X AVANT New Music Festival

Friday Oct. 23
Beats, Notes and Loops: A Hip-Hop/New Music Summit
featuring:

NICOLE LIZEE with DJ P-LOVE + chamber ensemble (9pm)
EVERGREEN CLUB CONTEMPORARY GAMELAN with ABDOMINAL & INSIDEAMIND (8pm)

Location: The Music Gallery
Doors 7pm, concert 8pm
Advance tickets $15 at TicketWeb, Rotate This & Soundscapes
BUY TICKETS ONLINE NOW!
At the Door: $20 regular, $15 member & senior, $10 student

Hip-Hop and New Music are two musical genres that you wouldn’t think have much in common. The stereotypes of the streetwise, beatwise gangsta and the stuffy, reclusive composer don’t seem all that compatible. But this event seeks to explode those stereotypes and find out what these traditions do have in common. After all, they both share a possible pioneer in John Cage, who was one of the first to experiment with the turntable as a musical instrument. And you could argue that hip-hop’s, minimalist sample-based approach draws on ideas put forth by Terry Riley or Steve Reich.

Nicole Lizee’s performance will consist of two pieces: Karappo Okesutura (2006) for chamber ensemble, karaoke tapes, mezzo soprano, and video, is an ongoing project centered around the karaoke phenomenon; a term derived from two Japanese words: karappo (empty) and okesutura (orchestra). This Will Not Be Televised (2005–2007) for chamber ensemble and turntablist, was written during the CBC strike of 2005, This Will Not Be Televised is an exploration into the world of turntablism and its integration into a concert music setting.

The Music Gallery also challenged Evergreen Club Contemporary Gamelan, Abdominal and InsideAMind to a three-way duel. Let’s see what an experimental turntable duo, a hip-hop emcee, and a long-running new world music ensemble can do when they put their headz together.

Nicole Lizee: Biography
Nicole Lizée is a composer, sound artist and keyboardist based in Montreal, Quebec. In 2001 she received a Master of Music degree in composition from McGill University. Her Masters thesis consisted of a work for large ensemble and solo turntablist that featured DJ techniques fully notated and integrated into a concert music setting.

Nicole has received commissions from several artists and ensembles including l’Orchestre Métropolitain du Grand Montréal, CBC, So Percussion, Ensemble Contemporain de Montréal, Ensemble Kore, Continuum, Bradyworks, Toca Loca,
Brigitte Poulin, Motion Ensemble, La Biennale de Montréal and Les Productions featuring Martin Tétreault. Nicole has twice been named a finalist for the Jules-Léger Prize, most recently in 2007 for the work This Will Not Be Televised, scored for chamber ensemble and turntables. This work was selected as a top ten recommended work at the 2008 International Rostrum of Composers. In 2002 she was awarded the Canada Council for the Arts Robert Fleming Prize, and in 2004 she was nominated for an Opus Prize. http://www.nicolelizee.com/

Paolo Kapunan a.k.a. DJ P-Love started his musical career at the age of six, taking piano lessons from the keyboard player of his father’s rock band in Orangeburg, New York. He moved to Montreal in 1995 to study trumpet at McGill University, and became a fixture in the Montreal DJ scene as P-Love. Heavily infuenced by years of classical training, his table-turning skills have taken him around North America, Europe, and Australia repeatedly under the tutelage of fellow Montreal DJ Kid Koala. Paolo has also collaborated with bands such as Medeski Martin & Wood, and with producers such as Steinski, Sixtoo and Amon Tobin.

Paolo’s first collaboration with Nicole Lizée was the performance of “RPM” in 1999 with the McGill Contemporary Music Ensemble, and he has continued to perform her works with groups such as the Montreal Metropolitan Orchestra, the Canadian Chamber Ensemble, and the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra. His own instrumental full-length debut All Up in Your Mind was released in October 2005 on Montreal-based Bully Records, with worldwide distribution through Ninja Tune. He currently lives in New York City, where he also plays guitar, trumpet and keyboards for Brooklyn-based outfit Taxi Taxi.

Evergreen Club Contemporary Gamelan
Founded in 1983, Canada's pioneering gamelan group has been at the leading edge of the world music wave for a quarter century and is proud of its record of introducing its brand of music to the Canadian public. The ECCG distinguishes itself from many other groups on the world music scene by speaking with an unusual classically-tinged voice, successfully mixing Indonesian, African, South and Southeast Asian, and South American musical styles in with the group's Western classical and jazz roots. For this performance, ECCG will be configured as a quartet. http://www.evergreenclubgamelan.ca/

Abdominal
Andy Bernstein grew up in Greektown, East End Toronto on a steady diet of skateboarding, souvlaki, art, punk rock and hip hop. Rocking the name MC Abdominal, he formed his first rap crew with the now legendary DJ Serious as a teenager, and started honing his freestyle chops. A chance meeting in 1998 at a downtown party lead him to first cross paths with DJ Fase. They paired up as Abs & Fase, began recording together, and a limited run of Vinyl Frontier records made its way into the hot hands of DJs, radio hosts, and record collectors around the globe. One of them was picked up by UK producer DJ Format, who was floored by this unknown Canadian emcee, and invited him to England to collaborate.

Abdominal’s raps became a standout feature on Format’s first two full-length release. The duo hit the road for three years, and from 2003 to 2005 they toured as part of Jurassic 5’s European tour. This was a major turning point in Abdominal’s growing, globe-trotting career. Abdominal’s various collaborations and versatile playbook of approaches to the art of emceeing has allowed him to avoid too much type-casting. His first solo album, Escape From the Pigeon Hole, was released in May 2007 and featured collaborators including Cut Chemist, Circle Research and jazz musician Elizabeth Shepherd. His song "Pedal Pusher", co-written with Rodney Pleasant, won the 2007 Echo Songwriting Prize, awarded for the best song in Canadian independent music by SOCAN. http://www.myspace.com/mcabdominal

iNSiDEaMiND
Reinventing the word DJ, Toronto’s iNSiDEaMiND is the leading force in turntable music innovation and performance. Spellbinding soundtracks, head-snapping breaks, tears, laughter, and magic make up their acrobatic onstage flow. Tickling audiences not just with clever samples, but an onslaught of layered ambience, found sounds, and sudden switches to live improvised skits that pull crowds deep into their fictional worlds. Having shared the stage or collaborated with artists such as Kid Koala, RJD2, DJ Food and D-Styles, among others, their sound is often described as "listening to a movie" and comparisons range from DJ Krush to Flying Lotus, Boards of Canada, and Portishead. Naturally their sound varies in mood and they literally bring imaginary worlds to life with their genre-bending performances, which have grown to include theatrics. In November 2008 iaM released their debut album, the musical journey to a land they call Scatterpopia. This full length effort features guest appearances by the likes of Ninja Tune's own Ghislain Poirier and the vocal genius of Laura Barrett, not to mention a series of collaborations and remixes from artists across the globe. The devastating combo of passion and practice is what makes iNSiDEaMiND a special treat for fans around the world. http://www.insideamind.net