Archive for May 24, 2020

The Great Musicians: Little Bang Theory

LITTLE BANG THEORY

video links
Clowning Around
Music video for “Laugh, Clown, Laugh.” Music composed by Frank Pahl,
performed by Little Bang Theory: Frank Pahl, Terri Sarris, and Doug Shimmin.
Film by Terri Sarris & Frank Pahl.
LBT at Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit
Little Bang Theory performs in Joshua White and Gary Panter’s Light Show

“Sonic artist” is often the term used to classify Frank Pahl.  Within his stockpile is a collection of toy instruments, a fascination that has developed into the toy-pop chamber trio Little Bang Theory.

In Frank Pahl’s words:  
I‘m from Wyandotte, and I collect a lot of Wyandotte Toys, … which for many years was the largest tin toy manufacturer in the United States. My father worked for them. I’ve tried to get some information from him on the history of the company, but he doesn’t think much of this toy collecting thing: “When are you going to get a real job?”
So for the past 10 to 15 years I’ve been collecting musical toys. I’ve written a little bit of music for toys, and I wrote a longer piece that I liked. One day, my partner Terri and my friend Claudette — I played them the music and I said, “We should all learn this, just as a whim.” At first it was a reason for friends to get together and learn a piece of music.
At the time it was 10 minutes long. Every week I kept adding more and more material. The piece, “Toy Suite 2,” is 26 minutes long. I ended up getting a Meet the Composer Grant to finish writing the music. Our second gig was a result of that grant. We performed at a music festival in San Francisco.
Little Bang Theory for some reason has worked a little less hard and gotten further [than my other projects], but maybe it’s because the reason we started it was out of friendship, and you can still see that when we perform. We’re having fun, and we hope the audience is having fun, too.
[
excerpt from interview by Bill Chapin]

The Group: Terri Sarris, Doug Shimmin, and Frank Pahl

Theatre Gigante loves this fantastic, clever, and whimsical group, and plans on presenting many more delightful movie nights with them!
Presented by Theatre Gigante:
Little Bang Theory – Films by Ladislaw Starewicz (2015)
Little Bang Theory – Laugh, Clown, Laugh (2017)

The Great Musicians: Seth Warren-Crow

SETH WARREN-CROW

audio link
composition for Hamlet
by Seth Warren-Crow

 

Seth Warren-Crow is a percussionist, composer, and sound designer based in Lubbock, TX. He has been playing for dance technique classes and composing for dance for the last 12 years. Seth was the Musical Director for the Department of Dance at the University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee from 2008-2013, and is currently an assistant professor in the School of Theatre and Dance at Texas Tech University. Seth received an MFA in Electronic Music and Recording Media from Mills College in California, where he received the Frog Peak Award for Experimental Music.  Seth’s sound design and composition has been featured at such prestigious venues as La Mama Experimental Theatre Club (NY) and The Harlem Stage eMoves Festival (NY), among others.  Seth frequently collaborates with performance artist Heather Warren-Crow as warren-crow+warren-crow, and their performances have been seen all over the world, including Czech Republic, Taiwan, Norway, and throughout the United States.

Seth has always been an inspiration to us at Theatre Gigante. You couldn’t ask for a more artistically sensitive and kind collaborator.  We miss him and hope to get him back here someday!

Gigante productions:
Man in a Magic Square (2009)
The Lears (2010)
Three Other Sisters (2010)
Three Other Sisters (2012 – Slovenian tour)
Electra (2013)
My Dear Othello (2014)

for more: http://www.simplesatellite.org/sound-design-TP/

Remembering a dear friend and colleague

ED BURGESS

(1952 – 2011)

video
Allyson Green’s BETWEEN

performed by Ed Burgess & Isabelle Kralj

 

Theatre Gigante productions Ed was a part of:
10th Anniversary
(1998) BETWEEN
Between You and Me
(2000)
Dead Poet’s Theatre (2000)
Petrushka
(2001)
The Initial Urge To Suck
(2005)
Woyzeck
(2006)
Down & Personal
(2007)
Antigone
(2008)
Isadora and Nijinsky
(2011)

The Great Musicians: Daniel Kahn

DANIEL KAHN


videos:
Children in the Woods, by Daniel Kahn

performed by Daniel Kahn & The Painted Bird

I Shall be Released (in Yiddish) by Bob Dylan
translated and performed by Daniel Kahn

The Good Old Bad Old Days by Daniel Kahn
performed by Daniel Kahn and Jake Shulman-Ment

“Dan Kahn brings a powerful blend of intelligence and romance to his music.”

A Detroit area native, Daniel Kahn attended the University of Michigan where he studied acting, directing, playwriting and poetry, winning the University’s most prestigious writing award, the Hopwood, three times, and publishing Daylight Savings, a collection of his poems, with Ornithology Press. After finishing his studies he lived, played music, recorded, acted, directed plays and composed theatre music in New Orleans, Detroit, New York and Ann Arbor.  He moved to Berlin in 2005 and founded his band The Painted Bird, which went on to tour the world and win several awards with their 5 albums – They released the albums through German world music label Oriente Musik. Their music is described as “a mixture of Klezmer, radical Yiddish song, political cabaret and punk folk.”

Theatre Gigante loves Dan’s musical poetry, and would love to work with him again, but he’s so damned booked up … someday soon! …we, at Gigante, never give up!

Gigante productions:
Woyzeck (2006)

for more: https://www.paintedbird.de