Friday, March 27, 2009, 8 PM
Ward Recital Hall
The Benjamin T. Rome School of Music
The Catholic University of America

Windows shape the way we view the world, whether through the subjects they frame looking out or looking in, the images they depict in lead and glass and color, or in the materials with which those images and frames are constructed. On March 27th, Great Noise Ensemble presents a concert showcasing the views afforded and colored by these prismatic portals: Tiffany Windows, featuring the music of Arlene Sierra, David Dzubay, Don Freund, Stephen Paulus and Libby Larsen.

Arlene Sierra’s Tiffany Windows and David Dzubay’s Vision are carefully constructed reflections on the subjects of the windows of two churches in New York, celebrating their form, function and construction. Libby Larsen’s Holy Roller is a revival sermon captured in the sounds of the alto saxophone and piano, and Don Freund’s Hard Cells uses hard faceted blocks of sound to construct the ideas which it contains within its frame.

Join us for a concert which shines the light on new and established icons who can and will frame our perspectives for years to come: tickets are available at BrownPaperTickets.com or at the door: $20 General, $10 Students and Seniors, and free for Catholic University students, faculty and staff with valid CUA I.D.

Friday, February 13, 2009, 8 PM
Ward Recital Hall
The Benjamin T. Rome School of Music
The Catholic University of America

On February 13th, Great Noise Ensemble presents a concert highlighting the form, function and intersection of man and machine through works of Mallamud, Mellits Goins and Sparr. David Mallamud’s song cycle Spectorian Domination draws on James Bond, surf music, and the telenovela to present several different stories, with a couple of new songs written specifically for this performance. D.J. Sparr’s Carnal Node tells the story of a friend’s search for love through the internet, as told through emails to the composer. Blair Goin’s Concerto for Soprano Sax, String Quintet and Percussion combines both jazz and classical influences to showcase the spectacular playing of saxophonist Steven Leffue, and GNE reprises its acclaimed Fringe Festival performance of Marc Mellit’s Five Machines.

Tickets available at the door: $20 General, $10 Students and Seniors, and Free for Catholic University students, faculty and staff with valid CUA I.D.

John Cage, Frank Zappa, a world premiere and two bass clarinet soloists: on December 7th Great Noise Ensemble will present the third concert of its blockbuster fourth season and the second concert of its Catholic University residency, a program full of heavy-hitting new music legends and works on track to become legendary.

Great Noise Ensemble will present in concert two of the most famous works in the new music catalog, John Cage’s 4′33″ and Frank Zappa’s The Black Page, conceptualized and staged by GNE bassist Joel Ciaccio. Sharing the program are Jonathan Russell’s blockbuster Duo Bass Clarinet Concerto, Poul Ruders’s Four Dances In One Movement and the world premiere of Catholic University faculty member Steven Strunk’s References.

Tacit Dances will take place in Catholic University’s historic Ward Hall, at the Benjamin T. Rome School of Music. Tickets

Tickets: $20 General / $10 Students & Seniors / Free for CUA Students and Faculty with CUA I.D. at BrownPaperTickets.com or at the door.

Great Noise Ensemble continues its fourth season with Autumnal Songs, a program highlighting the seasons and cycles of the human experience, from the shape of thoughts to the cycles of nature to the reflections, mirrors, and gray areas of the human life span.

Alexandra Gardner’s The Way of Ideas evokes the everyday machinations of the human mind through a soundscape portraying the constant transformation of thoughts. Jeremy Gill’s Dunn Songs set texts by Stephen Dunn as a “musical representation of the realistic thinker”. Andrea Reinkemeyer’s Half Moon Nocturne and Armando Bayolo’s St. Luke’s Summer set inspirations born from the beauty of nature. Vuelta del Fuego “mixes over-the-top romance with unabashed flair and swagger” in a fiery brass quintet by one of Great Noise Ensemble’s rising star composers, Kevin McKee.

Come join us for a night of beautiful song and intense music at one of our favorite venues, The Unitarian Universalist Church of Silver Spring.

Tickets: $20 General, $10 Students and Seniors at BrownPaperTickets.com or at the door.

Darkness comes in many forms: some are enlightening, some are peaceful, others are terrifying. Great Noise Ensemble presents a program exploring the darknesses of the human experience from loneliness to rejection to incarceration to dreams with works by Ryan Brown, JacobTV, James Leatherbarrow and Frederic Rzewski.

