IMPROVISED MUSIC & EXPERIMENTAL FILM – Nov 3 at NWFF

 

At Northwest Film Forum

1515 12th Ave, Seattle WA 98122

Thursday, November 3 at 8:00PM

The Monktail Creative Music Concern, Third Eye Cinema, and NWFF present an evening of live collaborative media experiments. Some of the area’s most talented musicians will play in and alongside a number of pioneering short films by Northwest filmmakers.

Featuring performances by Bill Horist, Climax Golden Twins, Dennis Rea/Brian Heaney/Stephen Parris guitar trio, Paul Hoskin, Eric Ostrowski/Mark Ostrowski, and Stephen Fandrich/John Seman.

Films (8mm, 16mm, video) from Jessie Calhoun, Steve Demas, Jason Gutz, Kevin Jacobs, Doug Lane, Eric Ostrowski, Adam Sekuler, Luke Sieczek.

The musicians will not preview the films before the performance.

http://www.nwfilmforum.org/live/page/calendar/1917




Monktail Composers Series, Vol. 6




Why Special O.P.S.

Why Special O.P.S.

Special O.P.S. is a trio of improvising musicians from Seattle’s Monktail Creative Music Concern. Mark Ostrowski is the drummer, Stephen Parris is the electric guitarist, and John Seman is the contrabassist. Their title Special O.P.S., besides being their initials, is their mission. O.P.S. is the mercenary guerrilla unit of Monktail, the small, skilled force used to infiltrate hostile or unknown territory, to search and rescue, or seek and destroy. The analogies go on.

Special O.P.S. was formed September 12, 2001. Their regularly scheduled Wednesday practice with the rest of the Monktail collective that day was poorly attended. People had things on their mind. So Ostrowski, Parris, and Seman played anyway, and recorded, and played some more for several hours. They had only one goal that night, to be really, really loud. The recording begins with Ostrowski’s count off: one-two-loud. Sure, the rehearsal space was directly above the stage for Graceland (currently El Corazon, formerly the Off-Ramp), so you had to play loud, but it was also purging, a response, a reaction, an aural understanding, a sonic sympathy, a requiem.

Requiem for NYC is the recording they made that night. The recording is the birth of Special O.P.S., an urgent, flawed, emotive assault and decay of arguments and debates, poems and stories, fears and fragments. This was not three musicians making a statement; this was three friends exploring their feelings in the most intimate and amplified way they could, like much of the world that day. They paired the music with Ostrowski’s visual art, packaged it up and gave it to people.

Ten years later that recording serves as a treaty, an agreement to make current, honest, propulsive music outside any idiom, format, genre or trend as if the world would end and your life depended on it. Because it does.

Peace,
MCMC
9/9/11
Seattle, WA

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Jack Straw / Monktail Composers Spotlight

 

Jack Straw Productions and Washington Composer Forum present

Composer Spotlight:
JOHN SEMAN
Monktail Creative Music Concern

Wed, September 14, 7:30pm – Jack Straw Productions

Thurs, September 15, 8:00pm – Good Shepherd Chapel

John Seman, director of Seattle’s Monktail Creative Music Concern, will be joined by fellow Monktail composers Mark Ostrowski and Stephen Fandrich for a detailed exploration of the compositional elements that are common and unique to their compositions for piano. Pianist Fandrich will perform pieces they have composed over the last year for the Monktail Composers Series at the Good Shepherd Chapel and for a 2011 Jack Straw Artist Residency.

This Composer Spotlight is a preview of their concert at the Good Shepherd Chapel Sept 15, Monktail Composer Series, Vol 6: New Music for Piano. 

 

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Sounds Outside 2006-2010

Due to insurmountable financial hurdles, Sounds Outside 2011 has been cancelled. 

This unfortunate decision comes with a great amount of regret, however we turn our focus, hope, and vision to the other powerful artistic performances and activities cultivated by each of our respective community organizations, musicians, supporters, friends and partners. 

More than ever, we encourage you to step outside of the box to connect, communicate, and collectively engage with each other. Though this decision marks the end of an era, it does not mark the end of an idea. 

Thank you for supporting 5 years of Sounds Outside: A Celebration of Adventurous Music & Community. 

 

Peace,

MCMC