NEW VIDEOS: Paul D Miller (aka DJ Spooky): Peace Symphony (excerpts)

Posted on February 16, 2016 by maestrobeats

In December 2015, Paul D. Miller (aka DJ Spooky) and The Nouveau Classical Project presented the world premiere of Miller’s Peace Symphony: 8 Stories at Seattle’s Cornish Playhouse. Second Inversion was able to capture some of this piece, which you can read about below.

“Inspired by the everyday stories of the last remaining survivors of the nuclear bomb attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the idea behind this work came from Miller’s personal interaction with eight Hibakusha (被爆者 Atomic bomb survivors) on Peace Boat’s 83rd Global Voyage (Peace Boat is an international non-governmental and non-profit organization that works to promote peace, human rights, equal and sustainable development and respect for the environment) where Miller recently served as a guest educator and artist-in-residence.

Hibakusha’s stories highlight the humanitarian consequences of these weapons of mass destruction, educate youth, and help to bring about a nuclear free world. Miller has sampled the words and stories of Hibakusha to create electronic and acoustic musical portraits that resonate with some of the deepest issues facing modern society.” – Paul D. Miller (aka DJ Spooky)

The stories Miller engages come from several of the last survivors of the tragedy of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and he takes their tales and weaves together a sound portrait of one of the most powerful moments of the 20th Century.

A few excerpts from an interview between the chair of Cornish College of the Arts with DJ Spooky about Peace Symphony:

Tom Baker: First of all, how in the world do you find the time for all that you do as a creative artist? And secondly, do you find the time to notice the rhythm of the space between things with what must be an incredibly busy life?

Paul D. Miller: I would say everyone is feeling that they never have enough time in the 21st century. For me, music, art, and literature are all simply reflections of the same creative impulse. It’s a core issue in the 21st Century. Capitalism forces our attention span to be framed by the huge array of commercial advertising that inundate us. I guess you could say that I use my art and compositions to create more time and space to think about all the issues facing us, and distill it all in one form. Music is the language we all speak.

TB: This new piece, Peace Symphony, draws on a dramatic and profoundly disturbing time in world history. I know that you were artist-in-residence for Peace Boat (an international non-governmental and non-profit organization that works to promote peace, human rights, equal and sustainable development and respect for the environment). Was that experience an inspiration for this piece?

PDM: Japan and Germany took radically different routes after World War 2. Japan has an amazing group of peace activists and so does Germany, but Japan has a very different relationship to its collective memory of the war. I wanted to talk about memory with the survivors to see what could be done with their story. It’s a story we Americans never get a chance to actually hear. That’s what this project bears witness to: it has to be about purple to people shared experiences. Anything else is government propaganda. I try make this as much about humanity as possible.

TB: Your work encompasses so many disparate pathways, though there always seems to be singular vision at play, even in the midst of intertwined collaboration. How do you reconcile these diverse adventures and creative work into an aesthetic focus?

PDM: Inter-disciplinary art is the legacy of some of my favorite composers – from John Cage on one hand and Nam June Paik on the other. Aesthetics in the 21st century is one of the most complex forces because it encompasses everything about what it means to be a creative person in this Era. DJ culture is a kind of template because it’s always about searching for new ways to reconsider history. That’s what a good mix does. It gives you a good idea of what is possible.

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Paul D. Miller aka DJ Spooky is a composer, multimedia artist and writer whose work immerses audiences in a blend of genres, global culture, and environmental and social issues. His written work has been published by The Village Voice, The Source, and Artforum, among others, and he is the Editor of Origin Magazine. Miller’s work has appeared in the Whitney Biennial; The Venice Biennial for Architecture; the Ludwig Museum in Cologne; Kunsthalle, Vienna; The Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh, the Miami/Art Basel fair, and many other museums and galleries.

ALBUM REVIEW: Rebirth of a Nation

Posted on October 19, 2015 by maestrobeats

by Maggie Molloy

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D. W. Griffith’s “The Birth of a Nation” was the first film in American history to be screened at the White House—and while that may seem like quite a triumph, the tale it tells is deeply tragic.

Released in 1915, the silent epic drama film is based on the novel and play “The Clansman” by Thomas Dixon, Jr. If the title didn’t already give it away, the film is three hours of racist propaganda portraying an extremely biased (and honestly, downright offensive) account of the American Civil War and Reconstruction era.

And it’s more than just a film: this movie helped lead to the creation of Hollywood—as one of the first pieces of sophisticated, mass-produced cinematic media, its message became embedded in our country’s history, art, and ethos. Its reverberations can be felt even now, 100 years later.

