Zach Herchen

The Seafarer was recently shown at the 2012 United States Super 8mm Film & Digital Video Festival and won an honorable mention!

Originally a piece for acting cello by Kevin Clark, Kevin adapted his work to video with the help of Michael Feldman (video) and myself (sound design). It was a long work of love putting this together in our various points of free time. I’m really excited to see our work being appreciated.

Info from Kevin’s site:

The Seafarer adapts an Old English poem about the suffering and joy of the sea. It began as a concert piece for acting cellist, and grew into a film. The translation into modern English was made by Burton Raffel, and is used by kind permission of the Yale University Press, as printed in Poems and Prose from the Old English.

Cast:
Cello and Performance – Rachel Gawell
Voice Performance – Claire Buckingham

Crew:
Director and Co-Editor – Michael Feldman
Composer andProducer – Kevin Clark
Sound Recording/Design – Zach Herchen
Visual Effects – Victoria Nece
Editor and Assistant Director – Brian Hedden
Cinematographer – Antonio Cisneros
Sound Operator – Gillian Arthur
Production Assistants – Josh Feldman, Ben Johnson

Video link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8k6RW6qvYrU

Benjamin Taylor has finished making hard copy parts for Shipbreaking! We’re one step closer to my premiere on March 15…

Check out my premiere of Strangeloop for solo bari sax. I commissioned Victoria Cheah to write me piece and she used the opportunity to explore strange loops. A strange loop is a system with a “tangled” hierarchy, meaning as you travel through it you wind up back where you started. An example is nearly any classic drawing my M. C. Escher.

This performance is from Ruckus Amongstus, a recent event organized by Kevin Clark and myself. The video was recorded with the generous help of Mike Feldman, Alan Jeffries, and Matt Dunnam. You can see other performances from that night at Kevin’s YouTube channel.

I am currently recording tracks for Benjamin Taylor to use while creating the CD playback version for “Shipbreaking”!

Also, testing my ability to blog right from my phone…

Check my recent performance with 1st Construction of Evan Chamber’s Come Down Heavy! at Vaudeville Park. Above is the fourth (and final) movement.

1st Construction was co-founded by Danica Borisavljevic, Ela Polak, and myself last summer. We are currently hard at work commissioning pieces for piano/violin/sax and planning summer concerts. Stayed tuned!

Video from YouTube.

This past weekend I kicked off the new year with a 3+ hour variety show of great music, theater, and performers collectively called Ruckus Amongstus! Developed by past No Signal members, we applied our basic idea of “gather everything you are into right now and put it in one epic event”. We had a great turnout at Exapno (a new music community center in Brooklyn, NY) last Saturday Jan 14. Many thanks to the audience for there support and positive feedback. It looks like we’ll be doing this again!

I was very excited to have included the premiere of Strangeloop, written by Victoria Cheah for me. We had worked heavily on this piece in 2010, made a recording, but never got it onto a program. A strange loop is a system that cycles on itself, self-references, and is a paradox. The classic example is the popular drawings of M. C. Escher.

The event included a gesture piece, rock music, jazz, new opera works, a monologue, and improvisations. Plus we had Dennis Clark and Orlando Klass mixing unique cocktails. We videotaped the whole event and plan to get much of it up on YouTube soon! Check out the program:

Gestenstücke by Juan María Solare
Strangeloop by Victoria Cheah — WORLD PREMIERE
Giant by The Bad Plus
Khan Variations by Alejandro Vinao

***IMPROVISED YouTube Film Scores***

Physical Improv testing for Summer’s Twilight by Kevin Clark — WORK IN PROGRESS
We Two Boys by George Lam
Phthia

***IMPROVISED YouTube Film Scores***

Textual Healing
Monologue from “A Memory, a Monologue, a Rant, and a Prayer”
The Seafarer by Kevin Clark, translation by Burton Raffel
My pain by Edward Thomas-Herrera

***IMPROVISED YouTube Film Scores***

Sylvana Joyce and The Moment

Our wonderful performers were:
Peter Bellomo, Sara Phillips Budde, Kevin Clark, Dennis Clark, Dave Cohen, Michael Compitello, Sean-David Cunningham, Matthew Dunnam, Lainie Fefferman, Michael Feldman, Rachel Gawell, Rose Ginsberg, Zach Herchen, Jaime de Jesus, Alan Jeffries, Sylvana Joyce, Emily Kadish, Orlando Klass, George Lam, Robert Maril, Casey Middaugh, James Moore, Domenica Romagni, Christopher Smith, Andie Springer

In the beginning of this year AM/PM commissioned Eli Stine to create a video for performance with Kati Agócs’ piece Hymn. We were really blown away with the result and recently spent the time to record the piece. Above is the result. Enjoy!

