San Francisco, CA (January 15, 2004) — Explore the vast territories of contemporary musical experience at Other Minds 10 — from Armenian folk strains to driving jazz, a concerto for wind band and quarter-tone flute from the European new wave, a saxophone quartet with six Asian musical masters, a dizzying multimedia opera with classical Indian vocals mixed live in soft chorus, an electronically processed cello, surround-sound "acousmatics", and an avant-garde accordionist.  

Other Minds celebrates 10 years of probing the most brilliant fringes of contemporary music with Other Minds 10, March 4-5-6, 2004, at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, San Francisco. Unique in format among music festivals worldwide, Other Minds 10 gathers participants from Canada, Armenia, Germany, Myanmar, China, Japan, Poland, Italy, South Korea, and the U.S., for three days of extraordinary musical events, including two world premieres, six U.S. premieres, and an array of unusual instruments.

Other Minds 10 presents concerts, films, talks and exhibits, from Thursday, March 4, through Saturday, March 6, 2004, at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts Theater (700 Howard St. @ 3rd) and Forum (701 Mission St. @ 3rd). Ticket prices for individual concerts are: $35 Premium / $27 Regular / $18 Budget.   A Festival Pass for all events is: $80 Premium / $65 Regular / $45 Budget. A Student Discount deducts $3 Premium / $2 Regular / $1 Budget off concert tickets and passes. Advance tickets are available from the Yerba Buena Box Office at (415) 978-2787 (978-ARTS) or online at www.yerbabuenaarts.org. Festival information is available at www.otherminds.org.  
Other Minds executive director and festival artistic director Charles Amirkhanian has invited stellar composers and musicians from many cultures, traditions, and musical genres to appear at Other Minds 10. Participants include: Alex Blake, Amelia Cuni, Werner Durand, Francis Dhomont, Mark Grey, Keiko Harada, Joan Jeanrenaud, Hanna Kulenty, Tigran Mansurian, Jon Raskin, Stanley Shaff, and special guest performer, avant-garde accordionist Stefan Hussong. Also appearing are violist Kim Kashkashian; Anne La Berge on quarter-tone flute with Nicole Paiement and the Parallèle Ensemble; ROVA Saxophone Quartet with Jiebing Chen, Min Xiao-Fen, Shoko Hikage, Kyaw Kyaw Naing, Jim Santi Owen, and Sang Won Park, conducted by Gino Robair; Ted Cruz, Chris Hunter, Victor Jones, and Bidal Roy of the Alex Blake Quintet; Joel Davel, marimba; set designer Uli Sigg; and stilt-walking dancer Pamela Wunderlich.

A co-presentation of Other Minds and Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, in association with the Djerassi Resident Artists Program, Other Minds 10 begins with three days of private retreat for guest composers at the Djerassi Resident Artists Program in Woodside. The festival then moves to San Francisco, March 4-6, for concerts, composer talks, a panel on Women in Music, films, a marketplace of hard-to-find books, recordings and original musical scores, and photographs from past Other Minds festivals by John Fago.

EXTRAORDINARY MUSICAL EXPERIENCES AT OTHER MINDS 10

Other Minds 10 evening concerts at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts Theater (700 Howard St. @ 3rd) begin at 8:00 p.m., with doors opening at 6:30 p.m. Each concert is preceded by a free Composer Panel at 7:00 p.m. in Yerba Buena Center for the Arts Forum (710 Mission St. @ 3rd). On Friday, March 5th, there is a special 4:00 p.m. performance by Stan Shaff at Audium (1616 Bush Street, SF).

CONCERT -- Thursday, March 4th, 8:00 p.m. -- YBC Theater (Panel discussion - 7:00 p.m., Forum)

Opening Night on Thursday, March 4th, features U.S. premieres by Armenian composer Tigran Mansurian with viola superstar Kim Kashkashian; the U.S. premiere of a work by composer Hanna Kulenty (b. Poland) for quarter-tone flute and chamber orchestra; and the world premiere of an ambitious new work by Jon Raskin (USA) for ROVA saxophone quartet and six extraordinary Asian musicians, commissioned for the festival by Other Minds.

Tigran Mansurian of the Republic of Armenia and violist Kim Kashkashian reprise music from their recent ECM release Hayren . The concert includes U.S. premieres of Havik (1998), and Adaptations of Music by Komitas (based on music of the "Armenian Bartók" Komitas Vartabed, 1869-1935), with Mansurian on piano and vocals, Kashkashian on viola, and Joel Davel on marimba. The performance is funded in part by the Armenian Friends of Other Minds.

One of the greatest young talents in modern music is Polish-born composer Hanna Kulenty, a resident of the Netherlands, whose dense Ligeti-like essays for orchestral forces have attracted wide attention in Europe. Nicole Paiement conducts The Parallèle Ensemble in the U.S. p remiere of Kulenty's Flute Concerto No. 1 (2001) for quarter-tone flute, featuring soloist Anne LaBerge. The performance is funded in part by the Goethe-Institut, Gaudeamus, and the Consulate General of the Netherlands, New York.

