Monday, August 10, 2009

ALO @ The Stone 8/8/09

Matt Manieri was a no show, but Ned was there. It was great. 2 people shared a piano, which was quite interesting. They would move around and eventually each of them played the whole range. I've realized I'm having a piano month, with Henry the other night and the Highline series. Now 2 people on 1 piano.

Ned played one of those tribal looking reed and clarinet.

There was also a laptop at times, it was somewhat minimal, which was good. The artists seemed to like it, I guess it brought the melodies of the piano and the tribal sounds from Ned up to a modern feel. I didn't mind it, I think it was that it sounded a little off to me in the PA system. It might have been purposeful distortion, it just didn't do it for me.

We also got a couple of great poems.

I liked when the pianists played the inside wood of the piano, the bridge that separates the strings. The guy also played the lid with a hard object, it looked like a very large marble. That was the extent of the percussion. It was pretty cool.

It was nice. I enjoyed it a lot. It was quite beautiful and never dull.

10 pm
ALO
Jesse Elder, Aya Nishina (piano four hands)
James Brendan Adamson (live electronics)
Ned Rothenberg (shakuhachi, clarinet, saxophone)
Mat Maneri (viola)

The innovative four hand piano duet ALO (the Latin word meaning to nourish, cherish, support, and sustain) is a collaborative project between long time friends Jesse Elder and Aya Nishina. ALO focuses on generating a new repertoire for 4 hand piano duo through improvisations, compositions and arrangements. The duo will be creating a radical sound sculpture together with live electronics by the great James Brendan Adamson and with woodwindist Ned Rothenberg as part of their program.

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