ADVANCE: $15
DAY OF SHOW: $18
Two Sides of Don Byron
Sun., January 03, 2010 / 6:30 PM
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About This Event

Minimum Age:

18+

Doors Open:

6:30 PM

Show Time:

7:00 PM

Description:

Don Byron and Lisa Moore will perform a special concert to celebrate the release of “SEVEN”, Lisa Moore's stellar recording of Byron's piano music, which includes the recent finalist work for the 2009 Pulitzer Prize for Composition, "Seven Etudes for Piano." Winner of the Samuel Barber Rome Prize for Composition, clarinetist/saxophonist Don Byron returns from his current residency in the Italian capitol to perform with his quartet on a double bill with pianist Lisa Moore at (Le) Poisson Rouge on January 3, 2010, at 7:00pm.

Program:
LISA MOORE
Seven: Music by Don Byron
Lisa Moore piano & voice


DON BYRON QUARTET
Don Byron clarinet & tenor saxophone
George Colligan piano
Kenny Davis bass
Billy Hart drums

: celebrating the EP Cantaloupe Music release launch of 'Seven'.



Last week, Lisa and Don stopped by WNYC's Sound Check to perform some of these etudes; you can listen here


You can also pick up a copy of "SEVEN" here

Artists

Lisa Moore
Australian-American pianist Lisa Moore lives in New York City where she collaborates with a large and diverse range of musicians and artists. The New York Times says "her energy is illuminating" and the New Yorker magazine called her “visionary” and "New York's queen of avant-garde piano". Moore has released 5 solo discs (Cantaloupe and Tall Poppies labels) and 30 collaborative discs (Sony, Nonesuch, DG, CRI, BMG, Point, New World, ABC Classics, Albany and New Albion). Her latest solo recording "Seven" (music by Don Byron) has just been released on Cantaloupe. Two more solo Cantaloupe EPs are scheduled for release in 2010 featuring original music by composers Annie Gosfield and Donnacha Dennehy.

Lisa Moore's performances combine musical and emotional power -- whether in the delivery of the simplest song, the most challenging chamber work or complex solo score. She is passionately dedicated to the music of our time as well as the great musical canon. Moore has collaborated with composers from many musical genres -- Elliot Carter, Iannis Xenakis, Meredith Monk, Phillip Glass, Thurston Moore and Ornette Coleman to name just a few. Her wide-ranging repertoire spans from Robert Schumann, Leos Janacek and Modeste Mussorgsky to music and text settings by Randy Newman, Frederic Rzewski and Kurt Schwitters. Past solo shows include "ipiano: my brilliant career", "Wilde's World", "The Totally Wired Piano", "Janacek from the street" and "Musically Speaking". Moore has given concerts at La Scala, the Musikverein, the Sydney Opera House, Carnegie Hall and the Royal Albert Hall. She has made many guest appearances at festivals - The Holland, Lincoln Center, Schleswig-Holstein, BBC Proms, Israel, Warsaw, Uzbekistan, Musica Ficta Lithuania, Prague Spring, Istanbul, Athens, Taormina, Southbank's Meltdown, Dublin's Crash, Graz, Huddersfield, Scotia, Paris d'Automne, Shanghai, Beijing, Hong Kong, Turin, Palermo, Barcelona, Heidelberg, Berlin, Perugia, Tanglewood, Houston Da Camera, Jacob's Pillow, Aspen, Norfolk, Sandpoint, Saratoga, Victoriaville, Ojai, Other Minds, NY's Sonic Boom, BAM Next Wave, MassMoca, Bang on a Can, Keys to the Future, Healing The Divide, Mizzou, Music 10 Blonay, Adelaide, Perth, Queensland, Canberra, Sydney, Sydney's Olympic Arts, Sydney Spring, Sydney Mostly Mozart, Brisbane Biennale, and the Darwin Festival.

Lisa Moore has performed with the New York City Ballet, Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, BargeMusic, St. Lukes Orchestra, American Composers Orchestra, Steve Reich Ensemble, So Percussion, Don Byron Adventurers Orchestra, Signal, Third Coast Percussion,, Da Capo Chamber Players, Paul Dresher Double Duo, Mabou Mines Theater, Susan Marshall Dance Co, Sequitur, Newband, Music at the Anthology, The Crosstown Ensemble, Australia Ensemble, Westchester Philharmonic, New York League of Composers ISCM, Newband, Alpha Centauri Ensemble, Terra Australis, Essential Music, and the John Jasperse Dance Company. As a concerto soloist she has appeared with the London Sinfonietta, Australian Chamber Orchestra, Albany, Sydney, Tasmania, Thai and Canberra Symphony Orchestras, Philharmonia Virtuosi and the Queensland Philharmonic, under the baton of conductors Reinbert de Leeuw, Pierre Boulez, Jorge Mester and Edo de Waart.

