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Gentle Gazzetta Readers,

Happy Summer! As I write to you from MASS MoCA, I find myself in the midst of a nearly month-long bout of zig-zagging across the country and eventually over the big pond for various and sundry performances, workshops, and rehearsals – mostly beset by hot and humid weather with a sprinkling of summer showers.

I’m seated on the mezzanine of a rehearsal room at the museum, watching as Bang On A Can’s illustrious Mark Stewart hands out reeds to an eager group of workshop participants to attach to PVC pipes, plastic tubes, and whirlies of all shapes, sizes, and curvatures. The room is slowly beginning to fill with joyful honking and bleeting, and Mark attempts to corral them into a unison phrase in 7/8 time. They follow his lead and a mirthful squawk chorus ensues.

Summer Travels
I started this journey with a visit to Detroit, MI, where I gave a solo performance as part of an event called “Rejecting Reality” at Red Bull Arts, organized and curated by the percussionist Zac Brunell and produced by a guy called Robert-David Jones (who bears an uncanny resemblance to Childish Gambino) as part of Detroit Art Week. The event opened with a “robot gamelan” created by the Detroit Bureau of Sound, followed by Zac’s set featuring grains of salt dancing in patterns on metal plates attached to speakers. Then there was a solo performance by Onyx Ashanti (who I had recently met at the NIME conference in June) manipulating sound with his 3D-printed prosthetics, and the event closed with my voice, electronics, and video performance.

From there, I headed to MASS MoCA (via New York) for the Bang on a Can Summer Music Festival, to work with the string quartet that will be performing my piece Attention on the upcoming Bang On A Can Marathon. I’m so delighted that the inimitable Ashley Bathgate will be leading the ensemble and playing cello on my piece. I had the opportunity to be present for the tech rehearsal and soundcheck, and the quartet is performing the work beautifully. I’ve had a wonderful time at “Banglewood"!

I even managed to squeeze in a quick viewing of some of the incredible work in the massive MASS MoCA galleries – including a retrospective of Sol LeWitt wall drawings, some glowing James Turrell works, and a magical VR installation by Laurie Anderson.

Sadly, I won’t be present for the marathon, so I'll miss the performance of Attention, as I'm giving a performance of my solo works on the same day at the Museum of Contemporary Art in St. Petersburg, FL. From there, I’ll continue on to Banff Canada to give a SoundWORK workshop and perform in a shared concert during the (R)evolution: Resonant Bodies gathering of adventurous vocalists, and then I’ll be off to Berlin to perform the music I composed for Sara Shelton Mann’s Echo, as part of a week-long dance festival at Dock 11. (Read on or scroll down for details on these upcoming appearances.)

So many new music gatherings!
Since the last issue of the Gazzetta, I’ve attended and performed in a number of new music festivals and conferences, where I was also privileged to see and hear lots of exciting work.

whose text-sound work A Pause was reminiscent of Mark Applebaum’s gesture composition Aphasia. Then there was Other Minds in San Francisco, which focused entirely on text sound poetry, and featured the master himself, Jaap Blonk. I was happy to also see Charles Amirkhanian reprise some of his early works with projected images by Carol Law.

The 2018 Other Minds Festival Artists

After that, New Music Gathering at the Boston Conservatory was full of new music joy, in spite of the sadness everyone was feeling about the untimely passing of Matthew Marks. And close on the heels of that came the aforementioned NIME (New Interfaces for Musical Expression) Conference at Virginia Tech, where I gave a solo concert and a keynote speech. Try, if you will, to imagine an entire conference populated with the type of music nerds who, like me, revel in the use of all manner of gesture controllers and newly invented musical instruments. Attendees and presenters came from all over the world and put on a week’s worth of fascinating concerts, talks, and workshops.

A torrent of commissions...
Before departing for this current trip, I had a studio visit from Claire Chase, who brought all of her flutes with her so I could record some of her intriguing techniques to aid with my work on the piece she’s commissioning me to compose as part of her "Density 2036" project.

When I return from Berlin, I really need to hunker down and begin working on that and all the other projects I have queued up. For some reason, when it rains in chamber music commissioning-land, it really pours. I have about five different composing commissions from various ensembles (including Eighth Blackbird), soloists, and choreographers, that all have deadlines right around the same time. So, for the balance of the summer, the fall, and the beginning of winter, I’ll be nose to the grindstone cranking out adventurous chamber works one after the other!

See you all later – whenever I can come up for air!

Love,

PZ

Rose Kow, Stephanie Liu, Molly Collier-O’Boyle, and Ashley Bathgate rehearsing PZ's Attention

Mark Stewart conducts an ensemble playing original instruments.

PZ with John (New Sounds) Schaefer

Onyx Ashanti at Red Bull Arts in Detroit.

PZ, Dominic Johnson, and Nathalie Joachim at Resonant Bodies in Chicago

Charles Amirkhanian bathed in Carol Law's projected images at Other Minds

Jaap Blonk performing at Other Minds

PZ with Anya Cloud in a work-in-progress performance of Echo

Claire at PZ's studio

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upcoming event details:

Pamela Z's ATTENTION at
the Bang on a Can Summer Festival
Saturday, July 28, 2018, 4pm - 10pm