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Re:Sound festival — new & experimental music in concert, workshop & installation

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by Jarrett Hoffman

Cleveland Uncommon Sound Project will present the 2024 edition of its Re:Sound festival from Friday to Sunday, May 17-19.

Presenting both local and visiting artists who span all different strands of new and experimental music, the festival takes place at two locations. Convivium 33 Gallery will host a triple-bill concert each day at 7:30 pm, as well as a 2:30 pm workshop on Saturday led by festival headliner Elliott Sharp.

Meanwhile, three sound art installations will be presented on Saturday and Sunday from 10 am to 5 pm at Cleveland Museum of Art’s Community Arts Center, located at the Pivot Center for Art, Dance and Expression. Tickets for the festival are available here.

A headlining act is something new for Re:Sound, as Cleveland Uncommon Sound Project (CUSP) managing director Stephan Haluska explained during a recent interview. “He’s the only artist we booked ahead of our call for applications.”

[Read more…]

CUSP: Dick & Haluska redefine instruments at Crop Circles CD release party 

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by Max Newman

“We kind of wanted to explore the more aesthetically non-traditional approaches to playing our instruments.”

This was how harpist Stephan Haluska described his main musical goal on his album Crop Circles, made in collaboration with visionary flutist Robert Dick and released on January 19. The album’s release will be celebrated on Friday, January 26 at 8:00 pm at the Convivium 33 Gallery, when Dick and Haluska will be joined by the Max Hyde-Perry Ensemble in a presentation by the Cleveland Uncommon Sound Project.

“Honing into the weirder approaches to what we can get out of a flute and harp duo was, conceptually, the only thing we wanted to do going into this. Everything is improvised,” Haluska said during a recent telephone conversation.

This largely reflects Haluska’s own musical goals. Throughout his career, he has strived to push the boundaries of what the harp can do.

[Read more…]

Leah Asher embraces both knowledge and instinct in improvisations for Re:Sound

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by Stephanie Manning

“A lot of people have preconceived ideas about what free improv is, and that it means everything is totally random,” violinist Leah Asher said in a recent interview, speaking from her home in New York City. “But there is a total spectrum of the amount of determinacy in music, and I like to think about where I am on that spectrum.” Also a violist, composer, and visual artist, Asher recently recorded a series of improvisations for the Cleveland Uncommon Sound Project’s 2021 Re:Sound Festival.

As for where Asher sees herself on the spectrum of determinacy, she said the answer is somewhere in the middle. “I have a practice of developing ideas, either with certain techniques or certain sound worlds, and then picking a few of those to ruminate on during improvisation.” This approach makes for a mixture of planned and spontaneous elements, allowing her to both make decisions beforehand and create form in the moment.

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Jones, Parker, Csicsila, and McDaniel come together to celebrate “Black and Unknown Bards” for Re:Sound

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by Stephanie Manning

For Matthew Jones, the best part about performing is doing it with your longtime friends. Luckily, the vocalist was recently able to do just that when he recorded a concert in person with hornist Van Parker, percussionist Mell Csicsila, and composer/pianist Buck McDaniel. The four are frequent collaborators who know each other well both on- and off-stage.

“We hung out during the pandemic and have been each other’s support system in some way,” Jones said in a recent interview. “So when it came time to make music again, all it took was just getting the cobwebs off.” The quartet’s latest performance, presented as part of the Cleveland Uncommon Sound Project’s 2021 Re:Sound Festival, features pieces that are deeply rooted in the Black experience.

[Read more…]

Dante + Chin Duo explore shared dreamscapes in new work for Re:Sound

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by Stephanie Manning

While living halfway across the country from each other due to the pandemic, vocalist Nina Dante and flutist Dalia Chin of the Dante + Chin Duo began sharing their dreams as a way to stay connected. “My dreams mean a lot to me — they feel like dialogues that our top-side self gets to have with our subconscious self, and I take them really seriously,” Dante said in a recent interview. That intersection of dreams and reality inspired Which of my forms, the Duo’s new work composed for the Cleveland Uncommon Sound Project’s 2021 Re:Sound Festival.

A few months into lockdown, Dante dreamed about a woman who could take two different forms — specifically, two creatures who were in a predator-prey relationship. Fascinated by how the story portrayed the dualities of the spirit, the pair chose to represent that concept through a cougar and a deer. First, Chin sent Dante an improvisatory recording that set up the “sonic world.” This six-minute track was released as a standalone work late last year, but a shortened version would later become the first of Which of my forms’ four movements.

