FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact for Press: Tamar Fortgang, REDCAT publicity and promotions manager
fortgang@muse.calarts.edu / 213.237.2873 (Do Not Publish)

REDCAT Turns Cold Blue

View the event

February 2, Los Angeles, 2006--REDCAT, the Roy and Edna Disney/CalArts Theater, presents an evening of seductive music--idiosyncratic, delicate, often elegant or dark or quiet or lovely, evocative works--in a concert celebration of the new-music record label Cold Blue Music. Based in Los Angeles, the company’s catalog champions primarily post-experimental music, created primarily by West Coast composers. This concert will take place Saturday, February 18, 8:30 pm, at REDCAT.

On the program are short works by 14 composers whose music has recorded on Cold Blue: John Luther Adams, Michael Byron, Barney Childs, Rick Cox, Michael Jon Fink, Jim Fox, Kyle Gann, Peter Garland, Daniel Lentz, David Mahler, Read Miller, Steve Peters, Larry Polansky, and Chas Smith. Among these works are five world and four Los Angeles premieres.

The evening’s featured performer is acclaimed new-music pianist Sarah Cahill. Among the other notable performers are EAR Unit members Robin Lorentz, Erika Duke-Kirkpatrick, Marty Walker (emeritus), and Phil O’Connor; micro-tonal guru and guitarist John Schneider; The Robin Cox Ensemble; composer/pianist Thomas Newman; new music-cellist Jessica Catron; and a handful of the composers themselves. (For more information on the label, see below.)

When asked about the REDCAT program, label founder/director Jim Fox said, “Previous concert celebrations devoted to the label, such as the ones done over the past couple of years at the Schindler House (L.A.), Podewil (Berlin) and elsewhere, have each centered on the work of perhaps a half dozen or so composers, so I thought it might be great fun to veer from that trend and try to present a broader spectrum of Cold Blue-associated composers through their miniatures and short pieces. REDCAT, on the label’s home turf, seemed an ideal venue for this kaleidoscope of music.”

Cold Blue, which had a short (two-year) life in the mid(-)1980s, was reopened in 2001. Since then, it has released two dozen titles (one of which is a 3-CD set). Although the label’s history is brief, it is already known for its unique “take” on new music. In the ’80s in High Fidelity/Musical America, Joan La Barbara called it, “...a label with a particular viewpoint and consummate good taste.” And since its 2001 revival, it has garnered many similar comments: “...music of stunning and poignant strangeness...a distinctive body of music--a virtual Cold Blue ‘school’--forged in the wake of American musical experimentalism.” (Int’l Record Review) “Those who stereotype modern classical music as either cacophonous or simplistic would be forced to add a third category—elusive--when confronted with the Cold Blue catalog.” (Fanfare) “Cold Blue...is the stuff of which cults are made.” (Australian Financial Times) “...setting the highest standards in an area of musical endeavor where banal facility can be a danger.” (The Wire, UK) “Cold Blue...is home to many a musical treasure.” (Late Junction, BBC3) “...beautifully recorded music with suitably artistic packaging...a yet-unnamed sub-genre of new music...this is definitely music worth spending time with.” (Musicworks, Canada) And Cold Blue releases, noted for their excellent performances and recording quality have also appeared on annual “Best of” lists in Gramophone magazine, Sequenza21, and elsewhere.

For detailed information on Cold Blue’s CDs and the composers and performers associated with it, please visit www.coldbluemusic.com.

REDCAT, CalArts’ downtown center for innovative visual, performing and media arts, is located at the corner of W. 2nd St. and S. Hope St., inside the Walt Disney Concert Hall complex. Cold Blue Music will be presented on Saturday, February 18 at 8:30 p.m. Ticket prices range from $18-16, with student discounts available. Tickets may be purchased at the REDCAT box office--located at the corner of 2nd and Hope Streets, by calling 213.237.2800, or by clicking here.

REDCAT benefits from an endowment created through the generosity of The Walt Disney Company; The Sharon D. Lund Foundation; Robert B. Egelston; Lee and Lawrence J. Ramer; and Dorothy R. Sherwood. REDCAT’s 2005-06 season programming is generously supported by The Herb Alpert Foundation; American Composers Forum of Los Angeles; The Annenberg Foundation; Anonymous; Argosy Foundation Contemporary Music Fund; Barry Blumberg; California Community Foundation; Campari; The Canadian Consulate General, Los Angeles; The Capital Group Companies Charitable Foundation (Corporate matching gift); CEMAT (Centri Musicali Attrezzati, Rome); City of Los Angeles Cultural Affairs Department; Compari; CONACULTA; The Consulate General of the Netherlands, Los Angeles; Margit Sperling Cotsen and Lloyd Cotsen; Cultural Services of the French Embassy; Delphi Capital Management, Inc.; Tim Disney; Dynamic Images; e-flux; Étant donnés, The French-American Fund for the Visual Arts, a program of the French American Cultural Exchange; Ford Foundation; Charlotte and William Ford; The French-American Fund for Contemporary Music, a program of FACE; French Cultural Services, Los Angeles; French Ministry of Foreign Affairs; Harriett and Richard Gold; Lenore S. and Bernard A. Greenberg; Elyse and Stanley Grinstein; Henson International Festival of Puppet Theater; IIC (Instituto Italiano di Cultura, Los Angeles); The Japan Foundation Performing Arts JAPAN; La Colección Jumex; kurimanzutto; L.A. Louver Gallery, Inc.; The Sharon D. Lund Foundation; Steve Martin; Mondriaan Foundation, Amsterdam; National Dance Project of the New England Foundation for the Arts; National Endowment for the Arts; E. Nakamichi Foundation; Wendy Keys and Donald A. Pels; Phaedrus Foundation; Vicki Reynolds Pepper and Murray Pepper; The Puffin Foundation, Inc.; Andrea Rosen Gallery, New York; Perry Rubenstein Gallery, New York; Barry Sanders; V. Joy Simmons; The Skirball Foundation; SONORA, in collaboration with Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Italy; Catharine Soros; Eve Steele and Peter Gelles; Dallas Price-Van Breda; Viacom Outdoor; The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts; and White Cube Gallery, London.

Back to the Press Room