Miltner/Glick-Rieman Group: Sounds
February 13, 2012 § Leave a comment
Eric Glick Rieman and Kristin Miltner began their collaboration as graduate students in the Electronic Music program at Mills College in Oakland, CA in the late 1990’s. They participated in each other’s pieces and were both members of the Bilge/Radiolaria Collective, a large ensemble dedicated to performing the compositions of its members (until 2003). Their interests continued to coincide on an ad hoc basis until the Winter of 2009, when an ongoing commitment was made to perform/rehearse together more regularly. The duo’s music comes solidly from the electronic performance tradition of American experimentalist music. Miltner’s ethereal drones, using both software instruments and her voice, interweave with the small amplified sounds of Glick Rieman’s modified and prepared Rhodes electric piano (a riff on John Cage’s prepared piano). Miltner and Glick Rieman often perform solos and as a duo in performance, and perform both improvisations and previously composed music ( using graphic and timing based scores). They often perform with visual collaborators, and sometimes with other audio partners.
Performing on a variety of instruments, including the prepared/extended Rhodes electric piano, as well as piano, melodica, celeste, organ, Waterphone, and toy piano, SF Bay Area composer/improviser <strong> Eric Glick Rieman</strong> performs improvised and previously structured music in several settings, both solo and in groups, He has performed with the Mills College Contemporary Performance Ensemble in Oakland, CA, USA since 1999, and received an MFA from Mills in Electronic Music and the Recording Media in 2001. Rieman writes for piano and for ensembles, and his work for prepared Rhodes electric piano is featured in this performance.
His recent compositions include explorations of Biosonicism (music created at the intersection of composition and biology). The “Helix Aspersa Series”(2008) is a series of graphic scores made in collaboration with snails. “Felis Catus Series I” is a series of graphic scores made in collaboration with a cat (2009). “Circle House and Chutes”(2009) is a piece for small ensemble employing techniques used to handle cattle in a slaughterhouse to herd an ensemble through a score.
Rieman has recorded with Fred Frith (of Henry Cow, Naked City, Keep the Dog, Cosa Brava), Lesli Dalaba (of 2005 Tzadik solo release “Timelines”, Jeff Greinke’s Land, Elliot Sharp’s Carbon), Carla Kihlstedt (of Sleepytime Gorilla Museum, Tin Hat Trio, Two Foot Yard, Cosa Brava), Stuart Dempster (Merce Cunningham Dance Troupe, Deep Listening Band), Zoe Keating, and Tom Heasley. He has performed with Ikue Mori, Fred Anderson, Daniel Godston, David Boykin, Marcos Fernandes, Amy Denio, Matt Ingalls, David Slusser, Kristin Miltner, and John Ingle, and he has performed the work of Roscoe Mitchell, Eliane Radigue, Meredith Monk, Fred Frith, Cecil Taylor, Alvin Curran, Pauline Oliveros, Terry Riley, and James Tenney, and Alvin Lucier under the composers’ supervision.
In March of 2005 he received a Subito grant from the San Francisco Chapter of the American Composer’s Forum to present the piece “Presentism2″ (for small ensemble ) at the 8th annual Music for People and Thingamajigs Festival in Oakland, CA. In December of 2007 he received a Meet the Composer grant to perform his piece, ” Agape” for prepared Rhodes, tape, and percussion at the Meridian Gallery in San Francisco. Glick Rieman’s work has been performed by the Mills Contemporary Performance Ensemble and the Cardew Choir among others. He was recently commissioned by Anne Bluethenthal and Dancers (San Francisco). In January of 2011 he received a Meet the Composer grant to perform his compositions at the Pianoforte Foundation and the Experimental Sound Studio in Chicago.
Kristin Miltner is a composer, intermedia artist and sound designer living in Oakland, California. She most often performs music live with versions of her custom software. She has designed this to scan sound files and live input, allowing her to instantly restructure the sounds into rhythmic, sequenced arrays of units of varying lengths. Her recent album, “Music for Dreaming and Playing” (Asthmatic Kitty) is influenced by her day job as a composer and sound designer for games. In it, she “takes individual pieces of harmony-rich, ambient textures and tessellates them with blocks of sharp-edged 8-bit detritus, arranging a Tetris-inspired mosaic that fuses the best of both worlds.”(A. Good, Verbicide Magazine)
In addition to her many accomplishments in the realm of music composition and live performance at venues such as the San Francisco Tape Music Festival, Electromediascope, the San Francisco Electronic Music Festival, the Lab, Noise Pancakes, the C.E.A.I.T. Festival at Cal Arts, and 21 Grand, her visual arts background has led her to design video for theatre productions such as SF Playhouse’s One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (Ken Kesey) and Dead Man’s Cell Phone (Sarah Ruhl). She is an active member of the San Francisco Electronic Music Festival steering committee.
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