conversations / interviews / revelations
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~ new episodes, featuring conversations with Du Yun, Jessie Cox, Julien Malaussena, and DM R with the Colombian Composers Collective and Natalie Calma coming soon ~
Episode 015. Brandon Lopez
& Gerald Cleaver
TAK commissioned and performed Empty Church of Plenty with Brandon in the fall of 2019 at St. Mary’s Church in Harlem and on the 2020 New Ear Festival.
Brandon Lopez is a bassist/improviser/composer who works at the intersection of jazz, free improvisation, noise and new music. He has been an artist-in-residence at Roulette and Issue Project Room, performed as a soloist with the NYPhilharmonic and in ensembles with Fred Moten, Okkyung Lee, Ingrid Laubrock, Tyshawn Sorey and Gerald Cleaver, who is his guest for this episode.
Gerald Cleaver, a drummer/improviser/composer who’s worked with Henry Threadgill, Roscoe Mitchell, Muhal Richard Abrams, and William Parker. He’s the bandleader of Violet Hour, Black Host and he recently released an album of electronic music titled Signs.
Episode 014. Bethany Younge
& Merche Blasco
Bethany was one of TAK's commissioned composers of the 2019-2020 season, and we premiered her work "at midnight I walked into the middle of the desert" at Saint Mary's Church in Harlem last fall. On today's episode, Bethany speaks with Merche Blasco, a multimedia artist and composer based in New York.
Blasco designs and builds imprecise technological assemblages that catalyze embodied forms of live electroacoustic composition and new modes of listening. Through her constructed devices, she attempts to establish a more horizontal relationship with other entities, distancing herself from parameters of precision, power, and control. As an alternative form of performance, she engineers collaborative spaces with instruments that are given their own agency, in compositions where her body and the live exploration of organic materials are central elements.
Alan Woods was born in 1944 in Swansea, South Wales, into a working-class family with strong Communist traditions. At the age of 16 he joined the Labour Party Young Socialists and became a Marxist. He studied Philosophy and Russian at Sussex University, and later in Sofia (Bulgaria), and at Moscow State University (MGU). He has a wide experience of the international labor and solidarity movements, particularly in Latin America, Pakistan, Russia, and Spain, where he participated in the struggle against the Franco dictatorship. He is a member of the National Union of Journalists in the UK. Along with Ted Grant, Alan Woods was one of the main theoreticians of the Militant tendency in Britain in the 1970s and 1980s, and the editor of the Militant International Review. He is currently the political editor of the popular website In Defence of Marxism (www.marxist.com), and Secretary of the International Marxist Tendency (IMT).
This week on the podcast, Ashkan Behzadi and Saharnaz Samaeinejad interview Marxist political theorist Alan Woods about art and socialism.
Episode 012. Devon Osamu Tipp
& Chatori Shimizu
Shaped by sonic sensitivity from a young age, Pittsburgh based composer/performer/artist Devon Osamu Tipp creates unorthodox musical environments from ostensibly incompatible realms. Tipp’s music draws influence from his Japanese and Eastern European roots, his experiences as a jeweler and painter, improvisations with plants, and his studies of gagaku and hogaku in Japan and the US.
TAK had the pleasure of working with Devon earlier this year when we were in residence at the University of Pittsburgh, where he’s currently pursuing a doctorate in composition.
On today's episode, Devon speaks with Dresden based composer, shō performer, and sound artist Chatori Shimizu. As the First Prize Winner of the 2016 Malta International Composition Competition, Shimizu's works have been performed and exhibited throughout Australia, Canada, China, France, Germany, Japan, South Korea, the Netherlands, Poland, Serbia, Thailand, United Kingdom, and the United States.
Episode 011. Hannah Kendall
& Elaine Mitchener
Hannah Kendall is a composer whose work has been described as ‘…intricately and skillfully wrought’ by The Sunday Times. Her music has attracted the attentions of the London Philharmonic Orchestra, BBC Singers, Seattle Symphony Orchestra and Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, with performances at the Royal Festival Hall, Queen Elizabeth Hall, The Royal Opera House's Linbury Studio Theatre, Westminster, Canterbury, Gloucester and St Paul’s Cathedrals, Westminster Abbey and Cheltenham Music Festival.
TAK was lucky enough to work with Hannah in early 2020 when we were in residence at Columbia University, where she is currently a Doctoral Fellow.
On today’s episode, Hannah speaks with vocalist, movement artist and composer Elaine Mitchener, who has performed at venues including Aldeburgh Music, London Contemporary Music Festival, 56th Venice Biennale, ULTIMA Festival, and La Monnaie, and with musicians such as Moor Mother, Christian Marclay, Apartment House, George Lewis and Evan Parker.
Episode 010. Marina Kifferstein
Marina Kifferstein is a violinist, composer, and a founding member of TAK ensemble and The Rhythm Method string quartet. She also performs regularly Talea, Wet Ink, and the International Contemporary Ensemble, and is a co-administrator of the Open Improvisations concert series. As a composer her work has been performed across the U.S. and Europe. Marina is currently a DMA candidate at the CUNY Graduate Center. She holds an MM in Contemporary Performance from the Manhattan School of Music, a BM in Violin from Oberlin Conservatory, and a BA in English from Oberlin College.
On this episode, Charlotte and Madison interview Marina about TAK's beginnings and about her life outside of TAK.
