Lucian Ban & Mat Maneri: Transylvanian Concert + Joe Lasqo & Headboggle: Space Ghost Études

 
A special concert for lovers of the piano, viola, and electronics.
Set 1: Lucian Ban & Mat Maneri “Transylvanian Concert”
Transylvanian-born, NYC-based pianist Lucian Ban and violist and Grammy nominee Mat Maneri present material from their award winning 2013 ECM release “Transylvanian Concert” and premier new music for a follow up album: Sun Ra & Paul Motian re-imagined pieces, Transylvanian doinas, re-constructed Enescu and Bartok pieces, original compositions, microtonal songs and more.
When Romanian-born pianist Lucian Ban and Grammy-nominated violinist Mat Maneri joined up for a concert in an opera house in Târgu Mureș in the middle of Romania’s Transylvania region, the music was, as JazzTimes puts it, “as close as it gets to Goth jazz”. Released in 2013 by ECM Records, the “Transylvanian Concert” album features a program of original ballads, blues, hymns and abstract improvisations, the whole informed by the twin traditions of jazz and European chamber music. The album has won critical acclaim on both sides of the Atlantic, including several Best Album of 2013 awards, and has spawned continuous touring.
The Guardian (UK) noted  Transylvanian Concert’s “own kind of melancholy beauty and wayward exuberance”, The New York Times called it “a lovely and restive new album”, All About Jazz hailed its “moments of unanticipated beauty”,  L.A. Weekly talks about a performance that is “mesmerizing, evocative and sensually explicit” and The Village Voice said “it is one of those records that whisk you away”. Jazz Weekly talks about “A modern collection of sonatas that erase the lines between jazz and classical, a melding of sounds similar to a modern liturgy”.
Lucian Ban (piano) was raised in a small village in northwest Transylvania, in the region where Bartok did his most extensive research and collecting of folk songs, and grew up listening to both traditional and classical music. He studied composition at the Bucharest Music Academy while simultaneously leading his own jazz groups, and notes that his approach to improvisation has been influenced by “the profound musical contributions of Romanian modern classical composers like Aurel Stroe, Anatol Vieru and of course Enescu”. Desire to get closer to the source of jazz brought him to the US, and since moving from Romania to New York in 1999 his ensembles have included many of New York’s finest players.
Mat Maneri (viola), 2006 Grammy Nominee for “Best Alternative Album”. Over the course of a twenty-five year career, Mat Maneri has defined the voice of the viola and violin in jazz and improvised music. Born in Brooklyn in 1969, Maneri has established an international reputation as one of the most original and compelling artists of his generation, praised for his high degree of individualism, a distinctive marriage of jazz and microtonal music, and his work with 20th-C icons of improvised music.
Set 2: Joe Lasqo & Headboggle: Space Ghost Études
Two of the Bay Area’s most daring improvising pianists and electronic musicians, Joe Lasqo and Headboggle (aka Derek Gedalecia) join forces to present “Space Ghost Études”, studies in synchronous / asynchronous de-coherent interstellar entanglement.
Two pianos, two electronics tables, two sets of objects and toys, and two very, very odd musicians.
This music is inspired by techniques analogous to the radical deconstruction of language in Michael McClure’s “Ghost Tantras”.
Joe Lasqo (MSP/laptop | piano | objects)
Pianist / laptopist Joe Lasqo studied classical music in India; computer/electronic music at MIT, Columbia, Berkeley/CNMAT; has been a long-time performing modern & avant jazz musician; & has lived, played and listened in several Asian and European countries (now in San Francisco). He’s keen on the application of artificial intelligence techniques to improvisation and the meeting of traditional Asian musics with the 21st century, most recently in an AI + humans ensemble multimedia piece at Grace Cathedral for the Soundwave ((7)) Biennale.
Joe has had long-term solo piano residencies at SF’s Viracocha and PianoFight, and has appeared recently with Bruce Ackley and Steve Adams of ROVA Saxophone Quartet, Aaron Bennett’s Electro-Magnetic Trans-Personal Orchestra, the London Improvisers Orchestra, Phillip Greenlief’s Orchesperry, with synthesist Thomas Dimuzio, clarinetist/vocalist Beth Custer, pianist Thollem McDonas, percussionist Suki O’Kane, bassist Lisle Ellis, sound artists Joe Snape (UK) & Lucie Vítková (Czech Rep.), technodiva vocalists / electronic musicians Pamela Z & Viv Corringham (NYC/London), saxophonists Adrian Northover & Sue Lynch (London), and many others. His own ensembles include Renga-kai (連歌会), Mukaiji-kai (霧海箎会), and Fushigi Kenkyūkai (不思議研究会).
His recent album, “Turquoise Sessions”, is available on Edgetone Records. “au quotidien”, a new album with German-Swedish saxist/flautist Biggi Vinkeloe, master drummer Donald Robinson, and cello madman Teddy Rankin-Parker is in production for release in 2016.
Headboggle
Derek Gedalecia, a.k.a. Headboggle, has been performing electronic + keyboard-based soundscapes for several years in the Bay Area in over a hundred local performances at venues ranging from GTK to YBCA. Incorporating lowbrow with highbrow art, music, and comedy, Head Boggle’s intent is to fuse together a new ecstatic improvisational performance style with a carefully crafted musical underbed. In his formative years, Gedalecia studied classical and ragtime piano from noted ragtime composer/revivalist Dr. Brian Dykstra.
Those who have experienced Headboggle’s recent performances at the San Francisco Electronic Music Festival, The Second Act, Robotspeak, and elsewhere have never been the same since — an opportunity to do which is now again afforded to the listening public.