Program TBD

Steve Long - piano/composition
Travis Bliss - sax
Nick Neuburg - percussion

Charlotte Munn-Wood - violin
Nick Pauly - viola
Julie Kim - cello

Join us for an afternoon gathering of musicians and non-musicians alike to collaborate on three pieces of directed improvisation: two of Pauline Oliveros's Meditations and a page from Cornelius Cardew's The Great Learning. No background in professional sound-making is necessary. Just bring yourself and an object with which to make noises! This will be a chance for people to meet and to be creative together.

Though this event is free and open to the public, donations help support events such as this.

Piano/Composition - Steve Long
Travis Bliss - Tenor Sax
Nick Neuburg - Percussion

Violin - Concetta Abbate, Sara Solomon, Aimee Niemann
Viola - Nick Pauly, Charlotte Munn-Wood
Cello - Julie Kim
Bass - Anna Abondolo

Introit: FACTA  
*(s)kai-
Kanon
DoGmA.AmGoD
Lugal-Za-Ghe-Zi
Screens 

Growing up in a south Brooklyn neighborhood has given me endless colorful anecdotes that seem more fit for film than real life. You can imagine whatever stories you like. And when I remember my childhood in an overly sentimental way, given that I was only born in 1985, it seems quaint. I remember my grandmother as the neighborhood seamstress, my grandfather a handyman, aunts working diner counters, father in construction, stay at home mom, the list goes on. Something about how everyone occupied their space in society left an impression on me. I can't imagine that music in 2023 will ever be as practical as hemming a pair of pants but I wish it was. Maybe, with the music industry dead, and funding for the arts at an all time low, music and its ephemeral nature can stand as an anti-capitalist tool. It is my urge to find a place for my work that drives me to dig around in music's past, whether that's 50 or 500 years ago. I've come to the conclusion that musical techniques (compositional, formal, improvisational, etc) are not inert formulas to get from point A to B and fill up space. These techniques are the tools of a musical speculative science. Tools that help decode the present situation. So, for example, when Bach employs canonic procedures in his music it is not for the sake of complexity, or virtuosity, but an attempt to give up control, to negate the self in order to get out of the way and listen. Recently I can't help but find these almost Cagean impulses scattered throughout history. And, paradoxically, with the help of this Cagean lens, I worry less about my place in the world and more about my anonymous contribution to a larger whole.

Introit: FACTA is a very obscured contrafact written over Ugly Beauty by Thelonious Monk. The title is a play on words and was originally titled FACTA NON VERBA: actions not words. The composition *(s)kai- started out as a song for solo voice with poetry by Kalli Mathios. Though the words of the poem will not be heard by the audience, their presence is encoded into the music, and allows the musicians to engage with the un-notatable nuances of speech. Kanon, another piece originally furnished with a text, is a slow improvised development in search of the main melody. DoGmA.AmGoD is a newer piece that uses a standard 32 bar form. Though the bar lines in the piece are sacrosanct, there is no rhythmic notation whatsoever. What you hear is a rhythmic interpretation arrived at over time, a very personal aural tradition untethered from the page. The penultimate piece on the program, Lugal-Za-Ghe-Zi, derives its name from the last Sumerian king. But personally I can't help but hear it as an off the cuff slur between two Italian Americans. This brings us to the final piece on the program, and the culmination of the evening. Screens is the first section of a multi-movement piano concerto-like composition for improvising piano trio (piano, sax, drums) and string septet. Having only finished the score this morning, I find myself a bit too close to the piece to say anything useful. In essence, this work is a search, in real time, for a common ground between the cool remove of the string parts, conceived with the aid of probability and random number generators, and the distinctly personalized material of the trio. This piece is dedicated to the memory of my cousin Ro.   

PRNCX, is Long's ensemble dedicated to performing his improvisation based compositions. Blurring the lines between composition and improvisation is more than merely invoking a “liminal space”. Through juxtaposing, uniting, and/or accentuating the differences between several modes of improvisation, composition, and notation, PRNCX walks a thin line between coherence and chaos.  

Piano/Composition - Steve Long

Travis Bliss - Tenor Sax

Nick Neuburg - Percussion

Raven Chacon “Voiceless Mass”
with Alex Waterman, Jessica Pavone, Katie Porter, Leila Bordreuil, Ross Wightman, Laura Ortman, gabby fluke-mogul, Laura Cocks, Nava Dunkelman, Steve Long, Yuma Uesaka, Carlo Costa, Bob Bellerue

Eternities (Katie Porter & Bob Bellerue)

gabby fluke-mogul & Nava Dunkelman

Chloe Alexandra Thompson

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Online ticket sales will end at 11:00am Saturday 4/29. Tickets will be available at the door.

About Voiceless Mass, Raven writes:
“Voiceless Mass considers the spaces in which we gather, the history of access of these spaces, and the land upon which these buildings sit. Though ‘mass’ is referenced in the title, the piece contains no audible singing voices, instead using the openness of the large space to intone the constricted intervals of the wind and string instruments. In exploiting the architecture of the cathedral, Voiceless Mass considers the futility of giving voice to the voiceless, when ceding space is never an option for those in power.”

