Zachary James Watkins: Collaboration w/ RAGE THORMBONES

Name: RAGE THORMBONES: WORLDEATER + Zachary James Watkins
Start: 2017-01-21 20:00:00 -0800
End: 2017-01-21 22:00:00 -0800
Location: Radius Gallery

Zachary James Watkins studied composition with Janice Giteck, Jarrad Powell, Robin Holcomb and Jovino Santos Neto at Cornish College. In 2006, Zachary received an MFA in Electronic Music and Recording Media from Mills College where he studied with Chris Brown, Fred Frith, Alvin Curran and Pauline Oliveros. Zachary has received commissions from Cornish College of The Arts, The Microscores Project, the Beam Foundation, Somnubutone Radio Series free103point9.org, sfsound and the Seattle Chamber Players. His 2006 composition Suite for String Quartet was awarded the Paul Merritt Henry Prize for Composition and has subsequently been performed at the Labs 25th Anniversary Celebration, the Labor Sonor Series at Kule in Berlin Germany and in Seattle Wa, as part of the 2nd Annual Town Hall New Music Marathon featuring violist Eyvind Kang. Zachary has performed in numerous festivals across the United States, Mexico and Europe and his band Black Spirituals opened for pioneering Drone Metal band Earth during their 2015 European tour.

In 2008, Zachary premiered a new multi-media work entitled Country Western as part of the Meridian Gallery's Composers in Performance Series that received grants from the The American Music Center and The Foundation for Contemporary Arts. An excerpt of this piece is published on a compilation album entitled "The Harmonic Series" along side Pauline Oliveros, Ellen Fullman, Theresa Wong Charles Curtis and Duane Pitre among others. Zachary designed the sound and composed music for the plays "I have loved Strangers" produced by Just Theatre, which listed "top ten of 2007" in the East Bay Express and the 8th Annual ReOrient Theatre Festival. His sound art work entitled Third Floor::Designed Obsolescence, "spoke as a metaphor for the breakdown of the dream of technology and the myth of our society's permanence," review by Susan Noyes Platt in the Summer 05 issue of ARTLIES. Zachary releases music on the labels Sige, Cassauna, Confront (UK), The Tapeworm and Touch (UK). Novembre Magazine (DE), ITCH (ZA), Walrus Press and the New York Miniature Ensemble have published his writings and scores. Zachary has been an artist in resident at the Espy Foundation, Djerassi and the Headlands Center for The Arts.

Timothy McCormack: WORLDEATER

WORLDEATER aims to completely saturate our listening space, like a heavy, viscous vapor filling a room. It devours our world and replaces it with its own. WORLDEATER is a large-scale collaboration between myself and RAGE THORMBONES. WORLDEATERS for two euphoniums and low brass quintet are forthcoming. - TM

Timothy McCormack’s music centers on the idea that sound has mass and is experienced as a physical object. His work also aims to create intimate social environments which prioritize communication, listening, and responsibility towards one another.

[Homepage](http://www.timothymccormack.com).

Zachary James Watkins studied composition with Janice Giteck, Jarrad Powell, Robin Holcomb and Jovino Santos Neto at Cornish College. In 2006, Zachary received an MFA in Electronic Music and Recording Media from Mills College where he studied with Chris Brown, Fred Frith, Alvin Curran and Pauline Oliveros. Zachary has received commissions from Cornish College of The Arts, The Microscores Project, the Beam Foundation, Somnubutone Radio Series free103point9.org, sfsound and the Seattle Chamber Players. His 2006 composition Suite for String Quartet was awarded the Paul Merritt Henry Prize for Composition and has subsequently been performed at the Labs 25th Anniversary Celebration, the Labor Sonor Series at Kule in Berlin Germany and in Seattle Wa, as part of the 2nd Annual Town Hall New Music Marathon featuring violist Eyvind Kang. Zachary has performed in numerous festivals across the United States, Mexico and Europe and his band Black Spirituals opened for pioneering Drone Metal band Earth during their 2015 European tour.

In 2008, Zachary premiered a new multi-media work entitled Country Western as part of the Meridian Gallery's Composers in Performance Series that received grants from the The American Music Center and The Foundation for Contemporary Arts. An excerpt of this piece is published on a compilation album entitled "The Harmonic Series" along side Pauline Oliveros, Ellen Fullman, Theresa Wong Charles Curtis and Duane Pitre among others. Zachary designed the sound and composed music for the plays "I have loved Strangers" produced by Just Theatre, which listed "top ten of 2007" in the East Bay Express and the 8th Annual ReOrient Theatre Festival. His sound art work entitled Third Floor::Designed Obsolescence, "spoke as a metaphor for the breakdown of the dream of technology and the myth of our society's permanence," review by Susan Noyes Platt in the Summer 05 issue of ARTLIES. Zachary releases music on the labels Sige, Cassauna, Confront (UK), The Tapeworm and Touch (UK). Novembre Magazine (DE), ITCH (ZA), Walrus Press and the New York Miniature Ensemble have published his writings and scores. Zachary has been an artist in resident at the Espy Foundation, Djerassi and the Headlands Center for The Arts.

