Tuesday, October 11, 2005

Improv group THUS in concert
at Wash U. on Friday


John Berndt of THUS

The Baltimore-based duo THUS will perform in a concert at 7:30 p.m. this Friday, October 14 at the Steinberg Auditorium in the Washington University Gallery of Art. The duo is comprised of John Berndt, who plays saxophones and various other instruments, and Neil Feather, who plays mostly instruments of his own invention. Here's how Berndt describes their music:

"The music is neither improvised nor composed, but rather un-notated self-idiomatic, rather like folk music. Playing an orchestra of original instruments of their own creation, Berndt and partner Neil Feather have been collaborating as THUS for over 11 years.

Although Berndt is a multi-instrumentalist, he is perhaps best known as a saxophonist dedicated to freely improvised music. Berndt, who studied under American master improviser Jack Wright, devises saxophone compositions in the vein of John Butcher and John Oswald, with obvious inspiration drawn from free jazz.

After 30 years of creating unique and unusual musical instruments, Feather has developed a reputation as one of today's most original musical thinkers. In addition to being visually captivating, Feather's creations incorporate clever acoustic and engineering principles; the music he culls from them is equally original."

The concert is sponsored by New Music Circle, and tickets are $12 at the door, $6 for students with ID.

(A note on timeliness: While this show has been listed on NMC Web site for a while now, I haven't mentioned before because, as of late last week, there was still no venue listed for the concert. The information in this post comes from an email I received today. Similarly, I have delayed a promised post with an overview of NMC's season because several of the concerts they're touting still have no dates or venues attached. I don't see much point in writing about a show if I can't tell you when it is, or where to go see it, but when details are announced, I'll have more.)

(edited 10/11/05 to correct a typo)

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