Friday, March 17, 7:30 PM Lambton Studio A
Noiseborder Ensemble & Jeremy Brown
Dave Bergeron, Brent Lee, Megumi Masaki, Chris McNamara, Riaz Mehmood, Nicholas Papador, Trevor Pittman, Martin Schiller, Sigi Torinus & Jeremy Brown
The Noiseborder Ensemble creates and performs multimedia works featuring a combination of acoustic and electronic instruments as well as live processing and mixing of sound and video. Based in Windsor, Ontario, Canada, the group has presented more than twenty original multimedia pieces since its inception in 2008. Members include Brent Lee (saxophones, composition, sound design), Sigi Torinus (video, visual design), Trevor Pittman (clarinets, composition), Nicholas Papador (percussion, composition), Chris McNamara (video, sound design), Megumi Masaki (keyboards). The Noiseborder Ensemble also works on an ongoing basis with collaborating artists nationally and internationally.
Flowers for Those Lost At Sea (2013)
Chris McNamara
Anywhere & Here (2014)
Sigi Torinus
(follow that) Dream (home) (2010-2012)
John Cage
Pause
Here for just a moment... (2017)
Chris McNamara
Agency and Structure (2017)
Brent Lee
Superstars of Wrestling (2008)
Noiseborder Ensemble
ADMISSION Adults/Seniors $20 / Students with ID $5
Flowers for Those Lost At Sea
Flowers for Those Lost At Sea (2013) is a rumination on the missing and departed. Sometimes they are still amongst us and sometimes they aren’t. A man’s voice tells us a story about an afternoon spent in a strange city amongst friends and colleagues... But it is a story from an unknown past and the only remnants are the shapes of the words and the vague edges of the architecture.
Anywhere & Here
Anywhere & Here (2014) - video by Sigi Torinus, sound design by Brent Lee with percussion recordings by Nicholas Papador. Traversing between the Tropics and the North, Sigi Torinus has been creating a series of works investigating the island as a metaphor situated somewhere between isolation and uniqueness, the fascination of the faraway, the promise of a slower pace, shipwreck and utopia…
(follow that) Dream (home)
(follow that) Dream (home) (1948, 1962, 2010, 2012...) In 2010, Noiseborder Ensemble percussionist Nick Papador and his wife Johanna Frank bought a home in Windsor, Ontario that had been lavishly decorated by the previous owners in a bygone style; before renovating, Nick and Johanna took several photographs of the curtains, fixtures, wallpaper, etc. I had been toying with the idea of arranging John Cage’s Dream for the Noiseborder Ensemble to perform, and these images seemed to match the piece in a strange but compelling way. This newest version of the piece adds more elements, specifically a long quotation from the Elvis Presley song Follow That Dream and images of the likewise lavishly decorated Graceland mansion in Memphis, taken this fall on a Noiseborder tour. It’s all good.
Here for just a moment...
Here For Just a Moment (2017) is a revisiting of places remembered from my own personal history. Presented in stereoscopic 3D the places are filled with the uncanny and spectral - and while very much a digital experience - the images presented this way also reference late 19th century stereoscopic post cards. The present is visited by ghosts from the past...
Agency and Structure
Agency and Structure (2017) explores the space between narrative and ritual. Individual actors move through various urban scenes; the video editing at first implies an emerging narrative, but the subsequent repetition and variation in the actors’ movements begins to suggest more ritualized behavior. A sense of uneasiness is reflected in the out-of-place clothing of the actors and in the character of the piano writing. Agency and Structure is part of an ongoing series of videos created for live performance with piano accompaniment.
Actors: Natalia Bushnik, Robin Luckwaldt Ross, and Sean Sennett
Costumes: Esther Van Eek
Production Crew: Olivia Markou, Derrik Marvin, Maria Mediratta, and Bela Varga
Superstars of Wrestling
Superstars of Wrestling (2008)
- Studio A at the University of Windsor is the home performance space of the Noiseborder Ensemble. In the 1970s, the studio was home to the syndicated television program Superstars of Wrestling. In 2008 we came across a set of promotional photos for the show in the archives of the university, and decided to build an improvisational piece around those photos and other found images. In addition to the processed sound of the live musicians, this latest version of the piece also incorporates elements remixed from a previous performance.
