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

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Like most garage bands, alt-classical groups have to make the most of limited resources. “A lot of the vibe we’ve developed,” says Bayolo of the Great Noise Ensemble, “is that we’ve been forced to work in a tough economy with very little money, as what I call guerrilla music makers.” The ensemble’s musicians are still working without pay, though the question of performance space has been solved since the group took up residency at Catholic University. (Their next concert is Oct. 30.)

The residency is appropriate in that Bayolo specifically cites the catholicism — with a small C — of his musical tastes. All music, to this young composer, is created equal, but the established format is too restrictive. “The notion of music as religious relic is what I’m trying to fight against,” he said.

Read the full article here.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.