PGT (PENDER, GARTON, TAYLOR)
USA
Improvised Electroacustic Music

Jardim da Biblioteca, Arraiolos
July 24th, 6.30PM

Castelo, Viana do Alentejo
July 25th, 7PM

Centro de Artes de Sines
July 27th,  10.30PM

All ages
Free entrance

Laptops Brad Garton and Greg Taylor
Mandolin Terry Pender

Click HERE to listen to PGT's creations at Escrita na Paisagem 2010

PGT are a peculiar ensemble. A mandolin (Pender) dialogues intensive and vibrantly with two laptops (Garton, Taylor), opening new paths through the territories of traditional music, and heading toward the contemporary world, where other music and musicians’ interests, methodologies, and devices, cross. Impressively, the ensemble brings to the Festival Escrita na Paisagem the evidence of re:petition itself, the evidence of re:play. In fact, their work process, called ‘process improvisation’, is clearly nurtured by re:petition and the rendering of the surrounding inputs (from music instruments and others) into sonic material, sometimes dispersed, other times intense, or vibrant, lyric, etc.

In the concerts they present in Portugal, the ensemble proposes to re:consider the format of the blind dates that structured last year's concerts, in which the group dialogued with melodies and voices of musicians they met for the first time at the show. Now, inspired by the interactive works by Cornelius Cardew and by the irreverent creations of John Cage, PGT challenge the audience to
co-create pieces of improvised music, taking part in Speed dates, in which spectators are invited to take part in the concert, contributing with their voices, picked by a microphone that passes around. The result will be an unpredictable and touching collective creation.

Who are PGT
Terry Pender is a composer and a musician; his interests expand from contemporary multimedia music to Irish music and mandolin. His works have been presented all around the world, including Japan, Greece, and China. He created compositions to the NPR station and to the Whitney Museum of American Art. More recently, Pender collaborates in sound creations to large-scale artistic events with the Open Ended Group (directed by Paul Kaiser), and his work has been shown all over the world, including the Mostly Mozart Festival 2007, in New York. He is a professor at Columbia University (NY), where he co-directs the Computer Music Centre with Brad Garton, for more than eleven years now.

Brad Garton got his PhD at Princeton University. Besides teaching, he develops music software, and he has worked as consulter in the creation and installation of computer centers for music composition all around the world.

Gregory Taylor started is artistic education in the field of visual arts; later he learnt music, studying the Java’s gamelan and electroacustic music in the USA and Nederland. His articles have been edited in publications such as Wired, Array, and Option. Besides working in PGT, he also collaborated with Jeff Kaiser, Scott Fields, and Kim Cascone, among other artists. Today, he works in new media, in the software company Cycling ’74 (the creator of max/msp).