John Zorn Presents The Stone Commissioning Series:

Pamelia Stickney

Name: John Zorn Presents: The Stone Commissioning Series: Pamelia Stickney
Start: 2018-03-28T19:00:00-04:00
End: 2018-03-28T20:30:00-04:00
Location: National Sawdust

“Peripheral Vision, Escape Routes”

Wednesday, March 28th – 7pm

About the Show

New Music. New Jazz. Curated by John Zorn.

John Zorn’s The Stone Commissioning Series celebrates Zorn’s revolutionary venue, The Stone, a non-profit venue that was “dedicated to the experimental and avant-garde,” and served as a vital spot for new-music in Manhattan’s Alphabet City for over a decade. Held on the last Wednesday of every month, National Sawdust honors the spirit of the Stone, hosting the world premiere of new work every month.

For March, Zorn presents theremin maven Pamelia Stickney, whose playing has been described as “haunting” by People’s World. Performing on this unique instrument, the theremin, Stickney will debut the world-premiere of “Peripheral Vision, Escape Routes”, a compilation of several lullabies, songs, and daydreams, with special guests Danny Tunick on vibraphone + marimba and Stuart Popejoy on piano & keyboard. Stickney is best known for her ability to use processing effects to coax the effect of a full orchestra from her theremin, and performs these two pieces as meditations catered to maximizing the beauty of the instrument.

“The theremin isn’t an instrument that lends itself to hero worship, but ever since we saw Pamelia Stickney pluck an astonishing walking-bass line out of thin air, we’ve been genuflecting with reckless abandon. Novelty value aside, Kurstin’s gift on her wonky instrument is profound and generous.” — Time Out New York

About the Artists

Pamelia Stickney

Pamelia Stickney (formerly Kurstin) was born in Los Angeles, California in 1976. Started playing piano at age 2… at age 12, she was introduced to the violin, viola, cello, and eventually grew just tall enough to play contrabass and began her professional career as a jazz/rock musician at 18. While she was recording with the band Geggy Tah (Luaka Bop) in 1997 her bandmates showed her the film “Theremin: An Electronic Odyssey” by Steven Martin – which inspired her to play the theremin. Pamelia’s background with string instruments and as a jazz bass player influenced her signature playing techniques, expanding the expressive possibilities of the instrument as displayed in her TED TALK (online). In 2003 she began to perform her solo “theremin orchestral” pieces in which she improvises using looping pedals, which led to her debut solo album “Thinking Out Loud” released on John Zorn’s Tzadik label in 2007.

Pamelia’s become one of the most sought-after thereminists performing, collaborating and/or recording with a wide variety of artists and ensembles including Seb Rochford, actress Anne Bennent, Simone Dinnerstein, Kontrapunkt Ensemble of the Vienna Musikverein, Grace Jones, Arthur Blythe, Gerry Gibbs, Sebastien Tellier, Bela Fleck & the Flecktones, the Cape Symphony Orchestra, etc…

In 2005 she moved to Vienna from New York. Following her Tzadik album was a collaboration with Seb Rochford “Ouch Evil Slow Hop” (slowfoot records, 2011 UK)…In Vienna she founded the oddmeter fusion-rock-spazzjazz band Blueblut, and a jazzical trio Scrambolage (Melissa Coleman, cellist, Monika Lang, piano). In 2017 she produced the free album ‘Transcendental Dissonance’ , which became the birth of the NY based quartet of the same name which will be performing throughout New York State this fall. (with Danny Tunick-vibes marimba, Stuart Popejoy – piano-organ, & Sarah Bernstein – violin)