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Iron Giant Free Association @ AEIVA
October 24 @ 5:30 pm - 7:30 pm
freeIron Giant Free Association
Sam Herman * Brett Huffman * Seth Noble * Justin Wallace
Thursday, October 24, 2024
Reception 5:30 pm / Concert 6:00 pm
Abroms-Engel Institute for the Visual Arts
1221 10th Avenue South, Birmingham, AL 35205
Free Admission
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PROGRAM
différance – Mark Lackey
Versicles for Aries – Kyle McGucken
A Play on Words – William Price
Melanie Williams, soprano * Iron Giant, vocalists
Thus Spoke the Giant – Joseph Landers
as reflected in the glimmer of the black pond – Holland Hopson
Armature – Monroe Golden / Iron Giant
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Iron Giant Free Association plays new music by local composers in boundary-stretching performances, with connections to a solo survey exhibition of abstract painter Odili Donald Odita.
Iron Giant has worked with members of the Birmingham Art Music Alliance to create a group of flexible compositions that reward creative investment from performers and audiences alike. Details of each piece are changeable, so the sounds differ from performance to performance. Pieces from that body of work were selected for this concert because of commonalities with Odita’s aesthetic. Integral to Kyle McGucken’s Versicles for Aries, Holland Hopson’s as reflected in the glimmer of the black pond, and Monroe Golden’s Armature are composite textures built from smaller, repeating units. Joseph Landers’ Thus Spoke the Giant involves the interplay of repeated figures, and Mark Lackey’s différance explores constantly-shifting time. In UAB professor William Price’s A Play on Words for singer and four vocalists, the text is broken into its fundamental parts and reconfigured in different contexts. Soprano Melanie Williams joins Iron Giant to realize Price’s work.
This activity is supported by Alabama State Council on the Arts.
The Iron Giant Free Association evolved from Iron Giant Percussion, with the quartet of founders — Sam Herman, Brett Huffman, Seth Noble, and Justin Wallace — remaining as core members. Established in 2011 and based in Birmingham (AL), the ensemble has performed alongside artists such as Sō Percussion, Third Coast Percussion, Glenn Kotche of Wilco, and Norman Westberg of Swans. Iron Giant has collaborated with many Alabama music & arts mainstays including the Birmingham Art Music Alliance, Sanspointe Dance Company, John Scalici, and the UAB Percussion Ensemble. Their eclectic vocabulary of chamber music, ambient, noise, and post rock, combined with meditative improvisatory sensibilities makes for a listening experience both cerebral and visceral. http://irongiantbhm.com
The Birmingham Art Music Alliance (BAMA) is a nonprofit organization with the twofold mission of promoting music by Alabama composers and presenting concerts of recently created art music to communities in Birmingham and beyond. Members include local composers, professional performers, students, and enthusiasts who wish to preserve and maintain the long tradition of music as a living art form. http://artmusic.org