Matthew Shipp, Meridian Arts Ensemble and Pamela Z at The Cutting Room May 1st

featuring performances by

Matthew Shipp,
Meridian Arts Ensemble,
Pamela Z

Monday, May 1st
7:30 p.m.
The Cutting Room
19 West 24th Street
New York, NY 10010
http://www.thecuttingroomnyc.com/

Tickets: $35 in advance / $40 at the door
www.smarttix.com/show.aspx?showCode=AMC0

With his unique and recognizable style, pianist MATTHEW SHIPP first became known in the early '90s as the pianist in the David S. Ware Quartet, and soon began leading his own dates -- most often including Ware bandmate and leading bassist William Parker. He has recorded a number of duets with a variety of musicians, from the legendary Roscoe Mitchell to violinist Mat Maneri. Through his range of live and recorded performances and unswerving individual development, Shipp came to be regarded as a prolific and respected voice in creative music by the decade's close. Shipp has led dates for a number of labels, including FMP, No More, Eremite, Thirsty Ear, Silkheart, and more. In 2000, Shipp began acting as curator for Thirsty Ear's Blue Series. This excellent series hosted a number of Shipp's own recordings, as well as the recordings of William Parker, Tim Berne, Roy Campbell, Craig Taborn, Spring Heel Jack, and Mat Maneri. His latest album, One, arrived in January of 2006.

Founded in 1987, the MERIDIAN ARTS ENSEMBLE has performed on four continents, in forty states, on radio and television, in concert halls and jazz and rock clubs. It has commissioned and given the premires of countless new works and has recorded and released seven critically acclaimed CDs. The Meridian Arts Ensemble began as a traditional brass quintet. The group has evolved into an adaptable ensemble with a core of brass and percussion, expanding as necessary to include piano, guitar, bass, and saxophone. Eclecticism is a key element of the Meridian Arts Ensemble's performances: it plays a wide variety of music mixing classical and contemporary works, jazz and rock compositions, ethnic music, and original works by Ensemble members. The Meridian Arts Ensemble has commissioned, collaborated with, or given premires of works by Milton Babbitt, Frank Zappa, the Common Sense Composers' Collective, Jan Bach, Stephen Barber, Philip Johnston, Ira Taxin, David Sampson, Kirk Nurock, John Halle, Norman Yamada, Jan Radzynski, Elliott Carter, and many others.

PAMELA Z is a San Francisco-based composer/performer and audio artist who works primarily with voice, live electronic processing, and sampling technology. She creates solo works combining operatic bel canto and experimental extended vocal techniques with found percussion objects, spoken word, electronic processing, and a MIDI controller called The BodySynth(tm) (which allows her to manipulate sound with physical gestures.) In addition to her solo work, she has composed and recorded scores for dance, theatre, film, and new music chamber ensembles. Her large-scale multi-media works have been presented at Theater Artaud and ODC in SanFrancisco and at The Kitchen in New York, and her audio works have been presented in exhibitions at the Whitney Museum in New York and the Dizesanmuseum in Cologne. For more information visit www.pamelaz.com