Zach Herchen | saxophone

Con Vivo on Kickstarter

Recently I’ve started working with Con Vivo, a wonderful music non-profit based in Jersey City. Con Vivo gives free concerts of amazing classical and contemporary rep. After years of concerts, it’s time for Con Vivo to record their first CD! From the Kickstarter page:

The goal is to record music by John Altieri, Lembit Beecher, Judd Greenstein, Dan Lippel and Mazz Swift. None of these works have ever been recorded. John’s piece was Con Vivo’s first commission; Lembit’s was premiered on a Con Vivo concert; Judd was on Con Vivo’s founding artistic board; and Mazz and Dan are members of the core performing ensemble. A Con Vivo CD would let us share this music with a larger audience, and it would help support future projects.

Join me in supporting Con Vivo and get wonderful rewards for your pledge: http://kck.st/YDAIKD

“Two Songs for the Sounds Outside” by Kathleen Bader

Kathleen Bader joined Emerging Voices Project for our recent show at Minás Gallery and Boutique (Baltimore, MD). Below you can watch her talk about our commissioned piece “Two Songs for the Sounds Outside”, plus a live performance from our NYC CD release show! Funded in part through New Music USA’s MetLife Creative Connections program.

Pre-performance talk:

EVP premiere in NYC, from 2011:

New Theme!

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I’m trying out a new theme! While I’m doing my best to make sure everything’s working well, do let me know if something’s broken/whacky.

Behind The Scenes

Yup, that’s how it’s made.

Upcoming shows with New Thread

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I’ll be doing my first shows with New Thread Quartet as an official member in two weeks! We’re working on some great music by Kati Agócs, Michael Djupstrom, Gilbert Galindo, and Daniel Wohl. Details:

Fri May 10 @ 8pm – The Firehouse Space
Saxophone galore! New Thread joins the Ogni Suono Saxophone Duo on their upcoming tour (flier excerpt above, artwork by Isaac Klunk).

Sat May 11 @ 8pm – The DiMenna Center
New Thread performance on NYsoundcircuit, a multimedia salon series showcasing various arts disciplines.

Shipbreaking at SEAMUS

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SEAMUS 2013 has officially wrapped up! This year’s conference by the Society for Electroacoustic Music in the US was hosted by the McNally Smith College of Music. As usual there were 15 concerts with tons of varied pieces including video, live electronics, an 8-channel speaker array, and some unusual instruments (think bowed cardboard, light sensors strapped to TV screens, and the such). Between concerts there were paper talks and demos of new technologies.

On Friday I performed Benjamin Taylor’s piece Shipbreaking for alto sax and Max/MSP. I met Ben at SEAMUS in 2011, which led to a consortium commission for Shipbreaking. It was exciting to have it selected for a performance at this year’s conference! Photo of concert setup above.

I also got to hang with Chris Chandler (who’s piece a thing of dream and mist I recently played at NYCEMF), plus see his SEAMUS commissioned piece Smoke and Mirrors performed by the wonderful Ensemble 61.

This year’s conference had some after hour performances at the local bar Amsterdam. Tonight’s group Sinister Resonance (photo below) was particularly awesome!

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