This special event is part of Ende Tymes 13, an annual festival of noise and sonic liberation.

the full lineup can be found here:
http://halfnormal.com/endetymes

pls follow us @endetymes

Strider (Steve Long & Joanna Mattrey)

Ashcan Orchestra

Angeles/Fraser/Nazary

Poor Magnus (Steve Long & Erica Dicker)
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Kevin Murray Solo
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Ben Eidson, Rotem Eylam, Mark Abramovski, Isaac Dubow

PRNCX / Melinda Faylor / Lucie Vítková

Tickets $10-20 sliding scale

PRNCX is the large ensemble project of composer and pianist Steve Long. The group regularly appears as a small collection of 3-6 players, with larger iterations of 16+ players participating for special events. At its core, this group, and the compositions written for it, bring the members of disparate Queer American Experimental lineages, such as John Cage, Julius Eastman, Pauline Oliveros, and Cecil Taylor, into direct conversation with both the metaphysical and practical procedures of the Ellingtonian bigband. Blurring the lines between composition and improvisation is more than merely invoking a “liminal space”, since composition and improvisation do not necessarily exist as polarities on the same spectrum. Through juxtaposing, uniting, and/or accentuating the differences between several modes of improvisation, composition, and notation, PRNCX walks a thin line between coherence and chaos.

piano/composition - Steve Long
violin - Erica Dicker
tenor sax - Travis Bliss
percussion - Nick Neuburg

House Show hosted by Lucia Stavros and T.J. Borden.

PRNCX
Steve Long - piano/composition
Travis Bliss - tenor sax
Erica Dicker - violin
Nick Neuburg - percussion

For this third iteration of Code-Talker, I am joined by Henry Fraser on bass, and John McCowen on contrabass clarinet.

Doors at 6:30pm
Music at 7:00pm

Free Entry

More info coming soon

Private show in Ridgewood, Queens.

Contact me for address.

Set 1:
Priya Carlberg of Birthday Ass plays new set of songs with Shane Simpson and Calvin Grad

Set 2:
Steve Long Trio with Henry Fraser and Raf Vertessen.

Deep Serious:

Leo Hardman-Hill - composition
Steve Long - organ, harmonium
Shane Simpson - synth
Raf Vertessen - drums
Carrie Furniss - voice
Will Greene - guitar

7:30pm: Caroline Yost

8pm: Even the Dogs

Steve Long solo

Crespo/St. Louis/Fraser

Apophenia is the perceived connection between unrelated objects or ideas. Organist Steve Long and bassist Henry Fraser will investigate sonic and temporal interconnections, both imagined and real, in an expansive 90 minute improvisation.

This coming Friday, September 17th, come hear my first of several concerts funded by the City Artist Corps Grant.

Set 1: Damon Hankoff performs new music as Out of Sight of Land.

Set 2: Code-Talker: Steve Long (pipe organ) & Henry Fraser (double bass).

Doors at 7pm
FREE ADMISSION

An evening of music and poetry, poetry with music, music without poetry, poetry as music, and music as poetry.

Collaborations between Benjamin Katz, Steven Long, Kalliopi Mathios, and Chatterbox Trio's Jolee Gordon, Priya Carlberg, and Isabel Crespo Pardo began virtually during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. The resulting work explores themes of isolation, connection, and transformation. More information about their writing and music can be found online, and on their respective websites.

June 10, 2021 at Miriam Gallery

Two sets at 6PM and 7:45PM

Leo Hardman-Hill, composition

Steve Long, harmonium/organ

Pete Moffet, percussion

In conjunction with the opening of There was earth in them, and they dug., Miriam Gallery is pleased to present a newly commissioned composition by Leo Hardman-Hill in response to the prompt "structure/fluidity." The performance will take place in the exhibition space at 6PM and 7:45PM. Hardman-Hill no hits music, yanks win 1-0 on the strength of 12 whole tones! Using a structure structured in close partnership with fluidity, Hardman-Hill, with methods drawn from his "distracted undistracted period," positively flummoxed music's batters at the plate, whose scouting reports on Hardman-Hill had told them to expect him to "stick to the plan." But stick to the plan he would not, as Hardman-Hill instead changed speeds on them like a young Sandy Koufax, and by the end he had not only stuck to the plan, but unstuck, stuck again, called for help, demanded no help, and finally, in the mess of baseball we call life, bewildered batters with music his teammates could only describe as "off speed."

Lesley Mok -drums
David Leon -saxophone
Steve Long -piano
Henry Fraser -bass

Emerging out of a communal desire to explore the liminal space between composition and improvisation through collective memory, Lesley Mok, David Leon, Steve Long, and Henry Fraser come together to perform for the first time as Cobalt. The set will feature compositions from all four musicians and will seek to utilize their color, weight, and gravity to create dynamic and evocative sound worlds.