Ryan Brown’s Thick Skin opens Great Noise Ensemble’s fourth season, entitled Icons Old And New, with a rock-and-roll flavored bang, portraying the many facets of human interaction and its consequences. JacobTV’s Grab It! draws the listener into a duel between saxophone and soundtrack in the “no-man’s-land between language and music”. James Leatherbarrow portrays a more peaceful side of darkness in his Three Nocturnes for tuba and piano, evoking serene images from fireflies to dreamscapes. Finally, Frederic Rzewski’s epic bipartite works Attica and Coming Together! lay out the setting of one of the ultimate wastelands of the human condition on an epic scale through the letters of Attica prisoner Sam Melville, heard in the premiere of a new arrangement of the works by Great Noise Ensemble director Armando Bayolo.

The performance on September 19, 2008 marks not only the beginning of Great Noise Ensemble’s fourth season, but the inauguration of its residency at Catholic University’s Benjamin T. Rome School of Music, and will be presented in its historic Ward Recital Hall.

Admission is $20, $10 for students and seniors, and free for Catholic University students with a Catholic University I.D.

There are icons and there are icons, and Great Noise Ensemble presents both the established roster and potential candidates in a season designed to celebrate the recognized stars and the up-and-coming masters of new music.

On September 19, 2008, Great Noise Ensemble opens its fourth season with Darkness In No Man’s Land, a program exploring the many darknesses of the human condition through the works of Ryan Brown, JacobTV, James Leatherbarrow and Frederic Rzewski, including a new arrangement of Rzewski’s epic works Coming Together! and Attica by GNE founder Armando Bayolo.

On October 24, GNE presents Autumnal Songs, which alternately soothes the listener with music in circles and cycles by Alexandra Gardner, Jeremy Gill and Andrea Reinkemeyer, then excites the senses with rising star, composer and GNE member Kevin McKee’s exciting work Vuelta del Fuego for brass quintet and Armando Bayolo’s boisterous clarinet quintet St. Luke’s Summer.

December grooves with Tacit Dances, a program with verve which features two of the most famous works in the new music canon, John Cage’s 4:33 and Frank Zappa’s The Black Page, in tightly staged tandem conceived by GNE bassist Joel Ciaccio. Paired with these works is Jonathan Russell’s pyrotechnic Duo Bass Clarinet Concerto and Poul Ruder’s virtuosic Four Dances In One Movement.

In February, GNE celebrates the season of love on February 13 with Machines, Love, and Evolution, looking at various facets of the intersection and interplay between humanity and technology in practice and theory with works by Don Freund, Derek Bermel and Blair Goins. Composer D.J. Sparr’s Carnal Node relates repeated refrain of our times, a tale of the passion and frustration of internet dating, while Marc Mellits’s Five Machines uses the performers themselves as a grand machine together.

March brings Tiffany Windows, a program inspired by and portraying the bones and spirit of church windows and revival tents with music of David Dzubay, Libby Larsen, Jacob Cooper and Arlene Sierra.

Icons Old and New closes out with Revolutions, a collaboration with the Congressional Chorus which marks Great Noise Ensemble’s debut at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts as well as the premiere of a joint commission by composer Daniel Felsenfeld, Revolutions of Ruin.

As always, Great Noise Ensemble hopes you’ll join us for a season filled with music which has both served as the building blocks for our passion and which will continue to inspire us for generations.

Great Noise Ensemble returns to the Capital Fringe Festival with a program of pieces which examine the complex system of relationships we share in the age of instant messaging, internet dating, and technological overload. In D.J. Sparr’s Carnal Node we journey along with one man’s internet dating experiences as told through the eyes of his friend. Marc Mellits’s Five Machines is a pure mechanical portrayal of the technology that shapes these relationships, and Ryan Brown’s Thick Skin reminds us of the defenses we need to survive in an ever changing world.

Great Noise Ensemble will be performing at the Forum in the Shakespeare Theatre’s new Harman Center for the Arts in downtown Washington, D.C. Tickets are $15, available through Capital Fringe’s website via TheaterMania.