San Francisco's avant-garde ROVA Saxophone Quartet (Bruce Ackley, soprano saxophone; Steve Adams, alto saxophone; Larry Ochs, tenor saxophone; Jon Raskin, baritone saxophone) gives the world premiere of The Hear and Now (2003) by composer Jon Raskin, commissioned by Other Minds. The collective improvisation -- with internationally acclaimed pipa master Min Xiao-Fen, Kyaw Kyaw Naing on pat waing, Jim Santi Owen on tabla tarang, koto player Shoko Hikage, Jie-bing Chen on erh-hu, Sang Won Park on kayagum, and Gino Robair, conductor -- incorporates the five Chinese harmonic sets Zhi, Shan, Yu, Jue and Gong. The piece is also funded in part by the National Endowment for the Arts and the San Francisco Arts Commission.

CONCERT -- Friday, March 5th, 4:00 pm -- STAN SHAFF AT AUDIUM

Composer Stanley Shaff weaves sonic sensations into a total sensory experience in the darkness of Audium, his "Theatre of Sound-Sculpted Space" at 1616 Bush St. (@ Franklin), San Francisco. In a salute to the composer's 75th birthday (February 2004), Other Minds invites its audience to Audium on Friday, March 6th, for a special live performance by Shaff. Doors open at 3:30 p.m. and close promptly at 4:00 p.m.; there is no late admittance. The show takes place in total darkness, with a 5-minute intermission. Tickets for this performance are $12; Other Minds festival pass-holders free; students/sliding scale. For tickets and reservations, call (415) 771-1616.

CONCERT -- Friday, March 5th, 8:00 pm -- YBC Theater (Panel discussion - 7:00 p.m., Forum)

The evening concert on Friday, March 5th, features the U.S. premiere of Ashtayama by Amelia Cuni (b. Italy), one of the few Western women to have mastered the classical Indian "dhrupad" vocal style, with sound design by electronic composer Werner Durand and lighting and stage design by Uli Sigg; a world premiere by brilliant young interactive computer composer Mark Grey (USA), with Joan Jeanrenaud; and sensuous accordion music from the keys and bellows of the great performer Stefan Hussong, classical accordionist from Germany who has produced 15 CD releases in all classical styles.

Amelia Cuni performs the U.S. premiere of her multimedia phenomenon Ashtayama-Song of Hours (1997-98), based in the relationship between music and natural cycles, a stunning combination of Cuni's dhrupad singing, Werner Durand's live electronic mixing, and Sigg's video/light project. This extraordinary performance is funded in part by the Goethe-Institut San Francisco.

Mark Grey presents Sands of Time for cello and live electronic processing (2003), performed by Joan Jeanrenaud, cello, with the composer on electronics. A brilliant sound designer and composer, Grey utilizes granular synthesis to modify the live cello sound and create a dazzling aural illusion in abstract narrative form.

The closing concert on Saturday, March 6th, features a solo world premiere performance by renowned cellist Joan Jeanrenaud (USA), best known for her years with the Kronos Quartet; dreamy "acousmatics" from Francis Dhomont (Canada, b. France); and the hard-driving bass of Alex Blake (USA), appearing with his Quintet.

Joan Jeanrenaud opens Saturday's concert, performing cello and electronics in the world premiere of her composition Hommage (2003), commissioned for the festival by Other Minds with support from Nora Norden. Her piece, incorporating leeping and delay effects, is dedicated to several musicians who have encouraged her new solo career, including Hamza El Din, Terry Riley and Larry Ochs.

Francis Dhomont, an ardent proponent of "acousmatics", surrounds the audience with a 12-piece "loudspeaker orchestra" for his compositions Les moirures du temps (The shimmering ripples of time) (Feb. 1999, rev. 2001) and "Phonurgie" from Cycle du son (1998). Dhomont's dizzying live mix of multi-channel tape pieces employ vivid acoustic samples from everyday environmental sounds to create a room full of loud, shocking fun . (A film on Dhomont screens on Saturday afternoon.)

Astonishing jazz bassist Alex Blake brings his New York-based Alex Blake Quintet to Other Minds 10 for a rousing set of his latest compositions, featuring Blake on bass, Chris Hunter on soprano, alto and tenor saxophone, Ted Cruz on piano, Victor Jones on drums, and Neil Clark on percussion. Panamanian-born Blake, long a sideman with Sun Ra, Dizzy Gillespie and McCoy Tyner, cites Jimi Hendrix as a primary influence and has the musical moxie and brilliant bare-hand strumming technique to back it up.

MORE PROGRAMS AT OTHER MINDS 10

WOMEN IN MUSIC PANEL DISCUSSION -- Saturday, March 6, 9 am-12 noon -- YBC Forum, FREE

Presented by The Women's Philharmonic, this free program explores Women's Voices in American Orchestral Music, and features special guest, Israeli-American composer Shulamit Ran. Part of the statewide Celebrating Women in Music Festival (for information: www.womensphil.org).

