The Interpretations Series 32nd season continues on Thursday March 10th, 2022 with baritone ​Thomas Buckner​ performing his 31st annual concert premiering newly commissioned works. The concert will take place at Roulette, 509 Atlantic Ave., Brooklyn, NY. Tickets are $20 for adults, $15 for students & seniors, available at Roulette.org and Interpretations.info.

The program will include three new works by composer/performers, all of whom will also perform:  Particle Bey by Earl Howard ​(synthesizer); Gold/Crack by ​Pauline Kim Harris ​(violin); ​and All Most the Blues by JD Parran ​(woodwinds). They will be joined by​ Conrad Harris​ (violin), Kyle Motl​ (bass), and ​Andrew Drury (percussion).

About the works:

Gold/Crack is ​a new large-scale composition by violinist/composer Pauline Kim Harris. Written specially for baritone Thomas Buckner and violin duo, ​String Noise​, it is a trilogy that may be performed in single movements, in pairs or as a whole. The work is inspired by the Korean word “geum,” which means both “gold” and “crack,” evoking the belief that strength comes with imperfection by mending and rebuilding brokenness. ​Gold/Crack​ is also inspired by sculptor Yee Soo Kyung’s ​Translated Vase​: a Moon Jar made from discarded fragments of other Moon Jars, held together with 24k gold leaf epoxy; and by a John Ashbury poem, ​Untitled​. The text is interspersed throughout as a reflection of memory and echo of the most inner subconscious.

Particle Bey for bass, synthesizer and voice by Earl Howard is a structured improvisation where the structures are clearly defined, ​Particle Bey​ uses binary time (call and response), very slow measured time (where the distance between pulses is long enough to be forgotten), undulating time (flows and splatters), with live electronic processing by the composer.

All Most the Blues by JD Parran​ for baritone, electronics and live processing, winds, and percussion, features poetry by Michael Castro, a former poet laureate of St. Louis, Missouri. Castro’s words are set to music that combines and juxtaposes both composition and improvisation in order to express the organic, humanistic energy of the poetry.

The program will conclude with a spontaneous group improvisation including all of the evening’s performers.

PLEASE NOTE:  Prior to entering Roulette, everyone aged 12 and older must show proof of having received at least one dose of an approved COVID-19 vaccine. We also ask that everyone please wear a mask.

About the artist:

For decades, baritone Thomas Buckner has dedicated himself to the promotion and performance of new and improvised music, collaborating with a host of new music luminaries including: Robert Ashley, Noah Creshevsky, Tom Hamilton, Earl Howard, Matthias Kaul, Leroy Jenkins, Bun Ching Lam, Annea Lockwood, Roscoe Mitchell, Phill Niblock, Wadada Leo Smith, Chinary Ung, Christian Wolff, and many others.

Buckner has appeared at Lincoln Center, Carnegie Hall, the Herbst Theatre, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Berlin Spring Festival, the Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival, the Prague Spring Festival, and the Angelica Festival of Bologna. He is featured on over 50 recordings, including 6 solo albums, the most recent being Conversations With My Soul (Navona Records, 2021), a collection of new chamber works by acclaimed composer-pianist Bun-Ching Lam. Also released in 2021 was Voicescapes, a collaboration with Danish vocalist Randi Pontoppidan on Chant Records.

For the past 31 years Thomas Buckner has curated the Interpretations series in New York City, and continues to produce recordings on the Mutable Music label, introducing current artists and repertoire, as well as presenting important historic material, previously unavailable in CD format.

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The Interpretations series, now in its 32nd season, is a New York-based concert series focusing on the relationship between contemporary composers and their interpreters. Sometimes the interpreters are the composers themselves; more often, the series features performers who specialize in the interpretation of new music. Since its inception in 1989, Interpretations has featured leading figures in contemporary music and multimedia, including Muhal Richard Abrams, Robert Ashley, Anthony Braxton, Thomas Buckner, FLUX Quartet, Joseph Kubera, Annea Lockwood, and Alvin Lucier, Roscoe Mitchell, Phill Niblock, Pauline Oliveros, Ursula Oppens, and Morton Subotnick.

Interpretations began as a collaboration with Robert and Helene Browning and the World Music Institute, presenting concerts at Merkin Concert Hall, then at Roulette, at its Greene Street location in Soho. When Roulette moved to the current space in Brooklyn, Interpretations moved with it. Interpretations is thrilled to co-produce at Roulette, which has developed into a premiere venue for new and innovative music, with excellent acoustics and world-class technical facilities.

UPCOMING:

THURSDAY APRIL 7TH:  KAREN POWER / STUART SAUNDERS SMITHIrish composer Karen Power will preside over two recent works, the US premiere of sonic pollinators, a work pairing Irish pollinators with a unique trio from Quiet Music Ensemble; and loaded silence for piano and Arctic ice to be performed by pianist Isabelle O’Connell. This performance has been supported by Culture Ireland. / Vermont based composer Stuart Saunders Smith will offer a program of duos all featuring percussion, including Family Portraits, Our Home (for soprano & vibraphone), The Envelope Poems, and Castine, with performers Jude Traxler (vibraphone & voice) Sylvia Smith (voice), Madeline Dethloff (marimba), Tiffany Du Mouchelle (voice), and Stephen Solook (vibraphone).

THURSDAY MAY 12TH:  JUHO LAITINEN / TOM HAMILTONFinnish cellist Juho Laitinen will perform a new work for electronically generated sounds and live instrumentalists based on the notion of one-dimensional lines reacting to gravitational forces by means of implosion and explosion. / New York based composer Tom Hamilton will offer new and recent mixed-media works including TH SR, a video work by Mimi Garrard featuring dancer Samuel Roberts with Hamilton’s electronic score; and Habitat Paradox, a work for ensemble featuring Bonnie Lander (voice), Alex LoRe (saxophone), Jacqueline Martelle (flute), Joe Moffett (trumpet), Andie Tanning (violin) and Hamilton on electronics.

ROULETTE:
509 Atlantic Ave. Downtown Brooklyn
2, 3, 4, 5, C, G, D, M, N, R, B & Q trains & LIRR.
Tickets are $20 for adults, $15 for students & seniors, available at Roulette.org and Interpretations.info.
All concerts begin at 8pm unless otherwise noted.