Performances:
Saturday, July 12, 2008: 9 PM
Wednesday, July 23, 2008: 6:30 PM
Saturday, July 26, 2008: 9 PM
Sunday, July 27, 2008: 3 PM

Tickets: $15 on TheaterMania.com or at the door (cash only).

Presented as part of the 2008 Capital Fringe Festival: Unjuried, Risk-Taking, Independent Performing Arts.

Great Noise Ensemble presents

Learning To See
Sunday, May 18, 2008, 6:30 PM
The National Gallery of Art

Great Noise Ensemble wraps up its third season a program of works designed to complement both the collections and the space at the National Gallery of Art, with works inspired by concepts as far ranging as the emotion of love and as specific as the colors of a favorite painting.

The works of composers Evan Chambers (Rothko-Tobey Continuum) and Barbara White (Learning to See) engage in a dialogue about the congruence of music and the visual arts in the 20th century, while Blair Goins contemplates the most common basic artistic inspiration in the premiere of his new work, Quintet of Love. We also wrestle with the classical tradition in the world premieres of Armando Bayolo’s Chamber Symphony:Illusory Airs and Andrew Rudin’s Piano Concerto, featuring guest soloist Marcantonio Barone.

Free admission. For more information, visit the National Gallery of Art’s events website.

Great Noise Ensemble presents

Sublime and Ridiculous Songs
Saturday, April 12, 2008, 8 PM
The Unitarian Universalist Church of Silver Spring
10309 New Hampshire Avenue
Silver Spring, MD 20903

$20 General/$10 Students & Seniors*
Tickets available at BrownPaperTickets.com or by calling 1(800)838-3006.

Great Noise Ensemble returns to one of its favorite venues, the Unitarian Universalist Church of Silver Spring, to present a program which highlights the beauty and expressive range of the human voice. Sublime and Ridiculous Songs brings together music featuring solo voices which run the gamut from David Little’s profound musings on war and military life in Soldier Songs to Pablo Neruda’s odes to everyday objects in Arlene Sierra’s Neruda Settings while Tom Schnauber ruminates on childhood in his Not Pooh! songs and Louis Andriessen has a little fun with Mozart (and Frankenstein!) in M is for Man, Music, Mozart.

“The music on this program is perhaps the most challenging and the most fun that Great Noise Ensemble has yet to take on and provides an excellent opportunity to feature the human voice,” says artistic director Armando Bayolo. The group features two of its regular members as well as bringing two new faces in as guest soloists: Kara Morgan, who lends her lyrically rich voice to Sierra’s Neruda Settings, and Rachel Barham, whose humor and vim shine in M is for Man, Music, Mozart. Monica Szabo brings her talents to Schnauber’s Not Pooh! and baritone Aaron McNeil takes on selections from David Little’s powerful one-man opera Soldier Songs.

Tickets available at BrownPaperTickets.com or at the door.*

*Stay tuned for an exciting announcement regarding discounted tickets for this and future Great Noise Ensemble concerts!!

Great Noise Ensemble presents

Aires Nuevos Y Tropicales
Friday, February, 22, 2008, 8PM
The Patricia M. Sitar Center
1700 Kalorama Road NW Suite 101
Washington, D.C. 20009

$20 General/$10 Students & Seniors
Tickets available at BrownPaperTickets.com

Great Noise Ensemble explores the myriad connections between the United States and Latin America with a program of pieces exotic and native.

Both American and Hispanic cultures are geographically and artistically diverse, and Aires Nuevos and Tropicales is a program reflecting these vibrant variations. Heather Figi’s Moon Big is an exploration of Brazilian culture and the rhythms of the Portuguese language. Gabriela Lena Frank’s Cuatro Canciones Andinas is an exploration of Peruvian culture and a response to her encounter with the work of the Quechua folklorist Jos Mara Arguedas. Eric Ewazen’s Trio for Trumpet, Clarinet and Piano and Marc Sylvester’s Pulse (in 7) represent the rhythmic vibrancy which American music has in common with the music of our brothers and sisters to the south while Michael Holmes’ Recitative, Passacaglia and Fugue represents the neo-classical strain of the American concert music tradition in the 20th century. Finally, jazz legend Paquito d’Rivera’s woodwind quintet, Aires Tropicales, is a love letter to the music of his native Cuba and to his friend, Dizzy Gillespie.

Tickets available at BrownPaperTickets.com or at the door.