Net Works: An Evening of Telematic Music

Mark DresserOnTour

April 27, 7pm at UCSD at the Conrad Prebys Music Center and UC Berkeley Wheeler Hall
Telematic music is live performance between musicians in different geographical locations using high speed/high bandwidth internet connections. This special Net Works concert features virtuoso ensemble playing by prominent artists in jazz and improvised/experimental music — pianist Myra Melford in Berkeley with bassist Mark Dresser and trombonist Michael Dessen in San Diego — in an exciting evening of co-located performance conceived for the medium.

Real time musical interaction over the internet is a growing phenomenon, and this experienced group has been pushing the boundaries of the art to explore the performance of intricate, tightly integrated music from distant locations. Their collaboration is enabled by CNMAT’s advanced research in live, net-based audio and video transmission.

This concert is supported by the UC Center for Information Technology Research in the Interest of Society (CITRIS) in collaboration with the Center for New Music and Audio Technologies (CNMAT), Cal Performances and Meyer Sound and the UCSD Department of Music.

A fearless musical adventurer – in both her composing and playing – Myra Melford has followed a fascinating path since determining to forge a career in music in 1983. Having studied classical piano into her early teens, she had no real exposure to jazz until college. Improvisation rekindled her early love of the piano, and she plunged in to develop a signature style. At the keyboard, Melford recasts the blues and boogie-woogie of her native Chicago, folds in elements of the music of Eastern Europe and India, and blends them with the rangy, percussive avant-garde approach she cultivated in studies with Don Pullen and Henry Threadgill. This personal musical vocabulary is further enriched by a lush lyricism and organized by an architectural sense of composition that she derived from classical training.

Mark Dresser has been actively performing and recording solo since 1983. At the core of his music is an artistic obsession and commitment to expanding the sonic and musical possibilities of the double bass through the use of unconventional amplification and extended techniques. His solo works include the DVD/CD/booklet triptich Guts: Bass Explorations, Investigations, and Explanations (2010) and CDs UNVEIL (2006) and Invocation (1994) feature the music evolving out of this research. A chapter on his extended techniques, “A Personal Pedogogy,” appears in the book, ARCANA (Granary Press). Dresser has written two articles on extended techniques for The Strad magazine: “Double Bass Harmonics” (October 2008) and an “Introduction to Multiphonics” (October 2009).

Michael Dessen is a composer-improviser who performs on the slide trombone and computer. Active in a variety of ensembles as leader or collaborator, he creates music for improvisers and engages new technologies of telepresence and digital networking. His music has been acclaimed by critics in numerous jazz and contemporary music publications, and recorded on labels such as Clean Feed, Cuneiform, and Circumvention. Current projects include his own electro-acoustic trio, the collective quartet Cosmologic, solo performance on trombone and electronics, and telematic collaborations with Mark Dresser, Myra Melford and many others. Dessen’s teachers include Yusef Lateef, George Lewis, and Anthony Davis, and he has also been schooled through extensive freelance experiences ranging from salsa bands to avant-garde new music ensembles.