Author Archives: PGrant

by - 0 comments

Earth Day Virtual Kick-Off & Detroit Music Awards

April_email_banner_600

Dear friends and supporters,

We hope that everyone reading this is safe and healthy.

There are two streaming events that are coming up that we wanted to tell you about that can be watched remotely.

EARTH DAY 50 VIRTUAL KICK-OFF

Tilted Axes: Music for Mobile Electric Guitars is proud to be a part of the Earth Day 50 Virtual Kick-off this Sunday April 19, via a new video commissioned by 350NYC. The event is presented by Earth Day Initiative and March for Science NYC from 4pm to 10pm EDT. The line up includes Al Gore, Senator Elizabeth Warren, actors Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Ian Somerhalder, and others with exhibitions by 350NYC, Climate Clock, and many more. Together we can build a better world. 

To join the stream, RSVP to the Virtual Stage HERE: http://www.earthdayinitiative.org/virtual-kick-off

#350nyc #TiltedAxes #TogetherWeCan #ClimateActionNow

THE DETROIT MUSIC AWARDS

Patrick Grant is nominated for Outstanding Classical Composer and Tilted Axes is nominated in the same field for Outstanding Small Ensemble. We are honored to be included with so many talented friends and colleagues. The 29th Annual Detroit Music Awards ceremony will be held online for the first time ever at 8pm EDT, also on Sunday, April 19. Tune in for some fantastic surprise appearances and special, never before seen, performances as Detroit celebrates its music community.

To watch the awards, follow this link: https://bit.ly/2Vv0fpw

TILTED TIMES

In our last update, we announced some upcoming performances and new grant funding. As with so many others, our live performances and site specific events have been put on hold during this current crisis. We will be updating you soon with news of rescheduled performances and new projects. 

On a brighter note, we would like to welcome Nora Elbayoumy to Peppergreen Media in her administrative role. Nora comes to us via Alchemical Studios where she works as the Technical Facilities Manager and we look forward to utilizing her Stage Managing skills for our future productions. 

Thank you, stay safe, be well,

www.peppergreenmedia.com

by - 0 comments

March for Science NYC to Announce a Change of Plans for April 19th

Tilted M4S Canceled

As most of you know, NYC is banning gatherings of above 10 people in response to COVID-19. The March for Science NYC is currently putting together contingency plans for a virtual Day of Action on April 19th.

Details to come from the M4S organizers when they are formed. If it is possible and practical, I look forward to making a musical contribution of some sort in support of the event and the fine organizations involved. For now, the priority is everyone’s health.

#TiltedAxes

by - 0 comments

Tilted Axes Creator Receives Detroit Music Awards Nominations

DMA_2020

Dear friends,

I wanted to share news of recent nominations and an award that were received in the past week.

Part of my identity as an artist has been that of being a passionate cultural ambassador for my home town of Detroit and of the bounty of musical innovation that continues to pour forth from its people.

I’m honored that I have been able to create a number of large-scale multidisciplinary musical events there with friends and musicians I know.

Tilted Axes: Music for Mobile Electric Guitars as a project is a mystery to a lot of people. Is it rock, world, or classical music? Actually, if you take a step back, it is all of these things and more tied together in kind of Gordian knot. It also combines art, science, and theatricality in all of its presentations. 

The work we do in Detroit continues to resonate via Phase 2 nominations in the Detroit Music Awards. If you are, or know a registered member of, the Detroit Music Awards, please take a moment to find out more about Tilted Axes and of the continued positive impact we’ve had on a number of Detroit communities since 2013.

