"The
first two years (of High Zero) drew press attention from fringe-oriented
music magazines such as Cadence and The Wire, but the fest also
won the notice of more mainstream outlets such as The Washington
Post and National Public Radio's All Things Considered. But more
importantly, each festival provided several days and nights of
cataclysmic, creative music, improvised on the spot by players
who had often just met. From sonorous tone poems to raucous squonk
fests to sounds so unusual that they seem fresh to the planet
(to all three in the same set), the music of High Zero has proven
a feast for any adventurous music lover."--Lee Gardner, City
Paper, 2001
"No one walked away disappointed, as this year's first annual
HIGH ZERO Festival of Experimental Improvised Music left the large
crowds at every session enthralled. " --Steve
A. Loewy, Cadence Magazine, 1999
"A
striking glimpse into the avant-garde and a creative process limited
only by the imagination. " --Tim Smith, The Baltimore Sun,
2000
Our Method
As far as we can tell, we are a unique festival in North America.
HIGH ZERO is focused solely on new collaborations in freely improvised
experimental music. Internationally famous musicians play side
by side with younger "unknowns," united by their commitment to
the musical imagination. For four days in September each year,
Baltimore becomes a fertile meeting-ground for a group of inspired
players, drawn from a fascinating international subculture. The
festival exposes large audiences to this radical music in its
pure form. Each year, dedicated musicians and sound-artists come
as individuals to participate in entirely new improvised collaborations.
The
festival exposes large audiences to this radical music in its
pure form. Large-scale public concerts, recording sessions, workshops,
and guerilla street performances are all part of the heady mix.
The players are carefully selected by the festival's organizers
for their intense, unique music, whether it is based around dramatic
intensity, humor, specially designed instruments, original approach,
raw sound, or nearly superhuman instrumental technique. The resulting
collaborations challenge the limits of music and delight by their
audacity, expressiveness, immediacy, and innovation. It isn't
about stars or established projects; it is about the most uncompromising
and stimulating new improvised music we can bring together.
High
Zero is a vivid outgrowth of a real, unbounded subculture of people
producing spontaneous genre-transcending music around the globe--so
called "free improvisors." There is no clearly unified
philosophy here, but instead an intensity of existential investigation
and expressions of imminent freedom. The festival focuses attention
on EXPERIMENTATION--a widening and exploration of possibilities,
and on IMPROVISATION--real-time aesthetic risk-taking, flexibility,
and sensitivity, and "raw mental processes" revealed
without objectification or reductionism. To get a sense of what
motivates and informs this activity, these interviews
on the Red Room web site may be of interest.
To
say the High Zero Festival is an unusual event is an understatement.
Not only does the festival intend to provide the audience with
extremely varied, inspired and igneous experiences, it is also
a major challenge for the improvisors, who are put in contexts
where their stock personal musical languages may not work, pushing
them into terra incognita. Though not directly inspired by it,
the festival has a "no groups--all new collaborations"
structure which is perhaps most comparable to Derek Bailey's
Company Week in London. We are interested to hear about any
other events which have this sort of approach.
The
High Zero Foundation was incorporated as the official organizing
body of the festival and received nonprofit 501(c)3 status in
July 2002. We are actively
soliciting donations of support to fund the festival. We continue
to make the festival a yearly event with an ever-growing visibility
and documentation while maintaining the standard of non-pandering
and undiluted approach of the previous years. High Zero is just
one facet of this living culture--and we strongly encourage organizers
of experimental music to continue to develop their own venues
and platforms, and audiences to pursue live music. The
Red Room performance series also continues in Baltimore, presenting
an average of 50+ performances a year.
This
years festival again promises to be the best yet, with more performers
and more music. We hope to see you at High Zero 2004, and hope
that you will spread the word to anyone you think might be interested!
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