2006-2007 season

Bent Frequency presents: 1six Landscapes

Featuring virtuosic contemporary works showcasing (and selected by) six familiar BF musicians as soloists. The eclectic program will include:
- the haunting electro-acoustic landscapes of Atlanta composer Robert Scott Thompson's "Canto (De Las Sombras)"
- a gripping musical caricature by Michael Colgrass inspired by Inuit legend: "Wild Riot of the Shaman's Dreams"
- Roger Sessions' masterpiece "Six Pieces for Solo Cello"
- the outrageously theatrical "BB Wolf (an apologia)" by Jon Deak based on text by Richard Hartshorne.
- Stephen Hartke's elegant "Caoine" for solo violin.
- the premiere of "Icarus", a new work by Atlanta composer Chris Arrell.

Sunday, May 20, 2007

Eyedrum

Steve Reich Festival

A celebration of the music of American composer Steve Reich on the occasion of his 70th Birthday. Steve Reich has been hailed as "…America's greatest living composer." (The Village Voice), "...the most original musical thinker of our time" (The New Yorker) and "...among the great composers of the century" (The New York Times).

To honor the importance and influence of Mr. Reich in contemporary music, scheduled events include: a festival series at the Rialto Center for the Performing Arts over two consecutive evenings and a special presentation of early music at Eyedrum.

Sunday, April 8, 2007 at 8:00 PM

Eyedrum

Frequent Small Meals and Bent Frequency present a special concert of early tape and electronic worksincluding a live performance of Reich's 1968 "Pendulum Music" - recently made famous in a recording by Sonic Youth.

Admission is $7 at the door. For more information, visit eyedrum.org or email andy@frequentsmallmeals.com.
Eyedrum is located at Suite 8, 290 MLK, Jr. DR, Atlanta, GA 30312.

Tuesday, April 10, 2007 at 8:00 PM

Rialto Center for the Arts at Georgia State University

Acclaimed guest artists, SO PERCUSSION, in their Atlanta debut, will explore Reich’s Drumming (1971), alongside the Georgia State University Percussion Ensemble. So Percussion, one of the most exciting young ensembles in the country, seek to challenge and enable the creation of new music that combines musical, theatrical and artistic elements. This performance will be preceded by a lecture at 7PM on the music by Dr. Yayoi Everett of Emory University, and will be followed by a reception with live music by DJ Little Jen.

See both performances at the Rialto for as little as $24! For tickets or more information, visit rialtocenter.org, call 404-651-4727, or email info@rialtocenter.org. The Rialto Center for the Arts is located at 80 Forsyth Street NW, Atlanta, GA 30303.

Wednesday, April 11, 2007 at 8:00 PM

Rialto Center for the Arts at Georgia State University

Atlanta’s own BENT FREQUENCY conclude the festival with a concert including Reich's NY Counterpoint (1985), Piano Phase (1967), and Different Trains (1988) and more of his chamber works. This performance will be preceded by a lecture at 7PM on Steve Reich's music, and will be followed by a reception with live music by DJ Little Jen.

See both performances at the Rialto for as little as $24! For tickets or more information, visit rialtocenter.org, call 404-651-4727, or email info@rialtocenter.org. The Rialto Center for the Arts is located at 80 Forsyth Street NW, Atlanta, GA 30303.

Bent Frequency presents: Microscape II

Second annual Composers' Concert featuring: the top selections from our recent International Call for Scores, music of Atlanta composer Alvin Singleton, and a tribute to the late composer György Ligeti (1923-2006).

Sunday, October 22, 2006 at 8:00 PM

Eyedrum

2005-2006 Season

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution's review of the June 4th performance can be found here.

TIMBRE AND SOUND: Boulez and Beyond

Bent Frequency concludes the 2005-2006 season with a performance of contemporary masterworks by France’s most important and innovative composers today, including internationally renowned conductor and composer, Pierre Boulez and pioneer of French Spectralism, Gerard Grisey.

Sunday, June 4, 2006 at 8:00 PM

Eyedrum

This event made possible by a grant from The French-American Fund for Contemporary Music, a program of French American Cultural Exchange (FACE) with major support from SACEM and BMG Music Publishing.

TIMBRE AND SOUND: Tristan Murail

Bent Frequency and the French-American Fund for Contemporary Music invite you to hear music from the perspective of one of France’s most important living composers, Tristan Murail. As one of the founders of the French Spectralist school, Murail argues that:

“Our conception of music is held prisoner by our education. All has been cut into slices, put into categories, classified, limited. There is a conceptual error from the very beginning: the composer does not work with 12 notes, x rhythmic figures, x dynamic markings, all infinitely permutable–he works with sound and timbre. Sound has been confused with its representations…” (Spectra and Pixies, 1984)

Tuesday, January 31, 2006 from 2:30 - 4:00PM

Lecture by Tristan Murail (INFO)

Couch Building, Room 104, Georgia Tech

Wednesday, February 1, 2006 from 1:00 - 2:30PM

Presentation by Tristan Murail on his music.

