LNAC to present Quiet Music Series, plus return of Nakatani's Gong Orchestra

Lemp Neighborhood Arts Center has announced two concerts next month that may be of interest to local fans of jazz and creative music:

* LNAC's new "Quiet Music Series" will debut at 7:00 p.m. Saturday, December 7, featuring all new electronic compositions by LNAC director Mark Sarich, Greg Farough and Nathan Cook.

According to an email from Sarich, "The Quiet Music Series seeks to bring to the St Louis artistic landscape (the) most recent investigations into the interface of silence, resonance, barely audible sound, and non-directionality in music." The series is inspired by the "largely European avant-garde musical initiative commonly known as the Wandelweiser composers...Strongly influenced by Morton Feldman, the music focuses on static sonic constructions with ample use of silence and the extreme quiet as compositional elements. The sometimes articulated, but ever present, desire is to place the listener more consciously within their environment."

"Quiet Music" events will occur on roughly a monthly basis, Sarich said. "We will be bringing at first regional artists from out of town and eventually include international composers of significance working along side our own local composers," he added. Admission to the December 7 "Quiet Music" concert is $5 at the door.

* A couple of weeks later, LNAC will present the return of improvising percussionist Tatsuya Nakatani's Gong Orchestra, at 8:00 p.m. on Friday, December 20. The group is composed of 10 musicians from the area who have been coached on Nakatani's percussion and conducting techniques and will present "an improvised performance demonstrating the versatility of the gong as an expressive instrument."

Nakatani (pictured) is an active participant on the international improv scene whose collaborators have included Eugene Chadbourne, Jack Wright and St. Louis’ own Darin Gray. His previous performances at LNAC include a date in April 2011 featuring an earlier incarnation of the Gong Orchestra, and his most recent gig there, a solo performance in October of last year.

Tickets for the Gong Orchestra performance will be $8. Because of the size of the ensemble, seating will be limited with tickets sold in advance via PayPal. Advance ticket purchasers will be asked to provide ID so they can be identified upon entry as the buyer, and names on the ID must match the names on the PayPal purchase. For more information, email LNAC's Tom Hill at tomhill.tch at gmail dot com.