Tribeca New Music to Welcome Ashley Bathgate to the cell, 5/15

Tribeca New Music continues its 2016 season with celebrated cellist Ashley Bathgate (Bang on a Can All-Star) performing works from her new CD, Stories for Ocean Shells, a collaboration with composer Kate Moore. Hailed by the New York Times as "a bright light on the new-music scene," Ms. Bathgate will also perform two world premieres of composers Douglas Cuomo and Jascha Naverson, along with works from the Sleeping Giant Collective. The concert/CD Release Party takes place at nancy manocherian's - the cell, 338 West 23rd Street (bet. 8th & 9th Ave.) in NYC, on Sunday, May 15 at 4PM.

Tickets range in price from $15 to $35. For details and to buy tickets, please go to tribecanewmusic.org.

Ashley Bathgate - Stories for Ocean Shells (a concert and CD release party)
"Bathgate is a glorious cellist"-Anne Midgette, Washington Post
Says TNM Director Preston Stahly, "Ashley is a stunning force of nature in both her musicianship and composer advocacy through commissions and collaborations. This concert is a three-for event: 1) It's a full concert and CD release party for Stories for Ocean Shells, 2) it presents the world premiere of new works by composers Douglas Cuomo and Jascha Naverson, and 3) it features selected works from Ashley's Bach Unwound commissioning project with the Sleeping Giant Collective."

American cellist Ashley Bathgate has been described as an "eloquent new music interpreter" (New York Times) and "a glorious cellist"(Washington Post) who combines "bittersweet lyricism along with ferocious chops" (New York Magazine). Her "impish ferocity," "rich tone," and "imaginative phrasing" (New York Times) have made her one of the most sought after performers of her time. Stories for Ocean Shells is the brainchild of Australian composer Kate Moore and American cellist Ashley Bathgate, who have been collaborating since 2009. Kate Moore creates worlds of sound for acoustic and electro acoustic media, including instrumental music, concert music, sound installations, and more. Her work has been described as "a giant tsunami of sound" (New York Times) and "a fascinating exercise in micro- and macro-rhythm" (Sydney Morning Herald); "From the haze she creates, graceful, ambling melodies emerge and evaporate, and those give the music its allure" (Allan Kozinn, New York Times).

Bach Unwound features cellist Ashley Bathgate in collaboration with the Brooklyn-based composer collective Sleeping Giant (Timo Andres, Chris Cerrone, Jacob Cooper, Ted Hearne, Robert Honstein, and Andrew Norman) performing selections from this new series of works inspired by the Unaccompanied Cello Suites of J.S. Bach. Bach Unwound incorporates extended performance techniques, live electronics, and external media resulting in a radical deconstruction and re-imagination of the original music.

Critics have described the music of Douglas Cuomo as "jolting, haunting, varied, infectious. . . frankly, it is ingenious" and "eighteen minutes of velocity and ecstasy. . . mesmerizing . . . fiercely American in the sense of Whitman, Hart Crane and Ives," as well as "hugely effective musically, as well as awe-inspiring," "irresistible," and "awesome."

Jascha Narveson was raised in a concert hall and put to sleep as a child with an old vinyl copy of the Bell Laboratories mainframe computer singing "Bicycle Built for Two." He now makes music for people, machines, and interesting combinations of people and machines.

On the program - Stories for Ocean Shells:

1. Whoever You Are Come Forth, by Kate Moore, was written upon the words of Walt Whitman from Song of the Open Road. It is a song about a lonely traveler-an individual going through life, along with all others, and their Universal connection.

2. Stories for Ocean Shells, by Kate Moore, tell tales of travel, love, sadness, and beauty-the story of life. It symbolizes a highly personal communication between two artists, one a composer, the other a cellist, from opposite corners of the world.

3. Velvet, by Kate Moore, was inspired by the depiction of cloth in Renaissance paintings-movement, vitality, and earthiness are captured and distilled within the frame and stillness of the painting.
Bach Unwound:

4. For Ashley, by Andrew Norman, is a light and bouncy work inspired by J.S. Bach, but with a sneaky microtonal bent and tonal color "English."

5. Orison, by Robert Honstein, was inspired by an ancient word for prayer and the sound of cello resonance in a cathedral. Simple material, bathed in reverb and long, gradually decaying echoes, becomes a kind of duet with the sound itself.

6. Ley Line, by Jacob Cooper, is a fast-tempo, aggressive, dark, syncopated, full-frontal forge into the low cello register, with color that evolves gradually into an arpeggiated frenzy.

Premieres:
7. Deliquescent (premiere), by Douglas Cuomo, was written for his father in the last days of his life. It's an experience in quiet and subtle concentration-a consideration of our experience of time, stillness, anticipation, and what remains after something is gone.
8. Flash Crash (premiere), by Jascha Naverson, uses data from high-frequency trading algorithms as raw material for a synth-drenched space odyssey.