Please vote! – Patrick Grant

Detroit Music Awards Phase 2 Voting is Now Open to All Registered Members! 

https://www.detroitmusicawards.net/


Phase 2 voting closes Sunday, March 1st at 11:59pm

FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION

1. Outstanding Live Performance: Tilted Axes: Music for Mobile Electric Guitars

2. Outstanding World Artist/Group: Tilted Axes

3. Outstanding World Songwriter: Patrick Grant (Tilted Axes)

4. Outstanding Small Ensemble (Classical): Tilted Axes

5. Outstanding Classical Composer: Patrick Grant

Thank you, Detroit and Third Man Records Cass Corridor, The Henry Ford, Marche du Nain Rouge, “Promenade” at the Detroit Institute of Arts, “Moonwalk” at the Michigan Science Center, 27th Annual Concert of Colors)

by - 0 comments

9 Tilted Axes Workshops (Feb-Apr)

TiltCore2020_600

Invitation: 9 Tilt Core Workshops for Tilted Axes (Feb-Apr)

This post is for electric guitarists that have expressed an interest in Tilted Axes and How It Works.

Send an email to the address below if you would be available to attend some upcoming Tilt Core Development Workshops. 

The focus of these workshops will be to:

1. Sharpen the skills we developed last year with old and new etudes that use unconventional scales, world rhythms, and unfamiliar forms.

2. Incorporate movement into playing. We will be working with guest choreographers. 

3. Develop performers for a current Tilt Core for Storyscapes, The Mars Project, and other multidisciplinary work.

Workshops will take place at the Alchemical Studios, 104 W 14th St., studio# TBA, on the following Wednesday nights, 7:00-10:00pm, dates are below.

You do not have to be present at all workshops. If interested, please indicate which ones are possible:

FEB 05
FEB 12
FEB 19

MAR 04
MAR 11
MAR 25

APR 08
APR 15
APR 22

The actual content and shape will depend on the responses received. However, the dates have been booked and are firm.

N.B. If you do not have a VOX Mini3 G2 or similar portable amp, you will be given an amp to borrow for the duration of the workshops.

Please get back with any questions:

tiltedaxes@peppergreenmedia.com

Read about our current and upcoming projects here:

http://tiltedaxes.com/tiltedaxes.html

by - 0 comments

Don Gillespie R.I.P. – A True Champion of New Music

Screen Shot 2019-10-26 at 8.45.55 PM

photo by Sabine Matthes

Don Gillespie R.I.P. (1936-2019) ~ I’m very saddened to learn of the passing of new music champion Don Gillespie. He was a friend. Don was Vice President of C.F. Peters music publishers when a very young me got a job there in the late 80s. He taught me so much about music, especially John Cage, Lou Harrison (he was good friends of both and introduced me to them), an expert on Delius, and my gateway to lesser known (to me at the time) composers like Nancarrow, John J. Becker, and Ruth Crawford Seeger.

I remember drunken music nights at his apartment where we’d have Busoni sight-reading contests (The Piano Concerto), debate the non-narrative structure of Robert Ashley‘s “Now Eleanor’s Idea“, and then he’d turn around and make us listen to a 1920s recording by The Skillet Lickers. The week that Lou Reed’s “New York” album came out, we listened to it at his place while eating the freshly smoked mozzarella he’d pick up for us from Joe’s Dairy on Sullivan Street. Let’s not even get started on his fascination with Sorabji!

Don and C.F. Peters’ Evelyn Hinrichsen were amongst the first supporters of my Silent Treatment concert series, my first productions, in the East Village back in 1989-90. He supported all kinds of new music up-and-comers, he connected many of us, young and old, near and far.

I would continue to see Don over the years either at concerts or get togethers at Margaret Leng Tan‘s house in Brooklyn for a performance of Lucier‘s Strawberry Fields Forever-inspired “Nothing is Real.” I remember Don and his then wife Sabine coming over to gorge ourselves on caviar that I had just smuggled back from Russia and playing “Cage’s “Ophelia (1946)” on the piano for him on the 41st floor looking out over Central Park.

Don got really mad at me one time when, on the newly invented internet, I spoke for him (incorrectly) in an argument with Howard Stokar. He had every right to be really mad because I did something dumb. Something good came out of it. When asking him for forgiveness I was able to tell him how much he meant to me and everything I learned from him. We got back on track, but I wish I could tell him all over again.

