Creative Music Studio Comes to NYC—March 31 – April 2, 2017
CMS™ NYC Workshop Intensive, March 31 – April 2
Guitarist/bandleader/composer Nels Cline along with percussionist/composer Susie Ibarra join Creative Music Studio™ Artistic Directors/Co-founders Karl Berger and Ingrid Sertso as Guiding Artists for the CMS™ NYC Workshop Intensive, March 31 – April 2, conveniently located at the Greenwich House Music School in Greenwich Village.
Workshops include daily CMS ‘Basic Practice,’ including rhythm and vocal training, improvisers’ orchestra sessions and two master classes per day with Nels and Susie, as well as jam sessions with Guiding Artists. Bassist Ken Filiano and other musicians will be on hand to work with participants on a more personal level, informally coaching, playing and tutoring daily. Meals will be provided. The cost, including meals, is $350; registrations before March 1 will be only $300.
This workshop, the first CMS has conducted in New York City in over twenty years, features a single CMS Guiding Artist working with participants in two extensive workshops each day, creating multiple opportunities for artists to work directly with participants as individuals or in ensembles. As in the past, there will be daily CMS basic practice (breath work, rhythm and vocal training), as well as 90 minutes each day with Karl Berger leading orchestra of improvisers.
A recent CMS workshop participant said, “Ultimately, music must be an expression of our freedom, not our boundaries. I found my freedom at CMS, in my ability to play what I hear and to hear what I play. This is more than a lesson in music; it is a lesson for life.” And, another said, “When I returned from the workshop I picked up my instrument and was blown away by the change in my mental and physical approach to playing. I was no longer afraid to play, no longer in doubt of the truth and power of my own inner music. My playing was reborn.”
CMS Workshop Guiding Artists in 2013 – 2016 have included: Vijay Iyer, Dave Douglas, John Medeski, Henry Threadgill, Joe Lovano, Steve Coleman, Hassan Hakmoun, Pauline Oliveros, Fabian Almazan, Marty Ehrlich, John Hollenbeck, Rudresh Mahanthappa, Billy Martin, Oliver Lake, Don Byron, Tyshawn Sorey, Peter Apfelbaum, Tony Malaby, Cyro Baptista, Marilyn Crispell, Steven Bernstein, Adam Rudolph, Jason Hwang, Amir el Saffar, Kirk Knuffke, Kenny Wessel, Steve Gorn, Mark Helias, Tom Rainey, Thomas Buckner, Judi Silvano, Harvey Sorgen, Tani Tabbal, Ken Filiano, Badal Roy, Warren Smith, Omar Tamez, and John Menegon, in addition to Creative Music Foundation co-founders Karl Berger and Ingrid Sertso.
CMS Workshops feature two full days of intensive workshops, master classes, intimate concerts and informal jam sessions that inspire active listening, personal expression, improvisation and musical exploration. Musicians of any instrument, including voice, are welcome as are non-musicians. Adults who played music earlier in their lives can benefit from this lifelong learning opportunity that offers participants a once-in-a-lifetime experience to learn from and play with music masters, and to simply spend time with them in an informal, personal setting. The non-traditional atmosphere of the Creative Music Studio Workshop encourages participants to experiment, push beyond limits, genres and categories, to take risks, and to develop their own deeply personal musical expression.
“CMS is always about musical diversity and this workshop promises to continue that legacy,” said Karl Berger, CMS’s artistic director. “CMS is renown for creating a space where artists from varied backgrounds mix, teach and play, and transfer deep knowledge about music and life. Nels and Susie are perfect to continue this practice.”
CMS NYC Workshop Schedule:
Friday, March 31 (1:00 – 5:30pm):
1:00 – 2:00 Orientation
2:00 – 3:00 CMS Basic Practice
3:15 – 5:15 Improvisers’ Orchestra
5:15 – 5:30 Listening Meditation
Saturday, April 1 (9:00am – 5:00pm):
9:00 – 9:30 Light breakfast, snacks
9:45- 11:45 Master Class/Workshop
12:00 – 1:00 Lunch
1:15 – 2:30 Master Class/Workshop
2:45 – 3:45 CMS Basic Practice (rhythm/vocal)
3:45 – 4:45 Improvisers Orchestra
4:45 – 5:00 Listening Meditation
Sunday, April 2 (9:00am – 10:00pm):
9:00 – 9:30 Light breakfast, snacks
9:45- 11:45 Master Class/Workshop
12:00 – 1:00 Lunch
1:15 – 2:45 Master Class/Workshop
3:00 – 4:00 CMS Basic Practice (rhythm/vocal)
4:00 – 5:30 Improvisers Orchestra
5:30 – 5:45 Listening Meditation
6:00 – 7:15 Dinner
7:30 – 10:00 Performance/Jams
Guiding Artist Biographies:
Nels Cline, Guitarist/Composer/Bandleader
Up to the mid-2000s, guitarist Nels Cline was probably best known for his work in the group Quartet Music (with brother Alex Cline, bassist Eric Von Essen, and violinist Jeff Gauthier) as well as other projects in the jazz, rock, and avant-garde idioms, and for his general involvement in the West Coast’s improvisation community. However, since 2004, Cline has been a member of Wilco, which has opened up a much larger audience for the guitarist than is typical for even the most well-known of avant jazzers and creative improvisers.
