Dear All,

It is with great pleasure that I announce that I have the great honor to be welcomed as Artist-in-Residence for ARTErra in Portugal for one month, late May to late June, 2011. ARTErra is an international arts residency that provides work space and cultural opportunities for artists of all disciplines. It is located in Tondela, Portugal.

My main artistic goal during this residency is to compose music for my next CD recording, which will be recorded later in 2011 and will culminate in an international commercial release in 2012. I believe that a rural setting such as ARTErra would be the perfect situation for my work. The CD will contain music that is Transcendental in concept, referring to the interaction and relationship of myself (us) to our environment on both a physical and spiritual level. The rural setting of ARTErra will allow me to commune with nature. As you all know, I currently live in New York City, which is filled with excitement and stimuli, but the appeal of working in such a peaceful setting as ARTErra for an extended period is very powerful; it is a special experience that will enhance my creativity in a new way.

The new CD, which has the working title Painting, will be a collection of seven to eight pieces (approximately an hour of music) that will center on the idea of relationships, such as human to human and human to environment. The idea is to present these interactions as a series of musical ‘paintings’ This CD project will be the first to contain exclusively my own compositions for ensemble.

I also want to mention that I will be traveling with Virgin Atlantic, who have been very communicative and helpful regarding travel with instruments; a nice change from the norm. If this works out well, believe me, I will sing their praises to the hills…

Thank you all again for your support!

Demetrius

Hello All,

Sending out a short post to update you all on my current whereabouts and events.

Firstly, I want to say that my March 10 Womens Work concert was a great success. We had a very good crowd, especially considering that we were experiencing great amounts of rain. I also was delighted that many of the composers attended, including Lynn Job (all the way from Texas) whom I had not met prior to premiering her solo clarinet piece Arcangelo Red. It was a good evening for all. Below is a photo after the show:

Womens Work 2011

Back Row: Elzbieta Polak, Beth Anderson-Harold, Molly Thompson, Jill Miller-Thorn

Front Row: Lynn Job, Yours Truly, Alexandra Honigsberg

This Saturday is the opening of the exhibition of my collaborator, Laura Evans, at the Boston Sculptors Gallery. This exhibition will feature our sound/sculpture collaboration Corpus Apparatus. This will be presented as both a featured work in Laura’s exhibition from March 15 to April 17, 2011, and as a featured work for the TransCultural Exchange 2011 Conference on International Opportunities in the Arts: The Interconnected World, April 7-10, 2011. My music is an acousmatic (electronic music, created in the studio and using as source material recordings of me created specifically for this) piece which will emanate from within the sculpture. My electronic score to Corpus Apparatus won the CAP award from the American Music Center this past Fall.

And finally, I posted a new video from my performance in August 2010 at the Mozartiana Festival in Gdansk, Poland. This solo soprano sax piece was my improvised encore. It started as Duke Ellington’s Sophisticated Lady, and went from there–remember, it was about 11PM and it was outside on the Baltic Sea…it was cold, but I was energized by the crowd. I hope you enjoy it:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qMUSicggwaQ

More soon!

Demetrius

Greetings All,

March is here…which means that my schedule is once again in a period of grand intensity. It’s crazy, it’s fun, it’s Spring.

Firstly, I hope that you all have enjoyed the recent video postings. I plan on adding more over the next couple of months, including another from Poland, probably one or two from recent NYC performances, and even a short film (or two…) which I composed music for.

Well, those that have been following me know, next week begins Womens Work 2011, in which my March 10 concert launches this year’s series. I will perform Carol Alban’s Elegy for clarinet, Beth Anderson’s Comment for clarinet and Toledo Swale for soprano sax and 2 violins (with Alexandra Honigsberg and Elzbieta Polak), Denise Broadhurst’s Equinox for clarinet, Alexandra Gardner’s Two Breathing Songs for clarinet, Lynn Job’s Archangelo Red for clarinet, Jill Miller-Thorn’s Lament for clarinet, Molly Thompson’s Magnolias and Speed for tenor sax, Joan Tower’s Wings for tenor sax and Judith Lang Zaimont’s Astral for clarinet. Several of the composers will speak before the performances of their works. 8 PM in the Renee Weiler Concert Hall at Greenwich House Music School, 46 Barrow Street, Manhattan.

