“Guerrilla New Music” Brings Fresh Ammunition In The Fight For Classical Listeners

PRLog (Press Release) - May 30, 2007 -
In the debate over the future of classical music, one thing is clear: sometimes it takes extreme measures to catch listeners’ attention. Great Noise Ensemble, Washington D.C.’s dynamic new music group, means to do just that with their ambitious program for this summer’s Second Annual Capital Fringe Festival, “Guerrilla New Music.”

Great Noise Ensemble will make their debut at this year’s Capital Fringe Festival with a program of music by both emerging artists and masters of new music. Sharing the program with renowned composers like Steve Reich and Robert Aitken are up and coming new composers such as D.J. Sparr, Blair Goins, Tom Schnauber, and Ken Ueno.  The program will feature pieces from Great Noise Ensemble’s repertoire which have proven to be crowd favorites in the first two seasons of the group’s performance career.

“I want Great Noise Ensemble to be the D.C. area’s champion for new music,” says the group’s founder and Executive Director, Armando Bayolo. “What we want to do is to show people that ‘classical’ music is a living, vibrant tradition that is far from being the museum art of dead men played incredibly formally by people dressed very uncomfortably.  We are competing against an established idea of concert art music which is monolithic.  We are small and nimble.  We blend in with the population-- we all play classical and other types of music besides the new stuff.  We rise and fight and then work towards changing hearts and minds.  We're 'guerrilleros' in that sense.”

Great Noise Ensemble was founded in 2005 when conductor Armando Bayolo sent out a call on craigslist.com to Washington, D.C. musicians passionate about new music. In their 2006-2007 season, they were the Ensemble In Residence for the D.C. Chapter of the American Composers Forum, presented seven world premieres, and were nominated for a “Best New Artist” award by the Washington Area Music Association. In their upcoming third season, they will be a part of the World Premiere of a new work by composer Michael Finnissy through the Worldwide Concurrent Premieres & Commissioning Fund. They will also present the premiere of the first work commissioned by the ensemble, Carlos Carrillo's Songs of Time and Distance.

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http://www.prlog.org/10018638/1