Spring Break
Fulbright, music department host improv music festival
Alex Lanis
Issue date: 12/3/07 Section: News
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The UA music department and Fulbright College of Arts and Science will host a music festival this weekend.
From 7:30 p.m. Friday through Sunday evening, students will be able to take part in a weekend of free improvisation and experimental music at the Fayetteville Sonic Arts Festival.
The festival will take place in the Stella Boyle Smith Concert Hall, located in the Fine Arts building. FSAF will include workshops, lectures and performances by artists from around the world.
The festival will be a first for the UA, and students might find the music from these artists isn't what they normally listen to on the radio. This music festival will be highlighted by experimental and free improvisation music - music without rules - said Gerald Sloan, a professor in the music department and the organizer of the event.
An actual definition of free improv or experimental music is difficult to come by, Sloan said. "I've been teaching jazz for 20 years, and I can't even define that."
Free improv is like cooking without a recipe, he said. During a performance, the musicians might try things like holding a CD in the bell of his trombone to create distortion, or using a plunger to mute and manipulate the sound coming from the instrument.
The event will be headlined by Jack Wright, a saxophonist from Philadelphia. In the music world, he has been named the "Johnny Appleseed" of free improvisational music, a term made popular by an article in America's only experimental and improvisational music magazine, Signal to Noise.
Wright has played the saxophone since 1952 and began playing as a free improviser in the early '70s when he left his job as a history professor at Temple University in Philadelphia.
Wright will be sharing the festival with artists such as Grammy-nominated percussionist Toshi Makihara, Nashville experimental group 3 Pups Music, saxophonists Jon Barrios and Keefe Jackson and cellist Fred Lonberg-Holm.
Sloan will play with two UA seniors, Drew Packard and bassist, Garrett Jones in their band, Galactic Gutbucket.
From 7:30 p.m. Friday through Sunday evening, students will be able to take part in a weekend of free improvisation and experimental music at the Fayetteville Sonic Arts Festival.
The festival will take place in the Stella Boyle Smith Concert Hall, located in the Fine Arts building. FSAF will include workshops, lectures and performances by artists from around the world.
The festival will be a first for the UA, and students might find the music from these artists isn't what they normally listen to on the radio. This music festival will be highlighted by experimental and free improvisation music - music without rules - said Gerald Sloan, a professor in the music department and the organizer of the event.
An actual definition of free improv or experimental music is difficult to come by, Sloan said. "I've been teaching jazz for 20 years, and I can't even define that."
Free improv is like cooking without a recipe, he said. During a performance, the musicians might try things like holding a CD in the bell of his trombone to create distortion, or using a plunger to mute and manipulate the sound coming from the instrument.
The event will be headlined by Jack Wright, a saxophonist from Philadelphia. In the music world, he has been named the "Johnny Appleseed" of free improvisational music, a term made popular by an article in America's only experimental and improvisational music magazine, Signal to Noise.
Wright has played the saxophone since 1952 and began playing as a free improviser in the early '70s when he left his job as a history professor at Temple University in Philadelphia.
Wright will be sharing the festival with artists such as Grammy-nominated percussionist Toshi Makihara, Nashville experimental group 3 Pups Music, saxophonists Jon Barrios and Keefe Jackson and cellist Fred Lonberg-Holm.
Sloan will play with two UA seniors, Drew Packard and bassist, Garrett Jones in their band, Galactic Gutbucket.
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