ted hearne
bio // calendar
// music // links
// sounds
// katrina ballads
NEW AUDIO:
vessels (2008) // make it out (2008) // you have aids (2008)
//
mass for st. mary's (2008) // i remember (2007)
//
cordavi and fig (2007) // patriot (2007)
bio // calendar
// music // links
// sounds
// katrina ballads
NEW AUDIO:
vessels (2008) // make it out (2008) // you have aids (2008)
//
mass for st. mary's (2008) // i remember (2007)
//
cordavi and fig (2007) // patriot (2007)
mass for st. mary's (2008) // i remember (2007) //
cordavi and fig (2007) // patriot (2007)
i am deep in trumpet land, working on a piece for chris coletti and the huntsville symphony orchestra. i guess you could call it a concerto. (which seems weird). i’m really excited about this, and chris is one of the best musicians i’ve ever met, but it’s been hard to get going on this one. i’ve been listening to a lot of peter evans, though. this guy is a monster. this album “more is more” is blowing my mind. he has cultivated some confounding combination of buzzing and double-buzzing and singing and spitting and crackling and sliding and lipping that makes a universe out of one trumpet. (i know the first part of that sentence makes me sound like i’m getting all TMI about some illicit experience you would just assume not know about, but those are all real trumpet terms, right?)
this is “Ritual”- from More is More - Peter Evans
ethan and tim at the stone
my friend taylor always inadvertently refers to the musicians he loves by their first names. i love that - it’s like once he feels where they’re coming from, that’s an intimate enough experience to be on a first-name basis.
i went with nathan and dan vezza (thankfully back from germany for a few months) to see ethan iverson and tim berne at the stone tonight. of course that’s always an intimate space, but for this show it was especially so. the ensemble seemed almost embryonic; i know the two of them have played together publically many many times, but i imagine most if not all of those performances have been in the context of trios or quartets. this felt exposed, careful, fragile… sometimes i wasn’t entirely convinced - sometimes their improvisations stopped breathing for a while, sometimes the two would jump to the written page and fall into a staid reading of the head.
but it was clear we were watching an energy just beginning to form, and i felt lucky to be there to hear it. here are two heady-ass musicians, not only creating complex musical constructions but using them as a runway from which to embark into various states of improvisation. some of these tunes sounded almost like hindemith, rigid and thorny, only more mathy and (thankfully) with weirder bass lines. the project of using tunes like these to experiment with elasticity, falling in and out of time and togetherness, seems like it would be made even more difficult with only two performers. (as nathan pointed out, there’s almost nowhere to hide in this texture.)
but this duo could be, and hopefully it wil be, gripping and mesmerizing, and i know this because at times the music really took off, and occasionally tim and ethan found the perfect place to hide, and then all of a sudden the timbral obstacles fell away. it was heartening to see these two badasses searching for a new sound and honoring the process.
hard work, worth it
In the midst of our first tour, Your Bad Self just played a show at the 701 Center for Contemporary Art in Columbia. we had a full house and really supportive audience - and whoa, we totally need a manager. or at least a roadie. (many many public props to nathan and ron for lugging all their gear everywhere and then setting it up.) every time i think i’m not a logistical mess i realize that oh wait - actually i am. but that’s ok, i love playing with these people and we’re having a great time.
we have a show Sunday at 9pm at the Pour House in Charleston, and on Monday at 9pm at Bobo Gallery in Asheville.
YOUR BAD SELF at the Bang on a Can Marathon this Sunday
after a frenetic month of finally finishing school FOREVER, i’m gearing up for a little tour with Your Bad Self - hopefully the first of many. We’ll be hitting Charleston, SC; Columbia, SC; and Asheville, NC next weekend. But first, we are stoked to be playing at the famed Bang on a Can Marathon, this Sunday, at the World Financial Center Winter Garden. We’ll be rocking a short but intense set at 2:45pm, just following Bill Frisell (!)
more soon…..
Red Light at Kennedy Center tonight
first, it must be noted that i am making this post from a bus with free wifi! ladies and gentlemen, a BUS. with WIRELESS INTERNET. woot.
also i should say that i have completed the MMA program and am officially done with classes for the rest of my life.
also i will mention that i am on a bus because i have just arrived in washington, DC because tonight i will be conducting the Red Light Ensemble in a performance at the Kennedy Center, and YOU - yes you - can watch this performance thanks to the very same internet that is bringing you this post, because it will be streaming online at the Kennedy Center’s website.
that will be at 6pm eastern time. we’ll be playing grisey’s VORTEX TEMPORUM as well as pieces by scott wollschleger, chris cerrone, vince raikhel and liam robinson.
