Broadcloth at Take Your Time

Next week, May 28th, at the Big Room in Fair Haven, CT, Broadcloth will be performing as part of a killer lineup in the premiere installment of a new series called Take Your Time. Below, I'll post the official writeup, but Broadcloth will be performing a structured improvisation alongside live electronics by Carl Testa as accompaniment to one of Rachel Bernsen's dance pieces which are the focal point of the evening. I will also be performing with Anne Rhodes and Taylor Ho Bynum on Bynum's "Borgel Songs," a short song-cycle.

It looks to be an incredibly diverse evening of new music and art, and a fully multi-media experience. Hope to see you there!

The Uncertainty Music Series and The Big Room introduce Take Your Time, an interdisciplinary performance series, featuring new works by Rachel Bernsen, Carl Testa, and special guests.

Friday May 28, 2010 at 8pm

The Big Room - Erector Square 315 Peck St. New Haven, CT, Building 6W, Studio D

Tickets are $12. Seating is limited. Reservations are recommended. For reservations email: thebigroomnewhaven@gmail.com

On Friday May 28th, a consortium of New Haven-based artists will launch a new semi-regular performance series called Take Your Time. In a co-presentation of The Uncertainty Music Series and The Big Room, choreographer Rachel Bernsen and composer Carl Testa will offer the New England premieres of new and recent work in their first shared evening. Rachel will perform three pieces, each a unique collaboration with musician/composers including Taylor Ho Bynum, Anne Rhodes, Carl Testa, and Matthew Welch. Carl will perform a new composition for light, sound, and movement, and present a new piece for trio and live electronics featuring the collective improvisation trio Broadcloth. Bynum, Welch, and Broadcloth will also be performing short improvisations and original compositions.

Rachel Bernsen “has the ability to make even the most simple things completely fascinating. She is an amazing performer and a compelling artist” (Michael Helland, Curator, Dixon Place). Her most recent projects create dialogues between sound and movement; where the musician’s physical presence and role is equally important to that of the dancer, integrally connected to the flow of time and the organization of space. Her work has been presented at such New York City venues as Dance Theater Workshop, Danspace Project, Roulette, Dixon Place, and Issue Project Room. At Take Your Time, Rachel will perform three works: User in collaboration with Anne Rhodes and Carl Testa, Glimmer Glint Glisten (with a live score by composer/cornetist Taylor Ho Bynum), and Singular Present, a collaboration with New York based composer and bagpipes player Matthew Welch.

Carl Testa is a composer and multi-instrumentalist, most notably as the bassist in composer Anthony Braxton’s septet and 12+1tet with whom he’s performed throughout the US and internationally. Testa’s own compositions have been described as “engaging and unique” (Bruce Lee Gallanter, Downtown Music Gallery) and “human music, with varied emotions and sublime moments” (Richard Kamins, The Hartford Courant). For his performance at The Big Room, Testa will use interactive electronics and computer-controlled lighting equipment to create dynamic environments for both movement and sound. www.carltesta.net

The evening will feature additional performances by Taylor Ho Bynum, called “one of his generation’s top avant-garde figures” by The New York Times; the trio Broadcloth, a unique instrumentation of voice (Anne Rhodes), cello (Nathan Bontrager) and accordion/recorders (Adam Matlock) that plays from notated, graphic, embroidered, and textual scores in addition to completely spontaneous pieces; and Matthew Welch, a virtuoso bagpipe player and composer "possessed of both rich imagination and the skill to bring his fancies to life" (Time Out New York).

The Uncertainty Music Series www.uncertaintymusic.com is a New Haven, CT based creative music series that has been presenting concert events since September 2007. The goal of the series is to provide a venue for local and regional artists that may not have the opportunity to present their work elsewhere. The Big Room is a new studio and performance space providing the New Haven area with a much needed, low-tech platform for interdisciplinary collaboration, experimentation and research in dance and performance.