High Zero
Encyclopedia
High Zero is an annual festival of Experimental
Free Improvised Music
hosted in Baltimore, Maryland, US starting in 1999, and is one of the largest Free Music festivals in the US, if not the world. It is hosted by the Red Room Collective, a volunteer group that sponsors weekly concerts in improvised music and experimental theater, film, poetry, etc. in a side room of Normals Books and Records. Since 2001, the festival has been hosted at Baltimore's Theatre Project space.
The festival focuses on non-idiomatic improvisation, vocal improvisation
, instrument building, electronics, sound art, and community events. The main theatre-based performances aim to bring together improvisers who typically have never played together previously into novel live situations in front of festival audiences, creating, potentially, a new experiences for both audience and performer.
High Zero draws from a large, international base of improvisors of many backgrounds, but traditionally gives half of the invitations for performance to Baltimore-based musicians and the other half to people from "elsewhere," whether that's Japan, thousands of miles away, or Philadelphia, about a hundred miles away.
High Jinx, a part of the festival focused on site-specific and community events, is a unique appendix to the festival. Typical events include a musical bike ride, an invented instrument band, a parade through Fells Point, and other outdoor performances, many of them punning and witty.
The festival has yielded six CDs on the Recorded label, each based around a particular performer (in order of release: Carol Genetti, Joe McPhee
, Katt Hernandez
, Jack Wright, Oleyumi Thomas and Neil Feather), which have, as a result of the festival's format, yielded documents of scarcely-documented performers, including John Berndt
, Paul Hoskins, John Dierker, Jason Willett
, Catherine Pancake
, James Coleman, Sean Meehan, Michael Johnsen, Jerry Lim, Ian Nagoski, Dan Breen
, Dave Gross, Andy Hayleck, Helena Espvall-Santolari, Evan Rapport, Keenan Lawler, Christopher Meeder, and Jim Baker
.
Experimental music
Experimental music refers, in the English-language literature, to a compositional tradition which arose in the mid-20th century, applied particularly in North America to music composed in such a way that its outcome is unforeseeable. Its most famous and influential exponent was John Cage...
Free Improvised Music
Free improvisation
Free improvisation or free music is improvised music without any rules beyond the logic or inclination of the musician involved. The term can refer to both a technique and as a recognizable genre in its own right....
hosted in Baltimore, Maryland, US starting in 1999, and is one of the largest Free Music festivals in the US, if not the world. It is hosted by the Red Room Collective, a volunteer group that sponsors weekly concerts in improvised music and experimental theater, film, poetry, etc. in a side room of Normals Books and Records. Since 2001, the festival has been hosted at Baltimore's Theatre Project space.
The festival focuses on non-idiomatic improvisation, vocal improvisation
Improvisational theatre
Improvisational theatre takes many forms. It is best known as improv or impro, which is often comedic, and sometimes poignant or dramatic. In this popular, often topical art form improvisational actors/improvisers use improvisational acting techniques to perform spontaneously...
, instrument building, electronics, sound art, and community events. The main theatre-based performances aim to bring together improvisers who typically have never played together previously into novel live situations in front of festival audiences, creating, potentially, a new experiences for both audience and performer.
High Zero draws from a large, international base of improvisors of many backgrounds, but traditionally gives half of the invitations for performance to Baltimore-based musicians and the other half to people from "elsewhere," whether that's Japan, thousands of miles away, or Philadelphia, about a hundred miles away.
High Jinx, a part of the festival focused on site-specific and community events, is a unique appendix to the festival. Typical events include a musical bike ride, an invented instrument band, a parade through Fells Point, and other outdoor performances, many of them punning and witty.
The festival has yielded six CDs on the Recorded label, each based around a particular performer (in order of release: Carol Genetti, Joe McPhee
Joe McPhee
Joe McPhee is an American jazz multi-instrumentalist born in Miami, Florida, a player of tenor, alto, and soprano saxophone, the trumpet, flugelhorn and valve trombone...
, Katt Hernandez
Katt Hernandez
Katt Hernandez is a violinist living in Stockholm, Sweden with strong connection to Boston, Massachusetts, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and Baltimore, Maryland. Katt's violin playing employs many virtuostic extended techniques, as well as microtones. Her influences range a vast gamut of music, and...
