For Immediate Release Contact: John Berndt
June 11, 2000 Phone: 410-889-5854
Fax: 410-889-5904
Johnb@berndtgroup.net

 

HIGH ZERO Sept 21-24^th Baltimore

2^nd Annual Festival of Experimental Improvised Music

The international avant-garde music festival builds on first year successes.

Born last September to the wailing of fire alarms, growling tubas and home-built electronic instruments, the first HIGH ZERO festival was a startlingly unusual event, mixing sold-out and capacity crowds with some of the strangest and most challenging music ever heard on the East Coast. Cadence (a national jazz magazine) praised the event to the heavens and wondered how it could happen in a place Baltimore. Indeed, audience members and local musicians alike were all aware that a fundamental shift had occurred during the festival in the visibility of this typically underground music. The festival exposed over 700 audience members to new collaborations between 30 local, national, and international players over four long concerts. The music was inspired, outlandish, and very often moved the audience to expand their definition of music. A grassroots organized event and brainchild of the critically acclaimed RED ROOM performance space, the event is an extension of a visionary subculture of music that is often played in small clubs and art galleries around the country, and which has had a growing presence in the US since the 60’s.

The players are extremely varied in their approaches and styles, but are unified by an idealistic commitment to creating music in the moment without preconception, to experimental collaborations, and to the broadest possible sonic definition of "music." The resulting activity is sometime classified as free jazz, vaudeville, minimalism, electronic music, or art brut; but when it works, it defies listeners to classify it, instead presenting a rich and evocative experience without definition. Some of the players are internationally famous for their work and some are local "unknowns"; but the entire experience is an experience of wonder, with emphasis placed on the details of the collaborations and on the creation of truly new music.

This year the festival will take place over four days (Sept 21^th-24^th) in a number of large venues throughout the city. It will bring together 35 highly original musicians from Baltimore, Chicago, Philadelphia, New York, Montreal, Toronto, London, and Palermo. Like the first festival, HIGH ZERO 2000 is funded through admission and individual and corporate donations, this year solicited on a broader scale to fit the increased scope of concerts. A list of venues and musicians will be made public at the end of June. The festival will also include recording opportunities for musicians, workshops, and impromptu concerts throughout the city.

For more information and sound and video clips, check out www.highzero.org