Immediately following the concert, preparations begin for a series of recording sessions that next week for OCTET, a new project by my dear friend William Susman. I am not allowed to divulge any information about this, other than these facts: I am the reed player, the Music Director, and it will be totally cool

Immediately (again!) after the last recording session, I jump on the Amtrak to Boston for the official opening (March 19) of the exhibition of my collaborator, Laura Evans, at the Boston Sculptors Gallery. This exhibition will feature our sound/sculpture collaboration Corpus Apparatus. This will be presented as both a featured work in Laura’s exhibition from March 15 to April 17, 2011, and as a featured work for the TransCultural Exchange 2011 Conference on International Opportunities in the Arts: The Interconnected World, April 7-10, 2011 (more on this later). My music is an acousmatic (electronic music, created in the studio and using as source material recordings of me created specifically for this) piece which will emanate from within the sculpture. My electronic score to Corpus Apparatus won the CAP award from the American Music Center this past Fall.

Here are the program notes on the project:

Corpus Apparatus will take the form of a physical and sonic sculptural installation that utilizes both biological and mechanical elements. The physical form of the sculpture evokes a human heart–the basis of our humanity, but also a powerful machine. Elements recalling machinery and technology invade the humanity of this heart–an evolution, or a perversion? In Corpus Apparatus, sound will provide an important level of psychological stimulus to suggest this altered reality. As the sculpture itself is a blending of human and mechanical, sound emanating from the sculpture will create a constant flow between these two extremes. To create this acousmatic piece, I have recorded myself in the studio vocalizing and playing flute, alto flute, tenor saxophone, and Pamiri (Tajik) nai; these recordings are my complete source material for the work.

Well, once this bit of traveling is finished, I switch gears from performer/composer to educator/producer for the 2011 High School Jazz Festival at Five Towns College, where I am Assistant Professor of Music and direct the College’s large jazz ensembles. This event will present High School jazz ensembles from both Nassau and Suffolk counties on Long Island on March 24 from 9AM to 3PM. at the Dix Hills Performing Arts Center.

Following this will begin my collaboration with the Beijing-based TIMI ensemble which combines both Western Classical and Chinese Traditional instruments and is directed by my friend Benoit Granier. Now, here is where the interesting overlapping happens…both TIMI and my collaboration with Laura Evans will be featured at the TransCultural Exchange Conference on International Opportunities in the Arts: The Interconnected World, April 7-10, 2011 in Boston. Corpus Apparatus will be at the Boston Sculpture Gallery, which is one of the featured venues for the conference. I will perform a concert with TIMI on April 7 at Northeastern University’s Fenway Center in which we will premier the new version of my composition Gymnopaedia.

Now, some of you may remember that Gymnopaedia was originally written for clarinet and piano and was premiered by myself and Susanne Kessel at Beethovenhaus in Bonn, Germany on April 20, 2008. Benoit asked me to adapt this piece for his ensemble–the plan is to play it both in Boston April 7 and at Rutgers University on April 11 with me playing clarinet. We are also planning another concert in NYC  between the other two on April 10 (the day the conference ends, mind you–back on an early Amtrak…) at (Le) Poisson Rouge that will be a grand computer-processed improvisation between TIMI, myself, Mari Kimura, and DJ Spooky.

Benoit and I began working together in 2009 in projects that culminated at the Musicacoustica Festival in Beijing. Our current collaborations are gearing towards a festival of contemporary music and cultures also in Beijing in 2012.

My Spring sounds like a trip, doesn’t it…?

I would say that by mid-April I will be comatose, but, this is when the Summer schedule begins to take-off…there are plans in the works for many projects and travels. Well talk about those when they evolve to the point of being able to discuss them properly.

Again, I thank you all for your continued support; I hope to see some of you at these events.

Yours always,

Demetrius