Search - Zanana, Monique Buzzarte, Kristin Norderval :: Holding Patterns

Zanana (za-NAH-nah) is an electro-acoustic chamber music duo featuring Kristin Norderval, (voice) and Monique Buzzarté (trombone) collaboratively composing and performing improvised music blending acoustic sounds, electronics and live processing. Zanana?s inception dates from an all-night peace vigil concert in the fall of 2002 when Kristin invited Monique and poet Barbara Barg to join her for an evening of improvised music and spoken word. Since then Monique and Kristin have continued developing repertoire as a live processing duo, recording and performing in venues ranging from concert halls to clubs to abandoned buildings. Zanana uses improvisation as the foundation of their compositional process. While some works are free improvisations, some are structured improvisations and some are composed works with aleatoric elements, all are rooted in the expansive practices of Deep Listening. Zanana takes its name from a variant spelling of "zenana," the portion! of a house in southwestern Asian countries exclusively dedicated to women. Holding Patterns is a compilation of live recordings selected from Zanana's first season of performances. Gasholder Duet is an improvised duo of unprocessed acoustic sounds recorded live inside the historic Gasholder Building in Troy, NY. Doorjam and Ghost Dog combine live processing of both the voice and trombone sampled in real-time with prerecorded soundfiles of ambient recordings made at the Gasholder Building and prerecorded and electronically processed voice soundfiles. Flags, Title X, and What a Pretty Dog were recorded live in concert in New York City. Poet Barbara Barg provides the text for Flags and joins the duo on spoken word on What a Pretty Dog in honor of Monique?s dog Suki, who was accustomed to hearing this phrase regularly from strangers throughout her life. Kristin Norderval is a classically trained singer, improviser, and composer who performs an eclectic repertoire that spans the renaissance to the avant-garde. Many works have been written for her, and her collaborations have included work with choreographers, sculptors, filmmakers and installation artists. Since 1997, she has also been recording on-site improvisations in unusual spaces, many of them industrial. She has recorded new works for Koch International, Mode, Nonesuch, Point, Euridice and CRI. Monique Buzzarté is an avid proponent of contemporary music, commissioning and premiering many new works for trombone alone, with electronics, and in chamber ensembles in addition to composing for traditional and electro-acoustic ensembles. Her recordings include John Cage's Five3 with the Arditti Quartet on John CAGE: Vol. 19 - The Number Pieces 2 (Mode 25) and Dreaming Wide Awake with the New Circle Five (Deep Listening 20). An author, activist, and educator as well as a performer/composer, Ms. Buzzarté has published research on the brass music of women composers and led efforts that led to the admission of women into the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra.