Michael Barndt over at Third Coast Digest has this review of the Unruly Festival concert on April 5th (the “Milwaukee Improvising Orchestra Summit”): Unruly bits and bytes at the outer limits of music
TORCH is proud to be part of the Unruly Music Spring Festival, which runs April 4-6 at Milwaukee’s Vogel Hall. All shows start at 7:30, and more information can be found at:
http://www4.uwm.edu/psoa/music/unrulymusic/
Friday, April 5 is the “Milwaukee Improvising Orchestra Summit.” Milwaukee is home to an extraordinary community of improvising musicians, and this evening is an opportunity to gather many of them on one stage, with performances by TORCH (an ensemble of iPad musicians using Kevin Schlei’s custom performance software), MiLO (TORCH’s big sister, the Milwaukee Laptop Orchestra), and the Great Lakes Improvising Orchestra, a twelve-musician ensemble conducted by Hal Rammel. This evening will handily set a new record for “most musicians on one Unruly Music program”, and should be filled with glorious noise.
Unruly Music Spring Festival, 2013 Poster
TORCH is set to play a concert of original and classic works on November 7th at the Peck School of the Arts Recital Hall, 7:30 pm. The concert is free and open to the public, and should be an exciting debut of the ensemble.
I’m really happy with the way the group has come along since our first rehearsals, and also with the energy that they bring each week when we get together. I hope you can join us for a great concert!
torch-slow-burn - TORCH
In this improvisation, players were told to develop their motives slowly. Performers were Chris Burns, Mary Francis, Brian Lynch, Adam Murphy, Grant Richter, and Amanda Schoofs.
This is a short video of the ‘table game,’ where a number of iPads are set out on a table, and players can step up and play a repeating gesture. During the piece other players can ‘steal’ your iPad, continue your gesture, and turn it into their own. It’s been called the human sequencer - a fitting name for some of the takes.
TORCH rehearsal (spaced, 2012-06-26) - TORCH
During the last rehearsal, Adam suggested an improvisation which focused on spacing out sonic events. Some very carefully crafted moments resulted! A bit of a warning, though: not all of it is quiet and distant…
The players were Chris Burns, Warren Enstrom, Mary Francis, Bill Heinrichs, Brian Lynch, Adam Murphy, Grant Richter, and Kevin Schlei.
