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STUDIO Z Blog

A PROJECT OF ZEITGEIST NEW MUSIC

Eric Stokes Song Contest Winner Bryan Schumann

2/19/2013

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Bryan Schumann is one of three winners of Zeitgeist’s 18th annual Eric Stokes Song Contest. The Eric Stokes Song Contest is sponsored by Zeitgeist in memory of late composer Eric Stokes; the contest was designed to encourage and celebrate amateur composers throughout the Twin Cities. Bryan's winning composition "Nothing Avenue" will be performed on Zeitgeist's Playing it Close to Home concert series Feb. 22-24. We asked Bryan a few questions to learn more about his music and his process of composing. 


You perform as an improviser with Those Who Make Sound and The Eclectic Ensemble. How does your experience as an improviser impact you as a composer? 

By playing a very large amount of improvisation over the past few years, and playing with numerous different artists with electronic, non-traditional, and even homemade instruments, I have discovered hundreds of amazing new sounds that I have begun to employ in classical, written-out compositions. Also, I am now more open to the idea of letting the performer take more liberties when it comes to performing my music. I used to make sure that every note was marked with exact articulation, dynamic, and phrase markings; I was a micro-manager. Now I have come to realize that great performers are going to give great performances regardless. The whole experience has been very freeing. One of my newest works, Sunday for solo electric guitar, uses looping software and a number of FX pedals, and allows the performer to start and stop each new phrase whenever they so desire creating an expandable form. I've elaborated on this extensively in my blog atwww.thosewhomakesound.com. 
 
“Nothing Avenue” was released on your debut album “Everybody Wants to Know.” How did this project come to be and what was the process like? 
 
The songs on the "Everybody Wants to Know" album were written over a period of about 3 years (from 2006 through 2008). When I began writing these songs I was studying music at Augsburg College and collaborating in writing music and playing electric guitar in the rock band The Art Heist; I thought it would be fun to write a song or two for just voice and classical guitar. About a year later, when I was over 5 songs in, I began playing the songs in coffee shops around the Twin Cities for fun. It was shortly thereafter I started jamming with my friend Bjorn Villesvik who plays upright bass and my girlfriend Kate DeVoe Schumann (now wife), who plays trumpet. In the fall of 2008 I approached my friend Michael Lannier and asked if he would be interested in helping me record and produce an album of 10 songs. He ended up playing percussion, synthesizer, and singing harmonies on a number of the songs. In the spring of 2009 I was awarded the American Composer Forumsubito Grant to press and release the album. Writing those songs, collaborating and performing with my friends, and releasing the album was an absolutely amazing experience that really changed my life.


Zeitgeist: Playing it Close to Home
February 22-24

Tickets and more information at: http://www.zeitgeistnewmusic.org/playing-it-close-to-home.php
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Zeitgeist celebrates the music of Jeffrey Brooks

2/18/2013

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Zeitgeist’s annual Playing it Close to Home concert celebrates the wealth of compositional creativity in our Twin Cities musical community. We feature winning entries from our annual Eric Stokes Song Contest along with musical works from one of our community's most highly esteemed composers. This year, we’re featuring works by Jeffrey Brooks. Jeff is a native, Mankato born and raised, but he spent young adulthood studying composition at Yale with Martin Bresnick, falling in love with his wife Maura, traveling, and forming close friendships with some of the most vibrant minds in new music, a club in which he is a member. 

Eventually, Jeff and Maura came back to Minnesota and began contributing in amazing ways to our local new music scene. Along with Mary Ellen Childs, the three of them founded Corn Palace Productions, an organization that brought into being several new music-theater works. In recent years, Jeff’s pen has been quieter, slowed by Parkinson’s disease. Even so, he is creating some of his finest work, as our performance of After the Treewatcher (2012) will attest. Our repertoire for this concert features works by Jeffrey from the early 1990s to just last year, and it has been a profound experience to immerse myself in these chamber works.

