Carl Testa - Composer and Instrumentalist

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06.29.2010 The past few months have been very busy and successful. I participated in a series of successful electronic music shows with Brian Kane, Scott Petersen, Juraj Kojs, Anne Le Berge, Anne Rhodes, Adrian Knight, and Chris Cerrone. Check out Brian and Scott's electronic music blog El Muco. In May, my big project was the premiere of my new piece Waver for electronics, 3 worklights, and dancer. Rachel Bernsen premiered the piece at The Big Room in New Haven as part of the Take Your Time performance series. The night was very successful and showcased some fantastic performances by Rachel, Matthew Welch, Taylor Ho Bynum, Anne Rhodes, Nathan Bontrager, and Adam Matlock. I had a great time and was relieved to have a successful performance. You can watch a video of Waver here. I recently got back from NYC where I was performing as part of Anthony Braxton's birthday celebration at Le Pouisson Rouge and Issue Project Room. I performed in the 12+2tet on Friday and the Trillium Orchestra and Andrew Dewar's Quartet on Saturday. The shows were incredibly special. You can get a link to listen to some of the music from the Friday show here at the Trillium Blog. Upcoming projects include a residency at the electronic music center STEIM in Amsterdam in October and a Winter tour with my trio featuring Mike McGinnis and Bill Carbone. I am writing all new pieces for this group and I would like to record the new pieces with the group in the winter.
03.16.2010 I had a great show with my trio this past Saturday. It was a dark and stormy night, but my band made it to Never Ending Books safely for the Uncertainty Music Series concert. Some dedicated audience members made it out too. We performed 2 older pieces of mine that don't get played too often, 2 improvisations, and 2 new pieces of mine. Mike and Aaron did a great job playing these pieces. It was a real treat to have them perform. Kinan Faham came out to the show and offered to video record the show. We were very happy to have a video document of the concert. You can see the complete performance on YouTube or on Kinan's blog. I am currently in Brooklyn rehearsing and recording Anthony Braxton's Trillium E Opera project. I am playing string bass in the orchestra and having a blast with Ken Filiano and Kris Saebo. My wife Anne Rhodes is one of the principal singers (singing the role of Sundance) and doing a great job if I may say so myself. The opera is really special and it is great to get all these great musicians together performing this music. Taylor Ho Bynum, Amy Crawford, and Matt Welch are also doing a great job making sure that everything is running smoothly and they have put a lot of work into this project. Anthony is elated to have all these people dedicated to his music and I am just thrilled to be a part of it. Photos by Anne Rhodes
02.27.2010 I have been back in New Haven for the past week and have been getting back in to my schedule. My last few days in Chicago were great. I met up with my friends Stephen Ptacek and Will Faber on Thursday to play some improvisations and perform some solo electronic music. On Friday I met Nick Broste and Jeff Kimmel and performed that evening at Elastic. I performed a solo bass piece, some trio improvs, and my new electro-acoustic piece for 3 instrumentalists or vocalists and electronics. Jason Guthartz was there and took some photos and videos. You can view video excerpts here and here. I felt very good about the evening as a whole. Nick and Jeff are great players and really great guys. I had some technical difficulties with the electronics on the electro-acoustic piece, so in some ways it was a beta-test, nevertheless there were some really great moments in the piece and I look forward to working on this piece more. Last night I performed with Lou Guarino Jr. and Brian Jarawa Gray as part of Telepathy. I had a great time at this performance. This group is really special because we improvise electronic music and acoustic music and mix the two together. We went to a lot of different musical areas and there were some really special moments. There was audio and video documentation so look for an online release soon. I will be interviewed as a guest on The Jef Sessions (a web radio show) with Jef Wilson on March 6th at noon. There will be a live stream of the interview available here. Jef is a musician, teacher, and audio engineer who lives in the New Haven area. In addition to the Jef Sessions he also runs East Rock Recording Studio. This interview will give me a chance to talk about my music and my upcoming trio show on March 13th. More to come soon.