Born in Los Angeles in 1956, Cline began playing guitar around the age of 12, when his twin brother Alex began learning the drums. By the time Cline reached his twenties, he was heavily involved in L.A.’s improvisational community and, in 1978, appeared on his first recording, Openhearted, by multi-instrumentalist Vinny Golia. He went on to appear on over 70 releases, lead several of his own groups—including the Nels Cline Trio and the sextet that followed, Destroy All Nels Cline—and tour internationally with a variety of bands. As a composer, Cline has scored two films in addition to writing much of his own material. He has also produced albums for himself, G.E. Stinson, and Jeff Gauthier, among others.
Bassist Eric Von Essen and Cline met up in the late ’70s and began working together, recording an album of duets called Elegies that was released in 1980 on the Nine Winds label. Von Essen got involved in an orchestra with violinist Gauthier, and it wasn’t long before the three formed a group of their own. Alex Cline sat in on their first concert and eventually joined the three permanently, resulting in the group, Quartet Music, which remained together throughout the ’80s. In addition to his work in Quartet Music during this decade, Cline worked with Liberation Music Orchestra West Coast, was a member of a rock band called Bloc, worked with Julius Hemphill as well as Charlie Haden, and released his first album as leader, Angelica, which included members of Quartet Music, saxophonist Tim Berne, and more.
The first half of the ’90s found his new Nels Cline Trio hosting a weekly improv series for four years and recording as many albums. During the ’90s, Cline also worked with Thurston Moore (of Sonic Youth), Stephen Perkins (Jane’s Addiction), Mike Watt (Minutemen), and the Geraldine Fibbers. A duo recording by Cline and percussionist Gregg Bendian covering John Coltrane’s Interstellar Space was released by the Atavistic label in 1999. That same year, the California Music Awards named Cline Outstanding Jazz Artist of 1999. The next year, he released Inkling on Cryptogramophone, beginning a collaborative relationship with Andrea Parkins that would continue for the next several years. Destroy All Nels Cline was next, followed by the formation of the Nels Cline Singers, who released their first album, Instrumentals, in 2002.
In 2004, Cline was asked to join Wilco and has toured and appeared on all subsequent albums by them. He still had time for other projects, however: there have been several one-off collaborations during the ensuing years and two albums by the trio of Cline, Andrea Parkins, and Tom Rainey. In 2004, the Nels Cline Singers released Giant Pin, which Cline followed with an album of Andrew Hill compositions in 2006, the sublime New Monastery. Cryptogramophone subsequently issued two more releases by the Nels Cline Singers, Draw Breath in the summer of 2007 and the two-CD package Initiate in 2010. Later in the year, Cline released Dirty Baby, a double-disc collaborative project with poet and producer David Breskin. Add this project to all the work Cline has done as a sideman since the turn of the century and you’ve got one extremely busy, prolific, and versatile guitarist. In April of 2014, he appeared as a guest on Joan Osborne’s Love and Hate album, and as a full collaborator with Medeski, Martin & Wood on Woodstock Sessions 2. In 2014, Macroscope, with the Nels Cline Singers, and Room, a duet offering with classical guitarist Julian Lage, appeared on Detroit’s Mack Avenue Records.