Video from YouTube.

Get a sneak peak at Benjamin Taylor’s latest work Shipbreaking!

The piece is being funded (and premiered in 2012) by a consortium of saxophone players I’m organizing. If you’re interested check out http://www.benjamintaylormusic.com/sax-commission.html

Benjamin Taylor has been working hard putting together the first draft of his piece commissioned by my consortium of sax players. This new piece will be a 7-9 minute solo work for alto sax with live processing through a Max/MSP Runtime patch. Ben has been looking at shipbreaking (dissembling massive ships) as a source idea for the piece. Check out photographer Edward Burtynsky (to the left click on ships, then shipbreaking) and this CBS special:

We still have room for new members to join the commission consortium! For those without equipment for audio processing, a CD playback version will also be created. The piece will be completed January 1st, 2012 and premiered over the following year. Those interested in the project can join consortium to fund the commission ($50 via PayPal) and premiere the work around the world. For full details, PDF contract, and PayPal link visit: http://www.benjamintaylormusic.com/sax-commission.html

As a consortium member you will have:

• your name included on the title page
• bound score and performance material mailed to you
• exclusive rights to give a regional premiere
• exclusive performance rights for 1 year
• rights to record the work for personal non-commercial use

Above image was taken by Ben of his workspace.

The University of Richmond’s Third Practice Electroacoustic Music Festival was a whole lot of fun! Many thanks go out to Benjamin Broening (founder and artistic director of 3P) and his staff. This was the festival’s 11th year and featured eighth blackbird (ensemble-in-residence), VERGE Ensemble (featured artists), and performers Elizabeth McNutt, Jason Price, Daivd Niethamer, Daniel Koppelman, Ruth Neville, and myself.

I was at Third Practice to perform Paul Leary’s Number Stations, which I commissioned and premiered in 2010, and to premiere Christopher Chandler’s latest work a thing of dream and mist. Both pieces consist of solo saxophone and playback. You can hear Number Stations in the media section. I plan to record a thing of dream and mist and can’t wait to upload it!

This year’s Third Practice consisted of 5 concerts spread over November 4th and 5th. Concert One featured young composers Joo Won Park, Lesley Hinger, Heather Stebbins, Matthew McCabe, David Malkiel, and Christopher Chandler. I particularly enjoyed Park’s Introvert (watch on Vimeo) and, of course, playing Chris’ music.

Concert Two featured eighth blackbird with several solo pieces. As they are known to do, 8bb was really great through. Here’s my favorite pieces: Anna Clines’ rapture uses clarinet with distortion and fixed media in a well-connected manner. Alvin Lucier’s Nothing is Real (Strawberry Fields) for piano, amplified teapot, and electronics manages to reimagine the famous Beatles tune in a singular way. Tristan Perich’s piccolo and 1-bit electronics piece, A/B/C/D, was retro-futuristic-ly awesome. Anna Clyne’s 1987 for quartet and fixed media was performed with impressive reserve. JacobTV’s The Body of Your Dreams for piano and fixed media critiques USA fitness culture with lots of humor.

To avoid excessive detail, I will just mention some of my favorites pieces from the second day of the festival. McGregor Boyle’s Midway Inlet is a very tasteful and peaceful piece for clarinet and electronics. David Little’s and the sky was still there (watch on Vimeo) was premiered in it’s cello version. Nathan Wolek shared his fixed media piece attack which is entirely composed of the start of music in his music library. Benjamin Broening’s gathering light for violin and electronics had an excellent performance by Lina Bahn. And finally, Lucky Leone and Butch Rovan performed their rather funny and entertaining piece Slim Jim Choker for speaker and interactive typewriter.

I had a great time attending the festival and send my thanks to Paul Leary and and Chris Chandler for inviting me to perform their pieces!

Above graphic designed by John Malinoski.