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spoken word / musique concrete / psychedelic / electroacoustic / avant-garde / sound art / experimental / abstract surrealism / fluxus
John Blades is the founder member of the group THE LOOP ORCHESTRA. 02 Dicember 011 The Australian experimental music community lost one of its finest last Friday when John Blades passed away due to complications associated with cancer. John was best known as a founding member of The Loop Orchestra, the long-time host/producer of the Background Noise radio program , and a tireless supporter of experimental musicians and sound artists around the country. Outside of music, John advocated for people with disabilities (he was diagnosed with MS in 1982) in many ways, most memorably in his Walkley Award-winning radio documentary “The Too Hard Basket” about sexuality and the disabled. John was one of the rare people I’ve met who I know pretty soon that I am privileged to have crossed paths with. His severe disability could not conceal his keen intelligence and broad knowledge of the arts, his humour, and most of all a positive energy and enthusiasm that he brought to his work. Listen to his fantastic radio doco “The Too Hard Basket” and you’ll get an idea of what I mean. If anyone in this world had something to be down and self-pitying about, it was John, who struggled for years with MS, only to finally succumb to cancer. His last email of a few weeks ago, informing his friends of his grim prognosis, agreed with what we all thought – ‘it wasn’t fair’. Yet he was still warm and positive, holding out hope for a final experimental treatment. We come across so many negative, self-pitying people – none of them have had the trials John did, and yet he was one of the most positive, enthusiastic people I’ve ever known (even though he had had episodes with depression the past; very common for people with MS). His personal and professional support for my own work was significant and lifted my spirits on several occasions. I saw reports of John’s passing in social media on the weekend, but didn’t want to post anything here until I had something more official. Rik Rue rang me last night and asked that I inform Melbourne people who knew John, and pass on the details of the funeral service (Monday 5 December at Northern Suburbs Crematorium, Sydney). Even if we can’t attend, I’m sure those of us who knew John and/or were moved by his work, will spare a thought for him. Text by Rik Rue http://exp-melb.blogspot.com/2011/12/vale-john-blades.html
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UaORGocjvtk
http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/360/the-too-hard-basket/2969386
Australia
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spoken word / musique concrete / performative art / sound installation / modern composition / minimalism / electroacoustic / sound art / experimental / contemporary art
Nicholas Isherwood’s music has been influenced by the great composers he has had the privilege to work with as a singer. His music has been performed at venues such as the Gewandthaus in Leipzig, the Goethe Institut in Paris, the CNRS, Yehudi Menuhin’s Flâneries Musicales in Reims, the Perpignan Festival, the SMIO in Orléans, the Théatre Dunois, Dôme IMAX and Bibliothèque Historique in Paris, Freiburg, the MDR in Halle, the SWR, Vanderbilt University, the University of Oregon, Kaoshung, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Togamura, Japan. He has received commissions from the DRAC du centre, Art Zoyd and the CNAT in Reims. Isherwood’s music has been performed by VOXNOVA, Stefano Cardi, Michel Amoric, Magnus Andersson, Isabel Soccoja, Christophe De Villeneuve and the soloists of the MDR children’s choir. His music has been broadcast by France Musique, the MDR and the SWR. He is a member of the SACD.