Electronic artist Paul D. Miller (better known as DJ Spooky, That Subliminal Kid) reflects on the cultural significance of this film in his large-scale multimedia performance piece, aptly titled “Rebirth of a Nation.” The ongoing interdisciplinary project includes a documentary film, site-specific performances around the world, and, most recently, a new album.

Recorded with the fearlessly experimental Kronos Quartet, “Rebirth of a Nation” is conceived as a remix and reimagination of Griffith’s original film. Miller remixed, remastered, and resynced the original score, taking a critical look at society’s racial politics and making a musical statement about it.

Kronos photographed in San Francisco, CA March 26, 2013©Jay Blakesberg

You can watch the trailer for the project here:

“We need more than ever to see the context that early cinema offers us,” Miller said. “As my old friend Saul Williams likes to say: Another World Is Possible. A remix of a film as deeply important and problematic as ‘The Birth of a Nation’ reminds us that, in the era of Trayvon Martin and Ferguson, many of these issues still linger with us at every level.”

The album itself retells the story through 19 short pieces for string quartet and electronics, creating a colorful, fractured, and fragmented collage of American History. Miller layers the classical strings with hip hop, folk, gospel, and blues elements, combines them with drum beats and electronic echoes, and resynthesizes them into a musical mashup of American history—thus expressing, without words, a history of racial (and musical) complexity that Griffith’s original film sought to suppress.

“Collage is the collective unconscious,” Miller said of his creative inspiration. “Sound is a phenomenon that’s totally open, so there are no real boundaries unless you make them. I like to think of all sound as just patterns, so there’s no reason to think we can’t just add patterns, subtract patterns.”

The result is a series of over a dozen unique soundscapes, each telling its own fragment of a larger story: the history of U.S. slavery and the ongoing struggle for racial equality. With ominous, grim titles like “Gettysburg Requiem,” “Ride of the Klansmen,” “Lincoln and Booth get Acquainted,” and “Ghost of a Smile,” Miller’s music tackles many of our country’s most challenging and emotionally-charged political issues. The pieces are haunting, often even hypnotic—but they certainly get you thinking.

Musically, Miller portrays Civil War and Reconstruction era America as a desolate electronic wasteland—but as he travels through this metallic and industrial landscape, he discovers and explores a number of hidden treasures: a soulful blues melody here, a folky harmonica riff there, an infectious hip hop beat beneath him or a trancelike drone just around the corner.

“From almost every angle, this kind of creativity celebrates collage, a willful breakdown of boundaries, and a playfulness that would aggravate almost anyone,” Miller said of his compositional process. “That’s kind of the point. That’s where I looked for inspiration.”

And it extends beyond music, too: the film and site-specific performances recreate the project again and again, making full use of the artistic possibilities of today’s digital age.

“Multi-disciplinary art is crucial these days,” Miller said. “It’s the way we live now. The year 2015 is science fiction for me, but we are still using the imagination of a different era to describe a cultural milieu that has evolved more rapidly than anyone anticipated. That’s kind of like using an old bicycle to race an F-34 Joint Strike Force fighter jet. It’s apples and oranges; it doesn’t make sense. That’s the paradox at the heart of my ‘Rebirth of a Nation’ film project.”

And in exploring this paradox, in critically examining that deep, dark part of American history that “The Birth of a Nation” portrays, Miller is able ultimately to offer a message of hope: We do have the power to reexamine and remix our past—and we likewise have the power to reform our present and our future.

“The realm of the possible is always greater than the realm of the real,” Miller said. “I try to navigate between the two: that’s art.”

2015-16 SEASON PREVIEW: Fresh music, from Britten to Bowie

Posted on September 25, 2015 by maestrobeats

by Jill Kimball

With Seattle’s ever-growing and ever-diversifying population, it’s easy to see why our city has become a top destination for up-and-coming composers, young musical talent, and adventurous concert formats. The 2015-16 season is so packed with new music concerts that, on most weekends, you’d need both hands (and maybe a few toes) to count them. From revitalized Britten to badass multimedia concerts to the classiest Bowie you’ve ever heard, there’s a little something for everyone. Read on for our top picks of the season.

The Town Music series at Town Hall Seattle, curated by our own Artistic Advisor Joshua Roman, is a bastion for cutting-edge music. The season kicks off with a young Russian violinist’s interpretations of Bach’s beautiful, complicated Sonatas and Partitas. And the rest of the season is anything but staid: it includes the premiere of a work composed over two continents, a dynamic performance of Britten’s second string quartet, and a new piece by Roman himself, featuring Pulitzer Prize-winning poetry by Tracy K. Smith and the up-and-coming soprano Jessica Rivera.