Matt Barbier is an LA based musician focused on experimental intonation, noise, and the physical processes of their instrument. Their playing has been described by the LA Times as being "of intense, brilliant, virtuosic growling that gave the striking impression that Barbier was dismantling the instrument while playing it," by the Wire as “exploring the nooks of instrumental tone far beyond the reach of most mortals,” and by the New Yorker as being a "diabolically inventive trombonist-composer."

Matt engages in collaborative relationships with a range of musicians including Michelle Lou, Catherine Lamb, Kevin Drumm, Kaori Sazuki, and Katherine Young. As an interpreter they have also given premieres by a broad spectrum of composers including

George Lewis, Liza Lim, Wolfgang von Schweinitz, Jacob Kirkegaard, Jessie Marino, Scott Walker, and Sarah Davachi.

Matt is a member of RAGE Thormbones, gnarwhallaby, wasteLAnd music, wildUp, and is an active soloist on low brass instruments. They teach at CalArts and Los Angeles City College (LACC).

Matt has presented work for the Monday Evening Concerts, LA Phil's Green Umbrella, Internationales Musikinstitut Darmstadt, Spor, the Museum of Jurassic Technology, Bludenz Tage zeitgemäßer , Indexical, Frequency Festival, InAuthentica, RedCat, and Issue Project Room, as well as presenting at CalArts, UCSD, UCSB, University of British Columbia, and DePaul. They have also been in residence at Harvard (HGNM), UCSD, Stanford, Princeton, UCSC, Columbia, NYU, and UCLA. Matt has released work on Carrier, Populist, Mode, Hat Hut, Innova, Faux Amis, and Kairos Records. Additionally, they have released a technical manual for trombonists on the production and integration of lip multiphonics and split tones.

Matt has written music and created sound installations for the Factory Seconds Brass Trio, WasteLAnd, gnarwhallaby, the Exploritorium, RAGE Thormbones, the Museum of Jurassic Technology, SASSAS, Machine Project, LACMA, and the Getty Villa, as well as in collaboratin with digital media artist Tom Leeser.

RAGE THORMBONES is an ongoing collaboration between Matt Barbier and Weston Olencki. They explore the outer reaches of performance and brass technique. They have been in residence through Harvard, Stanford, and New York Universities, recorded for HatHut Records, and are best friends. Weston lives in New York City and Matt lives in Los Angeles.

Weston Olencki is a New York City based trombonist/composer specializing in the performance and production of experimental music & art. Weston is a member of Ensemble Pamplemousse and the Wet Ink Large Ensemble, one half of RAGE THORMBONES and People Making Sounds, and has performed with Ensemble Dal Niente, ICE, wasteLAnd, wildUP!, Fonema Consort, the San Francisco Contemporary Music Players, Talea Ensemble, sfSound, Wild Rumpus, Eco Ensemble, Chicago Symphony Orchestra's MusicNOW, and a.pe.ri.od.ic - under conductors Alan Pierson, Enno Poppe, Steven Schick, and Marino Formenti. He was awarded the Kranichsteiner Musikpreis for Performance [2016] and a Stipendiumpreis [2014] from the Darmstadt Ferienkurse.

His compositional work has been performed/commissioned by the Talea Ensemble/Earle Brown Music Foundation, Pamplemousse, Bass2Bass [Michelle Lou + Scott Worthington], People Making Sounds, trombonist Matt Barbier, clarinetist Erin Cameron, and saxophonist David Wegehaupt.

Weston has pursued collaborative work with wide range of artists including Eric Wubbels, Michelle Lou, Michael Pisaro, Katherine Young, Zachary James Watkins, Timothy McCormack, Sam Salem, among others. Festival/series appearances include Alatszto Hang [Budapest], Weisslich [Manchester/London], Qubit [NYC], Constellation's Frequency Series [Chicago], FOCIarts [New Orleans], Permutations [NYC/SF], sfSoundSalonSeries [SF], NUNC [Chicago], Indexical [Santa Cruz], Switchboard Presents [SF], OPTION [Chicago], and Omaha Under the Radar. He also co-curates/presents the Chance and Circumstance festival with Pamplemousse, an annual festival for experimental arts in NYC.

Weston has held residencies at the University of California Santa Cruz, Harvard University [HGNM], NYU, and Stanford University, with upcoming residencies at Northwestern, Columbia, and CalArts. He has recorded for HatHut, Not Two, Sound American, Parlour Tapes+, Indexical, and Clean Feed and for Ryuichi Sakamoto, with forthcoming solo releases on Carrier Records.

RAGE THORMBONES: WORLDEATER + Zachary James Watkins

RAGE THORMBONES