THE PROGRAM

Composition – Composer / instrumentation, Played By

See Ya Thursday – Steve Mackey marimba, Robby Bowen

Three Winter Carols – Stuart Saunders glockenspiel, Jessica Tsang

Les Bons Biscuits Qui Font Saliver – Michele Sanna percussion, Christopher Salvito

Loops II – Philippe Hurel vibraphone, Alexv Rolfe

Toucher – Vinko Globokar percussion, Katelyn King

Asanga – Kevin Volans percussion, Kevin O’Conner

You (unfolding) – Mark KIlstofte cello, Thea Mesirow

Khan Variations – Alejandro Vinao marimba, Corey Denham

Vibra-Elufa – Karlheinz Stockhausen vibraphone, Logan Ball

Reflections on The Nature of Water – Jacob Druckman marimba, Colin Walker

Scrabble – Steve Blumberg marimba, Ben Prima

Rebounds B – Iannis Xenakis percussion, Colin McCall

Postludes – Elliott Cole vibraphone, nnPR

Sequenza – Luciano Berio cello, Ashley Walters

For more information, please visit niefnorf.org/performance
And on Facebook at facebook.com/niefnorf

Since its inception in the summer of 2011, the Summer Festival’s performance, composition, and research seminars have attracted undergraduates, graduates, and professionals from institutions across the United States and abroad. Each summer, these fellows present some of the most challenging and boundary-pushing repertoire contemporary music, including world premieres of works by composers-in-residence at the nief-norf Summer Festival.

As former performance fellow Joshua Spaulding recalls, “I can’t think of another festival in the country that has such an amazing atmosphere, incredible faculty, and the opportunity to play 4-5 concerts of splendid music in the span of 10 days!” Artistic Director Andrew Bliss explains that “this festival is designed as a think-tank environment for performers, composers, scholars, and lovers of contemporary music. We are very fortunate to have our festival hosted in Greenville, SC––a city with a unquenchable thirst for new music and an incredible curiosity for the unfamiliar and the experimental.”

In addition to percussionists, this summer’s festival expands to include cellists and pianists, as well. One highlight of the festival will include a 5-hour minimalist piano solo by pianist R. Andrew Lee. Reviewing Lee’s performance, music critic Steve Smith writes that this solo, “a five-hour span of superhuman patience and stamina offers a sea of tranquility far removed from the everyday grind.” Lee’s 5-hour performance will be featured on Sunday, June 2, 2PM-7PM. Audience members, not required to sit still for the duration, are invited to wander in and out of Daniel Recital Hall during Lee’s mesmerizing performance of this five-hour minimalist masterwork. 2013 nnSF Composer-in Residence, clarinetist, and co-founder of the Bang on a Can All-Stars, Evan Ziporyn will work with festival participants, and coach a performance of his chamber work, Where Was I?, for percussionist, cellist and pianist. Ziporyn’s composition will be featured on the final concert, on Friday, June 7, at 7:30PM.

For more information, please visit niefnorf.org/performance

contact Kristen Klehr, nnSF Festival Manager, at admin@niefnorf.org.

Regular news surrounding the nief-norf Summer Festival, can be found on Facebook at Facebook.com/niefnorf

and on Twitter @niefnorf.

Contact: Kristen Klehr, Festival Manager Phone: 607-222-1360

nief-norf Summer Festival 2013 Events

All events occur in the Daniel Recital Hall in Furman’s Music Building on campus. All concerts have a $10 suggested donation and are open to the public.

nnSF Opening Concert, featuring the nief-norf Project (Festival Faculty)

Tuesday, May 28, 2013, 7:30 PM

Featuring an evening-length performance of John Luther Adams’s Strange & Sacred Noise, a 75-minute tour-de-force for percussion quartet.

nnSF Cabaret Concert

Wednesday, May 29, 2013, 7:30 PM – Featuring solo works for percussion, cello, and piano by festival faculty and performance fellows.

nief-norf Research Summit (nnRS) Opening Concert

Friday, May 31, 2013, 7:30 PM -This year’s topic for the nnRS is “Music and Technology post-1945” and the opening concert will feature works by composers Kate Neal, Steve Reich, John Cage, Mark Applebaum, John Luther Adams, Bryan Christian, and Travis Alford.

nief-norf Research Summit (nnRS) Guest Artist Concert: Scott Deal

Saturday, June 1, 2013, 5:30 PM – The Guest Artist and Keynote Speaker for the nnRS is percussionist Scott Deal, Professor of Music and Director of the Donald Tavel Arts Technology Research Center at IUPUI. His evening-length concert will engage with the Research Summit’s theme, by utilizing electronics.

