"Avionics" New Music Salon March 23, 2007

The American Composers Forum presents a "New Music Salon" featuring six
very different composers. Fasten your seatbelt, it's going to be a wild
ride.

Andrew Simpson will perform his piece, The Dead Are Dancing, for flute and
piano. The work combines Greek and Turkish folk music with the melody of
mourning doves heard outside his window in Athens. Carrie Rose will perform her own solo flute work, Thrush,
that was inspired by birds she heard while camping (hundreds of grackles
and one brown thrasher, specifically).

Kevin Clark's The Seafarer is not about birds, but it was inspired by
airplanes, or the lack thereof. As he tells it, "This piece began when I
was stranded in Switzerland. I was delayed for 19 hours, one or two at
a time, and I'd already read everything I'd brought with me. I had no
one to talk to, nothing to do. I was sleep deprived, lonely, and
abandoned in a run-down smoky airport terminal... Right there, waiting
for a plane that seemed like it would never come, I started to write
out the first notes on my knee."

Sidney Bailin's electronic piece, Reeds on the Shore doesn't have anything in particular to do with flying, but the
composer does enjoy jumping out of airplanes. Honestly. Neil Gladd's Sonata
for Solo Mandolin is also a thematic stretch, but his fingers will be
flying. Matthew Sargent's Soft Song, for solo cello, doesn't touch on flying either; but it's melodic
material was derived from drops of pine sap that inadvertently appeared
on his manuscript paper, while composing outdoors during a workshop in
Alba, Italy. There were probably birds in that tree.

"I'll admit this flight theme is a bit of a stretch, but this concert
was programmed by lottery," says Composers Forum Chapter Director,
Jonathan Morris, "We're a service organization for composers and need to
be sure that our programs are open to all. Local artists submitted three
times as much music as we could fit on this one program, so I put the
decision making in the hands of fate, well, actually random.org."

The New Music Salon series creates a space for composers, performers,
and audiences to meet, share new work, and build connections. Meet the
composers in our midst and find out where music is heading tomorrow.
Stay for post-show refreshments and meet the movers and shakers in DC's
new music scene.

ACF-DC has been sponsoring composer residencies with community groups
and presenting new music in DC since 1997, and is always looking for new
ways to break down barriers between artists, new music, and audiences.

The Patricia M. Sitar Center for the Arts provides after-school arts education in music, dance, drama, creative
writing, and visual arts to low-income youth in the Adams Morgan
neighborhood of Washington, D.C.

For more information, contact ACF-DC:
301.715.3779
http://www.composersforum.org/dc
dc@composersforum.org

Official Website: http://www.composersforum.org/dc