2013 Mural at the Baldwin Hills Scenic Overlook.

sound. at the Baldwin Hills Scenic Overlook features a new composition created for the Overlook by internationally recognized experimental duo MURAL (Jim Denley, Australia and Kim Myhr, Norway). Accompanying MURAL in realizing this new SASSAS commission are 9 Los Angeles area musicians including Matt Barbier, Ted Byrnes, Archie Carey, Claire Chenette, Daniel Corral, Jonah Levy, Heather Lockie, Jake Rosenzweig, and Greg Stuart.

Sunday, May 5, 2013 5p Doors
Baldwin Hills Scenic Overlook 6300 Hetzler Rd Culver City, CA 90232

Details

SASSAS invites the public to an open rehearsal on Thursday, May 2, 2013 from 12pm to 2pm at Kings Road park Pavillion, 1000 N. King’s Road, West Hollywood, CA 90069 The Baldwin Park Scenic Overlook is unique in the greater Los Angeles area and California State Park system. A historically complex site, the Overlook offers 360 degree views of the Los Angeles Basin as it resides at the juncture of industry and parkland / preserve. Adjacent to the location of the 1963 Baldwin Hills Dam break and just north of an active oil field, the park was the site of a decade long development battle which was successful in fending off a 230-home development, but failed to stop the flat topping of the hill. Parts of the park have been regraded and in certain ways the land still looks as though it’s recovering from the earlier violence. (Christopher Hawthorne, Los Angeles Times).

Jim Denley

Jim Denley

Jim Denley is considered one of Australia’s foremost improvisers of new music. He was born in 1957 in the town of Bulli, New South Wales. He began playing violin at age 5, then took up piano, and by age eleven was playing flute. He studied the instrument at the NSW Conservatorium, and after leaving school played jazz and commercial music to earn a living. By the late 1970s he was composing music, and a decade later he began working in an improvisational mode and to integrate his voice into his instrumental work. Also in the 1980s he studied the shakuhachi flute music of Japan, whose style places a great emphasis on the momentary and the moment. Denley has worked extensively in Great Britain and Europe, and while much of his work is collaborative, he has also performed as a soloist throughout his career.

Kim Myhr

Kim Myhr

The 28-year-old guitarist and composer Kim Myhr is a resident of Oslo, Norway and studied at Berklee College of Music in Boston from 2003 to 2005. Since then he has embarked on an international career, performing new contemporary and improvised music throughout Europe, Australia, Japan, Canada, and the United States. In 2008, he received the JazZtipend (a cash prize of approximately $30,000) at the Molde International Jazz Festival, one of the oldest jazz festivals in Europe. In July 2009 he returned to the festival with a new piece for an ensemble of thirteen musicians, which included Ingar Zach and Jim Denley. Myhr has described his new composition as having “fragments and figures that he would like the orchestra to work with” and offering the opportunity for “spontaneous interaction and collective solutions.”

Matt Barbier

Matt Barbier

Matt Barbier is an LA-based trombonist and composer focused primarily in the field of experimental intonation and noise music. Working collaboratively with composers such as Wolfgang von Schweinitz, Ulrich Krieger, and Marc Sabat, he engages with the emerging field of just intonation for brass instruments. His work with von Schweinitz has been highlighted by widely performing JUZ, an expansive work for solo trombone and playback. Barbier is also a founding member of Gnarwhallaby, a Los Angeles-based mixed quartet. He also performs as a member of the critically-acclaimed new music collective wildUp!. He received his education at the Cleveland Institute of Music (BM) and California Institute of the Arts (MFA). Barbier guest lectures at CalArts and Simon Fraser University.

Ted Byrnes

Ted Byrnes

Ted Byrnes is a drummer/percussionist living in Los Angeles. An alumni of the Berklee College of Music in Boston, he comes from a jazz background and has since made his home in the worlds of free improvisation, electro-acoustic music, and noise. Byrnes’ playing is often viewed as more textural or even melodic than rhythmic, and generally employs a ‘prepared’ drum kit. He has performed in a variety of ensembles and ad hoc settings, with musicians and/or groups including Jaap Blonk, Charlemagne Palestine, John Wiese, Smegma, Airway, Han-earl Park, Gregory Lenczycki, and Tim Perkis, among others.

Archie Carey

Archie Carey

Archie Carey is a multi-instrumental performer/composer living in Los Angeles. He is interested in writing music that is not only meditative for the listener, but also for the performer, in order to create a communal sense of timelessness inside a performance space. In solo work and in collaborations with dancers and filmmakers, he has been experimenting with field recording, analog electronics, and aspects of performance art. Carey has had the opportunity to perform at Carnegie Hall, Symphony Space, Alice Tully Hall, The HAMMER Museum, Saban Theatre, Zipper Hall, Highways Performance Space, Pieter PASD, The Wulf, Roy and Edna Disney/CalArts Theater (REDCAT), and various other art spaces across the country. He has also toured China with the Manhattan Symphonie and Western Europe with the AMA Wind Ensemble. Carey is currently a member of wildUp!, a modern music collective/chamber orchestra, and The Joshua Trio, a double reed and piano trio focusing on new works as well as classics.

Claire Chenette

Claire Chenette

Claire Chenette is a versatile solo, chamber, and orchestral musician particularly devoted to the performance of contemporary music on the oboe. A native of the Midwest, Chenette is quickly gaining recognition in Southern California, performing in sold-out concerts with various projects, festivals, and ensembles such as the REDCAT Xenakis Festival, the American Youth Symphony, and the Center Stage Opera. This past season has seen her performing as principal oboist with the American Youth Symphony at Walt Disney Concert Hall; recording with her band Three Thirds at Capitol Records; as well as performing with the San Diego Symphony, the Long Beach Symphony, Opera Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara Chamber Orchestra, wildUp!, and Orchestra Nova. She also premiered commissions with her chamber ensemble, The Joshua Trio, and traveled around the world: working under Pierre Boulez for a third summer in residence at the Lucerne Music Festival; performing at Salle Pleyel in Paris, with the Spoleto USA Festival Orchestra; and as principal oboist with the Debut Orchestra on tour in China. She received a BM in Oboe Performance and a BA in Religious Studies from Oberlin College and Conservatory of Music and an MFA in Oboe Performance from CalArts. She is a faculty member at Cerritos College.

Daniel Corral

Daniel Corral is a composer and multi-instrumentalist born and raised in Eagle River, Alaska. His music is a rich collusion of styles, blurring the boundaries between the familiar and foreign, mirroring the diasporic evolution of cultural identity in the 21st century. His unique voice finds outlet in puppet operas, accordion orchestras, handmade music boxes, electronic collages, site-specific installations, chamber music, and interdisciplinary collaborations. Corral’s music has been commissioned and presented by venues such as REDCAT, The Hammer Museum, The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (MOCA), USC’s Thornton School of Music, CSUN’s Mike Curb College of Arts, Media and Communication, The Pianospheres Series, and the Santa Monica GLOW Festival. He writes, arranges, and performs with numerous music groups, including Timur & The Dime Museum, Free Reed Conspiracy, and Tears of the Moosechaser. Corral received his MFA from CalArts, where he studied with James Tenney, Anne LeBaron, and Morton Subotnick.