R. Andrew Lee (piano) performs Dennis Johnson’s November

Sunday, June 2, 2013, 2:00 PM – Pianist R. Andrew Lee will perform Dennis Johnson’s 5-hour minimalist piano solo, November.

nnSF Composer Fellows Concert

Tuesday, June 4, 2013, 7:30 PM – Featuring works by world-premiere performances of works by nnSF composition fellows Liza Sobel, Mark A. Lackey, Matthew Gunby, Young jin Jeon, Ben Wylie, Nicole Gutman, as well as works by Bill Ryan, and David Lang.

nnSF 2013 Final Concert

Friday, June 7, 2013 – Featuring works by nnSF Composer-in-Residence Evan Ziporyn, nnSF Call for Scores winners Nicholas Deyoe and Lewis Nielson, and Earle Brown’s classic work, Folio.

Grant Britt of No Depression lays it out…

He’s got the soul of Al Green, rooted in Nashville, with a sprinkle of Eric Lindell’s Big Easy drawl on top. Sam Lewis’ debut is a stunner. “I’ve got a heart full of love that scares me/I got a soul full of sin so beware of me,” Lewis cautions on “The Cross I Bear.” He’s not kidding-there’s so much soul pouring out of this guy’s pores you could bathe in it. It’s like hearing Al Green for the first time. Lewis’s vocals and delivery impressed the band assembled for the occasion, headed by 11 year Marty Stuart vet Kenny Vaughn, lead guitarist in Stuart’s Band Of Superlatives and a seasoned session musician. Vaughan’s guitar work here sounds like tracks from a lost Eddie Hinton session, dripping with Muscle Shoals churchy soul. Lewis blends gospel, soul and country for a seamless sound that’s been missing in all those genres for a long time.

“I’m a River” has vocal echoes of a country cousin version of John Prine, backed by ethereal background vocals courtesy of Jonell Mosser, featured in the movie Hope Floats doing the Supremes classic “Stop In the Name of Love.” But this is Lewis’ show, and his phrasing and buttery soul-drenched vocals soar effortlessly over his accompanists without overshadowing them. “Bluesday Night” is bloozy country soul — Eddie Hinton territory, but Lewis is no trespasser — he’s at home here.

And even though Lewis sounds nothing like Hinton, or Percy Sledge, who plowed his same field, that country boy with soul feel is the same. It may come from Nashville, but it’s got nothing in common with anything else that place puts out these days. This one stands up to repeated listening, cut after cut, time after time. It’s time to pay attention to Sam Lewis. He deserves it, and so do you.

“The Howlin’ Brothers live the life they sing about in their songs. They are authentic and the real deal through and through. On top of that, they are the hardest working musicians I’ve come across. They play their instruments every waking moment and are truly possessed by music.” —Brendan Benson

“They are content to not worry with the current contemporary music scene and just build their own.” —Warren Haynes

Kings and Queens has an incredible roots influence, sparser, relaxed. Burning Spear (check out the horns on “Shine Bright”), Steel Pulse, and even guys like Mikey Dread are all clear inspirations throughout this 12-song set. The band that re-emerged from the change over is now so cohesive it’s overwhelming. The musicianship is impeccable. Nate Edgar’s bass, Mike Keenan’s guitar, and help in the studio from JBB ghost member Nate Richardson, combined with a newer arrival, Jon Petronzio on keys- well, it just makes for a great range of drum n’ bass, synth glitz, and roots riddims, and the horns play the biggest role they’ve played since Spirits All Around. Some songs are too good to be written about. “Dust Bowl”, “Old John Brown”, and “Shine Bright” are perhaps some of the best reggae songs written ever. JBB never focused too much on roots topics: marijuana, Rasta culture, Babylon- although much of the language and messages of roots reggae came through. Elliot’s lyrics are rich with stories, history, and insight, touching on roles of love and music, while also being more self-reflecting than he ever has before. “Deep Summer” is a gorgeous love song that brings out the depths of this man’s character. JBB is still writing brand new flavors of music.

Success? You bet. The record isn’t too compressed- a modern music fault. Instead, it’s loose and well mixed — although maybe Elliot’s voice could be louder in the mix so we can learn the lyrics better. The horns glisten, (I just love these horns, man), and the drum n’ bass get some studio boost from percussionist Brian Davis. What a glorious record. Beautiful, heartening, and well deserved for this hard working band. It’s great to see reggae gain footing, and it’s great to see the revolutionists continue to burn walls and build bridges.