The Third Coast (is actually freezing even though it is well into the month of April)
i’m home! living it up in chicago, and true to form it’s 31 degrees and raining/snowing and the wind is blowing my face off - but it feels right somehow. i treated myself to a nice car and have been cruising around hanging with my old friends, meeting new babies, catching up with the moms, etc…
what brings me to the chi? it’s THIRD COAST PERCUSSION. colleague and friend david skidmore’s group has commissioned and is premiering my new piece THAW at a concert this tuesday at the ever-hip chopin theater. this piece uses three glockenspiels for nearly all its pitched material, and getting the music to move exactly how i want has proven to be really difficult. in fact, i’m still tweaking things. but third coast has tackled it and they all sound great, so i’m really excited for the show. i’ll also be performing the narration part on Rweski’s Coming Together - although this piece is a classic in new music circles, it’s the first time i’ve done this part and it is thrilling.
also on the program is a high-octane performance of Andriessen’s Workers Union (featuring Clay Condon hammering away at a disembodied piano, pictured below), Rweski’s To The Earth and David T. Little’s Speak Softly, an aggressive and muscular work for big sticks, which the dudes play while kneeling (also pictured).
if you’re in chicago, you should definitely come out to this show. my mom will be there. here’s the info:
THIRD COAST PERCUSSION
Tuesday, April 7 at 7:30pm
Chopin Theater
1543 W. Division Ave.
advance tickets here
Times review of last night's MATA Festival concert
I had a great time at this show, and The Knights played quite impressively. And here’s a really nice article by Allan Kozinn….MATA Festival
I’m happy to say The Knights will perform my piece CORDAVI AND FIG tonight - Tuesday, March 31 - at Le Poisson Rouge as part of the MATA Festival. Tickets are $15 / $10 for students and seniors / I’ll be coming in from New Haven for the night and I hope to see you there!
Here’s some audio from the last performance of Cordavi and Fig (I’m really happy how this recording turned out, it was done by Eugene Kimball who really puts an insane amount of effort and undertsanding into creating great mixes from all the new music performances at Yale).
And here’s all the info about the show:
2009 MATA Festival
Tuesday March 31 at 7:30pm
Le Poisson Rouge - 158 Bleecker Street / New York City
music by Andrew Hamilton, Ted Hearne, Sarah Snider, Francesco Antonioni, Justin Messina, Mike Block and Joseph Pereira
here’s a recording from BODY SOLDIERS, a show we did with Yes is a World last January in Chicago. this production was the result of a trip six of us, lead by my friend and colleague Mollie Stone, took to South Africa in Summer 2006 (with the generous support of the Kaiser Family Foundation). during this trip, travelled to community centers, clinics, and the Durban-Westville medium security prison, and astoundingly all of these served as settings for choir rehearsals and performances. i was lucky enough to see firsthand the ways in which black South Africans are using music as a tool to fight the HIV/AIDS pandemic that is killing so many people - through the rich tradition of music that served to empower downtrodden communities during Apartheid, people all over the country are using the same music (usually with new lyrics and dance moves) to educate, comfort and protest government policies that limit access to lifesaving antiretroviral drugs.
this here is a song called Nguye loJesu, and it was taught to us by Phumlani Kunene and his group the Sipithemba Choir. Sipithemba is an all-HIV choir operating out of Durban, and this is mind-blowing in itself in that the stigma of having the disease is pretty crippling in South Africa, and it’s not something that people freely admit. Sipithemba is a strong and supportive community, and the choir will actually travel en masse to the homes of their members and SING to one’s family members as he or she discloses their HIV status. it’s really very moving to think about.
in the lyrics, you can see how a traditional song is adapted for the purposes of empowerment and education. in the second half of the song, the choir sings the “A-B-C”s of protection methods. i think it’s extremely inspiring that music has the power to permeate social boundaries that would in other circumstances prevent an audience from accepting truthful information. here are the lyrics:
(in Zulu):
Jesus was here before the world was here; he is here today.
We are armed with knowledge even if the virus comes.
(in English):
Abstain, be faithful, condomise
If you use a condom, you will be saved!
the choir is made up of folks we assembled in Chicago, and the music was taught by Mollie Stone. that’s Isaiah Robinson on lead tenor at the beginning, and Allison Semmes and Josephine Lee belting out the A-B-C’s in the second half. the rest of the choir is Anthony Turner, H. Roz Woll, Garrett Johannsen, Aviva Mitchell and Adrian Dunn.