After recording Star Wars with Wilco and a tour, Cline signed to Blue Note. His debut for the label was the double-length Lovers. Realizing a long-held dream, the set was inspired by Bill Evans, Jim Hall, Gil Evans, and Henry Mancini. Cline created an ambitious, self-proclaimed “mood music” project with an 23-member ensemble. Lovers contained jazz and Great American Songbook standards alongside originals and covers of songs by Annette Peacock, Gabor Szabo, Sonic Youth, Jimmy Giuffre, and Arto Lindsay. The single/video “Beautiful Love” was issued in early June of 2016. The album was premiered live at the Newport Jazz Festival in July, and released in August. (Billboard Magazine)
Susie Ibarra, Composer/Percussionist/Educator
Composer/Percussionist Susie Ibarra creates live and immersive music that explores rhythm, indigenous practices and interaction with cities and the natural world. She is a 2014 TEDSenior Fellow. Her work includes , Musical Water Routes in the Medina of Fez, a music and river route mobile app in collaboration with architect Aziza Chaouni, May 2016 Sacred Music Festival of Fez, Mirrows and Water, a composition and sonic installation commissioned for Ai Wei Wei’s Circle of Animals/Zodiac Signs at the sculpture trail of the National Museum of Wildlife Art, Jackson, Wyoming 2015; Digital Sanctuaries, a modular music app walk that remaps cities with sanctuaries of music and engages with historical and cultural sites within a city with music composed by Electric Kulintang commissioned by Lower Manhattan Cultural Council and City of Asylum Pittsburgh; Circadian Rhythms, commissioned for Earth Day 2013 at Renssalear RPI EMPAC, inspired by endogenous rhythms for 80 percussionists and 8.1 surround sound of Macaulay Library recordings; The City, a Radio Radiance commission for Young Peoples Chorus of NYC; We Float, a 2014 commission by Ecstatic Music Festival with singer songwriter Mirah, a sonic retelling of space explorations; and The Cotabato Sessions , a digital music film and album that captures one family legacy of gong-chime kulintang music in Mindanao, Philippines . She is a Faculty member at Bennington College where she teaches Performance, Percussion, and at the Center for Advancement of Public Action. Her teaching at the Center focuses on her work in rebuilding cities with the arts, art intervention and advocacy for human rights extended equally to women and girls.
Karl Berger, PhD: Composer / Arranger / Conductor / Pianist / Vibraphonist / Consultant
Founder and director of the nonprofit Creative Music Foundation, Inc., and creative leader of the legendary Creative Music Studio, Karl Berger is dedicated to the research of the power of music and sound and the elements common to all of the world’s music forms. In addition to his composing and playing, Karl is known around the world for educational presentations through workshops, concerts, recordings, and with a growing network of artists and CMS members worldwide.
Karl Berger is a six time winner of the Downbeat Critics Poll as a jazz soloist, recipient of numerous Composition Awards (commissions by the National Endowment for the Arts, the New York State Council on the Arts, the Rockefeller Foundation, European Radio and Television: WDR, NDR, SWF, Radio France, Rai Italy. SWF-Prize 1994). Professor of Composition, Artist-in- Residence at universities, schools and festivals worldwide, PhD in Music Esthetics.
Karl Berger became noted for his innovative arrangements for recordings by Jeff Buckley (“Grace”), Natalie Merchant (“Ophelia”), Better Than Ezra, The Cardigans, Jonatha Brooke, Buckethead, Bootsie Collins, The Swans, Sly + Robbie, Angelique Kidjo and others; and for his collaborations with producers Bill Laswell, Alan Douglas (“Operazone”), Peter Collins, Andy Wallace, Craig Street, Alain Mallet, Malcolm Burn, Bob Marlett and many others in Woodstock, New York City, Los Angeles, Tokyo, London, Paris and Rome.
He recorded and performed with Don Cherry, Lee Konitz, John McLaughlin, Gunther Schuller, the Mingus Epitaph Orchestra, Dave Brubeck, Ingrid Sertso, Dave Holland, Ed Blackwell, Ray Anderson, Carlos Ward, Pharoah Sanders, Blood Ulmer, Hozan Yamamoto and many others at festivals and concerts in the US, Canada, Europe, Africa, India, Phillippines, Japan, Mexico and Brazil.
His recordings and arrangements appear on the Atlantic, Axiom, Black Saint, Blue Note, Capitol, CBS, Columbia Double Moon, Douglas Music, Elektra, EMI, Enja, Island, JVC, Knitting Factory, In&Out, MCA, Milestone, Polygram, Pye, RCA, SONY, Stockholm, Vogue and others.
Ingrid Sertso: Vocalist, Poet
Through her work with such avant-jazz musicians as Don Cherry and Karl Berger, Ingrid Sertso established herself as a captivating, adventurous vocalist, capable of blending jazz, African, South American and other worldbeat influences into a distinctive, hypnotic sound.