Dave Bergeron is enrolled in the new Film and Media Arts MFA at the University of Windsor. With a practice that is rooted in audio, David creates pieces that span from interactive to orchestral. His search for “meaningful music” has led him to study different genres of music and interactive technologies as a composer, performer, and programmer.
Jeremy Brown is a renowned Canadian saxophonist, woodwind doubler, teacher, expert on the music of Henry Cowell and conductor. He is Professor of Music and the former Head of the Music Department at the University of Calgary. (1990-present) He has been an Artist-In-Residence and a visiting lecturer at the Banff Centre. In 2014 he was awarded the inaugural University of Calgary Faculty of Arts Teaching Award. In 2010, his solo recording of Canadian saxophone music, “Rubbing Stone” was nominated outstanding classical recording of the year. In 2009 he was conferred the title “Canadian Music Ambassador” by the Canadian Music Centre for his work promulgating music by Canadian composers, with more than forty works commissioned. In 2008, he was named an “Innovator of the University of Calgary” for his community outreach, and in 2007 was awarded the David Peterkin Award for his contribution to music education in Alberta by the Alberta Band Association. In 1999 he was awarded the University of Calgary Student’s Union Teaching Award for the Faculty of Fine Arts. His book, The Wind Band Music of Henry Cowell, will be published later in 2017 by Routledge Press.
Brent Lee is a Canadian musician, scholar and educator. He studied at McGill University and later the University of British Columbia, where he completed his doctoral degree in 1999. His compositions range from orchestral music to electroacoustic pieces, and include jazz and incidental music. He has received awards or commissions from CAPAC, SOCAN, the Canada Council, the Alberta Heritage Fund, The Gaudeamus Foundation (The Netherlands), the Alberta Foundation for the Arts, and the Bourges International Electroacoustic Music Competition (France). In addition to performances and broadcasts in many countries, several of his works have been commercially recorded. His compositions and improvisations often explore the relationship between acoustic instruments and digital sound processing; this interest has extended to his work as a performing member of a number of improvising ensembles including gems, Strictly Plutonic, Modus Vivendi, and the Noiseborder Ensemble. In 2002, he accepted a position at the University of Windsor, and served as composer-in-residence with the Windsor Symphony Orchestra from 2003-06. He has been an associate composer of the Canadian Music Centre since 1991.
Award-winning pianist Megumi Masaki is a multifaceted artist, dedicated teacher and interdisciplinary researcher of optimal performance. Megumi is a passionate advocate of new music, especially committed to integrating emerging technologies in performance to increase interdisciplinary collaboration and expand how concert music is created, played and received. Her critically acclaimed performances have taken her across Canada, USA, Asia and Europe. Megumi has had works written especially for her by composers including Nicole Lizée, T. Patrick Carrabré, Joshua Penman, Brent Lee, Kjartan Ólafsson, visual artists Sigi Torinus, Owen Bird and Kevin Ei-Ichi deForest, and has premiered dozens of works worldwide. A champion of Eckhardt-Gramatté’s music, Megumi has recorded CDs of her piano works and the duo works for violin and piano with Oleg Pokhanovski, has published a performance edition of the Piano Caprices and made her film debut in “Appassionata: The Extraordinary Life and Works of Eckhardt- Gramatté” for CBC’s Opening Night. She is also the Artistic Director of the Eckhardt-Gramatté National Music Competition.
Chris McNamara is a Windsor/Detroit/Ann Arbor-based video artist, writer, DJ, new media instructor, and founding member of Thinkbox (http://thinkbox.ca). He has spent much of the last decade making sounds and moving images for both live performance and for museum and festival settings. He has shown his work in numerous festivals including the International Film Festival Rotterdam, the Ann Arbor Film Festival and the Independent Film Festival of Boston. His multi-media installations have been exhibited in a number of settings including Toronto, Vancouver, Halifax, Zurich, Berlin, and most recently in Plymouth, UK.