Nicholas Isherwood is one of the leading singers of early music and contemporary music in the world today. He has worked with Joel Cohen, William Christie, Peter Eötvös, Paul McCreesh, Nicholas McGegan, Kent Nagano, Zubin Mehta and Gennadi Rozhdestvensky as well as composers Sylvano Bussotti, Elliott Carter, George Crumb, Hans Werner Henze, Mauricio Kagel, György Kurtág, Olivier Messiaen, Giacinto Scelsi, Karlheinz Stockhausen and Iannis Xenakis in prestigious venues around the world (La Scala, Covent Garden, the Théatre des Champs Elysées, Salzburg Festival, Concertgebouw, Berlin Staatsoper, Vienna Konzerthaus, Tanglewood). Directors he has worked with include Yuri Lyubimov, Tadashi Suzuki, Pier Luigi Pizzi, Sylvano Bussotti, Dmitri Bertmann, Michael Hampe, Pierre Audi and La Fura dels Baus. Operatic roles include "Antinoo" in Monteverdi’s Il Ritorno di Ulisse in Patria with Boston Baroque, “Plutone” in Monteverdi’s Il Ballo delle Ingrate at the Angers Opera, "Claudio" in Händel’s Agrippina with Nicholas McGegan, "Satiro" in Rossi’s Orfeo and “Pan” in Marais’ Alcione with Les Arts Florissants, "Joas" in Porpora's Il Gedeone with Martin Haselböck, "Frère Léon" in Saint François d’Assise in the last composer supervised production, "Der Tod" in productions of Ullmann’s Der Kaiser von Atlantis with the Bach Akademie in Stuttgart, the Konzerthaus in Berlin and 2e2m, “Roméo” in Dusapin’s Roméo et Juliette at the Avignon Festival, Montpelier Opera and on tour, “Lear” in Hosokawa’s Vision of Lear for the Munich Biennale, the title role in Mefano's Micromégas , "Bartolo" in Mozart's Le Nozze di Figaro and the title role in The Mikado at the Eugene Opera, “Truffaldino” in Ariadne auf Naxos at the Long Beach Opera, “Giovanni Falcone” in Nicola Sani’s Il Tempo Sospeso di Volo at the Teatro Cavallerizza in Regio Emilia, the "Hotel Manager" in Adès Powder her Face in Lugo and at the Teatro Comunale in Bologna, "Astrodamors" in Ligeti's Le Grand Macabre with Zoltan Pesko and La Fura dels Baus and "Il Testimone" in Bussotti's Tieste, the title role in Luca Lombardi's Il Re Nudo, all at the Teatro dell'Opera in Rome, “General Howard” in Zender’s Chief Joseph, the 7 Attempted Escapes from Silence and Kagel’s Der Tribun, all at the Staatsoper in Berlin, several roles in Zender’s Don Quixote at the Komische Oper Berlin and "Lucifer" in the world premieres of Stockhausen’s Montag, Dienstag, and Freitag aus Licht at La Scala and the Leipzig Opera and in Donnerstag aus Licht at Covent Garden. He has improvised with Steve Lacy, Joëlle Léandre, Sainkho Namtchilak and David Moss,recorded over 50 cd’s and appeared in three films.
http://www.nicholasisherwood.com/
USA
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visual art / spoken word / avant-garde / contemporary art / nonmusic / conceptual art
Rod Summers (born 1943), born in Dorset, England, is a sound, visual, conceptual artist, performance poet, dramatist, mail artist and book artist, publisher, archivist, and lecturer on intermedia. He is based in Maastricht, Holland. The results of Summers' multiple, art-related activities have often appeared as part of his concept of VEC (Visual, Experimental, Concrete), which he originated in 1973. In 1999 CNN International featured Summers in its Art Club show as a representative of avant-garde art in Holland. In addition, over the last 20 years, Summers has performed his work at various festivals in Europe and Iceland, including the Reykjavik Art Festival (1991), the Polypoetry Festival of Sound Poetry (Bologna, 1993), and the International Sound Poetry Festival (Bologna, 1997), among others. Summers features among the "second wave" of intermedia artists, the first wave including Dick Higgins, Vito Acconci, John Cage, Allan Kaprow, Joseph Beuys, and the Fluxus artists of the 1960s. He differs from Higgins and members of the first generation, however, in that he is less theoretical and more experiential in his approach to his art. There have been no VEC manifestos published by Summers, although one may intuit what it encompasses by examining the activities undertaken and products issued under its sign.
http://www.vecworldservice.net/index.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rod_Summers
USA
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