james ilgenfritz

CD Release show October 19, 2012
8PM @ Brooklyn Conservatory of Music
58 7th Avenue in Park Slope

View Online!  This concert Is streamed live on the web!!!!

JAMES ILGENFRITZ:  COMPOSITIONS (BRAXTON) 2011:
70 minutes of solo contrabass performances of the music of Anthony Braxton

1. 223(2)+LM+40F+223(4)+110A
2. LM+40(O)+116(34)+90(2)+223(4)
3. LM+105B(2)+223(3)+69P+LM+90(3)+LM+116(2)+LM+6N+286(II)+23C+173(1)
4. 103+108B(2)+223(4)+69D+173(19)
5. 219(II)+69(O)+103 3rd tpt cadenza
6. 306(2)+LM+69M+223(2)

Quintan Ana Wikswo interviews James Ilgenfritz

Multimedia artist Quintan Ana Wikswo meets with James Ilgenfritz to discuss his opera The Ticket That Exploded, based on William Burroughs’ 1962 novel. Quintan and James talk about James’ visit to William Burroughs’ home in Lawrence, Kansas, the relationship between gender and narrative, and the opera’s October 29 premiere.

The Ticket That Exploded will be given its second performance on March 13 at Hunter College’s Lang Recital Hall, as part of the exhibit Notations: The Cage Effect.

Photo© 2010 Reuben Radding

James Ilgenfritz approaches the double bass as an archeologist, examining rarified aspects of the instrument’s sonic palette to confound the status quo. His work has been praised in Time Out New York, Signal To Noise, All About Jazz –New York, and Downbeat Magazine. A tireless musical traveler, James has taken part in recent performances including work with Anthony Braxton, Pauline Oliveros, George Lewis, Elliott Sharp, John Zorn, Lukas Ligeti, Gary Lucas, Steve Swell, and Denman Maroney. He is a member of Billy Fox’s Blackbirds and Bullets, Eric Eigner’s Mysterium Project, Gordon Beeferman’s Imaginary Band, Chris Botta/Joe Branciforte’s The Cellar And Point, and Ted Hearne’s The Delusion Story.

Collaborative projects include Trio Caveat (improvisational salon jazz featuring Jonathan Moritz and Chris Welcome), Hypercolor (spastic jazz-inflicted art- rock noise fest with Lukas Ligeti and Eyal Maoz),  and Urbana (cinematic jazz nostalgia and imaginings for quintet, with Evan Mazunik, John O’Brien, Frantz Loriot, and Bryan Pardo).

James’ own projects include Ensemble NSFW (contemporary chamber works dealing with the integration of traditional and graphic notation, indeterminacy, and improvisation), the  Anagram Sextet (extended chamber works for 2 woodwinds, 2 guitars, and bass and percussion), and his solo developments of original music and that of various contemporary composers (including an upcoming recording of the music of Anthony Braxton).

James performs around New York at a wide variety of venues, focusing primarily on improvised music hubs Issue Project Room, Roulette, The Stone, Zebulon, Cornelia St Café, Barbes, I-Beam, and Douglass St Music Collective, but James has also performed music by Giacinto Scelsi and Ted Hearne at The Kitchen, music by John Cage at The World Financial Center Winter Garden, premiered new music for solo double bass at Symphony Space, and collaborated with beatboxer Adam Matta at the New Museum in SoHo.

Outside New York, James has performed at The Kennedy Center (Washington DC), The Empty Bottle, and Elastic Arts (Chicago, IL), the Museum of Making Music (San Diego, CA), 119 Gallery (Lowell, MA), The Windup Space (Baltimore, MD), and at festivals for improvised music including the Vancouver International Jazz Festival, the 14th Annual Edgefest (Ann Arbor, MI), the New Atlantis Festival (Washington, DC), and the Spring Reverb Festival (San Diego, CA).

James is 2011 is Artist In Residence at Issue Project Room, and will present a variety of new chamber works, small ensemble projects, and premieres of solo works composed for him. James was a fellow at Music OMI international Musicians Residency in 2009. In 2007 James received a Subito grant from the American Composers Forum for a cross-country tour, performing newly commissioned works for contrabass by composers Jeffrey Treviño, Stephen Rush, and Gordon Beeferman, culminating in a performance at Roulette in New York. James also hosts the Ten Thousand Hours Podcast, which features conversations and duo improvisations with such artists as Robert Dick, Matana Roberts, Aaron Siegel, Andrew D’Angelo, and Pauline Oliveros.

Improvisation is central to James’s work, and he has written and lectured on the art of improvisation and its metaphorical relationship to the practical complexity of daily life. James has given lectures on improvisation at CalArts, Towson University, and the University of Michigan. James received a Bachelor’s degree from University of Michigan and a Master’s degree University of California San Diego, and is currently on faculty at Brooklyn College Preparatory Center and at Brooklyn Conservatory.

Short bio:

Bassist and composer James Ilgenfritz has worked in New York’s experimental music community for ten years, interacting with visual artists, improvisers, composers, and literary figures. As an improviser James has performed with Anthony Braxton, John Zorn, Elliott Sharp, Anthony Coleman, Jin Hi Kim, Jon Rose, Steve Swell, Nate Wooley, Jeremiah Cymerman, and Brian Chase. As an interpreter of notated music, he has also worked with composers Lukas Ligeti, JG Thirlwell, Annie Gosfield, Pauline Oliveros, Ted Hearne, David T. Little, Karin Rehnqvist, Duane Pitre, Kevin Norton, & Gordon Beeferman. He recently completed a tour of the Midwest and northeast with his jazz quartet MiND GAMeS (with Denman Maroney, Andrew Drury, Angelika Niescier). His debut solo recording ‘Compositions (Braxton) 2011’ features his distinctive solo bass interpretations of the music of Anthony Braxton, and was called “a considerable achievement of solo instrumentalism and an important demonstration of the possibilities open to the double bass in the early 21st century” by Avant Music News’s Dan Barbiero. Current projects include his longstanding Anagram Ensemble (which has morphed from jazz quartet to experimental big band to avant-garde theatrical chamber ensemble), Hypercolor (with Lukas Ligeti and Eyal Maoz), Red Triangle (with Chuck Bettis and Nonoko Yoshida), COLONIC YOUTH (with Dan Blake, Philip White, and Kevin Shea), The Curators (with Joe Hertenstein and Mikko Innanen) and Radiant Tongues (with Jason Ponce). In 2011 James was Artist In Residence at Issue Project Room, where he premiered his opera The Ticket That Exploded (based on the 1962 William S. Burroughs novel of the same name). He is coordinator of the WSB100 festival, New York City’s month-long celebration of the life and legacy of William S. Burroughs on the occasion of his 100^th birthday. James Ilgenfritz holds degrees from University of Michigan & University of California San Diego, and is on faculty at Brooklyn College Preparatory Center & Brooklyn Conservatory.