Episode 009. Madison Greenstone
Madison Greenstone is a clarinetist currently based between San Diego and New York City. Their creative practice encompasses contemporary & experimental music, improvisation, noise & acoustic feedback, and band-like collaborations with other creative performers. They have performed as a featured artist of the Darmstadt Ferienkurse für Neue Musik and the Lucerne Festival Academy. Notable performances have been as a soloist presented by ISSUE Project Room, as part of the Merce Cunningham Centennial in Los Angeles, and in recital at the Vigeland Mausoleum (Oslo). Madison is the clarinetist of TAK Ensemble, a founding member of the [Switch~ Ensemble], and can be heard on Wandelweiser Editions and Another Timbre.
In this episode, TAK flutist and Executive Director Laura Cocks and Technical Director Taylor Brook interview Madison, who is the newest member of TAK ensemble.
Episode 008. Tyshawn Sorey
Tyshawn Sorey is a multi-instrumentalist and composer born in Newark, New Jersey, known for his mastery and memorization of incredibly complex scores. He has performed nationally and internationally with his own ensembles, as well as artists such as Roscoe Mitchell, George Lewis, John Zorn, Claire Chase, Evan Parker, and Anthony Braxton, among many others.
He has been commissioned by The Spektral Quartet, Ojai Music Festival, International Contemporary Ensemble, and more recently Carnegie Hall and Opera Philadelphia. He was awarded a 2017 MacArthur Fellowship.
In this episode, Laura Cocks and Charlotte Mundy of TAK talk to Tyshawn about “Ornations,” written for TAK and featured on their album, Oor.
Episode 007. Natacha Diels
Natacha Diels is a composer and performer whose work combines choreographed movement, improvisation, video, instrumental practice, and cynical play to create worlds of curiosity and unease. With a focus on collage, collaboration, and the ritual of life as art, her compositions have been described as “a fairy tale for a fractured world” (Music We Care About). She is a member of the composer/performer collective Ensemble Pamplemousse and the performance duo On Structure, and she teaches composition and computer music at the University of California, San Diego.
In this episode, Laura Cocks and Marina Kifferstein of TAK talk to Natacha about “The Colors Don’t Match,” written for TAK and featured on their recent album, Oor.
Episode 006. Erin Gee
Erin Gee is a composer and vocalist who has created, in her Mouthpiece series, an ephemeral world that expands the possibilities of the voice, leaving behind the constrictive structure of language, and replacing histrionic female vocals with a virtuosic mouth and a tabula rasa for an emotional palate. Begun as one piece for solo voice in 2000, the list of Mouthpieces has grown to over 30 works for orchestra, opera, vocal ensemble, large chamber ensemble and string quartet, which have been performed internationally with some of the top ensembles for new music.
On this episode, Ellery and Charlotte of TAK talk to Erin about her piece Mouthpiece 28, featured on TAK's recent album, Oor.
Episode 005. Ashkan Behzadi
Ashkan Behzadi’s music combines a miniaturist lyrical craft with an aim to invoke the collective-memory of folklore music through the use of allusion and pastiche. The question of genre-identity and genre-blurring and, in particular, the relationship between modern lyric and contemporary music is at the core of his aesthetic and artistic research.
In this episode, Marina Kifferstein and Charlotte Mundy of TAK speak to Ashkan about his piece “Az hoosh mi..” for the violin and soprano, in which the musical dimension of the text, an erotic post-language Persian modern poem, expands in the texture of the music to create an elaborated heterophonic relationship between the voice and violin. “Az hoosh mi…” is featured on TAK’s recent album, Oor.
Episode 004. Ann Cleare
Ann Cleare is a composer whose work explores the static and sculptural nature of sound, probing the extremities of timbre, texture, colour, and form. She creates highly psychological and corporeal sonic spaces that encourage a listener to contemplate the complexity of the lives we exist within, exploring poetries of communication, transformation, and perception.
On this episode, Laura Cocks and Charlotte Mundy of TAK speak to Ann about her piece “unable to create an offscreen world (c),” featured on TAK’s recent album, Oor.
Episode 003. David Bird
David Bird is a composer and multi-media artist based in New York City. His work explores the dramatic potential of electroacoustic and mixed media environments, often highlighting the relationships between technology and the individual, and has been performed internationally by some of the best performers working in the field of contemporary music. He also happens to be director of Creative Research with TAK Ensemble, and a founding member of the group.
On this episode, Marina Kifferstein and Ellery Trafford of TAK speak to David about his piece "Series Imposture," featured on TAK's recent album Oor.
Episode 002. Brandon Lopez
Brandon Lopez is a New York-based composer and bassist working at the fringes of jazz, free improvisation, noise and new music. His music has been praised as “brutal” (Chicago Reader) and “relentless” (The New York Times).
On this episode, Ellery and Madison of TAK talk to Brandon about his new piece, "Empty and/or Church of Plenty," which TAK will premiere on December 14th at St. Mary's Harlem.
Episode 001. Bethany Younge
Bethany Younge is a composer and performer whose work plays with anti-irony, nonsense as spiritual awakening, and the place between situations and theater. She builds incredibly individualized works, often simultaneously centered in the physiological dramaturgy of performance.
On this episode, Laura and Charlotte of TAK talk to Bethany about her new piece “at midnight i walked into the middle of the desert” which TAK will premiere on December 14th at St. Mary’s Harlem.
