Callithumpian Consort to Perform at Roulette, 3/28-29

Roulette presents the music of exceptional, experimental composer Alvin Lucier performed by the Callithumpian Consort, Friday, March 28 & Saturday, March 29. This unique performance event will feature New York premieres, tickets are $25/20 and can be purchased at: http://roulette.org/events/the-music-of-alvin-lucier-with-the-callithumpian-consort/

The Callithumpian Consort, cellist Charles Curtis and pianist Stephen Drury, celebrate the unique musical vision of the pioneering composer Alvin Lucier in two evenings devoted to his music, placing it in an international context. The programs include New York premieres, Lucier's voluptuous and luxurious BRAID and Tristan Murail's tragic, visionary LACHRYMAE, both written for the Callithumpian Consort.

Alvin Lucier's intense microtonal explorations, heavily influenced by science and the exploration of physical properties, allows us to spend moments contemplating slowly moving single sounds as they collide with one another and create ethereal ghost vibrations, penetrate into the very soul of music, creating pure sound as the introspective essence of being.

The Callithumpian Consort is dedicated to the proposition that music is an experience. Founded by pianist and conductor Stephen Drury in the 1980s, the Consort is a professional ensemble producing concerts of contemporary music at the highest standard. Flexible in size and makeup, its repertoire includes the classics of the last 100 years and new works in the avant-garde and experimental traditions. It is grounded in the musical discoveries of Cage, Stockhausen, Zorn, Scelsi, Feldman, and Xenakis. With grants from the Fromm Foundation, Meet the Composer, the Ernst von Siemens Music Foundation and the French American Cultural Exchange, the Callithumpian Consort has commissioned new works from Christian Wolff, Tristan Murail, Chaya Czernowin and Tamar Diesendruck, as well as a substantial number of younger composers. Lee Hyla, Alvin Lucier and Lei Liang have also created new works for Callithumpian. The Consort has also worked closely with John Cage, Steve Reich, Frederic Rzewski, Helmut Lachenmann, Michael Finnissy, Jonathan Harvey, John Zorn, John Luther Adams, Brian Ferneyhough, Jo Kondo, and many others.

The Callithumpian Consort is based at New England Conservatory in Boston where it performs several times each season. In the fall of 2009, the Consort began a regular three-concert yearly series at Boston's Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum. The Callithumpian Consort is the ensemble in residence for the Summer Institute for Contemporary Performance Practice at NEC which brings together emerging composers and performers of new music for a week of revolutionary music-making, featuring an internationally renowned guest composer in residence. Recent tours have taken the Callithumpian Consort to Chicago, Colorado, California, Chattanooga, Baltimore, New York City, North Carolina, Vermont and Leipzig, with residencies at Harvard, Northwestern, Stanford, Boston College, the Vermont College of Fine Arts and the University of Northern Colorado. Recordings are available on Tzadik, Mode, Cold Blue, Navona, Naxos, Innova, Centaur and New World Records.

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