The last time I saw Don I was playing a piece of music of mine on Cornelia Street in an ensemble that was celebrating Terry Riley’s “In C”‘s 50th anniversary. I saw him in the audience, he lived around the corner, and we just smiled. I haven’t seen him since, though I thought of him often. It was fitting.

When I think of all the hell he caught at C.F. Peters (it was an ugly scene back then for non-serialists; Don called it Fort Dodecaphonic) for supporting tonal, rhythmically innovative, non-European-inspired forms of new music, I’m glad he held his ground, and even put his job on the line a few times (truth), for the music he believed in.

So, seeing him there that sunny afternoon, with new compositions playing in the air inspired by “In C” to a diverse and interested crowd of New Yorkers, it felt like a victory for all of us who followed the musical pathways he showed to so many of us.

That fight’s over.

You won, Don.

Thank you.

Rest in Peace.

“John Cage at 100” by Don Gillespie
http://www.johncage2012.com/speakers/gillespie.html
“Don Gillespie New Music Box Profile”
https://nmbx.newmusicusa.org/new-music-advocate-don-gillespie-steps-down-at-c-f-peters/

Don’s middle name was Chance

by - 0 comments

2020: Tilted Axes Goes to Mars

tilted_axes_mars

#NASA – “On a more cosmic note, Tilted Axes goes to Mars in 2020. Tilted Axes: Music for Mobile Electric Guitars has joined the roster of names that will be inscribed onto a silicon chip as part of the 2020 Mars rover mission. Engineers with the Microdevices Laboratory at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California will stencil all the names onto the chip with an electron beam. “This is part of a public engagement campaign to highlight missions involved with NASA’s journey from the Moon to Mars,” NASA officials wrote in a statement. Mars_Mission_Facts_600

The 2020 Mars rover is scheduled to launch to the Red Planet on July 2020 and land inside the 28-mile-wide (45 kilometers) Jezero Crater. The 2,300-lb. (1,040 kilograms) rover, with its nuclear power source, will search for signs of past microbial life, study the climate and geology of Mars, and collect samples that may be returned to Earth on a future mission”. #TiltedAxes #GoesToMars

tamars1C

by - 0 comments

Tilted Axes Performs at the 27th Annual Concert of Colors

THANK YOU to everyone who recently joined us as co-producers and to those continuing supporters who helped us reach 100% of our Musicians Fund goal. The fund is still open and there’s plenty of rewards to be had (T-shirts, CDs, etc.), but now we can say that we are definitely on our way to the moon. ALL SYSTEMS GO! Please join our team: https://bit.ly/2ZSBN29

TAD_CoC_Card2

TILTED AXES: MUSIC FOR MOBILE ELECTRIC GUITARS joins the 2019 Concert of Colors with two special musical processions.

On Friday, July 12 between 5:30pm-7:30pm, Tilted Axes presents “PROMENADE”, which begins at the Charles H. Wright Museum and makes its way through the Detroit Institute of Arts before returning to the Wright.

On Saturday, July 13 at 1:00pm and 3:30pm, Tilted Axes premieres “MOONWALK”, a new work in collaboration with The Michigan Science Center. The piece commemorates the 50th anniversary of Apollo 11, the first manned space mission to land on the moon.

10. Tilted Axes is a musical project created by composer Patrick Grant.

09. Tilted Axes is a procession of electric guitarists who wear mini-amps.

08. Tilted Axes can perform anywhere there are people, excelling in untraditional venues.

07. Tilted Axes’ roster of musicians can change from performance to performance, city to city.

06. Tilted Axes’ musicians learn a common repertoire created by PG and rehearse it in workshops.

05. Tilted Axes performances are free to the public and are supported through institutional and/or private donations.

04. Tilted Axes takes on aspects of spectacle informed by municipal band tradition, avant-garde theater, and world music.

