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Howling Winds

All right here is the show as promised!
Below you will find the program and each of the six pieces (plus a really fun encore!) listed in order. Click on the program to enlarge and see more information.  Hit the back arrow of your browser to exit this view.
In the bottom right corner of each video, you will find an HD option and a full screen option. Toggle these as your device allows.

Howling Winds was a blast to perform, and I am excited to finally share it with all of you!
Thanks again to Patricia, Blair, Anita and Rene for making this show happen.
Enjoy!

 

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Summer in Review

Hello everyone!  It is late summer, things are really getting hot and humid (in New York City at least), and it’s time to catch up on what has been happening during the sunny months.  On June 13th I had the wonderful experience of performing at the New York City Electroacoustic Music Festival (NYCEMF), directed by Hubert Howe.  Thank you for thinking of me Hubert!  I played Anamnese for flute and electronics by Hiromi Watanabe.  The video recording of the performance at Abrons Arts Center is posted below.

On June 21st I had the opportunity to be a part of Make Music New York, thanks to Dary John Mizelle.  For this event, he brought together Mariko Endo (dance), Cesare Papetti (vibraphone), Monika Haar (toy piano), and myself on flute to play his Metalsong III.  The flute part was originally a solo called Silverwind, which can be heard on soundcloud.  Mizelle himself performed on an instrument of his own invention which can be seen in the photographs below.  Click on them to enlarge, and hit the back arrow of your browser when you are done.  All photographs were taken by Carey Macarthur.  More photographs of this event can be found here.

Thank you for viewing!  Enjoy 🙂

~Ammon

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Upcoming Performance in New York City

Hello everyone!  Summer is here, and I hope it is bringing sunshine and lemonade to everyone this year.  I would like to announce that I will be performing at Abrons Art Center on Monday June 13th for the New York City Electro-Acoustic Music Festival (NYCEMF). The show starts at 8pm, and I am the second performer after intermission. I will be playing Hiromi Watanabe’s Anamnese for flute and electronics via Max/msp. Come check it out if you are in NYC! You won’t be disappointed 🙂

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New Recording!

Hi all!  I just posted a recording of my most recent performance.  On February 21, I had the honor of performing Dary John Mizelle’s Silverwind for solo flute.  Published in 1990, this solo flute piece has two movements: ‘bagatelle’ and ‘dance.’  The bagatelle is short and sweet, a sort of daydream that recalls a jazz improvisation.  The dance, in contrast, is a non-stop tour de force executed in strange meters that make one think of a dancing centipede.  I worked extra hard on this piece, and loved performing it in Loewe Theatre at NYU Steinhardt.  I have included the soundcloud link below.  Enjoy!

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New Piece, Updates and Extended Horizons Project Volume II

Hello all – It’s well into January now, and that means it’s time for Extended Horizons Project Volume II!  To start the season off, I have posted two of the videos that I used for grad school applications. Take a listen and keep your fingers crossed for me…

The first video is of an improvisation with Katie Levine on piano and Julio Lopez on violin.  Thanks so much Julio and Katie for lending me your fantastic musicianship!

The second video is of a piece I wrote called ‘Spectrum.’  This is my latest piece, composed for flute alone.  The piece uses primarily multiphonic tremolos and takes some of its inspiration from Seattle’s own Neil Welch.  The form of the piece is modeled after traditional jazz improvisation, minus the changes.  There is a ‘head’ at the beginning and a modified repetition of it at the end, with the middle section being an improvisation using the material in the head as a guide and point of departure.  There will be a better quality audio version on SoundCloud soon.  Hope you all are having a wonderful winter, and thanks for listening.

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Upcoming Gig: the Chapel

Alright, here we are into September already.  Growing spiders lurk in trees next to solitary yellow leaves and, despite the lingering warm temperatures, there is a subtle bite in the air.  School has started (for those who are still stuck going!) and the Autumn Equinox is less than two weeks away.  And on September 27th, I will performing at The Chapel Performance Space with the wonderful Eric Barber.  Here is the text from the listing on http://www.waywardmusic.org/event/eric-barber/:

HUSH – music of the lower decibel persuasion

 

We’ll be creating some beautiful improvisations in the Chapel that will focus on the wide dynamic range from medium to quite quiet. Featuring Carmen Rothwell, bass; Mike Gebhart, percussion; Christian Pincock, trombone; Ammon Swinbank, flutes; and Eric Barber, saxophones.

Here is more about Eric Barber: http://www.ericbarbermusic.com/.  I will be very grateful to all those who are able to make it out to this event.  It will be the first time that I perform at The Chapel, and I look forward to it with eager anticipation.

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Extended Horizons, 9.5.2014

For this weeks post, I have uploaded an improvisation based on some material for a flute solo I am currently working on.  The materials included are pitch bends, altered timbres and my latest obsession: multiphonic tremoli (you have probably heard these in my previous posts).  Most of the sounds in this piece are based on the fingering for low B with different keys either vented or trilled, or both.  I have managed to scrawl a rough draft of this piece finally, and perhaps soon there will be a post of the piece itself.  In the meantime this improvisation will hold its place.  

 

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Extended Horizons, 9.1.2014

For this improvisation I used a new fingering I learned that readily lends itself to some pretty cool multiphonic tremoli.  I enjoyed exploring this fingering in washes of sound and then making little melodies out of the fingering and similar ones.  The style of the tremolo-multiphonics is inspired by Neil Welch, from whom I was very fortunate to receive a lesson a couple of weeks ago.

Please enjoy 🙂