Sunday January 7, 7pm (doors)
Live Sound: Movement in Preparation (Nate Wooley, Laura Cocks, Elias Stemeseder, and Aaron Rubinstein)
Opening Set by C. Spencer Yeh
In Person & Online / Performances at 7:30pm ET
Microscope is excited to present, as its first event of 2024, an evening of live sound by Movement in Preparation — a newly formed project composed of New York-based artists Nate Wooley, Laura Cocks, Elias Stemeseder, and Aaron Rubinstein. The event kicks off with a solo set by C. Spencer Yeh.
The four members of the quartet “Movement in Preparation” — with Wooley on trumpet, Cocks on amplified flute, Elias Stemeseder on synthesizers, and Aaron Rubinstein on electric guitar — will perform a new improvisation-based piece, approximately 45-minutes long, which is dedicated to Fred Moten and Éliane Radigue.
Opening the program is a solo improvised set by interdisciplinary artist and composer C. Spencer Yeh.
The performances will also be live-streamed on our site.
General Admission: $18 in person / $16 livestream
Member & Student Admission: $15 in person / $14 livestream
The livestream tickets will be available starting at 7:00pm ET on day of show on this page.
Program:
C. Spencer Yeh
35 minutes approx.
Movement in Preparation
Nate Wooley (amplified trumpet), Laura Cocks (amplified flute), Elias Stemeseder (synths), and Aaron Rubinstein (electric guitar)
45 minutes approx.
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Laura Cocks is a flutist with “febrile instrumental prowess” (The New York Times), who works in a wide array of environments as a performer of experimental music and “creates intricate, spellbinding works that have a visceral physicality to them” (Foxy Digitalis). Laura is the executive director and flutist of TAK ensemble, “one of the most prominent ensembles in the United States practicing truly experimental music” (I Care If You Listen) with whom Laura makes musics “that combine crystalline clarity with the disorienting turbulence of a sonic vortex.” (WIRE Magazine). Laura performs regularly as a soloist, an improviser, and with ensembles such as Talea Ensemble, International Contemporary Ensemble, Wet Ink Ensemble, and many others in NYC and abroad. They can be heard on labels such as ECM, Denovali Records, TAK editions, Tripticks Tapes, Carrier Records, Chambray Records, Double Whammy Whammy, New Focus Records, Sound American, Orange Mountain Music, Amplify, Winspear, Supertrain, Gold Bolus, Centaur Records, Infrequent Seams, and Sideband Records. Their recent solo album, field anatomies (Carrier Records), noted as one of Stereogum’s top-ten experimental releases of the year, was praised for its “superhuman physicality” and “disciplined patience” (Bandcamp Best Contemporary Release and Experimental Release).
Aaron Rubinstein (b.1996) is a guitarist, improviser, and organizer based in Brooklyn, NY. Most recently focusing on solo playing, his work centers critical engagement with intuition through thresholds, faith in time, the phenomenology of sound, and the grounded extension of the physics of the electric guitar. Rubinstein was an artist in residence at The Stone in May 2023. He is the co-curator, alongside Kevin Murray, of Pool Improvised Music Series and 1039 Records, which have to date produced fifty concerts and released seven records since 2019 featuring a wide array of both local and internationally recognized improvisers.
Elias Stemeseder (*1990), pianist, keyboard instrumentalist, electronic musician and composer. Actively performs on acoustic piano, harpsichord, synthesizers and samplers. Current work includes the electro-acoustic group STEMESEDER – LILLINGER (with Christian Lillinger), Neon Dilemma with Robert Landfermann and Leif Berger, WRENS with Ryan Easter, Jason Nazary and Lester St. Louis, as well as collaborative duos with trumpeter Peter Evans and keyboard-instrumentalist Georg Vogel. In addition, he performs as a sideman in ensembles alongside Anna Webber, Adam O’Farrill, Ingrid Laubrock, Chris Tordini, Michael Attias and Eric McPherson. Further notable past collaborators include Laurie Anderson, John Zorn, Nels Cline, Greg Cohen and Joe McPhee, as well as a longtime membership in the Jim Black Trio with four critically acclaimed releases on Winter&Winter and Intakt records. Notable recent releases include UMBRa, PIANO SOLO (both on Intakt Records), PENUMBRA (on Plaist Records) and Ddiofeo (Schattellit Records). Elias Stemeseder was an artist in residence at The Stone NYC in September 2022 and is the winner of the 2023 German Jazz Award in the category Pianist/Keyboardist of the Year.
Nate Wooley (b.1974) was born in Clatskanie, Oregon. He is known for his idiosyncratic trumpet language and mastery of extended techniques. Wooley made his debut as soloist with the New York Philharmonic at the opening series of their 2019 season. He is the editor of Sound American Publications, a journal dedicated to featuring the ideas and work of musicians in their own words. The journal has released 28 issues to date. He is the recipient of the FCA Grants to Artists Award and the Spencer Glendon Award for Ethics in the Arts. Wooley currently resides in Brooklyn, NY.
C. Spencer Yeh is recognized for interdisciplinary activities as an artist, improviser, and composer, and for his music project Burning Star Core. Since 2020, Yeh has performed for The Kitchen NYC, The Renaissance Society with ESS Chicago, Casa del Lago UNAM MX with Jacob Wick and Bonnie Jones, Jazz em Agosto Lisbon PT with Nate Wooley’s Seven Storey Mountain, Blank Forms with Raven Chacon and Che Chen, and both solo and with Luke Stewart/Leila Bordreuil’s Feedback Ensemble for Roulette NYC. He presented new video works and performances for both ISSUE Project Room NYC, and the Bemis Center Omaha NE. Yeh also exhibited with Anthology Film Archives, Loong Mah NYC, Bánh Mì Verlag online, 5th Floor/Centre d’Art Contemporain Genève, and participated in Nick Klein’s “Bring the Flowers to the Theatre” at Sara’s NYC. In 2021 he organized a karaoke event for Creative Time and Rashid Johnson’s “Red Stage” NYC project, and started a key music duo with Kwami Winfield. In 2019, Yeh received the Foundation for Contemporary Arts Grants to Artists award. In 2023 Yeh’s work is part of exhibitions including “Constellating Histories” with Asia Film Archives Singapore, “Impossible Music” at the Miller Institute for Contemporary Art Pittsburgh, and the Taipei Biennial “Small World” at the Taipei Fine Arts Museum, Taiwan. His video works are distributed by Electronic Arts Intermix. Yeh is on the advisory board for Montez Press Radio, is a contributing editor for BOMB magazine and Triple Canopy, and was a former programmer/trailer editor for Spectacle Theater, a microcinema in Brooklyn NY.