Visiting Artist Phill Niblock
The University of Maine Intermedia MFA program is pleased to announce the contemporary musician, Phill Niblock for their Spring 2014 Visiting Artist series. The artist will present two live performances at 7:00 pm on Thursday March 27th and Friday March 28th. The performances feature musicians Al Margolis, Katherine Liberovskaya and Neil Leonard. Performances will be held in 104 IMRC, Stewart Commons on the University of Maine campus in Orono. These performances are free and open to the public.
Phill Niblock is a New York-based minimalist composer, multi-media musician and director of Experimental Intermedia. He has been influential to many younger composers such as Susan Stenger, Lois V Vierk, David First, and Glenn Branca and has worked with Sonic Youth’s Thurston Moore and Lee Renaldo on “Guitar two, for four”. Niblock’s music is an exploration of sound textures created by multiple tones in very dense, often atonal tunings (generally microtonal in conception).
Katherine Liberovskaya is a video and media artist based in Montreal, Canada and New York City. Involved in experimental video since the 80s, she has produced many single-channel videos, video installation works and video performances, which have been presented at a wide variety of artistic venues and events around the world. Since 2001 her work predominantly focuses on collaborations with composers and sound artists notably in live video + sound performance where her live visuals seek to create improvisatory “music” for the eyes.
Neil Leonard is a composer, saxophonist and interdisciplinary artist. His work ranges from solo concerts for saxophone/live electronics, to works for orchestra, audio/video installation and sound for dance, theater and performance. His compositions/performances were featured by Carnegie Hall, Boston Globe Jazz Festival, Musicacustica (Beijing), International Computer Music Convention (Montreal), Tel Aviv Biennial for New Music, Moscow Autumn, Auditorium Parco della Music (Rome), Museo Riena Sofia (Madrid), Panama Jazz Festival, Jazz Plaza International Festival (Havana). Leonard is the Artistic Director of Berklee College of Music’s Interdisciplinary Arts Institute. He is currently on the Fulbright Specialist Roster and is a Research Affiliate at M.I.T. program in Art, Culture and Technology.
Al Margolis was one of the prime leaders in the legendary cassette underground scene of the 1980s and is the eminence grise behind twenty years of music under the name If, Bwana. Margolis is the organizer the Pogus label, as well as label manager for Deep Listening, XI Records, and Mutable Music. A recent review of Margolis’s work says: “Let it be declared that Al Margolis/If, Bwana is some sort of evil genius working with raw materials which are never adapted to a genre or a context, because they create one in that very moment. Those sources are radically altered up to an utterly unrecognizable state, anarchic manifestations moving in compact determination.” (Massimo Ricci, Touching Extremes)
The Masters of Fine Arts in Intermedia at the University of Maine provides substantial advanced study for individuals interested in interdisciplinary study in the arts. The program emphasizes intensive development of students’ creative and innovative abilities through a diverse engagement with multiple research processes, critical thinking skills and creative production tools and technologies. The visiting artist series supports and reflects the wide variety of disciplines represented by the program including but not limited to, Art, New Media, Theater, Dance, Philosophy, Art History, Engineering, Communications, Media Studies, Music, Psychology, Natural Sciences, and others.
These events are sponsored by the Intermedia MFA Program, the Department of New Media, the University of Maine Cultural Affairs / Distinguished Lecture Series and the Correll Professorship in New Media.
For more information contact Bethany Engstrom at bethany.engstrom@umit.maine.edu