Description: Ray Eliot Schwartz is a dancer, teacher, choreographer, somatic movement educator and administrator. He is a founding member of three southeastern dance projects: Steve's House Dance Collective, The Zen Monkey Project and THEM. Recently he has been dancing, choreographing and producing performance festivals and educational trainings in Charlottesville, Virginia. This past year he was a guest artist at Rutgers University, Middlebury College, and he traveled to various locations around the planet earth to study and teach including: Thailand, Indonesia, India, Amsterdam and Istanbul.

The performance will feature two solos by Ray Eliot Schwartz, a new work with the Asheville Contemporary Dance Theatre, and an improvisational duet.

In addition to his performance, Mr. Schwartz will also host some "Body Mind Centering" workshops.

Date: Sunday and Monday, 9/15 and 9/16
Time: 8pm
Location: ACDT's BeBe Theatre
Cost: $10 for the general public, $8 for seniors, and $6 for students w/ID
Co-sponsor: Asheville Contemporary Dance Theater

John Cobb

Description: Dr. John Cobb is an international performer and recording artist known for his broad interpretive range and technical command. The New York Times has praised his "solid technique, bronze tone and flexibility of interpretive style." The Chicago Daily commented, "the vibrations that filled the hall were less those of the piano than those of an exquisite musical mind."

Dr. Cobb has been presented by Artists International on their Distinguished Artists series in New York City and has made recordings of 20th Century has well as early piano music on original instruments at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. Dr. Cobb has performed internationally some of the most important works of contemporary music and has worked directly with many of the most influential composers of our era.

Dr. Cobb will be performing piano pieces John Cage and other 20th Century avant-garde composers.

Date: Wednesday, 9/18
Time: 12:15 to 1:05
Location: UNCA Lipinsky Auditorium
Cost: Free
Co-sponsor: UNCA Cultural and Special Events Committee

Description: Performing compositions by former BMC faculty Lou Harrison and John Cage as well as traditional gamelan pieces, conducted by WCU Music Professor Dr. Will Peebles.

Lou Harrison has for fifty years been in the vanguard of American composers. An innovator of musical composition and performance that transcends cultural boundries, Harrison's highly acclaimed work juxtaposes and synthesizes musical dialects from virtually every corner of the world.

John Cage studied with the Austrian composer Arnold Schoenberg but abandoned the latter’s 12-tone compositional style in the 1940s. Cage used rhythm and percussive textures as his prime concerns and experimented with accidental sounds. His work has been called “neodadaist.” He used sounds of radios, animals, bicycles, etc. in his compositions. He is considered one of the first major figures in the genre of modern, experimental music.

Further Information:

• Lou Harrison information at New Albion
• John Cage information at New Albion

Date: Thursday, 9/19
Time: 5-8pm
Location: Pack Place Gallery (Opening Reception)
Cost: Free
Co-sponsor: Western Carolina University Music Department and UNCA Special and Cultural Events Committee

Description: "The Field" is a sound/music piece based mathematically on the time and location of the event itself. It is the progeny of the artist's long time study and work with both Western Tradition Esotericism as well as Psychotronics. It also embraces and reflects the artist's ongoing involvement in the areas of performance art and microtonal/minimalist music.

Date: Thursday, 9/19
Time: 6:30pm-6:45pm
Location: Pack Place Gallery (Opening Reception)
Cost: Free

Description: In the spirit of Black Mountain College and the life, work and humor of John Cage, David Dawson brings a variety of creative disciplines into play in his performance using video, audio, performance and art. Using John Cage's system of Chance Operations as a jumping off point, Dawson presents an experimental and timely performance where known elements are ordered by chance. The outcome of this project is unknown and will be based on the particular time, space, audience and performance of the event itself. Through this event, Dawson plans to present the artistic along side the common place in order to create a new piece of work, unseen and unheard before.

Date: Thursday, 9/19
Time: 7:30pm-7:45pm
Location: Pack Place Gallery (Opening Reception)
Cost: Free

Tony Conrad

Description: Tony Conrad has made music whose nature calls into question the traditional Western role of composer. Generally, this music is improvised on the spot (although dissimilar to "improvised music," especially that developed by musicians such as Derek Bailey), has no score, and needs no conductor.

During the 1960s, Conrad was a member of La Monte Young's Theater of Eternal Music, a.k.a. The Dream Syndicate, a performance group dedicated to the creation and exploration of drone music and the just intonation system. (The group's efforts strongly influenced Velvet Underground, whose bassist/violist, John Cale, was also a Dream Syndicate member). Conrad's association with Young continued sporadically through the early 1970s, when Young's performances in Germany brought Conrad in contact with the experimental rock group Faust.

In addition to performing, Mr. Conrad will also host the "Hearing Things in Pipes and Strings" workshop.

Further Information::

• Early Minimalism and Beyond: Tony Conrad in Music, Film, and Video
• Interview with Tony Conrad

Pauline Oliveros

Description: Pauline Oliveros' life as a composer, performer and humanitarian is about opening her own and others' sensibilities it the many facets of sound. Since the 1960's she has influenced American Music profoundly through her work with improvisation, meditation, electronic music, myth and ritual. Many credit her with being the founder of present day meditative music. All of Oliveros' work emphasizes musicianship, attention strategies, and improvisational skills.

In addition to her performance, Ms. Oliveros will also hold a "Deep Listening" workshop.

Further Information:

• Pauline Oliveros Foundation
• Deep Listening

Before and After Silence: Contemporary Renditions of the Works of John Cage

Description: A live performance of select John Cage scores by numerous Asheville-based musicians, including Chris Ballard (turntables), John Brinker (electronics), Paul River Guerguerian (percussion), Chris Hamilton (radios), Elisa Faires (voice), Heinz Kossler (radio), Liz Lang (electronics), and James Owen (electronics and piano). Pieces performed will include Variations 1, Variations 2 & 4 (simultaneously), Cartridge Music, Aria for Voice, Anthem, Radio Music, and 0' 0". The show will open with the world premiere of DJ Spooky's Conclusion of Chaos: Imaginary Landscape 2002, a limited edition remix of Cage's Imaginary Landscape No. 1 created for this event.

Further Information:

• King of Spin: The Turntable as Instrument
• DJ Spooky
• Music and Technology: A Roundtable Discussion
• John Cage information at New Albion
• Music publisher claims copyright on silence

Date: Saturday, 9/21
Time: 10:30pm
Location: Vincent's Ear
Cost: $5
Co-sponsor: Vincent's Ear

Closing Party

Description: Taking the festival out with a bang and a whimper, numerous local musicians and composers will strut their subsonic, glitchy, and sometimes beat-driven electro-acoustic works across your aural landscape. What better way to celebrate the past than to live in the moment? Performers will include John Brinker, <IILCO>./ vs. EN((o))DIBLE, Troon, Dave Jones, and others. Laptops, radios, turntables, oh my!

Date: Sunday, 9/22
Time: 9pm-1am
Location: The Big Idea
Cost: Donations to BMCMAC
Co-sponsor: The Big Idea