Great Noise Ensemble’s founder and Artistic Director, Armando Bayolo, has been blogging over at Sequenza 21, where he’s now in the process of chronicling GNE’s upcoming production of Louis Andriessen’s opera masterwork De Materie, which will be presented at The National Gallery of Art on October 24, 2010. This is a truly epic undertaking for any ensemble, especially one like GNE, and the realization of a long-held dream for Armando and many other members of the group. Read his thoughts on the process over at the Sequenza 21 Forum.

As we close out our fifth season and prepare for our blockbuster sixth year performing together, we’d like to share one of the highlights of our season from our final concert: the world premiere performance of D.J. Sparr’s incredible percussion concerto, The 41st Rudiment. For those of you who couldn’t make it out to the concert, here’s what you missed (thanks to artist Terry Berlier, the artist who created the gorgeous sculptures that Chris Froh uses as instruments, for the video):

41st Rudiment (low res) from Terry Berlier on Vimeo.

Art is synergy, and is at its best when its facets reflect the many disciplines which color its classifications.

On April 30th, Great Noise Ensemble presents the world premiere of a brilliant new percussion concerto by composer D.J. Sparr: The 41st Rudiment. Performed by guest soloist Chris Froh on the fantastic percussion instrument sculptures created by sculptor Terry Berlier, Sparr’s concerto combines visual art with compositional mastery and spectacular stage performance for an experience on a myriad of artistic planes.

Also featured on the program are works by Ian Hartsough and Robert Paterson: Ian Hartsough’s City Life portrays the the “frustrations, wonders, and concerns that come with starting a life on one’s own” as seen through the lens of life in Manhattan, while Paterson’s Looney Tunes uses as inspiration and point of departure favorite characters from the cartoons of the same name.

This program is a featured performance in Great Noise Ensemble’s role as resident new music ensemble at The Catholic University of America, and is presented in The Benjamin T. Rome School of Music’s historic Ward Recital Hall.

Tickets:
$25 General
$15 Students & Seniors
Free for CUA Students, Faculty & Staff with valid CUA ID

Tickets are available through Ovationtix:
https://www.ovationtix.com/trs/pr/692545

Great Noise Ensemble presents:
Colors of Cool
Friday, March 5, 2010, 7:30pm
Ward Recital Hall
The Benjamin T. Rome School of Music
The Catholic University of America
General $25
Students & Seniors $15
CUA Students, Faculty & Staff Free with CUA ID

Colors and shapes, portraits and architecture: the musical reflects the visual in Colors Of Cool, presented by Great Noise Ensemble on March 5 at Catholic University’s historic Ward Hall.

This concert presents the music of five composers:

Geoffrey Gordon’s Cool Red Cool (a jazz and improvisation-tinged response to Andy Warhol’s Self Portrait (1986)),

Jonathan Russell’s Night Dance

Blair Goins’s Chamber Concerto (written for Great Noise Ensemble)

Jacob Cooper’s Not Just Another Piece For Solo Bass Drum

Harold Meltzer’s Brion (inspired by the colors and architectural shapes of the Brion-Vega Cemetery in San Vito d’Altivole, not far from Venice.)

Tickets available through OvationTix.

Great Noise Ensemble presents:
Colorfield Passions And Vespers
Sunday, January 31, 2010, 6:30pm
The National Gallery of Art
Washington, DC

Great Noise Ensemble returns to the National Gallery of Art for Colorfield Passions, a program of world premiere works inspired by the paintings of Mark Rothko (Armando Bayolo’s Kaddish:Passio:Rothko) and the music of Claudio Monteverdi (Carlos Carrillo’s Motets from Vespro della Beata Virgine (2010)), in collaboration with the National Gallery Orchestra and Chorus.

This concert is free: for more information visit the site for the Concert Series at the National Gallery of Art.

Great Noise Ensemble presents:
Illusions & Hallucinations
Saturday, December 5, 2009, 7:30pm
Ward Recital Hall, The Benjamin T. Rome School of Music
The Catholic University of America
General $25 / Students & Seniors $15
CUA Students, Faculty & Staff Free with CUA ID

Inspiration can come from a myriad of places, and not all of them exist in the realm of the sane or the real or the tangible: GNE’s third concert of the season, Illusions & Hallucinations, features works by composers Armando Bayolo, Andrew Simpson and Geoffrey Gordon inspired by things both imagined and etheral.