I could talk about this record forever. Just go get it.

scope RSD 2013 in all its glory here, oooh boy.

3 BANDS ROCKED the afternoon and evening here:

> DEADSTRING BROTHERS kicked it off at 12:00 Noon bringing a new CD/LP!

> SHONNA TUCKER and EYE CANDY We are pleased and rather stoked to have had an in-store stop from ex Drive-By Truckers bassist and vocalist with her new project as they rolled through to Asheville for gig at The Grey Eagle in Asheville.

> and yes, LEE BAINS III & GLORY FIRES played here at 3PM, and later again at 9pm for a full Saturday night blazing RSD finale.

Check this blazing cover of The Boxtops “The Letter” omg!

On The Edge showcases one of the most exciting and dynamic new bands in bluegrass. With virtuoso guests Tim O’Brien, Rob Ickes and vocalist Megan McCormick joining Solivan’s skilled team of pickers, the album’s 10 tracks virtually jump off of the CD as the band applies the muscle of traditional bluegrass and finesse of newgrass to material that reaches across the bluegrass and Americana spectrum. Frank Solivan’s tenor vocals soar over virtuosic picking provided by banjoist Mike Munford, guitarist Chris Luquette and bassist Danny Booth. With the release of On The Edge Frank Solivan & Dirty Kitchen are poised to become one of the most sought after bands in bluegrass.

FRANK SOLIVAN & DIRTY KITCHEN – On The Edge, CD

Catch William Tyler in concert:

April 10 Double Crown, Asheville NC

From nashvillescene.com
Guitar wizard William Tyler stopped in at Grimey’s in Nashville, to celebrate the release of his new full-length, Impossible Truth. A few songs were captured on video. Known as well for his contributions to Lambchop, Silver Jews and a host of others (including my belly, as co-proprietor of The Stone Fox), Tyler’s a genial and self-effacing guy with as good a command of words as music, as you’ll see in the introductions he gives to each song. As he mentioned in his conversation with Edd Hurt, Willy T. has branched out from the Fahey-inspired styles that marked 2010′s Behold the Spirit, weaving some badass Middle Eastern and Indian flavors into the new tunes, especially in “The Geography of Nowhere,” above. If Behold the Spirit was the soundtrack to your winter, Impossible Truth is perfectly timed for the start of spring. Tyler brought out three different guitars, so I posted a video featuring each. Find the record, Tyler’s first for Merge, in your local shops now, and “Cadillac Desert” and “A Portrait of Sarah” after the jump. –Stephen Trageser, nashvillescene.com

From MERGE RECORDS
Impossible Truth was born on tour as William Tyler was reading two books with an odd kinship while on long and lonely Midwestern drives: Barney Hoskyns’ Hotel California and Mike Davis’ The Ecology of Fear. Both center on the promise and psychosis of southern California, albeit from very different angles: Hoskyns tackles the naive and narcissistic Laurel Canyon scene of the early seventies, while renowned social scientist Davis deals with the history of the destruction of Los Angeles, both in real and imagined disasters. The synchronistic tackling of these tomes inspired Tyler to compose a story rooted in apocalyptic expectation and bittersweet nostalgia. Or as Tyler puts it, this is “my ’70s singer-songwriter record; it just doesn’t have any words.”

Recorded and mixed at Beech House in Nashville and co-produced by Tyler and Mark Nevers, Impossible Truth features guest appearances from Chris Scruggs, Luke Schneider, Roy Agee, and Lambchop compatriot Scott Martin. 2010′s Behold the Spirit, William Tyler’s first album under his own name, was celebrated by Pitchfork as “the most vital, energized album by an American solo guitarist in a decade or more” and established him as a critical favorite, the picker who, according to his friend and tour mate M.C. Taylor from Hiss Golden Messenger, “connects the dots between Sandy Bull, Richard Thompson, Bruce Langhorne, and Reggie Young.”

Impossible Truth will challenge your ideas of what an instrumental guitar record can and should be. As Taylor puts it, “William will worry a phrase-some tangled chordal wormhole-until you are certain it’s all that exists. He’ll take you over the stiles, he’ll love you up and down, and then he’ll make you cry for the world and what we’ve done to it. Willy T’s got the vampire blues. And there’s only one like him.”

William Tyler – Impossible Truth, on CD and LP