Although Sertso didn’t become well-known until the release of Dance with It in 1994, she spent over 20 years honing her art. During the late ’60s, she lived in Europe, leading her own trios and performing with the likes of Eric Dolphy, Don Cherry, Steve Lacy, Karl Berger and Leo Wright; she also worked as a music teacher at several institutions in Europe. In 1972, she became a permanent resident of the United States and she released her first album, We Are You, on Calig Records. Over the next few years she taught, while she performed in North America and Europe with the likes of Cherry, Ed Blackwell, Lee Konitz, Sam Rivers, Jimmy Giuffre, Bob Moses, Dave Holland, Perry Robinson and Jumma Santos. In 1974, she released Kalaparush on Trio Records in Japan. It was followed in 1975 by Peace Church Concerts on India Navigation/CMC Records.
In 1975, Sertso became a faculty member at the Naropa Institute in Boulder, Colorado. She stayed there through 1975 and 1976, before moving to the Banff Centre of Fine Arts in Calgary, Canada. She had two residencies at Banff before moving to the Creative Music Studio in Woodstock, New York, where she became the co-director. While working at the Creative Music Studio, she began singing in the Art of Improvisation with Berger and David Inzenon. In 1979, she toured major European cities as a solo artists, supported by the Woodstock Workshop Orchestra. She also released an album on MPS Records that year.
During the early ’80s, Sertso remained a co-director at the Creative Music Studio, while continuing to record and perform with a variety of musicians, including such mainstays as Don Cherry and Karl Berger, as well as Paulo Moura, Nana Vasconcelos, Steve Gorn, Dan Brubeck and Mike Richmond. In 1984, she performed with the Music Universe Orchestra at the Kool Festival in New York and released a duet album, Changing the Time, with Berger on Horo Records in Italy. She also toured Europe twice during this time and she also toured West Africa with Olatunji and Aiyb Dieng.
Sertso’s career picked up momentum during the latter half of the ’90s. She held a series of concerts and workshops in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil and she regularly tour the US on club and festival circuit. Sertso also toured Europe twice and sang solo vocals on Berger’s orchestral ballet, The Bird. She was one of the co-leaders of Rhythm Changes, who released the Jazzdance album on ITM Records. During these five years, she also performed and recorded with a variety of artists, including Pauline Oliveros, Lee Konitz, Frank Luther, Anthony Cox, Leroy Jenkins, Jimmy Cobber, Linda Montano and Karl Berger.
In 1990, Sertso catapulted back into the mainstream jazz spotlight through her version “Until the Rain Comes” on Don Cherry’s Multi Kulti album. Shortly afterward, she began working on a new album, but she became sidetracked by collaborating with Karl Berger and guitarist Paul Koji Shigihara. The trio blended original compositions with Sertso’s poetry, improvisations and interpretations of traditional tune. Sertso also regularly performed poetry readings at the Tinker Street Cafe in Woodstock and the Knitting Factory in New York, and she also regularly played clubs along the Northeast coast. In 1994, she released her comeback album Dance with It, which earned positive reviews. —Stephen Thomas Erlewine (All Music Guide)
Ken Filiano: bassist
Bass player, composer, improviser, Ken FIliano has been performing throughout the world for thirty years, collaborating with leading artists in multiple genres, fusing the rich traditions of the double bass with his own seemingly limitless inventiveness. Ken leads two quartets, Quantum Entanglements, and Baudalino’s Dilemma (Vinny Golia, Warren Smith, Michael TA Thompson), and is a co-leader of The Steve Adams/Ken Filiano Duo and TranceFormation (Connie Crothers, Andrea Wolper.) His extensive discography includes a solo bass CD, “subvenire” (NineWinds), and “Dreams From a Clown Car” (Clean Feed), which presents his compositions for his quartet, Quantum Entanglements (Michael Attias, Tony Malaby, Michael TA Thompson). Ken has performed and/or recorded with Karl Berger, Bobby Bradford, Anthony Braxton, Connie Crothers Quartet, Bill Dixon, Ted Dunbar, Giora Feidman Quartet, Vinny Golia ensembles, Taylor Ho Bynum, Jason Kao Hwang, Joseph Jarman, Raul Juanena, Joelle Leandre, Frank London, Tina Marsh, Warne Marsh, Dom Minasi, Barre Phillips, Roswell Rudd, ROVA Saxophone Qt., Paul Smoker, Fay Victor Ensemble, Pablo Zielger, and many more. Ken is on the teaching roster at the New School in New York, and is a guest artist lecturer at School of Visual Arts and Hunter College (New York). He teaches master classes in bass and improvisation, and has a private bass studio in Brooklyn.
Cancellation Policy:
CMS reserves the right to cancel the workshop by March 11, 2017. In the event of cancellation, anyone who has signed up will receive a full refund, excluding any fees paid to register.
Taxes and Fees:
As a 501c3 nonprofit, CMS does not need to charge sales tax for this event. But there will be modest registration fees via EventBrite for registering.