Another go-to destination for edgy music with global influences is the UW World Series, an arts season at Meany Hall featuring big names and even bigger ideas. This season is packed with exciting concerts that feature mainstays on the Second Inversion stream. In October, the ETHEL quartet teams up with Native American flutist Robert Mirabal for a concert focused on water’s essential role in all our lives. If drums and mallets are your thing, you must check out So Percussion’s set of modern classics by Reich, Cage, and more. For those who prefer concerts that combine edgy work with timeless pieces, go see the young, bearded Danish String Quartet (they take on music by Beethoven, Schnittke, and a composer from their homeland, Per Nørgaard), pianist Jeremy Denk (he’ll work in some Hindemith and Nancarrow between the Bach and Byrd), or the Daedalus String Quartet (a Huck Hodge world premiere is sandwiched between Beethoven chamber works). If you can’t make it to some of these much-anticipated concerts, don’t worry: we’ll have your back with a live broadcasts or a video from each one.

The UW World Series isn’t the only destination for new music on the University of Washington campus. The School of Music itself has an impressive lineup of concerts. On Halloween weekend, we’re excited to hear the Chicago-based Ensemble Dal Niente perform the works of Seattlites Huck Hodge, Joël-François Durand, and Marcin Pączkowski, among others. In late April, the Carnegie Hall resident ensemble Decoda caps off its weeklong UW residency with a Meany Hall concert of new and old music. And finally, some UW students pay homage to Harry Partch, who created new instruments along with new music, with performances of some of his work.

The UW isn’t the only higher education arts game in town, of course. Cornish College of the Arts is a wealth of compositional talent and its concert season, Cornish Presents, attracts world-class acts every year. Cornish teacher Wayne Horvitz starts off the new-music feast with his piece “Some Places are Forever Afternoon/11 Places for Richard Hugo,” performed with chamber groups Sweeter Than The Day and the Gravitas Quartet. A few days later, flutist Camilla Hoitenga teams up with composer and sound designer Jean-Baptiste Barrière for an electronic concert with video. In December, Paul D. Miller, better known as DJ Spooky, uses interviews from survivors of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs to create a moving original composition. And for an ultimate exploration of music from both sides of the Pacific, stop by PONCHO Hall in November, when a famous gamelan ensemble joins four Seattle string players for a performance of new, local music.

Full-time locavores may not be satisfied until everything about the concert, from composer to performer to creator, is Northwest-based. If you want all local, all the time, your concert season destination should be the Universal Language Project. Founded by trumpeter and composer Brian Chin, the project draws on local talent to present a commissioned premiere in every concert. This season, we’ll hear music inspired by local landscapes written by Karen P. Thomas, Brian Cobb, and Tim Carey; music for strings performed by Seattle-based Scrape Ensemble; and an interactive concert with stunning visuals by Scott Kolbo.

And if that’s not enough to whet your new music appetite, the Seattle Modern Orchestra‘s upcoming season has even more new music. Each of its three main concerts features a premiere of some sort, from Orlando Jacinto Garcia’s From Darkness to Luminosity to an as-yet-unnamed work by Ewa Trębacz to the U.S. premiere of Anthony Cheung’s 2011 work Discrete Infinity.

In the last few years, Benaroya Hall has become an internationally recognized center for cutting-edge new music, from the avant garde to the crossover. If you’re into the former, you probably already know about the Seattle Symphony’s famed [untitled] series, which takes place in the Benaroya lobby fashionably late at night. This [untitled] season proves it means business with a season kickoff made up entirely of world premieres, then goes on to focus on New York City’s avant garde scene and an Arctic-themed piece by Pulitzer Prize-winning composer John Luther Adams. If the latter is more your taste, check out the undefinable Sonic Evolution series, which this season focuses on the way different artists influence each other across genres and the phenomenon of indie music and film.

Finally, if you’re looking to get some culture but indulge in musical guilty pleasures at the same time, your go-to season should be the Seattle Rock Orchestra‘s. The ensemble that famously covers popular music on orchestral instruments has put together a killer 2015-16 series, which includes a David Bowie showcase, a collection of Mowtown music, and an evening devoted to Neil Diamond. A quintet from SRO also closes out Classical KING FM’s inaugural concert series with a very exciting Eastside concert featuring covers of Beck, Bjork, Radiohead, and more.

These are only a few highlights from an expansive, diverse, and exciting upcoming concert season. For a full listing of shows around the Northwest that’ll make you rethink classical, check our full event calendar.