Braxton Birthday Bash Brewing by Bay

[Other Steve]

Posted today on the Braxton list at Yahoogroups:

Hello folks,
As part of the annual Matthew Sperry Memorial Festival, we will be celebrating the 60th birthday of Anthony Braxton by assembling a 60-piece creative orchestra to play pieces from throughout his vast catalog of works. The event will take place on Satruday evening, June 4, 2005 at 21 Grand, Oakland, CA. We're still working out the details of the instrumentation and pieces, but it'll combine ensemble works, solo pieces, sections of GTM, and a variety of other structures. I'll send out an update as we solidify the program.
Best regards,
ginorobair

[Other Steve]

Gino's report from the gig:

<>Hi folks,
A quick note to offer the set list (primary territories) from the June 4th 60th birthday tribute at 21 Grand in Oakland, California. We had 60 players in the Triaxium West Ensemble, with a wide ranging instrumentation that included two kotos, two shakuhachis, banjo, steel pan, harp, electronics, as well as percussion, guitars, basses, baritone guitar (Henry Kaiser), strings, brass, reeds, etc. Note that John Shiurba arranged Composition No. 33, a solo piano piece, for a subgroup of the orchestra.

Set 1
language improv
108B
190
33 + 108A + 23E
133
------------
Set 2
90
40N
language improv
48
223

Each musician had secondary and tertiary material that they could introduce as they saw fit, and there were numerous types of subgroupings. And the musicians did a fantastic job of keeping the performance suprising *and* musical.

For me (as conductor) the highlights included 40N, 33+, 223 and 48. The show was recorded to multitrack: hopefully it'll see the light of day at some point. (Please don't email me for copies, just yet, anyway.) A copy will be sent to Anthony. :-)

cheers,
ginorobair