Basso Bongo Offers Class, Pre-Concert Lecture/Demo, Concert and Career Master Class in New Music Residency, Sunday and Monday, February 27 and 28 Story by Claire Chase
			"Basso Bongo," says Tom Lopez, of this week's Contemporary Music Division guest residents, "offers dynamic performances. These are classically and rigorously trained musicians, yet they are open to incorporating new technology in the music they perform." Basso Bongo is the acclaimed New Music duo of electronic bassist Robert Black and computer-assisted MIDI percussionist Amy Knoles. The group will offer five opportunities for Oberlinian's to catch its act. Class for Percussion and Contemporary Music Division Students, Sunday, February 27, 4-5 p.m., Warner Concert Hall Pre-Concert Lecture-Demonstration, Sunday, February 27, 7-8 p.m., Warner Concert Hall Concert, Sunday, February 27, 8 p.m., Warner Concert Hall. Career Master Class, Monday, February 28, 12:10 p.m., TIMARA Studio 2 All events are free and open to the public. Additionally, Amy Knoles and Robert Black will be interviewed by Tom Lopez, visiting instructor of Computer Music and New Media, on Monday, February, 28, 3 p.m., on his weekly radio show FOLDOVER, aired on Oberlin's WOBC-FM 91.5. Lopez's show presents eclectic programs and discussions of electronic music. Basso Bongo was formed nine years ago when two musicians from the country's most sought-after new music ensembles - the California E.A.R. Unit and the Bang on a Can All-Stars - joined forces as a duo. Black and Knoles, percussionist, have worked closely with such new music giants as John Cage, Steve Reich, Frank Zappa, John Adams, Elliot Carter, Morton Subotnick, Todd Machover and Pierre Boulez, among many others. In addition to their extensive touring and performing schedule, the Los Angeles-based duo generously offers workshops, master classes and performance-discussions for diverse ranges of audiences, from elementary school children to conservatory students. Sunday's concert will showcase multi-media works by Randall Woolf, Glenn Hackbarth, James Sellars and collaborative compositions by Knoles and Black. Program Notes: Men in the Cities, Amy Knoles Amy Knoles describes the inspiration behind her composition "Men in the Cities," which will open Sunday's program. "I was asked to perform a computer/electronic percussion realization of the work of artist Robert Longo at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art in 1990. I was instantly drawn to a series of pieces entitled "Men in the Cities" on a purely instinctive level and after a closer look found out that there were many ways to interpret each work. In this series, the figures typify young urbanites, who seem to be simultaneously animated and vital or stuggling for survival...In deliberately omitting clear-cut causes for the figure's behavoir, Longo provokes the viewers's desire to know or understand what is transpiring in these compelling pictures; we find ourselves wanting to supply missing details so we can understand the larger forces that control these figures." i'll never ask again/local stiletto, Randall Woolf Woolf, a long-time member of Bang On a Can All-Stars who has worked as an arranger for such artists as John Cage, David Lang and the Kronos Quartet, describes the piece this way: "This piece is in two movements," explains the composer. "The first features trumpet samples I created with trumpet god Wayne du Maine, who improvised based on short riffs I had written. I wanted to find very atypical sounds for drumming, since I love watching the disparity of the motions of playing electronic percussion and the sounds heard. It's a kind of a slow hallucination local stiletto. The second movement is a spoken song. I got these lyrics from my friend Jana Martin, a downtown singer and poet...It's about a prostitute telling herself how tough and pretty she is as she waits on the corner for work. As I wrote the piece, I found myself thinking the whole time about how Amy and Robert would look playing it." What I've Been Missing, Glenn Hackbarth "What I've Been Missing" was written for Basso Bongo by Glenn Hackbarth, director of the both New Music Ensemble and the Electronic Music Research Studios at Arizona State University. Of the piece, the composer says: "The work represents a continuation of my interest in placing live performers in a situation where they interact with an electronic score or fabric which is being generated live by a computer. The percussionist is performing solely on a MalletKat, an instrument which resembles a vibraphone or marimba but produces no sound on its own. It merely sends data, which conveys information about the performer's actions...Because of the varied interests and capabilities of the performers for whom it was written, "What I've Been Missing" has sonorities and rhythms which are strongly influenced by jazz." Bass and Drums, James Sellars James Sellars, currently on the composition-theroy faculty at the Hartt School of Music in Hartford, CT, wrote "Bass and Drums" in 1985 for double bass and drum machine, and ten years later re-incarnated the work for double bass and live percussion. "In form, 'Bass and Drums' falls into six somewhat integrated sections," explains Sellars. "The opening section features pizzicato bass and the tom-toms in a stream of abrupt tempo changes. This is followed by a brief transition into a bowed, lyric section. Section three is an allusion to the opening, though much shortened. Section four is in a quick tempo with shifting accents. Section five, another allusion to the opening, yet further shortened, serves as an introduction to the final fastest music: a whirling, dithyrambic dance." S.O.S., Basso Bongo "S.O.S.," (Sounds of Shebouygan) was created by Basso Bongo while the duo was in residence at the Kohler Art Center in Wisconsin, in November 1995. "Throughout a one week period we sampled the voices of children from various diverse backgrounds, from Humong to Finnish, involved in the residency activities. We then created a piece by combining the voices with a harmonized bass line to create an eerie pathos that gives way to bouncy insouciance." Things That Don't Belong in Houses, Todd Winkler The final work of Sunday evening's concert is a multi-media piece by Brown University faculty member Todd Winkler, a former faculty member at both CalArts and Oberlin. In this piece, computer technology expands the performance capabilities of a live duo, while FollowPlay, an interactive computer program, is employed to coordinate the computer with the two musicians. "During the piece," says Winkler, "the computer program 'listens to' the music being played by the percussionist, detecting tempo, dynamics, and large musical gestures. The software then interprets the live performance and produces music on MIDI synthesizers that is a direct response...So, the ensemble can be thought of as consisting of two human performers, and two computer "performers" who are responsive and interactive with the live sound."
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