ENVISION ENSEMBLE | Live at Berkeley Arts Festival | HBD O1

ENVISION ENSEMBLE | Live at Berkeley Arts Festival | HBD O1

Free HUMMING BIRD Download Only Release

ENVISION ENSEMBLE Live at Berkeley Arts Festival
HBD 1
Free MP3 Download Available Here… (28:07)

ENVISION ENSEMBLE is: Henry Kuntz: Tenor saxophone, Balinese & Javanese gamelans, Thai & Mali wood xylophones, bamboo flute, Mexican Indian & toy violins, New Year noisemakers | Dan Plonsey: Clarinet, alto saxophone, 3-string violin, alto recorder, bells, shofar | Brian Godchaux: Electric violin | Esten Lindgren: Doublebass, pocket trumpet, guiro, triangle | John Kuntz: Electric mandolin, ukulele, toy percussion, Balinese gamelan

Performance of October 10, 2014 at Berkeley Arts Festival, Berkeley, CA. On-location digital recording and live stereo mix by Karen Stackpole.

Special thanks to Eleanor Lindgren who took original photos and videos of the ensemble; and to Joe Lasqo for inviting us to play and for his encouragement and support along the way.

Sample ENVISION ENSEMBLE Live

For the second-ever performance by the ENVISION ENSEMBLE, the players expanded instrumentation and instrumental range, moving more fully into multi-dimensional “festival form”.

The ENSEMBLE’s formal expansion more or less flips the concept of a usual approach to improvisation, that in which players “listen” to and complementarily match what other players are doing while only occasionally moving into an entirely independent space.

The ENVISION ENSEMBLE begins in independent space. The players hear the whole as well as listen to the parts, creating beyond the strictures of standard complementarity. The intent is to fashion an experiential rather than compositionally logical totality.

The Concept:

The Envision Ensemble moves toward an advanced improvisational archetype, one in which multiple independent events may occur while the musicians simultaneously create an experiential musical whole.

Beyond expanding the independence of musical line – thus increasing the complexity of musical form – the Envision Ensemble expands the formal independence of each player – so that multiple musical forms might be happening at once, moving the music in the direction of what I call “festival form.”

So the players will be creating the total musical space rather than any specific improvised composition.

How will this work?

Each player will simultaneously create an organic complete music.

Each player may relate or not relate to the music and sounds going on around them, the same as when one is playing at home and sounds are occurring in the environment which may or may not affect one’s music.

While the players will not necessarily relate to each other in a compositional sense, they will relate to each other and to their shared environment experientially and together create (or “compose,” if you will) a sympathetically-in-tune experiential musical space – a space defined by the composite layers of sound that make it up, similar to the way the simultaneous layers of sound at a festival define and create the festival.

As Archetype:

The Fullness of Individual Being in
Collaborative and Existential Flow
With the Fullness of All Life.”

The performance will be completely improvised. At my suggestion, the Ensemble has not rehearsed prior to playing. The reason for this is that experience suggests that players’ edge of creativity often comes out more in the initial meeting (i.e. in the rehearsal) than in the performance.

So, along with the musicians, you will be experiencing this music for the very first time.

Henry Kuntz, for the Envision Ensemble

Photos Before & During October 10 Performance

Esten Lindgren

Brian Godchaux

Henry Kuntz

Dan Plonsey

Photos Copyright Eleanor Lindgren (All Rights Reserved)

Sample ENVISION ENSEMBLE Live

John & Henry Kuntz | Photo by Jacque Braziel

Dan Plonsey, Esten Lindgren & Brian Godchaux | Photo by Jacque Braziel

Brian Godchaux & Esten Lindgren | Photo by Jacque Braziel

John Kuntz | Photo by Jacque Braziel

John Kuntz & Henry Kuntz | Photo by Jacque Braziel

Dan Plonsey | Photo by Jacque Braziel

Sometimes a recording can be clearer than being there — I think Karen’s wonderful, clean recording technique let the layers of gorgeous sound shift in kaleidoscopic clarity even more transparently than they did in the room itself.

It’s great this got documented, nobody else is able to enter this fantastic sonic space. — Joe Lasqo, Producer

ENVISION ENSEMBLE | Premiere Performance

ENVISION ENSEMBLE  w/ Henry Kuntz, Dan Plonsey, Brian Godchaux, John Kuntz, Esten Lindgren at Berkeley Arts Festival  August 27, 2014

ENVISION ENSEMBLE

Henry Kuntz – Dan Plonsey – Brian Godchaux – Esten Lindgren – John Kuntz

Premiere Performance

Notes – Photos – Videos


The Envision Ensemble moves toward an
advanced improvisational archetype,
one in which multiple independent events may occur
while the musicians simultaneously create an experiential musical whole.

