MELA Foundation presents June Concerts
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

This June, for our 16th season, MELA is co-producing two concert series in collaboration with the WOOT Festival (World Out Of Tune) and FreeNote Music, and with Diapason, the new Sound and Intermedia Gallery.
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The concept of the World Out of Tune Festival is to challenge the long held perspective in our musical culture that being out of tune with Nature is normal and to reveal to people how beautiful and exciting this "new" musical territory truly is by offering audiences the experience of hearing music that is purely "in tune." A featured event in this Festival is Jon Catler's Evolution for Electric Guitar and Orchestra presented in the first complete performance of all four movements on Thursday, June 14 from 7-9 pm at Makor, 35 West 67 Street. Evolution advances the orchestra into a purely tuned organism fueled by the energy of Catler's Just Intonation guitar. Drawing upon his years of work with legendary Minimalist La Monte Young, Catler builds a bridge between musical worlds, leading the orchestra with a 62-note per octave electric guitar and a vision of the future of music. Catler's idea of Natural Music has grown out of his complete dedication to the Harmonic Series, exploring the deep range of true consonance and dissonance not even approached in 12-tone equal tuning. Here, Catler has drawn together the best of musical worlds, creating stunningly beautiful and complex lyrical phrases which are embraced by the classical orchestra, further enhanced by the addition of pure soprano voices. This concert will also present California composer Rod Poole, solo Just Intonation acoustic guitar.

Natural harmonic music will be further exemplified in the WOOT Festival presentation of La Monte Young's Composition 1960 # 7, one of his most celebrated and influential works of the early '60s. Quintessentially minimal, this composition virtually introduced the drone, as the entire subject matter of the work, alone without melodic counterpart, into Western contemporary music. In a full concert-length performance by The Theatre of Eternal Music String Ensemble at Diapason, 1026 Sixth Avenue, on Wednesday, June 20 at 8 pm, this group of just intonation specialists, led by Charles Curtis and Jon Catler, consists of two cellos, two acoustic basses, sustained electric guitar and sustained electric bass.

On Sunday, June 24 at 4 pm, a concert of music for cello and piano will be presented at Diapason, performed by Charles Curtis and Michael Schumacher. The provocative array of works traces one line of the Second Viennese School's influence on minimalism from 1911 through 2001 and includes Young's arrangements for cello and piano of Arnold Schoenberg's Small Piano Pieces II and VI, Op. 19 and Young's own Five Small Pieces for String Quartet, as well as performances of Anton Webern's Three Small Pieces, Op. 11, Morton Feldman's Durations 2, Terry Jennings' Winter Sun, and a new work by Michael Schumacher. The second half of the concert will present Young's arabic numeral (any integer) from 1960 performed by Michael Schumacher, piano.

Other concerts in the WOOT Festival include a work for solo Just Intonation synthesizer by David Beardsley at Sufi Books, 227 West Broadway on Friday, June 22 at 8:30 pm and the premiere performance of the new microtonal rock group, Swallow, featuring Jon Catler, guitar, Meredith Borden, voice, and Brad Catler, bass at The Elbow Room, 144 Bleecker Street on Tuesday, June 26 at 8 pm.

On Monday, June 11th, 11pm EDT, Tune into "New Sounds" WNYC, 93.9FM. John Schaefer hosts Jon Catler discussing the "Nature of Music" and playing excerpts from the WOOT Festival, including music by La Monte Young, Jon Catler and others.

MELA's programs are made possible in part with public funds from the New York State Council on the Arts, a State Agency. For further information contact MELA Foundation, 212-925-8270; mail@melafoundation.org; www.virtulink.com/mela/main.htm

A complete schedule of concerts follows:

Thursday, June 14, 2001, 7-9 pm

WOOT Festival Concert
Jon Catler, Evolution for Electric Guitar and Orchestra

Makor
35 West 67th Street , NYC, 212-601-1000
Admission $12

Wednesday, June 20, 8 pm

WOOT Festival Concert at Diapason
La Monte Young, Composition 1960 # 7
performed by a Theatre of Eternal Music String Ensemble led by Charles Curtis, cello and Jon Catler, electric guitar

Diapason
1026 Avenue of the Americas, 2 South, NYC, 212-719-4393
Admission $16 / $12 MELA members

Friday, June 22, 2001, 8:30 pm

WOOT Festival Concert
David Beardsley, Blurry Day
microtones and drones - solo Just Intonation synthesizer

Sufi Books
227 West Broadway , NYC
Admission $10

Sunday, June 24, 4 pm

Works for cello and piano
performed by Charles Curtis and Michael Schumacher

Diapason
1026 Avenue of the Americas, 2 South, NYC, 212-719-4393
Admission $16 / $12 MELA members

Tuesday, June 26, 8 pm (sharp)

WOOT Festival Concert
Swallow
Electrifying new microtonal rock group featuring Jon Catler, guitar, Meredith Borden, voice, Brad Catler, bass

The Elbow Room
144 Bleecker Street, between Thompson St. & LaGuardia Place
Admission $7, 212-979-8434