SONIC FRONTIERS PRESENTS MERIDIAN PERCUSSION TRIO

MERIDIAN PERCUSSION TRIO
Adventurous Percussion Trio to Perform at UA February 25th

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. – The University of Alabama’s Sonic Frontiers concert series is pleased to present Meridian, a percussion trio featuring UA faculty member Tim Feeney with Nick Hennies (Austin, TX) and Greg Stuart (Columbia, SC) at 7:30pm on Monday, February 25th at the Moody Music Building Recital Hall, 810 2nd Avenue,Tuscaloosa AL. Meridian will perform finely crafted, glacially-paced, otherworldly soundscapes using experimental techniques on traditional percussion instruments.

In creating this music, Meridian reimagines or “primitivizes” its materials, eschewing their training as classical percussionists in favor of exploring acoustic phenomena, so an instrument like a snare drum becomes a cylindrical shell with a flexible membrane. Viewed from this perspective, their instruments become unique sound-making and filtering objects to be set into vibration by resonant metals, scraping implements, fingers, bows, or feedback circuitry. In performance, each musician invents a new method for producing sound, a new aggregate instrument, in real-time.

About Meridian’s Members

UA faculty member Tim Feeney has performed as an improviser with musicians including thereminist James Coleman, cellist/electronic musician Vic Rawlings, tape-deck manipulator Howard Stelzer, trumpeter Nate Wooley, sound artists Jed Speare and Ernst Karel, saxophonist Jack Wright, pianist Annie Lewandowski, and the trio ONDA.  As an interpreter, Tim was a founding member of the quartet So Percussion, the duo Non Zero with saxophonist Brian Sacawa, and the ensemble LotUs. He has toured throughout the United States, including notable performances at Boston’s Institute of Contemporary Art, New York's The Stone, the Center for New Music and Audio Technology at UC-Berkeley, the Stanford Art Museum, Mills College, Princeton University, and Oberlin College. His recordings appear on the Sedimental, Soul on Rice, Audiobot, Homophoni, Full Spectrum, and Brassland labels.

“"Feeney's solo improvisation gave a glimpse into a mad scientist's lab, as he produced an array of startlingly resonant sounds from his odds and ends and homemade gadgets." -- Kevin Lowenthal, Boston Globe

Nick Hennies is a percussionist and composer from Louisville, KY currently residing in Austin, TX. His work is primarily concerned with redefining and re-purposing the role of traditional percussion instruments through repetition, meditation, and immersion. In addition to Meridian, he currently performs with The Weird Weeds, Waco Girls, and the Austin New Music Co-op.  Hennies has collaborated with Arnold Dreyblatt, Radu Malfatti, Jandek, Charles Curtis, Ellen Fullman, Michael Pisaro, and many other composers and improvisers from the United States and abroad. His work as both performer and composer can be heard on Quiet Design, Sentient Recognition Archive, Full Spectrum, Thor's Rubber Hammer, and more. Notable appearances include the Indianapolis Museum of Art, the Blanton Museum, Festival Agora (Paris), and the LA Philharmonic's Green Umbrella Series.

Greg Stuart centers his current work around pieces from the experimental tradition, the Wandelweiser Collective, and, in particular, an ongoing collaboration with the American composer Michael Pisaro. Since 2006, Stuart and Pisaro have been producing evening length works in the form of multi-channel recordings. These works employ diverse instrumentations in large ensemble formations and are often combined with live performance.
Stuart was a member of the acclaimed percussion ensemble red fish blue fish (2000-2008) with whom he performed in numerous concert series and festivals including the L.A. Philharmonic's Green Umbrella Series, the Bang on a Can Marathon, June in Buffalo and the Taipei International Percussion Convention among many others. Stuart has recorded extensively for Mode Records, performing works by Xenakis, Stockhausen, Reynolds and Scelsi, and can also be heard on Edition Wandelweiser, Tzadik, Insides and Accretions.

Sonic Frontiers is a cutting-edge concert series of innovative and experimental music that enriches the cultural life of West Alabama and invites creative exchange between world-class performers of adventurous music, students, and the greater community through public performances and discussions. All Sonic Frontiers events are free and open to the public. The events are sponsored by the University of Alabama’s New College, College of Arts and Sciences, School of Music, Creative Campus, Honors College, Blount Undergraduate Initiative and Capstone International. For more information call 205.348.9928 or visit: http://sonicfrontiers.ua.edu

Meridian performs Monday, February 25, 2013 at 7:30pm at the Moody Music Building Recital Hall, 810 2nd Avenue,Tuscaloosa AL. Admission is Free.

Video preview: "Meridian at Redux, pt. 1": http://youtu.be/50fhp2B_-Lo

---