Beyond expanding the independence of musical line –
thus increasing the complexity of musical form –
the Envision Ensemble expands the formal independence of each player –
so that multiple musical forms might be happening at once,
moving the music in the direction of what I call “festival form.”

So the players will be creating the total musical space
rather than any specific improvised composition.

ENVISION ENSEMBLE  w/ Henry Kuntz, Dan Plonsey, Brian Godchaux, John Kuntz, Esten Lindgren at Berkeley Arts Festival  August 27, 2014

How will this work?

Each player will simultaneously create an organic complete music.

Each player may relate or not relate
to the music and sounds going on around them,
the same as when one is playing at home
and sounds are occurring in the environment
which may or may not affect one’s music.

While the players will not necessarily
relate to each other in a compositional sense,
they will relate to each other
and to their shared environment experientially
and together create (or “compose,” if you will)
a sympathetically-in-tune experiential musical space –
a space defined by the composite layers of sound that make it up,
similar to the way the simultaneous layers of sound at a festival
define and create the festival.

ENVISION ENSEMBLE  w/ Henry Kuntz, Dan Plonsey, Brian Godchaux, John Kuntz, Esten Lindgren at Berkeley Arts Festival  August 27, 2014

As Archetype:
The Fullness of Individual Being in
Collaborative and Existential Flow
With the Fullness of All Life.”

The performance will be completely improvised.
At my suggestion, the Ensemble has not rehearsed prior to playing.
The reason for this is that experience suggests
that players’ edge of creativity often comes out more
in the initial meeting (i.e. in the rehearsal)
than in the performance.

So, along with the musicians,
you will be experiencing this music
for the very first time.

Henry Kuntz, August 2014, for the Envision Ensemble

ENVISION ENSEMBLE  w/ Esten Lindgren, John Kuntz, Henry Kuntz at Berkeley Arts Festival  August 27, 2014

ENVISION ENSEMBLE  w/ Dan Plonsey, Brian Godchaux, Esten Lindgren at Berkeley Arts Festival  August 27, 2014

ENVISION ENSEMBLE  w/ Esten Lindgren at Berkeley Arts Festival  August 27, 2014

ENVISION ENSEMBLE  w/ Esten Lindgren at Berkeley Arts Festival  August 27, 2014

ENVISION ENSEMBLE  w/ Brian Godchaux at Berkeley Arts Festival  August 27, 2014

ENVISION ENSEMBLE  w/ Dan Plonsey at Berkeley Arts Festival  August 27, 2014 ENVISION ENSEMBLE  w/ Dan Plonsey at Berkeley Arts Festival  August 27, 2014

ENVISION ENSEMBLE  w/ John Kuntz at Berkeley Arts Festival  August 27, 2014

ENVISION ENSEMBLE  w/ John Kuntz, Henry Kuntz at Berkeley Arts Festival  August 27, 2014

ENVISION ENSEMBLE  w/ Henry Kuntz at Berkeley Arts Festival  August 27, 2014

ENVISION ENSEMBLE  w/  Esten Lindgren, John Kuntz, Henry Kuntz at Berkeley Arts Festival  August 27, 2014

Original Performance Photos and Videos by Eleanor Lindgren

CLASSIC OPEYE | 2 Discs: Free Downloads!

CLASSIC OPEYE

2 Discs: Free Downloads!

1) SILK!

 

Silk! is a companion release to Moss ’Comes Silk (HB CD 1). It was recorded by engineer Myles Boisen the same two days in September 1995 as the earlier release. It is the only time all of the instruments OPEYE was using in performance were individually miked and recorded in a studio setting.

The music is a perfect complement to that on Moss ’Comes Silk. The flavors of Silk! are more subtle, more understated, but the multi-independent musical form is perhaps stretched even further.

From the notes to Moss ’Comes Silk:

OPEYE’s music is founded upon a new world creative aesthetic: one’s own experiences and background are central, but the fetters of provincial cultures are thrown off — we have all become heir to every tradition: Shared Humanity in all its richness and diversity — and the future is likewise embraced.

Free improvisation, we understand as a non-idiomatic approach to playing — an attitude about what we are doing — which is to say that although we remain attentive to all of our music experience, we are not playing music that is tied by necessity or design to any particular style or idiom.

Spontaneous composition, on the other hand, is the actual organizing of sound material, that which takes place at the beginning and end of each “piece” and in and between the lines of improvisation. It is the notions which formalize newly-created sound and the ways in which that sound is showcased.

Musically, we spoke before these sessions about moving more in the direction of true co-creation: we wanted each player to be as much as possible autonomous while remaining indispensable to the creation of the whole music.

