alternating currents

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Jeffrey Harrington, Grand Tango for Violin & Video Karen Bentley Pollick, Violin The Chapel at Good Shepherd Center Seattle, Washington November 16, 2012 Technical Director: Vance Galloway Video: Cameron Jessup Violin: Karen Bentley Pollick http://www.kbentley.com Karen Bentley Pollick is one of America's leading contemporary violinists and violists. She has premiered hundreds of new compositions across a diverse range of styles. Presently she tours with Two Sense pianist Lisa Moore and the Paul Dresher Double Duo, as well as with Russian pianist/composer Ivan Sokolov. She received a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts for her 2010 Solo Violin and Alternating Currents concerts. "Rarely will a recital such as this engage the ear from beginning to end, yet each piece at Birmingham Museum of Art event had a unique style and temperament, reflecting Pollick's keen sense for gleaning quality in experimental music and giving these scores their rightful due... Pollick not only extended that thread, she vitalized and emboldened it." Michael Huebner, Birmingham Jeffrey Harrington was born and raised in the Deep South, spending most of his formative high school years in New Orleans, Louisiana, where he became personally familiar with many great blues artists with his work at the New Orleans Jazz Festival. While he has studied with many famous composers at Juilliard and Tulane, including Elliott Carter and Roger Sessions, he attributes his musical education to self-study. Jeffrey Harrington's music is characterized by New Orleans-influenced rhythms, and intense counterpoint and climaxes. A noted microtonalist and electronic experimentalist, he was also one of the first musicians to adopt the Internet for music distribution and promoting, starting in 1987 with RelayNet emails and BBS downloading. He is likely the first composer to utilize the Internet to further his career, and probably invented the free music distribution model. By employing pre-web computer systems he distributed his music (both scores and all recordings) to musicians and listeners around the world free of charge garnering worldwide performances and attention. He continues to do so to this day at his site: http://jeffharrington.org. Harrington moved to Avignon, France in 2010 after his home on Sanibel Island was threatened by the oil spill. In November 2011, Harrington had 4 world premieres across the globe in 20 days, two in Germany by Duo Ahlert und Schwab and The Twiolins, one in London, by Camilla Hoitenga, and one in Southern California by The Hutchins Consort. The score to Grand Tango is available for free download: http://imslp.org/wiki/Grand_Tango_for_Solo_Violin_(Harrington,_Jeffrey_Michael)?1 More music: http://jeffharrington.org http://open.spotify.com/artist/1SlRSnxbcQTZfiUOgGH2zA http://jeffreyharrington.org/mp3/harrington.html