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Uncommon Sound Project: a conversation with bassoonist Dana Jessen 

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by Mike Telin 

The act of improvisation — creating a piece of music on the spot — is difficult to describe. “This type of music is not easy to talk about,” bassoonist, improviser, and educator Dana Jessen said during a recent telephone conversation. “There are some improvisers that don’t want to talk about their approach to the process because it feels a little less tangible than other musical genres.”

You can hear Dana Jessen create an in-the-moment composition on Sunday, December 8 at 7:00 pm at Praxis Fiber Workshop during a program titled “Locals.” Presented by the Cleveland Uncommon Sound Project, the evening of improvisation and storytelling through song will also include a performance by Kyle Kidd & Company featuring guitarist Pete Saudek. The event is free.

Jessen holds degrees in bassoon performance from Louisiana State University and the New England Conservatory. As a Fulbright Scholar in 2008-09, she studied in Amsterdam, and earned a masters in contemporary improvisation at the Artez Hogeschool voor de Kunsten in Arnhem, Netherlands in 2011.

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Cleveland Uncommon Sound Project to present Alia Musica Pittsburgh

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by Jarrett Hoffman

Composer and conductor Federico Garcia-De Castro was 12, living in his native Colombia, when a left-leaning politician named Bernardo Jaramillo Ossa was shot and killed at an airport in Bogotá.

“He was part of a whole political party that was exterminated one by one,” Castro said during a recent interview. “Estimates range from 3,000 to 5,000 people.”

Among all the killings, that one in March of 1990 left the biggest mark on Castro. “He was a very charismatic leader who was picking up more and more steam,” the musician said of Jaramillo. “I remember that I was very shocked and disturbed.” Years later, after seeing a documentary, he decided to write a piece in homage to that leader.

The new music ensemble Alia Musica Pittsburgh, which Castro directs and conducts, will perform his Memoria for soprano, violin, cello, guitar, and percussion this Sunday, October 27 at 7:00 pm at the Bop Stop. The free program also includes works by John Arrigo-Nelson, James Ogburn, Kerrith Livengood, and Bowling Green faculty composer Marilyn Shrude, and will serve as the season opener and kickstarter launch for the Cleveland Uncommon Sound Project.

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A look at the 2019 edition of the Re:Sound Festival of New and Experimental Music

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by Mike Telin

In summing up last year’s inaugural Re:Sound Festival of New and Experimental Music, ClevelandClassical.com critic David Kulma wrote that “[the] Festival was an ear-opening experience for the musically adventurous …this intense weekend of staggering, high-quality performances showed the virtues of a performer- oriented festival where each act is fully invested in its own chosen music.”

Judging from the stellar lineup of musicians the organizers have assembled, the sophomore edition of Re:Sound — which runs from June 6 through June 9 — promises to once again deliver a musically adventurous experience.   

The 2019 edition will include six concerts featuring fourteen soloists and ensembles from across the United States. And once again the concerts will take place in venues that will allow players and audiences to relax and spend time together. In addition to purchasing single tickets, Festival passes are also available.

Here’s a run-down of this year’s offerings.

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CUSP: Nakatani Gong Orchestra at Historic St. John’s (Mar. 30)

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by Nicholas Stevens

For a case study in the inadequacy of words to capture experiences, consider the gulf between describing the Nakatani Gong Orchestra and hearing, seeing, and feeling it live. A “large-ensemble nomadic sound art project,” according to founder, director, instrument-builder, and performer Tatsuya Nakatani, the NGO enlists local volunteers to play seventeen variously sized gongs. A description of the event might dwell on the bows and beaters that fourteen Ohioans recently used to play the gongs in concert. It might catalog the exact sounds the group created from one moment to the next. However, the proper language for this experience is that of enchantment. [Read more…]

CUSP: Tatsuya Nakatani and his Gong Orchestra

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by Jarrett Hoffman

Next up on the Cleveland Uncommon Sound Project’s concert series is an event that’s truly rare.

There is only one ensemble in the world made up of gongs played with bows, and that’s the Nakatani Gong Orchestra, which will give a free performance at St. John’s Episcopal Church in Ohio City on Saturday, March 30 at 8:00 pm.

The group was founded by Tatsuya Nakatani, who describes the project on his website as nomadic. That’s because for each performance, he loads up his van with instrument stands, bows and gongs — now seventeen of them — and heads out on the road. Where are the players, you might ask?

[Read more…]

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