Riaz Mehmood’s artistic oeuvre encompasses a range of practices including performance, video, photography and new media. His research explorations straddle several streams, and his practice often visits themes of identity, history, technology, and the acquisition of knowledge. Riaz holds an MFA from the University of Windsor (2012), and completed the Integrated Media program at the Ontario College of Art and Design (2005), and BSc Civil Engineering from the University of Engineering and Technology, Pakistan (1993). He has participated in several international and national artist residencies and workshops, and has earned a number of grants, scholarships, and awards over the years. Riaz has also been involved with a number of artist-run centres and served on the boards of SAVAC and articule. His works have been shown internationally, including the US, Canada, UK, Germany, Egypt, Korea, Indonesia and Pakistan.
Nicholas Papador is a percussionist and composer based in Windsor, Ontario who specializes in contemporary music. He is a founding member of Noiseborder Ensemble (multimedia collective) and Marassa Duo (Afro-Caribbean folkloric influence chamber music). Papador has performed at the Transplanted Roots Percussion Research Symposium at McGill, Puerto Rico Conservatory International Percussion Festivals, the Open Ears Festival of New Music’s Environmental Rhythms, and has been featured four times at the Percussive Arts Society International Convention (PASIC). Papador can be heard on numerous CD recordings, including his 2015 solo recording Points of Departure released by Centrediscs, as well as Matthew Barney’s 2014 film River Of Fundament. An Associate Composer with the Canadian Music Centre, his compositions also appear with Keyboard Percussion Publications, Alfred Publications, Studio 4 Music, House Panther Press, and Bachovich Music. Papador has received grants from the Ontario Arts Council, Canada Council for the Arts, Social Sciences Humanities Research Council, and Canada Foundation for Innovation. Nicholas Papador is a Yamaha Performing Artist and an artist endorser for Vic Firth Sticks and Mallets, Sabian Cymbals, and Evans Drum Heads. He is Associate Professor of Music at the School of Creative Arts | Music at the University of Windsor. Papador is a graduate of Northwestern University School of Music (DM 2003), Indiana University Jacobs School of Music (MM 1999), and the University of Oregon (BMus 1997).
Born and raised in Lethbridge, Alberta, Trevor Pittman studied clarinet at the University of Lethbridge with Margaret Mezei, and at Eastern Michigan University with Dr. Kimberly Cole-Luevano. He is a past Fulbright scholar and now lives in Windsor, Ontario, where he teaches clarinet for the University of Windsor. He is a regular substitute with the Windsor Symphony Orchestra and has played with many orchestras throughout Windsor and Michigan. In addition to his orchestral playing, Trevor has performed in solo and concerto concerts in both the United States and Canada. Trevor takes an active interest in new music, performing at the Windsor Canadian Music Festival for several years and commissioning new works for clarinet in chamber music situations. He is currently a member of the Noiseborder ensemble. Trevor is an organizing member and performer with the 4th Wall Music Chamber Collective and believes in creating engaging chamber music experiences for audiences in Windsor. In addition to teaching clarinet, Trevor currently works as the Concert Producer/Operations Manager for the School of Creative Arts at the University of Windsor.
Martin Schiller is a composer, musician, and producer from Windsor, Ontario. He has been writing and performing as bassist of the band What Seas, What Shores for over ten years, and continues to create electronica and progressive jazz-rock with his projects: Martian Scholar and The Greedy Echoes. Martin studied music at the University of Windsor and received his Bachelor of Arts degree in 2014.
Sigi Torinus creates hybrid, new media works with an emphasis on improvisatory live-video performance and site-specific installation. Her research explores perceptions of space, time, and materiality as they meet or collide in the virtuality of digital space or the physicality of a geographic location. Her art returns time and again to the themes of origin, departure, navigation, and destination. She holds MFAs from the Braunschweig Art Institute, Germany, and San Francisco State University, California.
http://www.sigitorinus.com
http://www.browsingbeauty.com
