Jack Straw Productions
4261 Roosevelt Way NE
Seattle, WA 98105
FREE

Jack Straw Productions and Washington Composers Forum present Composer Spotlight, a series of talks and performances by composers, musicians, and scholars of new and innovative music every second Wednesday of each month.

Composer Spotlight:
JESSE CANTERBURY
Vertigo

Wed, December 8, 7:30pm

Jesse Canterbury will discuss the process of composing and recording music for his latest Jack Straw-supported album (recorded through his 2009 Jack Straw artist residency), Vertigo, which features the talents of Joanne de Mars (cello), Chris Stover (trombone), and Tom Baker (guitar). The discussion will touch on the subjects of the album’s unique instrumentation as well as the challenge of crafting a coherent and cohesive CD’s worth of music. Recorded musical examples, both from the finished album and from outtakes, will be played to illustrate the process.

Clarinetist Jesse Canterbury has worked in new music spanning modern classical music, improvisation, and avant-jazz. He has performed some of the masterworks of the modern literature, such as the Quartet for the End of Time and Pierrot lunaire, and has participated in many premieres of new works by Pacific Northwest composers. He has recorded a critically acclaimed album of music for two clarinetists in collaboration with William O. Smith, titled collage/décollage, which features several world-premiere recordings of Smith’s music, as well as commissions from Tom Baker and Canadian composer and clarinetist François Houle. Additionally, he is a member of several “avant-jazz” ensembles, most notably the Tom Baker Quartet, the Tom Varner Tentet, and Andrew Boscardin's Zubatto Syndicate. His most recent work can be heard on the album Vertigo, released in October 2010 on Present Sounds Records. Canterbury is currently working on music for a new project, called Crosstalk. He can be heard on Present Sounds, Capstone, Omnitone, and New World Records.