Saturday, November 12, 7pm
I'm super excited to be a part of a show that Thomas Lundy has been trying to get to the Metro area for more than a year...thanks to Ryan Seward for inviting me!
$5 to $10 suggested donation
Down Space, 820 Main Street, Louisville, CO, 80027
Down&Out is a monthly series dedicated to experimental sonic activities, free improvisation, free jazz, EAI, noise, sound installation, happenings, etc.
An extremely special Down&Out No. 4 features:
Jaap Blonk - voice (Arnhem, Netherlands)
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Victoria Lundy - theremin & electronics (Denver)
Farrell Lowe - guitar (Boulder)
Matt Smiley - double bass (Fort Collins)
Ryan Seward - drums & percussion (Denver)
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Jaap Blonk (born 1953 in Woerden, Holland) is a self-taught composer, performer and poet. He went to university for mathematics and musicology but did not finish those studies. In the late 1970s he took up saxophone and started to compose music. A few years later he discovered his potential as a vocal performer, at first in reciting poetry and later on in improvisations and his own compositions. For almost two decades the voice was his main means for the discovery and development of new sounds. From around the year 2000 on Blonk started work with electronics, at first using samples of his own voice, then extending the field to include pure sound synthesis as well. He took a year off of performing in 2006. As a result, his renewed interest in mathematics made him start a research of the possibilities of algorithmic composition for the creation of music, visual animation and poetry.
As a vocalist, Jaap Blonk is unique for his powerful stage presence and almost childlike freedom in improvisation, combined with a keen grasp of structure. He has performed around the world, on all continents. With the use of live electronics the scope and range of his concerts has acquired a considerable extension.
Besides working as a soloist, he collaborated with many musicians and ensembles in the field of contemporary and improvised music, like Maja Ratkje, Mats Gustafsson, Joan La Barbara, The Ex, the Netherlands Wind Ensemble and the Ebony Band. He premiered several compositions by the German composer Carola Bauckholt, including a piece for voice and orchestra. A solo voice piece was commissioned by the Donaueschinger Musiktage 2002. On several occasions he collaborated with visual computer artist Golan Levin.
Blonk's work for radio and television includes several commissioned radio plays. He also makes larger-scale drawings of his scores, which are being exhibited.
He has his own record label, Kontrans, featuring a total of 22 available releases so far. Other Blonk recordings appeared on Staalplaat, Basta, VICTO, Ecstatic Peace, My Dance The Skull, Monotype, Plant Migration Records, Elegua Records and Scumbag Relations. His book/CD 'Traces of Speech' was published in 2012 by Hybriden-Verlag, Berlin. A comprehensive collection of his sound poetry came out as a book with 2 CDs in August, 2013, entitled "KLINKT".
http://www.jaapblonk.com/
FARRELL LOWE | A multi-instrumentalist concerned with the exploration and expansion of the language of improvisation and the development of the individual voice. Farrell has played with Ron Miles, Fred Hess, Don Cherry, Glenn Taylor, Erik Deutsch, Glenn Nitta, Terry Sines, Gordon Kennedy, Jack Wright, and a multitude of others in band and improvisation contexts.
https://soundcloud.com/farrell-lowe
MATT SMILEY | Matt Smiley is a bassist, composer and educator who has performed in a variety of musical settings over the last fifteen years. He has performed recently with legendary jazz musicians Terrell Stafford and Greg Osby, and worked with composer Alvin Lucier. For the last five years, Matt has assisted Dr. Paul Elwood with the University of Northern Colorado’s Open Space Music Festival and worked with festival artists Stephen Drury, Christian Wolff and Jean-Claude Risset.
http://mattsmiley.bandcamp.com
RYAN SEWARD | Ryan Seward is a percussionist, improviser, composer, and sound artist based in Denver, CO. His improvisational work centers around approaching the drum as a site of resonance and employing various techniques and preparations to achieve an extensive timbral palette. Seward curates the record label, emic rite, to document his own work and the work of other living experimental and contemporary improvisers, composers, and sound artists, especially those of the American Mountain West.
http://ryansewardmusic.bandcamp.com
