Swim This: A Sonic Celebration

The trio Swim This (Nick Didkovsky, Gerry Hemingway, Michael Lytle) present, with guitar, percussion, clarinets and electronics, a spontaneously generated world of intensely focused and evocative improvised music. The group creates a visceral and deep listening experience where no moment is lost, and each sound is projected with maximum momentum and razor sharp clarity.

Swith This: A Sonic Celebration

Nick Didkovsky, Gerry Hemingway, Michael Lytle
Sat, Jan 28 2012, 8:30pm
Nick Didkovsky – table top guitar & devices
Gerry Hemingway – drums, voice with occasional processing
Michael Lytle– bass and contrabass clarinet, prerecorded tapeSwim This is a trio that spontaneously generates world of intensely focused and evocative improvised music. The group creates a visceral and deep listening experience where no moment is lost, and each sound is projected with maximum momentum and razor sharp clarity.

They began with the initiative of Michael Lytle, who invited Didkovsky and Hemingway to perform at The Experimental Intermedia Foundation in 2006. The evening’s extraordinary performance was recorded with meticulous care. Entitled “Swim This” (Punos Music, PM0006) it is available on line via iTunes and through their web site at: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Swim-This-AswimA/191946350842691 They are very excited to be performing tonight as Gerry is teaching in Europe and rarely appears in New York so this evening creates a highly anticipated reunion for them.

Nick Didkovsky is a guitarist, composer, band leader, and software programmer. In 1983, he founded the rock octet Doctor Nerve. (www.doctornerve.org) He presently resides in New York City, where he composes, creates music software, and teaches computer music
composition at New York University and Columbia University. He is the principle author of the computer music language Java Music Specification Language. (www.algomusic.com) He has composed music for Bang On A Can All-Stars, Meridian Arts Ensemble, Fred Frith Guitar Quartet, California EAR Unit, New Century Players, Ethel String Quartet, Electric Kompany, ARTE Quartet, and other ensembles. His Punos Music record label offers CD releases of his more extreme musical projects. (www.punosmusic.com)

Gerry Hemingway has been making a living as a composer and performer of solo and ensemble music since 1974. He has led a number of quartet & quintets since the mid 80’s including his current quintet with Ellery Eskelin, Oscar Noriega, Terrence McManus and Kermit Driscoll as well collaborative groups with Mark Helias & Ray Anderson (BassDrumBone), w/Reggie Workman and Miya Masaoka on koto (Brew), Georg Graewe & Ernst Reijseger (GRH trio), WHO trio with Swiss pianist, Michel Wintsch and bassist, Baenz Oester, as well as numerous duo projects with Thomas Lehn, John Butcher, Ellery Eskelin, Marilyn Crispell, Terrence McManus and Jin Hi Kim. Mr. Hemingway is a Guggenheim fellow and has received numerous commissions for chamber and orchestral work including “Terrains”, a concerto for percussionist and orchestra commissioned by the Kansas City Symphony. He is well known for his eleven years in the Anthony Braxton Quartet and more recently his duo with Anthony “Old Dogs (2007)” released on Mode/Avant. His collaborations with improvisers and composers include Evan Parker, Cecil Taylor, Mark Dresser, Anthony Davis, George Lewis, Derek Bailey, Leo Smith, Oliver Lake, Kenny Wheeler, Frank Gratkowski, Michael Moore and many others. His musical history, collaborations, performances and recordings are all documented on his website: http://www.gerryhemingway.com. He currently lives in Switzerland having joined the faculty of the Hochschule Luzern in 2009.

Michael Lytle (aka elewhale) has been a New Music Improvisor since 1968. He has performed with William Parsons, Karl Berger, George Cartwright, Garette List, David Moss, John Zorn, George Lewis, Christian Marclay, Nick Didkovsky, Hans Burgener, Martin Schutz, Gerry Hemingway, Mark Dresser and has been involved in over 30 recordings since the 5* rated Iowa Ear Music of 1976. An early Electronic Music composer, Lytle invented a set of totally unique methods of clarinet family sonic modulation and performance, called the “most radical of his generation” by Joachim Berendt. (www.elewhale.net)

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