ESSENTIAL REPERTOIRE: Stars Like Fleas and guests perform Cornelius Cardew's Treatise October 25, 2008

DARMSTADT "ESSENTIAL REPERTOIRE"
Saturday, October 25 at 8 pm

Stars Like Fleas with special guests perform Cornelius Cardew's Treatise

Cornelius Cardew: Treatise (1963-67)

Stars Like Fleas
Shannon Fields - guitar, electronics, glockenspiel, voice
Ryan Smith - keyboards, electronics, voice
Montgomery Knott - voice, electronics
Laura Ortman - violin, bowed saw, voice
Matt Lavelle - bass clarinet, trumpet, cuica, voice
Shayna Dulberger - bass, voice
Shelley Burgon - harp, electronics, voice
Tianna Kennedy - cello, voice

Begun in the early aughts as a recording project, by 2005 Stars Like Fleas had already gained cultish worldwide attention with a couple of perplexing Internet- and hand-traded releases. Stars Like Fleas emerged physically, unmasked, and began playing shows in unmarked spaces across Brooklyn in 2006 …very soon after they were asked to perform higher profile shows with the likes of Grizzly Bear, Beirut, Dirty Projectors, Deerhoof, Gang Gang Dance, and Akron/Family. The North American release of their new LP, The Ken Burns Effect (mixed in Iceland in late 2007) on Hometapes in June 2008, is causing a slowly-but-surely boiling stir with what the New York Times described as an “eerie power” and Nylon Magazine called “a new kind of energy”. Pitchfork wrote “The Ken Burns Effect is one of the year's most ambitious and daring records…Sometimes, I think The Ken Burns Effect deserves a 10.0. Sometimes, it feels like a 2.0. You might hate it. You might love it. But you need to hear it.” The live band brings together an average of 8-11 musicians from musical communities diverse and even antagonist toward one another. Stars Like Fleas has no programmatic agenda, no common inspiration, has thrown out the road map, embraces pretention, incoherence, is as conflicted and confused as any teenager’s base emotions and believe that humane music is fraught with contradiction, posturing, sentiment, mistrust and introspection, like believers trying mightily to disbelieve. Stars Like Fleas music makes some giggle nervously, some angry and disgusted, others moved to tears – ordinarily at the same show, sometimes from the kids onstage behind the instruments.

http://slf.praemedia.com/

Darmstadt "Classics of the Avant Garde" music series is proud to announce its first-ever multi-performance curation at ISSUE Project Room from October 22 through the 26th.  Entitled "Essential Repertoire," its six performances are an initial attempt to accumulate a unique and expanding collection of cherished experimental music: from the New York School through the Minimalists, European approaches, and a number of electronic practices, alongside music's connectivity to art, performance, and multimedia.  Darmstadt's curators encourage vivid interpretations of their favorite avant-garde works from the city's liveliest composers and musicians.  Our final day of programming focuses on new work by emerging artists.

Darmstadt "Classics of the Avant Garde" is the Brooklyn-based contemporary music series led by composer-musicians Zach Layton and Nick Hallett which presents the best of New York City's live experimental music and multimedia.  Darmstadt will celebrate its fifth anniversary this November with an annual performance of Terry Riley's In C, which Alan Kozinn described in the New York TImes as "the most vital, audacious and energizing performance of the score I’ve ever heard."  Darmstadt regularly hosts its concerts and DJ sets at Galapagos Art Space, while its founders both create and curate work for such institutions as PS1, The Kitchen, Spiegeltent, and The Stone.  Darmstadt began as a "listening party" of avant-garde recordings before quickly evolving into a live performance series, and in 2007 was included in the New York TImes Best of New Music rundown. Darmstadt's memorable DJ sets have been requested at Brooklyn Academy of Music for Steve Reich's 70th birthday and at the Buenos Aires International Independent Film Festival in collaboration with filmmakers Jonas Mekas, Virginie Marchand, and Butoh dance master Kazuo Ohno.

http://www.darmstadtnewmusic.org

DARMSTADT "ESSENTIAL REPERTOIRE"
October 22 - 26
ISSUE Project Room 
in the (OA) Can Factory
232 3rd Street (at 3rd Ave), Brooklyn
performances at 8pm unless noted otherwise
tickets:  $10 advance (available at Other Music and online) / $15 at door
F, M, R to 9th Street-4th Ave

http://www.darmstadtnewmusic.org
http://www.issueprojectroom.org
http://www.othermusic.com

Official Website: http://darmstadtnewmusic.org