Jeffrey Brooks is Minnesota born, but while working in rehearsal on the many works we are preparing for this concert, I don’t hear Minnesota sounds. I hear music from around our whole country. Jeffrey takes care to truly understand the musicians for whom he is writing. He makes sure to tap into their strengths and to write music that performers will love to play. Thus, when we are rehearsing Planting Tears, a work he wrote for the Milwaukee ensemble, Present Music, I hear the understated elegance that typifies that ensemble along with the intricate lines that they execute so well. Skeleton Crew, written for New York based Bang on a Can, is brash and amped up, with a jagged groove that keeps one just slightly off-balance. I bet they relished playing it. On the opposite coast is Thinking Flame, a work Jeff wrote for the California E.A.R Unit. Brilliant and propulsive, it reminds me ever so slightly of Frank Zappa, who collaborated with them on several occasions. Jeff has written one work for Zeitgeist, the tongue-in-cheek Still Life for Compressed Air. At just under three minutes long, it’s brevity is perfect for it’s musical message, but it certainly leaves me wanting more for this ensemble. Perhaps Jeff’s next major chamber work can sound exactly like Zeitgeist and the vibrant city we call home. 


Zeitgeist: Playing it Close to Home
February 22-24

Tickets and more information at: http://www.zeitgeistnewmusic.org/playing-it-close-to-home.php
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Interview with Stan Rothrock of Renegade Ensemble

2/4/2013

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RenegadeEnsemble will present extended techniques at 7:30 p.m. on Friday, Feb. 8 at Studio Z. The music on this concert will require the performers to use their instruments in unusual ways, and Twin Cities visual artist Jamie Winter Dawson will present live action painting during the concert. RenegadeEnsemble artistic director Stan Rothrock shares a preview of the concert and his thoughts on contemporary music. For tickets to the concert and more information, visithttp://extech.brownpapertickets.com/


This concert season RenegadeEnsemble is collaborating with local visual artists. What effect do you think this collaboration will have on the ensemble and their performances? 

I don't think this collaboration will have a strong influence on the performers while they are performing, but I do think it will have a strong impact on the artists.  From the artists perspective, I think they will be listening actively to what we are playing, opening their ears and minds to the soundscapes, and letting that guide the art.  For the performers, I think they can more appropriately observe and reflect on the artwork that came out of our performance.  They can think about how what they did led to the artwork that was produced. 

The Feb. 8 concert features works using extended techniques. What are extended techniques, and how do you feel they enhance the music on this program? 

Extended techniques are non-traditional ways in which to make sounds on traditional instruments.  This might involve plucking or hammering the strings inside the piano, growling into a saxophone, slapping or smacking the mouthpiece of ones instrument, or using fingerings that create strange sounds.  Though extended techniques are becoming an accepted norm for composers currently writing music, many newcomers to modern classical music may have not heard the likes of these unusual sounds.  I feel strongly that having a concert focused on extended techniques opens up a number of possibilities to the audience and raises the question..."What is music?"  For some, these sounds might be considered bizzare, ugly, and unpleasant; however, in context, these sounds really enhance the musical themes and ideas that the composer is trying to bring to the foreground.  Expect to hear new things, be open, and enjoy!

When you work through a set of repertoire for a concert, do you have a specific vision of what the result is going to be at the beginning of the process?  

I don't really!  In fact, I'm NOT a fan of themed concerts, so I don't pick music that is forced to fit into one larger idea...if that happens, so be it!  I do pick music based upon the likes/preferences of the players, variety within the collection of works, and things that I enjoy aesthetically.  I am aware that I have a strong affinity toward minimalism and; while I usually slate a piece or two of this ilk, I am trying to steer myself and the ensemble away from this "rut." 

What analogy would you use to describe what performing contemporary music is like to someone who is unfamiliar with new music? 

I would say that performing contemporary music is much like reading Shakespeare!  One might be forced to read a play once, not REALLY understand it, but perhaps have a marginal idea of what the play is about initially.  Then, when you read the same play again, you learn a bit more that you didn't notice the first time around.  The more you "get into" the play, the more you keep finding!  You start to get the jokes, the puns, the analogies, etc., until you really understand the play.  Performing contemporary music is much like this.  You learn the notes and rhythms (which, in and of themselves, are sometimes unusual and hard to grasp).  The more you rehearse, the more you "get over" the notes, rhythms, and "unusual" sounds, and begin to understand the structure, construction, phrasing, themes, etc.  You rehearse some more and then notice some things you hadn't noticed before.  Even during performances, I'm finding new things with contemporary music!  What is great about this process is that, I'm usually finding things that no one else EVER has discovered--especially if I'm one of the first people to ever play a piece of music!
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