Clayton State University

Wednesday, February 1, 2006 at 7:30 PM

Bent Frequency performs Timbre and Sound: the music of Tristan Murail

Spivey Hall at Clayton State University

All events co-sponsored by French-American Fund for Contemporary Music, a program of French American Cultural Exchange (FACE) with major support from SACEM and BMG Music Publishing, and CSU Lyceum.

SPECIAL EVENT

Bent Frequency will be performing as a part of the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra's Symphony Celebration.

"This year, the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra will again host the incredibly popular Symphony Celebration at the Woodruff Arts Center. It's a big, noisy, hands-on, fun-filled, 'get-to-know the ASO' open house and celebration for young and old alike. Try out musical instruments, listen to performances and join in all the excitement. There are lots of activities for all ages during this musical open house!"
For more information, call 404-733-4963

Saturday, October 8th, 2005

The Circle Room in the Memorial Arts Building (15th St. & Peachtree St.) at Woodruff Arts Center at 12:00PM

Bent Frequency presents: MICROSCAPE

Pull your ear up to the lens and observe the instantaneous and non-reversible reaction between our recently discovered, clinically prepared sonic samples and the highly volatile culturalscape of Atlanta itself. BF technicians, equipped with the most precise instrumentation available, will administer the experiment to ensure complete quality control.

Presenting the finalists of Bent Frequency's 2005 Call for Scores:

Sunday, October 2nd, 2005 at 3:00 PM (afternoon show)

Eyedrum

2004-2005 Season

Bent Frequency presents: (bang fist)

The theatrical conversion of the emotional to the mechanical and, ultimately, into sound. Spontaneous acts notated and, thus, placed under the jurisdiction of the dramatic tradition. In other words, we present you with the experience of life translated into music! This is the music of a lover's confession, of crossing a busy street, of the actor on the stage, self-aware and instinctual, mechanical and rehearsed.

Sunday, May 8th, 2005 at 8:30 PM

Eyedrum

Bent Frequency presents: CENTERING

A reflection on the dynamism that defines arbitrary balance. Like the discordant thread that binds Zen rock gardens and modern sub-atomic String Theory, where even cold rock, with a scaling of perception, explodes in an ever-changing field of vibrating energy, CENTERING encapsulates the slight conceptual shifts that enable us to perceive the intangible and progress beyond the rational. CENTERING is the entropy of silence and the stillness of noise.

Sunday, October 17th, 2004 at 8:30 PM

Eyedrum

2003-2004 Season

Bent Frequency presents: CONCUSSION

A daylong celebration of CREATION through the audience-participatory DESTRUCTION of a contact-mic-riddled car. We will choreograph Atlanta-area musicians from all over the musical map (improvisers, classical musicians, electronic composers, etc.), as well as visual artists to react, in real-time, to both the bang and clangs of the destruction. Although the event will revolve around the destruction of an unsuspecting auto, the final product will be a 3+ hour spontaneous composition of creative collaboration between Atlanta's various, fragmented art/music/technology communities.

Saturday, June 5, 2004 from 3:00-7:00 PM

Atlanta Contemporary Arts Center

Bent Frequency presents: LOST HYSTERICAL MAN

Examine the influence of those crushed by the horrors of the world in which they lived, captive to the perspective reflected in the shards of their shattered minds. These are the voices of those on the outside looking in, clinging to hope and wrestling with despair. Join us as we explore the beauty and reason in the lives of those deemed degenerate and unfit, featuring compositions by Giacinto Scelsi, Frederic Rzewski, Percy Grainger, Robert Schumann, and Rezso Seress.

Sunday, May 10, 2004 at 8:30 PM

Rialto Center for the Performing Arts at Georgia State University

Bent Frequency presents: Phil Kline's UNSILENT NIGHT

Unsilent Night is an outdoor, immersive music event for an infinite number of boomboxes. It's like Christmas caroling, but with boomboxes, each playing a separate part of the overall composition: in effect, a roving, city-block-long stereo system! Come to listen to this beautiful and unusual, modern composition WHILE taking a leisurely walk through our lovely, much overlooked downtown AND/OR participate in the performance by simply bringing your own boombox to play (we will supply the tape/cd).

Participation is FREE and OPEN TO ALL (NO musical proficiency required). A reception WITH Unsilent Night composer Phil Kline will follow at the Rialto Center, 80 Forsyth St. NW.

Thursday, December 4, 2003 at 7:00 PM

Rialto Center for the Performing Arts at Georgia State University and downtown Atlanta streets

Bent Frequency presents: EXTENDED RADIO FORMAT

Extended Radio Format is an exploration of the influence that the radio, as a medium working to popularize music, has had on modern composition. From the benefits of promoting the widespread acceptance and availability of various genres (jazz, rock and, most recently, rap/hip-hop) to the inevitable exploitation of the form through advertising and greed, radio is influence. Radio is propaganda. Radio is the paradox of Art in a consumer culture.

Sunday, November 2, 2003 at 8:30 PM

Eyedrum
BENT FREQUENCY - P.O. Box 2826 Atlanta, GA 30301 info@bentfrequency.com