source file: m1565.txt Date: Mon, 26 Oct 1998 21:56:43 +0000 Subject: OT? Concert Announcement From: david first October 29th, 1998 8:00pm Interpretations Series Concert Merkin Concert Hall 129th West 67th Street New York City David First will premiere "A Bet on Transcendence Favors the House" - an evening's length work for cello, JI keyboards, pedal steel guitar, percussion, electric guitar, and computer controlled drones in JI. Charles Curtis - cello Bob Hoffnar - pedal steel guitar Michael Schumacher - keyboard David Simons - percussion David First - guitar and electronics programming Things to do today: 1) Explore and resolve the inherent difficulties encountered whenever human contrivance meets - and attempts to bond with - the inscrutable laws of nature. 2) Chase through canonical instructions designed to trigger imitative gestures modeled after the phenomenon of shape-shifting periodic wave relationships observed in the physical world. 3) Pit the best of faithful intentions - that of achieving a sustainable state of perfection - against an overwhelming hierarchical gravity which always has the last disappointing word. 4) Make change. Try again. Odds at post time: 27/16 27/20 45/32 9/8 9/5 15/8 3/2 6/5 5/4 1/1 8/5 5/3 4/3 16/15 10/9 16/9 64/45 40/27 32/27 David First has had his music performed in New York at Experimental Intermedia, the Kitchen, La MaMa, Roulette, Merkin Hall, Exit Art, the Knitting Factory, Bang on a Can Festival, The Cooler, and CBGB's. He has also had his music presented at Podewil,the USArts Festival, and at the Institut Unzeit (Berlin) as well as at the Ijsbreker (Amsterdam), the Heidelberger Festival for Experimental Music and Literature (Heidelberg), ZwischenTone Festival (Kvln), The Impakt Festival (Utrecht), Het Apollohuis (Eindhoven) at the Kunstforeningen (Copenhagen), and the Uppsala Konstmuseum (Uppsala). He has received grants and awards from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Phaedrus Foundation, Casio Inc., the Yamaha Communications Center and was a nominee for the Cal Arts/Alpert award in 1994. First has two CD recordings on O.O. Discs as well as works on the CRI, Aerial, and Homestead labels. "a fascinating artist with a singular technique" Alex Ross New York Times "a bizarre cross between Hendrix and La Monte Young" "The music grew and grew in scintillating, illusionary beauty long past the point at which you thought it could still surpass itself" Kyle Gann Village Voice "The next big thing in guitar gods" K. Leander Williams Time Out NY