Geoffrey Gordon’s Lux Solis Aeterna draws its inspiration from neutrinos and the creation of sunlight, while Andrew Simpson’s lotus and poppy springs from images and personifications of lotus eaters and opium addicts, applied to modern day issues of unjust warfare. Armando Bayolo’s Chamber Symphony: Illusory Airs springs from our increasing connection through the wireless and intangible pathways of the internet and mobile communication, in direct opposition to our ever increasing physical isolation.

Tickets are available at OvationTix: $25 Adults, $15 Students/Seniors, CUA Faculty and Staff free with valid CUA I.D.

Twilight Music
Friday, October 30, 2009, 8pm
The Unitarian Universalist Church of Silver Spring
Silver Spring, Maryland

The Unitarian Universalist Church of Silver Spring hosts GNE for Twilight Music, a program of works by David Smooke, John Harbison, Roberto Sierra, Masatoshi Mitsumoto and Blair Goins inspired by light, poetry and musical intervals.

David Smooke’s Stillness and Occurrence takes its inspiration from the reverie of a child in a photograph, contrasting the colors of the other subjects with the white space of the landscape between them. John Harbison’s Twilight Music highlights the differences between horn and violin, two instruments with “little in common” in a piece he says is the kind of music he is drawn to, where “the surface seems simplest and most familiar… but some purposeful, independent musical argument is at work.” Piezas Caracteristicas by Roberto Sierra uses different musical intervals as the basis for its five movements for small chamber ensemble, incorporating the bongos and congas of Latin and Caribbean music. In Songs of Innocence, Masatoshi Mitsumoto sets the poems of William Blake in a song cycle for soprano and piano.

Tickets are available through OvationTix or at the door: $25 Adults, $15 Students & Seniors.

Friday, September 25 2009, 7:30pm
Ward Recital Hall
The Benjamin T. Rome School of Music
The Catholic University of America
General $25 / Students & Seniors $15 / CUA Students, Faculty & Staff Free with CUA ID

Great Noise Ensemble’s fifth season opens with Urban Saloon, a program highlighting works inspired by scenes from evocative locales such as the Deep South and the historic American West, as well as music from the Balkans, India, jazz and John Cage.

Samuel Vriezen’s The Weather Riots opens GNE’s first concert of the season with a classic example of the thought and inspiration that go into live musical performance: the performers choose the sequence of the events individually, leading to a truly one-of-a-kind performance every time the piece is performed. Ned McGowan’s Urban Turban draws on “music from the Balkans and India, as well as John Cage, jazz, Loos, Rudiger Meyer, Musiquantics, serialism and the note E”, combined and re-imagined for saxophone, guitar and piano. Bruce Broughton’s Saloon Music for B-flat cornet and pit orchestra features guest artist Craig Taylor, performing a pyrotechnic suite of music inspired by the traveling musicians of the Wild West. Joel Puckett’s Southern Comforts, with guest violinist Scott Conklin, evokes the composer’s roots in the Deep South, from Faulkner to football to funerals to mint juleps.

This concert will mark the beginning of Great Noise Ensemble’s second year as Resident New Music Ensemble at Catholic University, and will be presented in Catholic’s historic Ward Recital Hall at The Benjamin T. Rome School of Music.

Tickets are available through the GNE website, via phone at 866-811-4111 or at the door.

Saturday, May 30, 2009 7:30 pm
The Terrace Theater, John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts

On Saturday, May 30, Great Noise Ensemble makes its official Kennedy Center debut, performing with one of D.C.’s best-loved choral groups, the Congressional Chorus! This concert features the world premiere of part of Revolutions of Ruin by Daniel Felsenfeld, co-commissioned by the Congressional Chorus and GNE for this performance, as well as Armando Bayolo’s concerto for violin and orchestra, Musica Concertante, performed by violinist Jameson Cooper, and many new and exciting works for chorus so fresh that the ink’s barely dry! Come out and hear this exciting collaboration between two of the most fun and cutting-edge groups in D.C.!!!

Tickets are on sale now at the Kennedy Center website: grab your tickets now, because this concert will almost certainly sell out!!

For more information, visit The Congressional Chorus’s website: http://www.congressionalchorus.org.

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.