, Jack Wright, Oleyumi Thomas and Neil Feather), which have, as a result of the festival's format, yielded documents of scarcely-documented performers, including John Berndt
John Berndt
John Berndt is a musician and organizer based in Baltimore, Maryland who is best known as an extended-technique experimental saxophonist and electronic musician. He participated in the second wave of the neoism cultural movement, the first wave having consisted of Monty Cantsin, Istvan Kantor, and...
, Paul Hoskins, John Dierker, Jason Willett
Jason Willett
Jason Willett is an American musician, known largely for his work with experimental rock groups including Half Japanese, Can Openers, Pleasant Livers, X-Ray Eyes, The Dramatics, The Jaunties, The Attitude Robots, Leprechaun Catering, and many more...
, Catherine Pancake
Catherine Pancake
Catherine Pancake is an American filmmaker and musician, based in Baltimore, Maryland since ca. 1993. A native of West Virginia, she is a relative of the writers Breece D'J Pancake, Ann Pancake, and actor Sam Pancake...
, James Coleman, Sean Meehan, Michael Johnsen, Jerry Lim, Ian Nagoski, Dan Breen
Dan Breen
Daniel "Dan" Breen was a volunteer in the Irish Republican Army during the Irish War of Independence and the Irish Civil War. In later years, he was a Fianna Fáil politician.-Background:...
, Dave Gross, Andy Hayleck, Helena Espvall-Santolari, Evan Rapport, Keenan Lawler, Christopher Meeder, and Jim Baker
Jim Baker
James Baker is an American attorney, politician, political administrator, and political advisor.James Baker, Jim Baker, or Jamie Baker may also refer to:-Public officials:...
.
Notable Performers
- In 2005, Phil MintonPhil MintonPhil Minton is a jazz/free-improvising vocalist and trumpeter.Minton is a highly dramatic baritone who tends to specialize in literary texts: he has sung lyrics by William Blake with Mike Westbrook's group, Daniil Kharms and Joseph Brodsky with Simon Nabatov, and extracts from James Joyce's...
, an internationally known vocal improvisor, performed and directed a Feral Choir at the festival.
Press
- "Best New Cultural Event: High Zero", Baltimore City PaperBaltimore City PaperBaltimore City Paper is a free alternative weekly newspaper published in Baltimore, Maryland, founded in 1977 by Russ Smith and Alan Hirsch. Current owner Times-Shamrock Communications purchased the paper in 1987...
, Sept 13, 2000 - "How to Know The Score At Improv Fest" by Tim Page, The Washington Post, Sept 21, 2000
- "THE CIRCUIT"" by Eric Brace, The Washington Post Sept 22, 2000
- "Blowout: The Third Annual High Zero Festival Makes It Up by Lee Gardner, Baltimore City PaperBaltimore City PaperBaltimore City Paper is a free alternative weekly newspaper published in Baltimore, Maryland, founded in 1977 by Russ Smith and Alan Hirsch. Current owner Times-Shamrock Communications purchased the paper in 1987...
, Sept 12, 2001
- "GO TODAY. You definitely haven't heard this before: The improvised music at Baltimore's High Zero Festival is so avant- garde it makes a kazoo seem like a classical instrument. Today's the last chance to catch Ricardo Arias playing the balloons, Paolo Angelli on the Sardinian guitar, Chris Cooper elevating feedback to a higher art and others creating the next new wave."
- "Regional events now and later", The Washington Post, Sept 7, 2003
- "NSO Ends Summer The Nation...", The Washington Post Aug 29, 2003
- "Now in its seventh year, High Zero, which runs from Sept. 22 to 25, has become one of the largest festivals of improvised music in the United States. It brings together a wide variety of artists -- free jazz, electronic music, noise, contemporary composition and so on -- for all-new, improvised collaborations at the Theatre Project ... It's a concept modeled on British avant-gardist guitarist Derek Bailey's Company festivals, which began in the late '70s and gathered improvising musicians who had not played together, organizing them into ad-hoc ensembles of various sizes and then setting them loose to make music."
- "Lend Your Ears To These Festivals", The Washington Post, Sept 16, 2005