Semata Productions

Thursday, February 21st 2008
Bowed Metal Music
Brendan Murray
Nathan Ahlers


Bowed Metal Music

Peter Warren and Matt Samolis have been working with their modified ‘steel cellos’ since 1997. Bowed Metal is the name of their duo work dedicated to the study and performance of acoustic drone music created by bowing cymbals and tuned steel rods. Our work is loosely structured and is guided by the direction of each performance, being that the instruments themselves often dictate the available pitch and timbral pallet. Our role as players is largely to maintain a focus on the present moment, and an openness to the progression of this unusual music as it unfolds.

mattsamolis.com/ms_sounds.php?id=1



Brendan Murray
Working with analog and digital instruments since 1998, Brendan Murray is concerned with making long form dense compositions of pure sound. Drones remain at the core of his work, with connections between the visceral and the elegant an aesthetic priority. He has released 3 full-length cds of his work, as well as small cdr editions, and has played live throughout a good portion of the United States. Current activities include a new song-based band with live instruments called Paper Summer, a film score for a documentary on the Roma population of Macedonia, collaborative recordings with US sound artist Seth Nehil (as Sillage), a duet recording with Swiss guitarist Tomas Korber, a large scale audiovisual work with New York based multimedia artist Richard Garet and a new trio called Ouest with turntablist Jay Sullivan and longtime co-conspirator Howard Stelzer.
brendanmurray.com




Nathan Ahlers

composer/arranger/guitarist
member of Calliope quartet
organizer of Cross-Pollenization Music Fest
organizer of Coup d'etat series (at Piano Factory)

Thursday, January 17th 2008 - 8pm
Greg Kelley
Dave Tronzo / Andrew Hock
K:sada (D.J. Murray)
Greg Kelley

Greg Kelley has performed throughout the United States, Europe, Japan and Argentina at numerous festivals, in clubs, outdoors, in living rooms, in a bank, and at least once on a vibrating floor. He has collaborated w/ a number of musicians throughout the globe performing experimental music, free jazz and noise, releasing a number of recordings in the process. He constantly seeks to push the boundaries of the trumpet and of 'music'.


Dave Tronzo
David Tronzo has devoted most of his life to music since he first became mesmerized by it as a youthful rock-influenced teenager in the summer of 1972. He has literally and figuratively “traveled far” from his beginnings in rural Rochester, New York, where he was born in 1957, steadily honing his skills as a self-taught student to his modern-day evolution to becoming a world-renowned slide guitar musician and teacher. Tronzo has received the distinction of being voted one of the “Top 100 Guitarists of the 20th Century” by Musician Magazine (September, 1993 issue). In addition, the pundits in New York City bestowed their long-time resident (1979-2002) with more accolades (“Best Guitarist in N.Y.C.-1993” by the New York Press). Musician Magazine honored him with the distinction of being one of the “Top Ten Jazz Guitarists.” Tronzo’s unquenchable thirst for mastering his craft has provided him with a diversified taste in music, which can be seen in his unique playing style. Essentially, Tronzo envisions a style ranging widely in emotion and technique, weaving freely through all of the music he plays. The result is a startlingly innovative body of extended techniques for the slide guitar for which he is credited with creating: fluid single lines, finger-behind-the-slide chords, and harmonic slaps, using unconventional slide accoutrements such as plastic cups, rags, pencils and wires. His “inventiveness” as a slide guitarist has been the subject of two doctoral candidates’ ethnomusicology theses in Germany (1995 and 2001). In February 2002, critic Laurence Donahue-Greene credited Tronzo as being “a pioneer of the modern slide guitar.” (Open Ears column, allaboutjazz.com) Tronzo has toured extensively in Europe and the United States, gracing the stages of the most renowned international music festivals in the world. He has teamed up with acclaimed musicians in various duos and projects under his name (Tronzo Quartet/Tronzo Project), as well as others. He is linked with some of the most famous names in musicianship (e.g., David Bowie guitarist Reeves Gabrels and Michael Blake). Tronzo’s slide guitar can also be heard in the soundtracks to director Robert Altman’s film “Shortcuts” and Marco Brambilla’s “Excess Baggage.” He has also recorded and toured with Wayne Horvitz and The President, John Hiatt, John Lurie and The Lounge Lizards, John Cale, Marshall Crenshaw, Foday Muso Suso, Hassan Hakmoun, Gavin Friday, The Jazz Passengers, Mike Manieri, and David Sanborn. Most recently, Tronzo was nominated as one of thirty musicians worldwide to receive the CalArts/Alpert Award in the Arts for music. He is currently residing with his wife Kelly and their cat, Fred in Newmarket, New Hampshire. He is touring and recording in a solo format as well as with The Tronzo Trio (new CD release pending), The Tronzo/Herbert Duo with bassist Peter Herbert, and a new project “V-16” with drummer Jerry Granelli, bassist Anthony Cox and guitarist Christian Kogel (new CD release pending). Since 2001 Tronzo has been a frequent collaborator with Boston-based dub-jazz collective Club d'Elf, and can be heard on several of their CDs, including 2006's Now I Understand (Accurate), 2004's 100 Years Of Flight (Kufala) & Gravity All Nonsense Now (Kufala), which also features fellow Berklee Prof Dave "Fuze" Fiuczynski. He features prominently (along with John Medeski & Duke Levine) on their upcoming release, Perhapsody (Kufala), due June 19, 2007.

Andrew Hock
Andrew Hock is a guitarist/improviser living in Cambridge, MA. He has studied with Joe Morris, Mary Halvorson, and Ben Monder. Primarily working in the fields of extreme metal(ehnahre, castevet) and freely improvised music; this performance marks his first with teacher and mentor Dave Tronzo. His improvisation style is influenced by Derek Bailey, Joe Morris, Olivier Messiaen, Cecil Taylor, Morton Feldman, and the dark atmospheres of death and black metal. Andrew has won no awards.

k:sada
k:sada (D.J. Murray) will try to have you experience dimethyltryptamine aurally and without legal repercussions. He rarely performs, and lives with no heat.