FILM -- Saturday, March 6, 1:30 pm-2:30 pm, My Cinema for the Ears -- YBC Forum

An impressionistic, wryly humorous film on the musique concrète of Francis Dhomont and Paul Lansky. A film by Uli Aumüller, produced by inpetto filmproduktion berlin, co-produced by ZDF and Bridge Records (59 mins.). Tickets:   $5 / Other Minds 10 pass holders free.

FILM -- Saturday, March 6, 3:00 pm, Khachaturian -- YBC Forum

Other Minds 10 celebrates the centennial of Armenian composer Aram Khachaturian (1903-1978) with a special screening of Khachaturian, a new documentary on the composer's life and music during the great Soviet Experiment, which examines the circumstances surrounding his censure by the Soviet composers' union in 1948. The film, which premiered in New York in October 2003, was recently named Best Documentary at the 2003 Hollywood Film Festival. A presentation of The Kuhn Foundation, the film was produced and directed by award-winning filmmaker Peter Rosen, and is narrated by Eric Bogosian, with music by the Armenian Philharmonic Orchestra (83 mins.). A short program follows the screening, featuring comments by the film's executive producer and champion of Khachaturian's music, pianist Dora Serviarian-Kuhn, composer Tigran Mansurian, who appears in the film, and Other Minds director Charles Amirkhanian. Tickets: $10 / Other Minds 10 pass holders free.

Exhibition and SALE of Original MUSIC Scores -- YBC T heater Lobby

Original musical manuscripts by Other Minds 10 Festival composers as well as rare scores from the Other Minds collection, such as Lou Harrison's "Nicomede's Aria" from Young Caesar , will be on display in the Yerba Buena Theater Lobby throughout the festival, and are available for purchase. This special Other Minds feature has renewed interest in the disappearing art of the handwritten manuscript.

Photography Exhibition -- John Fago, Other Minds Festival Photographer -- YBC Forum

John Fago's photographs have beautifully documented interactions between composers, performers and audiences at Other Minds Festivals, starting with the first festival in 1993. Artistically, his black and white prints capture the character of his subjects with outstanding clarity. Historically, Fago has produced an irreplaceable collection of images of some of the most outstanding musical personalities of our time. A selection of Fago's black-and-white photographs from past Other Minds festivals will be on exhibit in the YBC Forum (701 Mission St. @ 3rd) during Other Minds 10. This fascinating photographer was goat herdsman for Georgia O'Keeffe and has photographed the world from Tibet to Asia, North Africa, Central and South America. A regular contributor to the Christian Science Monitor, his credits include album covers, photos in the Smithsonian's National Gallery of American Art and other galleries, and books.

OTHER MINDS AT 10 YEARS

Since its founding in 1993, Other Minds has championed the contributions of innovative composers and performers of contemporary music in all its forms, through concerts, music and film festivals, Internet programming, collaborations, recordings, and other media, as it aims to expand and reshape the definition of serious music. In 2002, an Other Minds-commissioned work by Henry Brant was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in music for its San Francisco Symphony debut in collaboration with Other Minds. This year will mark the debut of radiOM.org, offering free internet access to the vast musical archives of Other Minds.

Other Minds 10 has received additional support from The Zellerbach Family Foundation, National Endowment for the Arts, William & Flora Hewlett Foundation, Grants for the Arts/Hotel Tax Fund, Aaron Copland Fund, The Rockefeller Foundation, Foundation for Contemporary Performance Arts, Inc., Thendara Foundation, Phaedrus Foundation, and individual donors. Thanks to KPFA Radio, San Francisco Bay Guardian, Crown Point Press, Peter Kirkeby Associates, and the San Francisco Marriott Hotel.

TICKETS TO OTHER MINDS 10

Tickets to Other Minds Festival 10 may be purchased from the Yerba Buena Center Box Office. The Box Office opens 90 min. prior to all events for walk-up sales.

Individual concert tickets:   $35 Premium / $27 Regular / $18 Budget
Festival passes to all public events:   $80 Premium / $65 Regular / $45 Budget
Student discount:   Deduct $3 Premium / $2 Regular / $1 Budget off concert tickets and passes
Friday at Audium:   $12, sliding scale for students (call 415/771-1616 for tickets)
Films:   My Cinema for the Ears, $5; Khachaturian, $10

Online Ticketing: www.yerbabuenaarts.org - $5 per-order service fee. (Passes not available online.)
In Person:   Yerba Buena Center for the Arts Box Office, 701 Mission St. @ 3rd. Hours: Tue-Sun, 11 am-6 pm (except holidays). No service fee for in-person ticket sales.
By Phone: 415-978-ARTS (978-2787); daily 11 am-6 pm; $5 per-order service fee (except films)
By Mail: Yerba Buena Center for the Arts Box Office, 701 Mission Street, San Francisco, CA 94103.
$5 per-order service fee (except films)