02.17.2010 I have been in Chicago since Sunday evening and I have been enjoying visiting family, seeing friends, and playing music. On Monday night I went to go see a preview performance of The Twins Would Like to Say that my friend Stephen Ptacek has done all the music and sound design for. The Dog and Pony Theatre Company is presenting the work at the Steppenwolf's Garage theatre space.The performance was really spectacular. It actually had a lot in common with the Anthony Braxton Sonic Genome performance that I recently took part in. In the Dog and Pony performance, the audience was allowed to freely roam throughout the performance space while being guided through the story by a narrator whose name and origins we eventually discover. At times there were 3 or 4 different scenes happening simultaneously. This gave the viewer the ability to construct their own narrative by choosing which scenes they were going to pay attention to. In addition to multiple scenes happening at once there were also ensemble passages where the cast, (united by musical cues) came together for a unison dance passage. Steve's sound design and music were fantastic all around. He was working with 8 channels of sound and his work gave the piece a real sense of space. I hope that he can incorporate live musicians into the piece sometime in the future. I think that this work is really special and opens a lot of doors for multi-media performance. Everyone in Chicago should go see it when it opens. On Tuesday I performed for an attentive audience at Brown Rice. I performed a collage of different pieces for electronics and a short solo on string bass. Jayve Montgomery also performed some of his ambient electronic music for gutted upright piano, bells, trumpet, and noisemakers. It was really special. The electronic interface he has designed for the piece is very intuitive and flexible. We also got to perform some electronic duos as well which was fun. Thanks to Dan and Jayve to setting it up. I have two more performances in Chicago, one on Thursday and one on Friday. Check the performances page. Thursday includes improvisations with Will Faber and Stephen Ptacek, and Friday includes the premiere of a new electro-acoustic piece with Nick Broste and Jeff Kimmel. Please come out if you can.
01.26.2010 This weekend I have the honor of traveling to the west coast to perform with Anthony Braxton and his 12+1tet. We will be performing as an ensemble on Friday night, and on Sunday we will be presenting the world premiere (as a performance) of the Sonic Genome Project. This project consists of 50+ musicians performing Braxton's compositions for 8 hours. The compositions are primarily drawn from the some 150+ Ghost Trance Music (GTM) compositions that Braxton composed from 1995 - 2006. We will also be playing select compositions from Braxton's catalog in different ensemble configurations. There will also be plenty of time for improvisation and experimenting in the space. Also keep in mind that the musicians are not expected to play the whole time. Musicians will take lots of breaks and hopefully the ensemble will break down to a few individuals. That would be pretty amazing. I was fortunate enough to take part in the first Sonic Genome project that happened in 2003 at the Wesleyan University Hockey Rink. "Braxton on Ice," but not really. It was May and the ice was not on the rink. All the musicians were together in one big room. I think that the Vancouver performance will be a little different. I think that there might be different rooms for the musicians and friendly experiencers to walk through. Altogether I am very excited. It is going to be an historic event and I am privileged to take part in it. Coming up in February, I am performing in Rachel Bernsen's piece User as part of Movement Research Judson Memorial Church. I am going to be traveling to Chicago for a couple of performances. I will be playing at my friend Will Faber's loft on Thursday the 18th and at Elastic on Friday the 19th. Both nights I will be playing some select compositions for solo bass, some for electronics. On Friday I will be premiering a new electro-acoustic composition with special guests Jeff Kimmel on bass clarinet, and Nick Broste on trombone. I am excited to be working with some new musicians. Finally when I return to CT I will be performing with the electro-acoustic improvising trio Telepathy at Alina's Ristorante in Wallingford. This will be our first public performance where we showcase our full acoustic and electronic setup, so it is not to be missed. Lots happening and more to come. Please check back soon.
News Archive: 2009 2008 contact me - carl (at) carltesta (dot) net

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