Meridian Music: Composers in Performance

Curated by Tom Bickley

Founded in 1998 by Anne Trueblood Brodzky, Anthony Williams and Philip Gelb, the first curator of the series, Meridian Music: Composers in Performance seeks to present a wide range of art music from the vital Bay Area scene and beyond through monthly concerts by diverse composer/performers, both established and emerging. The series offers audiences music in a variety of idioms and created by a variety of compositional processes (from solo voice to sophisticated multimedia/software processing; from improvisation to "new complexity") in an intimate setting. The musicians themselves come from a wide range of cultural and ethnic backgrounds and the series embraces that diversity as well as sonic diversity.

Concerts are $10 general, $5 students/seniors unless otherwise noted.

All concerts begin at 7:30 PM unless otherwise noted.

Call (415) 398-7229 for more information.

Meridian Music: Composers in Performance is grateful to the Phyllis C. Wattis Foundation and Meet the Composer's MetLife Creative Connections program for their support.

Concerts re-broadcast Friday after concert @: http://www.luver.com

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Are you interested in performing in the Meridian Music: Composers in Performance series?

We welcome your interest and want you to know more about our series and our space. We are a point of connection for musicians and listeners. Actually we are several points of connection. We present performances at 7:30 pm on the second Wednesday of months September - May. We invite performers to present a single set of 50 minutes - 1 hour. We are open to other formats/structures.

Resources:
We do this primarily through in-kind support: For musicians selected for the series we provide, without charge:
1. an excellent performance space in a prime location in downtown San Francisco
2. enthusiastic, supportive curator and curatorial staff
3. publicity for your performance
4. professional location recording of your performance by Michael Zelner of Zoka Productions
5. a stereo sound system and mixer
6. video projector and screen
7. (with the performer's permission) excerpts from your performance in a streaming webcast at http://www.luver.com/
8. (with the performer's permission) excerpts from your performance in our gallery's podcast (http://www.meridiangallery.org/mp3/mr2.xml is the podcast feed, it is available from our website and via iTunes)

The space is a wonderful, intimate venue, a rectangular gallery space, windowed at one end, hardwood floored, 14 feet by 50 feet with a 10 1/2 foot ceiling. We can seat a maximum of 60 people. We're on the third floor of a building in downtown San Francisco, generally quiet, but with some street sounds audible. There is not a piano in the space. We can project video and provide a stereo sound system (two RCF ART 310-A 350-watt, 10" 2-way Active PA Loudspeakers with stands, Mackie 1642-VLZ3 16-channel Analog Mixer with 10 XDR2 Mic Preamps, 4 Aux Sends, and Multi-voltage Power Supply, and dbx DriveRack PX). The audience usually sits on comfortable folding chairs. Because it is an active, vibrant art gallery, the music always occurs in relation to the current exhibition. So, we are interested in music that works well in this resonant space.

Each concert is professionally recorded by Michael Zelner of Zoka Productions. With this opportunity, those selected will also share their unique musical perspective with a group of about 15 low-income, high school aged, interns in a one-hour workshop.

We invite proposals from composer/performers for solo or very small ensemble performances that take into account the size of the room. Quiet, "lower case" music works well here, so do sonically saturating pieces. It's a small space, and we respect the ears of our audiences and we want performers who understand that. We host a wide range of styles and approaches, including free improv, structured improv, minimalism, new (and old) complexity, as well as streams from jazz, "concert" music, art music from all world cultures, experimental music, and performance art when those lineages are represented by composer/performers. We hope to present a wide variety of these sorts of art music, and we need your proposals to help us to do that.

Your proposal needs to let us know what you wish to perform and how you sense your work fitting into the Meridian Music series. Just a few lines of text are fine; we're not after pages of information. You're also very welcome to enter a conversation with us about what you'd like to do. We're working artists and musicians and educators and we always enjoy talking with others in these fields. We want your experience with us to benefit you as well as us and that is why we look thoughtfully for good matches of performer, sound and space.

We look forward to hearing from you!

Sincerely, Tom
Tom Bickley, Curator, Meridian Music: Composers in Performance
tbickley@metatronpress.com