New Albion Festival: Contemporary Compositions at Bard College Summerscape

July 8th 2008, by Tobias |

New Albion Records are once again putting the finishing touch to their annual celebration of contemporary composition, as their “festival within a festival” will take place between August 1st and 10th. Taking place during Bard College Summerscape, the New Albion Festival will present works by the likes of John Cage and Morton Feldman, John Adams and Henry Cowell, as well as performances featuring Bassist Jeffrey Roden and laptop artist Carl Stone, Deep Listening muse Pauline Oliveros and Turkish Guitar magician Erdem Helvacioglu. Programs will often comprise of various acts, allowing audiences to compare different thematically connected interpretations and disover music they may never previously have heard of. Situated at the Spiegeltent, this year’s edition will also celebrate the 25th anniversary of the Festival which has by now built a reputation akin to that of the label in the field of 20th and 21st century music.

Highlights of the program will includean opening night with Margaret Leng Tan and former Glass Orchestra member Miguel Frasconi exploring the world of John Cage’s “Suite for Toy Piano” – or a selection of minimalist music, ranging from John Adams to Ingram Marshall on August 8th. The latter is seminal to the new Albion festival, as his “In Fog Tropes” was the piece “that put New Albion records on the map” as the organisors put it.

From the ranks of musicians you may only remotely have heard of, we can recommend performances by long-time tokafi favourites Jeffrey Roden and Erdem Helvacioglu. While Roden’s subtle Bass miniatures, tresspassing the moonlit zone between Jazz , the Avantgarde and Zen, will form an integral part of an entire evening’s worth of solo instrumentalists, the organic Guitar textures of Helvacioglu will be featured next to other artists from the New Albion roster, whose principal or exclusive domain is electronic music: Slow Six, Richard Teitelbaum, Stephen Vitiello and Carl Stone.

Homepage: New Albion Records