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12/13/12 PR

THURSDAY DECEMBER 13, 2012, 8:00 PM, Admission by contribution

“No one shreds the fiddle quite like avant violinist Tom Chiu.”

Tom Chiu: The Shredder’s Guide to 2012

The Old Stone House
336 Third Street, bet. 4th/5th Avenues
Park Slope, Brooklyn
718-768-3195 – http://www.theoldstonehouse.org

Musical Ecologies is a new monthly symposium on music and sound held every 2nd Thursday at the Old Stone House in Park Slope, Brooklyn. Curated and hosted by composer Dan Joseph, each event focuses on a single artist who presents a work or project either in the form of a talk or lecture, a multimedia presentation, a performance, or combination thereof. Each presentation is preceded by a 30-minute conversation with the curator and audience. Admission is by contribution and a reception follows.

The third Musical Ecologies event features Brooklyn-based avant-garde violinist and composer Tom Chiu. The evening will begin with a conversation with Chiu about his in-depth experimentation with extended techniques, and how this exploration impacts his creative process and vocabulary. The conversation will be followed by some serious shredding, as Chiu performs some of his recent works, as well as those by particularly influential composers, including birthday boys Conlon Nancarrow (1912-1997) and John Cage (1912-1992), and works by Charanjit Singh and John Zorn

About the artist:

A noted champion of new music, groundbreaking violinist and composer Tom Chiu has performed over 200 premieres worldwide by influential composers such as Virko Baley, David First, Oliver Lake, Alvin Lucier, and Henry Threadgill, among many others. He has also worked closely with free jazz innovator Ornette Coleman, with whom he appeared at the Walker Arts Center in 2005. His extensive discography includes recordings for the Chesky, Innova, Koch, Mode, Sombient, and Tzadik labels. In a cross-discipline context Chiu has created new mixed-media works with choreographers Pam Tanowitz and Shen Wei, audio-video artists Phill Niblock and Elise Kermani, sculptor Ernesto Neto, conceptual balloonist Judy Dunaway, and director Lee Breuer from avant theater troupe Mabou Mines. His original works, dedicated to artists such as Joan La Barbara, Max Mandel, Bobby Few, and the OpenEnded Group, have been premiered at experimental venues such as Roulette, STEIM Amsterdam, the Noguchi Museum, Experimental Intermedia, and the Museum of the Moving Image. His numerous film credits further showcase his creative versatility: as composer, fiddler, voice-over artist, and actor (The Man With One Red Shoe, with Tom Hanks). As founder of the FLUX Quartet, he has led a pioneering new-music group which has become “legendary for its furiously committed, untiring performances.” (Alex Ross, www.therestisnoise.com) Chiu holds degrees in chemistry and music from Yale, along with a doctorate from Juilliard. He appears frequently as a commentator on contemporary music and culture, and has served as panelist and consultant in a variety of artistic formats.

Upcoming on Musical Ecologies: Eve Beglarian 1/10; Andrea Williams 3/21; Zach Layton 4/11; Jason Cady 5/16. More dates to be announced.

Facebook event page: https://www.facebook.com/events/116335171861931/