Avant-Garde | Musicosity

Avant-Garde

Mary Halvorson

The avant-jazz guitarist Mary Halvorson has been making a stir in downtown New Music circles for a while now. She is noted for her collaborations with the violist Jessica Pavone, among many others. Halvorson's strong 2008 debut, DRAGON'S HEAD features her new trio, comprised of the extraordinarily fluent bassist John Hebert and drummer Ches Smith (of indie-rockers Xiu-Xiu). Together, they make a far-ranging, expansive, and even accessible sound.

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Piotr Kurek

Polish composer and musician, working and living in Warsaw. Piotr Kurek studied classical piano and played drums but is most known from his activity in dance theatre and electronic music. Co-founder of ever changing project Ślepcy, emerged in the late 90’s and collaborated with various record labels including Ambush (London), Kool.POP (Berlin), Cock Rock Disco (Berlin), Klangkrieg (Berlin), Unknown Public (London) and Crónica (Porto).

Read more about Piotr Kurek on Last.fm.

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Jörg Widmann

Jörg Widmann was born in Munich in 1973. He studied the clarinet first with Gerd Starke at the Munich Hochschule für Musik and later with Charles Neidich at the Juilliard School in New York. His great passion being chamber music, he regularly makes music with partners such as Tabea Zimmermann, Heinz Holliger, András Schiff, Kim Kashkashian, Hélène Grimaud. As a soloist, he guest-performs with major orchestras at home and abroad and has given concerts with conductors such as Christoph von Dohnányi, Sylvain Cambreling and Kent Nagano.

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Gary Fisher

Gary Fisher Is a Manchester based sound and visual artist who works within a continuous process of experimentation and enquiry focussed around investigatory or instinctive responses to sounds, objects, words and images. The work explores amplification of surfaces, textures and objects, combining found materials and reappropriating found objects and technologies for use as instruments or noise-makers.

Read more about Gary Fisher on Last.fm.

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Howlin' Circus

“Conjuring images of cattle ranching in the Summer, Howlin’ Circus combine raucous guitars with melodic vocals, tales of trepidation and unexpected harmonies. Shedding leaves on London’s Autumnal high it wasn’t until the Winter that the band formed, after co-writers Jamie Harper and Jafar Hassan brought forth their love for blues, rock ‘n’ roll and poetry. It is in this era of instant gratification that the band, completed soon after by the bass and drums of Charles Sanders and Ramy Kozman...

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Terje Isungset

Terje Isungset is one of Europe’s most accomplished and innovative percussionists. With over two decades experience in jazz and Scandinavian music he is taking these types of music far beyond their traditional boundaries, becoming more like a cross between a sound artist and a shaman. Crafting his own instruments from Norwegian natural elements such as arctic birch, granite, slate, sheep bells and even ice, he is highly recommended to those sensible to the poetry and simplicity of sounds. "Timbres" and "colours" are central in Terje Isungsets music and compositions.

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Ken Vandermark

Ken Vandermark (born September 22, 1964 in Warwick, Rhode Island) is an American jazz composer/arranger and saxophone and clarinet player. He grew up in Massachusetts, graduating from Natick High School. He performed and led groups while in high school and at McGill University in Montreal which he attended from 1982 to 1986. He is mostly self-taught as a musician, but studied intermittently with George Garzone in the early 1980s.

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