8:30 pm - $5
i'm excited to head down to Birmingham, AL, and play a solo set as part of the 2010 Improvisor Festival! http://www.
*** 07/07 - 8 pm>>Sawing, sputtering, gurgling and wailing, Architeuthis Walks on Land is every bit the displaced and terrifying cephalopod that the name suggests. The viola and bassoon are two instruments rarely associated with free improvisation and noise; yet on Natura Naturans Amy Cimini and Katherine Young rip it up with particular aplomb, weaving disjunct lines, constructing chaotic sound masses, and raising towering monoliths. Crafting their improvised materials into tight structures, the eight tracks on Natura capture the compositional, timbral and expressive breadth of this uncommon coupling: from divergently soloistic to profoundly intertwined playing, from a slowly unfolding intimacy to a jagged and kinetic style. Cimini and Young lunge and flutter through their materials with the intuition and energy of constant discovery.
**** 07/21 9 pm
probably better to say that she’s a “restructuralist master” of the instrument and/or the Katherine Young of the bassoon. Indeed, she’s worked extensively with Braxton as well as in ensembles directed by composers Andrew Raffo Dewar and Matthew Welch (both also Wesleyan & Braxton alums). Further Secret Origins is Young’s first disc under her own name, presenting seven compositions for bassoon and (occasional) electronics that are both sprawling and economic. The bassoon is really taken to a direct and contemporary point on this recording, and there is no effort made to turn the instrument into something that it isn’t, whether plodding through a maddening pulse track with wonderful cyclical blats and a whimsical multiphonic line on “Patricia Highsmith” or engaging gargled harmonics in concert with rhythmic taps and indeterminate whir on “Elevation.” Certainly Young can produce masses of unruly sound that sometimes recall Braxton’s work on the contrabass clarinet, from hot low outpourings to twittering upper-register whine. A mildly irregular beat and low, uneven tones create much of the landscape on the quarter-hour “For Autonauts, for Travelers,” stark wisps and garish asides stitched into a knotty and unsettling mood. Koan-like quips rest atop looped (and bassoon-generated) rhythms on “Relief,” eventually drawn out into a series of overdubbed tones that waver, buzz, and pucker the ear. Raw and peerless, Katherine Young’s bassoon landscapes deserve serious recognition and study.
well, i was so busy getting ready for this show that i failed to put it up here in advance, but Issue Project Room added me to their WFMU free music archive curated pages, so that's nice.Young’s music is well in tune with the extended sets of sounds and colors available on the instrument. Her performances are powerful and compelling. Most of the works are edgy, dissonant, rich with multiphonics and thick fat eruptions of sound. There are also tracks which feature more expressive, engaging, and haunting performances.
If you thought Stravinsky’s high bassoon writing was “otherworldly,” then you have to hear this. Most of the disc works as a cycle since the heartbeat that emerges towards the end of the first track becomes the foundational support that carries everything through the track “Relief.”
“Some People Say That She Doesn’t Exist” is a break from the aggressive and tense. This multiple bassoon piece is a sullen, tender, tonal, and introspective work. The final track is an echo to the rich timbres of the more aggressive music but in a more muted and meditative manner. “Orbis Tertius” is the perfect end for this disc.
Throughout the CD, whether hard or soft, edgy or tender, Young’s tone is rich and resonant with overtones every bit as interesting as the fundamentals. If you want to hear an orchestra of sound from a single bassoon, this is not a disc to miss. <<
A Trio 