In performance, we also frequently utilize masks, textiles, paintings, and unorthodox costume changes, adding a cross-cultural visual component to the music and heightening its dream-like and ritual qualities. For us, it becomes akin to a living shadow play, full of multi-cultural archetypes and (at times humorous) ambiguities.”

 

listen to Opeye | Improvisation No. 32

DOWNLOAD OPEYE SILK! HERE!

2) The Sun Divination Session

The Sun Divination Session is a self-recorded OPEYE rehearsal session from August 1996 at which only Ben and Esten Lindgren and John and Henry Kuntz were present. The open-ended and relaxed nature of our meeting (on an unusually warm Berkeley afternoon) facilitated the creation of some particularly organic music.

listen to Opeye | Drum Bear (excerpt)

DOWNLOAD OPEYE THE SUN DIVINATION SESSION HERE!

OPEYE ORCHESTRA LIVE at TUVA SPACE (HB CDR 5/6) & FREE DOWNLOAD

OPEYE ORCHESTRA LIVE at TUVA SPACE (HB CDR 5/6)

Disc 1: C’AMELEON (39:43) listen to an excerpt

Recorded Live & Mixed Direct to 2-Track Stereo May 25, 2002 at TUVA Space Berkeley Ca by Scott R. Looney.

C & P 2011 Humming Bird Records


Disc 2: WHALAPAG’OS’ (41:08) listen to an excerpt

Recorded Live & Mixed Direct to 2-Track Stereo May 25, 2002 at TUVA Space Berkeley Ca by Scott R. Looney.

C & P 2011 Humming Bird Records


HENRY KUNTZ: tenor saxophone, musette, wood flutes, toy violins, Bali & Java gamelans DAN PLONSEY: Turkish clarinet, oboe, tenor & baritone saxophones CLEVELAND PLONSEY: flute (slide whistle) MICHAEL ZELNER: clarinet, alto saxophone, flutes and pennywhistle ESTEN LINDGREN trombone, trumpet, drums, percussion JOE SABELLA: tuba RON HEGLIN: tuba, trombone SUKI O’KANE: balafon, marimba, percussion BRETT LARNER: koto, zheng; HIRAM BELL: ukulele, clarinet, alto saxophone, harmonica, piano JOHN KUNTZ: ukuleles, guitar, mandolin, gamelans, percussion BRIAN GODCHAUX: violin, viola BOB MARSH: cello, JEFF HOBBS: violin NANCY CLARKE: violin JEFF PURMORT: Balinese gamelan instruments MARK SALVATORE: Balinese gamelan instruments

The theoretical concepts for the OPEYE ORCHESTRA, a world-expansive free-improvising ensemble, can be found by clicking here:

Thanks to the musicians who generously gave of their time and talents to breathe life into the OPEYE ORCHESTRA. Thanks to Eleanor Lindgren who provided Ben Lindgren’s painting “Exotic Jumble” for the performance and who took the orchestra photos. Thanks to Scott Looney who did the recording and mastering. Thanks to Michael Zelner for making copies of the results for each of the players. And thanks to Arjuna who invited the OPEYE ORCHESTRA to play at TUVA Space. —
Henry Kuntz (May 2011)

Recorded Live & Mixed Direct to 2-Track Stereo May 25, 2002 at TUVA Space Berkeley Ca by Scott R. Looney.

C & P 2011 Humming Bird Records

Two Outrageous Sets of World-Expansive Free Improvised Music!

“Along with expanding the range of instruments available for improvisation in a cultural sense, (OPEYE has) been working to expand the formal bounds of improvisation itself. As a group, we have been consciously moving away from what I think of as a lowest common denominator approach to the ways players relate to each other in an improvisational setting. That is, we are not attempting to coalesce musically around some lowest common denominator note, scale, melody, rhythm, or whatever. Rather, we are attempting to bring to collective improvisation the formal complexity of a string quartet, wherein each player’s role is a complete role, perhaps even able to stand alone, yet at the same time absolutely essential to the group music…

“The OPEYE ORCHESTRA is a first experiment to find out how well this approach can work with a larger ensemble. It is, in a sense, a social as well as musical experiment since it explores the maximum freedom that individuals may attain within a group while still maintaining the cohesion of the group.”

– From “The Theoretical Framework for the OPEYE Orchestra” – Henry Kuntz (May 2002)

Buy OPEYE ORCHESTRA LIVE at TUVA SPACE (HB CDR 5/6) Double CD here…

Free – Download

This download consists of one zip file containing the complete track list in 192kbps MP3 format along with album art in high resolution JPG format. Please click the following link: Opeye Orchestra Live at Tuva Space | FREE DOWNLOAD