Pauline Oliveros, Maria Chavez, Dave Dove & more... May 11, 2007

ROULETTE presents
20 Greene St (between Canal and Grand St)
8:30 PM Admission $15 Students $10 MEMBERS FREE
TICKETS/RSVP: 212.219.8242

contact: press@roulette.org http://www.roulette.org/

Friday, May 11th
Dave Dove & Pauline Oliveros -- Deep Syrup without the Sentiment: H-Town
Oozing Upward

Pauline Oliveros, Maria Chavez, Chris Cogburn, David Dove, Sandy Ewen,
Juan Garcia & Jason Jackson make a rare New York City presentation of
their collective creations, spawned in the Houston heat. Houston long has
been the backdrop for idiosyncratic, isolated and potent soundings from
the musical underground. What factors affect these renegade stirrings and
outbursts from outside of the avant-garde mainstream? Extreme weather
slows thought and action to surreal tempos and a broad sense of space and
time has always marked much of Houston music across genres. This most
recently is heard in the singularly syrupy street music of visionary
Houstonian DJ Screw; but it has always been present in Houston's country,
noise, punk, Latino and avant-garde genres … Reckless, no-zoning,
laissez-faire attitudes of public development correlate to certain
cultural audacity. Unbridled immigration adds to this situation to make a
city of unpatterned and chaotic diversity. Houston is a perfect home for
outsiders. Everyone in Houston is an outsider.

In 1997, Houston trombonist David Dove began working at MECA, an
inner-city arts community center. With a diverse group of teenagers, Dove
developed a unique, non-traditional approach to music education based on
improvisation and creativity. In 2000, Pauline Oliveros invited Dove to
start a branch of her Foundation in order to develop this pioneering work.
Deep Listening Institute Houston began in 2001. In 2006, it became
Nameless Sound, an independent, Houston-based, non-profit organization.

Through his involvement with Nameless Sound, Jason Jackson has studied in
workshops with some of the most important names in Creative Music,
including: Joe McPhee, Sun Ra Arkestra, Keith Rowe, Steve Lacy, Bhob
Rainey, Leroy Jenkins, Sam Rivers, John Butcher and many others. Jackson
is currently a teacher in the Nameless Sound program.

Percussionist Chris Cogburn and Dove are close collaborators in
performance and workshop situations. They continue to steadily hone an
ever-evolving aesthetic that finds its way in the context teaching
projects, their duo, and in collaborations with many international
artists. Cogburn has organized the No Idea Festival for several years and
works with an array of musical and multi-disciplinary artists, including
Liz Tonne, poet Joshua Beckman and dancer Jennifer Monson.

As a teenager, Juan Garcia discovered the music of Xenakis and Penderecki
on the radio in his hometown of Monterrey (Mexico). Garcia came to Houston
in 2000 and found Nameless Sound. Garcia currently is completing a
master’s degree in performance. In 2005, he played bass on the first ever
US concert by another underground musician from Houston, Jandek.

In 2002, a teenaged Sandy Ewen, was spotted purchasing Sun Ra and Captain
Beefhart Records at Houston's Sound Exchange. It was only a matter of time
before the Canadian transplant joined the group. Soon, she would abandon
traditional guitar playing for her 'sit-on-the-floor and lay her guitar
down' approach. At a young age, Ewen has carved out a distinct language
highlighted by the mesmerizing harmonies of her 'chalk-on-the-strings
technique'. Ewen is a member of the band The Weird Weeds and plays with
Tom Carter, among others.

Turntabilist Maria Chavez was a club DJ when she met David Dove and came
to MECA. After her first workshop, she immediately "retired" from DJing
and dedicated herself to musical improvisation. Since then, she has toured
extensively and performed with Kaffe Matthews, Thurston Moore and
Christina Carter, among others. She currently lives in Brooklyn and owns
Hounds Tooth, a vintage clothing store (that also doubles as a music
venue).

Pauline Oliveros, composer, performer and humanitarian, is an important
pioneer in American Music. Acclaimed internationally, for four decades she
has explored sound -- forging new ground for herself and others. Through
improvisation, electronic music, ritual, teaching and meditation, she has
created a body of work with such breadth of vision that it profoundly
affects those who experience it and eludes many who try to write about it.
Oliveros has been honored internationally with awards, grants and
concerts. Through Deep Listening Pieces and earlier Sonic Meditations,
Oliveros introduced the concept of incorporating all environmental sounds
into musical performance. To make a pleasurable experience of this
requires focused concentration, skilled musicianship and strong
improvisational skills, which are the hallmarks of Oliveros’s form. In
performance Oliveros uses an accordion (re-tuned in two different systems
of her just intonation) with to electronics that alter the sound of the
accordion and explore the individual characteristics of each room. (Tuning
Chart)

Official Website: http://www.roulette.org