Lisa Moore won the silver medal in the Carnegie Hall International American Music Competition. From 1992-2008 she was the pianist and founding member for the Bang On A Can All-Stars -- the New York based electro-acoustic sextet and winner of Musical America's 2005 "Ensemble of the Year" Award. As an artistic curator she most recently produced Australia's Canberra International Music Festival “Sounds Alive ‘08” series, importing musicians from around the world for 10 days of music making at the Street Theatre.

Lisa Moore teaches at the Yale-Norfolk New Music Workshop Summer Festival and at Wesleyan University as well as making guest teaching appearances at conservatories around the world. She was born in Canberra and raised in Australia and London before moving to the USA in 1980. Moore is a graduate of the University of Illinois, Eastman School of Music and SUNY Stonybrook.
The Don Byron Quartet
The DON BYRON QUARTET has been a mainstay of the many ensembles Byron has led since his debut album Tuskegee Experiments on Nonesuch in 1991. Its repertoire has been distinguished by Byron's own compositional work, in contrast to the eclectic repertory character of other projects such as his Mickey Katz klezmer tribute, his exploration of the swing era music of Duke Ellington, Raymond Scott and John Kirby (Bug Music), and his large Adventurers Orchestra which performed his arrangements of music ranging from Stravinsky to Earth, Wind and Fire. In 2004, Byron formed the Lester Young-influenced Ivey-Divey Trio, which, after recording an album immediately recognized as a masterwork, gradually evolved into the current quartet. Featuring three of his longest-standing and favorite collaborators, the ensemble continues to showcase Byron's prowess as an original composer of memorable tunes of great depth while mining the work of such Byron idols as Young, John Coltrane, and Eddie Harris for inspiration.

****

New York-born Don Byron is a singular voice in an astounding range of musical contexts, exploring widely divergent traditions while continually striving for what he calls "a sound above genre." As clarinetist, saxophonist, composer, arranger, and social critic, he redefines every genre of music he plays, be it classical, salsa, hip-hop, funk, klezmer, rhythm & blues, gospel, or any jazz style from swing and bop to cutting-edge downtown improvisation.

Since the early 1990s, Byron has been consistently voted best clarinetist by leading international music magazines. Acclaimed as much for his restless creativity as for his unsurpassed virtuosity as a player, he has presented a multitude of projects at major music festivals around the world. Among the numerous bands he has fronted are Bug Music, Music for Six Musicians, a klezmer ensemble, and his Ivey-Divey Trio. His countless collaborations with other artists range from the Duke Ellington Orchestra to Daniel Barenboim and from Salif Keita to Allen Toussaint.

He has composed and arranged music for chamber ensembles, dance, and film, including soundtracks for the documentaries “Strange Fruit” and “Red-Tailed Angels,” and he has acted in films directed by Robert Altman and Paul Auster. As artistic director and artist-in-residence, Byron has produced distinguished concert series for the Next Wave Festival at the Brooklyn Academy of Music and at New York’s Symphony Space. Also a gifted teacher, he has led residencies at many universities, including Harvard and Columbia. He was a visiting Professor at MIT in 2007/08 and at SUNY Albany from 2005-09, teaching theory, saxophone, improvisation, and composition.

Don Byron’s discography comprises a dozen albums for mostly Blue Note and Nonesuch Records. Ivey-Divey, his 2004 tribute album to Lester Young, was voted Record of the Year by Jazz Times Magazine and nominated for a Grammy Award.

In 2007, Byron was awarded with both a Guggenheim and a USA Prudential Fellowship. In 2009, he was awarded the Samuel Barber Rome Prize for Composition and his "7 Etudes for Piano" were a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for Music. He is currently artist-in-residence at the American Academy in Rome, Italy, where he is working on his first opera.

***

“Calling Don Byron a jazz musician is like calling the Pacific wet – it just doesn’t begin to describe it... Byron has carpentered an extraordinary career precisely by obliterating the very idea of category.” – TIME Magazine

“...showing us new ways of thinking and feeling about familiar experiences is one of the tasks of the true artist and is something Byron revels in.” – The Times, London

“Mr. Byron has not only almost single-handedly revived an instrument that was pronounced moribund with the end of the swing era, he has also taken a scholarly approach to jazz without a hint of academic stuffiness. Every time Mr. Byron revisits the music of a neglected jazz figure, he's not only charting new musical territory but he's actually an undercover critic trying to re-write the music's history.”
– The New York Times

“Byron’s clarinet is at once ancient and modern... His circuitous, unexpectedly jumping lines are stamped with his harmonic knowledge and melodic invention, informed by Bach and Schoenberg, Armstrong and Coltrane. And his rhythmic sense is sharp: He can make any two notes dance... As a composer, Byron is eclectic, thoughtful and provocative, usually with a political or social agenda.” –The Nation

“Clarinetist and composer Byron has a knack for addressing varied genres in both celebratory and extended ways. Whether dealing with klezmer, cartoon music, arias, or percussion-fortified Latin music, he is full of brainy delights. – Entertainment Weekly