elapolak

Hey everyone,
So this Sunday, September 23rd, my group will have a pleasure of performing at Cage Hop concert! Cage Hop is a festival dedicated to John Cage, and so, we will be playing his Credo in Us. The concert will be held at South Oxford Space, 138 S Oxford St, Brooklyn. It starts at 7.00pm. I hope to see some of you there!
What’s particularly exciting for me is that I won’t be playing violin – I will be operating a radio and record player!. As you probably know, Credo in Us score does not include violin, but I think it’s really great that I still will PERFORM – communicate with an audience – only using completely different means. It’s kind of refreshing and helps realize an important question – what does it really mean to be a performer, entertainer, how much of an impact can I have by simply pressing a button of a household device?

 I think it’s yet another proof of John Cage’s genius that his piece provokes such questions. It’s hard not to see a parallel with Marcel Duchamp’s readymades, like his Fountain from 1917. Where is a boundary between art and life, does a simple decision of an artist elevate a ‘thing’ to the level of art?
The number of layers is even bigger in Cage’s piece – not only are radio and record player everyday objects, not recognized as musical instruments – they transmit someone else’s music – someone else’s art. Is Cage sampling other people’s music like hip-hop MC’s do? Does Beethoven’s Symphony have an entirely new quality simply because it’s juxtaposed with sounds of percussion, prepared piano and alarm clock? Or maybe it’s still the same piece of music, standing independently from the environment?
Having to answer those questions seems exciting enough but I simply am looking forward to being on the stage in a completely new role.

From the left to the right: Frederick Trumpy, Ela Polak, Vasudevan Panicker, Joseph Fee. Photo by Emmanuel Cruz

I would like to introduce to you a contemporary music ensemble whose member I am: Elevator Rose (or E Rose). Currently there are 4 of us: Vasudevan Panicker (piano), Joseph Fee (percussion/ guitar), Frederick Trumpy (percussion) and my humble self on the violin. We’ve been playing together for a couple of years now, commissioning a lot of new music. We collaborate with different composers, mostly from New York City (Howie Kenty, Sunny Knable, Daniel Liot Fine) .We also play some good Oldies songs, like stuff by Andriessen and Cage. And the last but least – the group members do compose sometimes too…

We strive to give representation to whatever the zeitgeist is – reflecting social unrest; experimenting with the interplay between cinema and music; examining this sometimes fine line between indie rock and classical alternative; meditating through music…

We do have some upcoming events: on September 10^th we will participate in Cage festival, performing his famous Credo in Us.

On November 5^th we will be performing a more political show, sharing the bill with some of NY most outrageous revolutionaries…

Keep coming back for more details!!!!

For now, hope you will enjoy our performance at this year’s Music with a View festival. We played an amazing composition by Howie Kenty, In the Darkness!  xo

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L639LbwZi7U

I have to say, I’m into Gypsy music. Violin has always been an extremely important instrument for Romani people, instrument that became perfect for improvising. Violin has this uncanny ability of mimicking human voice, its melody, therefor Gypsy improvisations sound so often like a lamenting human voice, like someone telling us a very personal story.

And, obviously, I’m not the only one fascinated with Gypsy art of playing violin. It inspired many composers to write violin pieces which would capture the soulful style of Gypsy players.

I had a pleasure of interpreting those compositions and would like to share with you my take on this subject.

First one is Tzigane (a Gypsy) by Maurice Ravel:

Next one is Gypsy Airs by Pablo Sarasate:

I hope you enjoy it! 🙂