schumacher press text

[charles curtis]

schumacher grew up in new jersey... in high school he played tennis and rock
and roll and a little soccer... then he got hooked on piano and
composition... indiana university... summer in new orleans... juilliard...
received the doctor of musical art in 1987... became friends with fellow
juilliard student charles curtis... they started improvising in downtown ny
clubs playing noise music and avantgarde rock... playground basketball in
brooklyn, friendship with la monte young... for a while private composition
lessons with young... a year in berlin 1991-92

gradually schumacher hones a very personal style of electronic music
composition... sound as an abstract sculptural entity unencumbered by
periodic rhythm, phrasing, theme, recognizability, referentiality,
structural closure... preoccupation with time, time as static forcefield
upon which sound actions incur... unpredictable random-generated recurrence
patterns of discrete sound elements or element sets... governed by highly
mathematical self-created computer programs based on prime numbers... sounds
created exclusively through classic electronic synthesis... not tacky bleep
and bloop style but sensuous carefully processed sometimes subtle sometimes
heavy utterly non-referential sounds... spatially distributed via multiple
speaker networks... sound installation as presentation mode of choice,
withdrawal from performer/audience auditorium format... establishes studio
five beekman in downtown new york as forum for sound installation and
process-based electronic composition... in addition to own works presents
lee ranaldo, david behrman, alvin lucier, phill niblock, alan licht,
others...

in recent years return to live concert performances in which sound
installation is suggested or simulated... schumacher "tends" a computer
generating open random structural forms...

has used spoken texts of charles curtis as element in his installations
since 1995... will probably do so in hamburg also...

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sunday 7 may 2000 / rote flora / 20:00

michael j. schumacher will begin promptly with a multi-hour installatory
electronic performance... the charles curtis trio will overlap schumacher
with a set of reflective rock pieces in a sustained-frequency sine wave
environment... robert engelbrecht and members of spalt will follow with the
premiere of a multiple electric guitar drone/feedback composition...
schumacher will conclude with a second late-night set possibly joined by
curtis performing extended-technique cello...

the basement of the flora will be interpreted in light of its intimacy,
quality of being tucked-away, smallness, warmth, enclosedness... as site of
a very long ongoing continuous music event incorporating live and electronic
pre-programmed and performed sound music...


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