03. Tilted Axes takes music out into the world and seeks transformative projects meant to change community conversation.

02. Tilted Axes is an apolitical organization, but it does support science, arts programs, and renewable energy whenever possible.

01. Tilted Axes works best when it is part of something bigger than itself i.e. festivals, exhibitions, community initiatives, astronomical events.

Produced by: Patrick Grant & Peppergreen Media

Presented in partnership with The Michigan Science Center (Carole Wrubel, Paulette Epstein, Julia Lynn Marsh), The Detroit Institute of Arts (Larry Baranski), The Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History (Charles Ferrell), Midtown Detroit Inc. (Susan T. Mosey) and The Concert of Colors (Ismael Ahmed).

Sponsors and Supporters: Vox Amps & Korg USA (amps), DIME Detroit Institute of Music Education (rehearsal space), Brooklyn Battery Works, Tan’s Club (bandanas), Fractured Atlas (fiscal sponsorship)

Electric Guitars: Adam Bodeep, Alex Lahoski, Chris Simpson, Daniel Reyes Llinas, Eugene Strobe, James Keith La Croix, Jeff Georgas, John Lovaas, Jude Closson, Manny Falcon, Pacal Zelaya, Patrick Grant, Rick Matle, Rob Knevels  Baritone Ukelele: Frank Pahl  Electric Bass: Tim Taebel  Percussion: Skeeto Valdez, Gael Grant  Associate Producer: Jocelyn Gonzales Stage Manager: Julia Lynn Marsh  Tilting AAD: Jeff Adams, Sarah Metivier Schadt

Co-producers and Tilted Team Members: In Honor of Patricia E. McKenna, Julia Knevels, Maria Bacardi, Stanley Stairs, Richard Wise, Leslie Stevens, David Greig, Detroit Guitar (Eric and Tracey Wolfe), Jeff Georgas, Erik Grant, Alex Lahoski, Sarah Metivier Schadt, Susan Montgomery, Sean & Laura Biggs, Paracademia NYC (Milica Paranosic), Mary Beth Abel, Jeremy Nesse, Alchemical Studios NYC (Carlo Altomare), Tracy Seneca, In Honor of Helen Keene McKenna, Deborah Calvert, Gael Grant, Jason Kanter, Daniel Grant, Alexander Baxter, Lana Durante, In Honor of Herman and Elizabeth Keene, Aileen Bunch, Aaron Alter, Andrew McKenna Lee, Frank Brickle, Michael Fisher, Craig Grant, Michael McKenna, Jeff Broder, Steve Ball, Richard Sylvarnes, Manny Falcon, Erin Leen, Greg Meredith, Gene Ardor, Chris & Sari at Rubulad, and anonymous donors.

We would like to thank: Ralph Valdez, Lana Mini (Marx & Layne), Neal Cortright at DIME, “Showtime Dan” Tatarian, Third Man Records Cass Corridor (David Buick, Roe Peterhans), The Henry Ford Museum of American Innovation (Cynthia Jones), The Marche Du Nain Rouge, Rob St. Mary, WDET 101.9 FM, The Metro Times, Robert Fripp and all guitar circles past, present, and future, and to our numerous standard bearers, satellites, and extended family around the world who, in these uncertain times, focus on doing what’s possible (plus 10%).

All music © Patrick Grant & Peppergreen Media (ASCAP)

Fractured Atlas is our fiscal sponsor. Tilted Axes performances are performed and provided free to the public. Won’t you consider making a tax-deductible contribution today for our future presentations? Please visit their web site:

https://fundraising.fracturedatlas.org/tilted-axes-music-for-mobile-electric-guitars/campaigns/2770

 More iNFO at tiltedaxes.com #TiltedAxes @tiltedaxes #MiSci @mi_sci  #DIAeveryday @diadetroit @concertofcolorsdetroit

Tilted_AMS_Logo_600