublog]

Live Picks: 8/30

Ambrose Akinmusire; Photo by Christie Hemm Klok

BY JORDAN MAINZER

Art Ensemble of Chicago & Ambrose Akinmusire Quartet, Jay Pritzker Pavilion

“We are on the edge of existing,” proclaims Moor Mother (Camae Ayewa) on the title track of We Are On The Edge: A 50th Anniversary Celebration, the new album from The Art Ensemble of Chicago. It’s a statement that could not exemplify the collective any more aptly. Over the past five decades, the band and its various incarnations (the only founding members still active are Roscoe Mitchell and drummer Famodou Don Moye) have dominated the underground and the worlds of jazz to occasionally surface on the mainstream. But from the perspective of black humanism, it’s even more powerful. Earlier in the song, Ayewa declares, “We are on the edge of victory...After all that dope and dancing and drunkenness, we are on the edge.” She shares a litany of black oppression, turning “We are on the edge of existing” into a statement of disappearance rather than emergence. In the context of today’s America, it makes the journey to keep on existing and thriving even more radical, the context that makes We Are On The Edge an absolutely essential listen. Consisting of one disc of re-recorded and never-recorded works and new compositions, and another of a live set recorded at Ann Arbor’s Edgefest, it shows Mitchell’s composition chops and the band’s instrumental dynamism as results of black excellence.

What’s most striking is hearing the radical difference between the recorded and live versions of the newly composed songs, let alone between the old and new versions. Performed live, the title track has no Moor Mother, trading the studio version’s extroverted power to a more somber, noisy affair; the audience clapping at the end, the first you hear of them on the record, doesn’t take you out of the experience but rather adds to it. “Chi-Congo 50″, originally a Malachi Favors composition, is turned on its head by Titos Sompa, Enoch Williamson, and Moye, its live version bumping up the percussion tenfold. The Latin rhythms of “Saturday Morning”’s studio version are usurped by pummeling percussion and blaring alto saxophone in the live performance. And while the studio version of “Oasis at Dusk” emphasizes Mitchell’s saxophone, the live version’s standout is Nicole Mitchell’s flute solo. The only exception is perhaps “Mama Koko”, whose two versions are equally beatific.

Moreover, the spoken word and singing stands out. Moor Mother appears again on “I Greet You With Open Arms”; hearing her viciously contrast the title with phrases like “I greet you with a thousand bombs” over spidery plucks of strings is truly eerie. And the operatic Rodolfo Cordova-Lebron dominates the two parts of “Jamaican Farewell” and 80′s Mitchell composition “Variations and Sketches from the Bamboo Terrace”. Of course, Mitchell is the default leader, but by the time he introduces the band on final track “Odwalla/The Theme”, you feel like he’s giving proper due to the members of the ensemble not just today but throughout history, propelling them back into concrete existence.

Album score: 8.6/10

We Are On The Edge: A 50th Anniversary Celebration by Art Ensemble of Chicago

Trumpeter Ambrose Akinmusire plays beforehand with his quartet: pianist Sam Harris, bassist Harish Raghavan, and drummer Justin Brown. His latest album is last year’s Origami Harvest, which saw him collaborating with former Das Racist rapper Kool A.D. as well as string masters the Mivos Quartet. What tonight’s quartet will play is unknown, but led by the person responsible for such 2010′s jazz staples as When the Heart Emerges Glistening and The Imagined Savior Is Far Easier to Paint, you know it’s gonna be good.

Goldfinger, House of Blues

Ska punk legends Goldfinger haven’t released a proper album since 2017′s better-than-it-should-have-been The Knife, their first since 2008. (They released a Christmas EP last year.) There’s no talk of a follow-up, and their currently announced tour dates are simply Chicago, St. Louis, and the UK, so if you like Goldfinger, see them now--you never know when they’ll be back.

Fellow ska punks Big D and the Kids Table and The Planet Smashers open.

[sometimes-music]

D-Will, the chase-down block, and other orderly butterflies. is a meditation on causation and retroactive investigation. An eventual trajectory and even the potential presence of trajectory is slowly revealed and immediately taken away once discovered. The piece's form takes shape through a crossfade of specificity and intelligibility leaving both sides arguably ambiguous with a seemingly unpredicted result. In the title's case, we are offered "D-Will" which refers to former NBA player Deron Williams, "the chase-down block" which refers to Lebron James' infamous chase-down block to seal the 2016 NBA Finals, and "other orderly butterflies." which refers to an organized "butterfly effect" and insinuates that both Deron Williams, the player, and Lebron James' block may have also been seemingly inconsequential moments of impact in a larger scheme which greatly affected the resultant league today. I am amazed and obsessed with how these and other obvious or completely unrelated connections coalesce at unexpected awe-inspiring and devastating moments.

To Michael Stern for inspiration, hard work, and concerts.

Olivia De Prato, violin Maya Bennardo, violin Victor Lowrie Tafoya, viola Tyler J. Borden, cello