Cellist Seth Parker Woods premieres Peter Garland's 45-minute continuous cello solo, Out of the Blue alongside new works by Martin Iddon and Michael Vincent Waller.

Peter Garland (composer)

Born in 1952 in Portland, Maine, Peter Garland was one of the original students at Cal Arts in 1970, where his principal teachers were Harold Budd and James Tenney. From 1971 to 1991 he edited and published SOUNDINGS magazine and press, where he printed the work of four generations of mostly American composers. As an editor and essayist he played a pivotal role in the rediscovery and re-evaluation of composers such as Conlon Nancarrow, Silvestre Revueltas, Lou Harrison, Paul Bowles, Dane Rudhyar, Harry Partch and James Tenney, among others. He helped bring back the Pacifica recordings of
Jaime de Angulo's Old Time Stories and published a book on de Angulo's work with Northern California Indian musics.

During the 1970's he lived mostly in California, along with two extended stays in Mexico (including extensive travels in southern Mexico and Guatemala): first in the Zapotec weaving village of TeotitlAn del Valle in Oaxaca; and later in the Purepecha village of Tocuaro, Michoacgn, where he lived with the family of renowned mask-maker Juan Horta (1940-2006). He lived in Santa Fe, New Mexicio all through the 1980's, where he directed his own performing ensemble. Highlights of their decade together were performances of his shadow puppet/dance theater spectacle, The Conquest of Mexico, in Santa Fe and Los Angeles. Years of exposure to Native American and Hispanic musics, both in New Mexico and the greater Southwest, were also a major influence. In 1991 he left the US, embarking on a 43-month journey to 12 countries on 5 continents -- the so-called Gone Walkabout years. Highlights include the study of Australian Aboriginal music and culture at the University of Adelaide, where he was guest composer; collaboration with the Red Mole Theater in New Zealand; and a 4-month residency in Japan, where he traveled and researched popular festivals, and the influences of Buddhism and Nature in Japanese aesthetics. In 2002 he had a similar residence in the Philippines, where he studied popular festivals, indigenous musical traditions and the influence of Spanish colonization.

In 1997 he left the US again, moving to Cholula, Puebla. He subsequently lived for 3 years in Tlacotalpan, Veracruz, a center of jarocho culture, where he studied jarocho music with the late Evaristo Silva. He also did research among the Nahua Indians in the Sierra of Zongolica. From 2001 to 2005 he lived in Oaxaca, where his research focused on music and fiestas in the Mixteca region and on music and fiestas in the Zapotec and Mixe villages in the Sierra Norte. He developed a special friendship with the brass band and community of Totontepec, Mixes. After 7 and 1/2 years of nearly continuous research on Mexican music, he moved back to the coast of Maine, where he has lived since 2005, continuing his ongoing life's work as a composer.

Seth Park Woods (cello)

Critiqued as "a cellist of power and grace" (The Guardian) and possessing "mature artistry and willingness to go to the brink" (I Care if You Listen), Seth Parker Woods has established a reputation as a versatile artist straddling several genres. Outside of the solo performance setting, he has performed with the Ictus Ensemble (Brussels, BE), Ensemble L'Arsenale (IT), zone Experimental (CH) Basel Sinfonietta (CH), New York City Ballet, Ensemble LPR and Orchestra of St. Luke's (US). A fierce advocate for contemporary arts, he has collaborated and worked with a wide range of artists ranging from the likes of Louis Andriessen, Heinz Holliger, G.F. Haas, Helmut Lachenmann, Klaus Lang, Steve Mackey and Peter Eotvos to Peter Gabriel, Sting, Lou Reed, Dame Shirley Bassey, Rachael Yamagata, Aldo Tambellini and Jack Early.

Having completed a PhD in Performance Research from the University of Huddersfield, his principal teachers were Thomas Demenga, Lucas Fels, Frederik Zlotkin, and Daniel Morganstern. In the last years he has given talks, workshops and performances at Musée d'art Moderne et Contemporain (FR), Le Poisson Rouge and the Bohemian National Hall (USA), Cafe OTO (London, UK), Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival (UK), Klang Festival (Durham, UK), INTER/actions Symposium (Wales), ICMC-SMS Conference (Athens, GR), NIME Conference (London), Sound and Body Festival (Lille, Brussels), Instalakcje Festival (PL), Virginia Tech, La Salle College (Singapore), and FINDARS (Malaysia) amongst others. Recent awards include a Earle Brown/ Morton Feldman Foundation Grant (USA), McGill University-CIRMMT/IDMIL Visiting Researcher Residency (CA), Centre Intermondes Artist Residency (FR), Francis Chagrin Award (UK) , Concours [Re]connaissance- Premiere Prix (FR) and the Paul Sacher Stiftung Research Scholarship (CH).

Michael Vincent Waller (composer)

Michael Vincent Waller is an American concert music composer based in New York City. His work freely embraces lyricism and transparent modal harmonies, yet situates these familiar elements within decidedly unconventional and individual frameworks. This highly personal amalgam prompted George Grella to cite him as "one of the most interesting composers in New York" in the Brooklyn Rail.

Following study under LaMonte Young, Bunita Marcus, and Elizabeth Hoffmann, he has collaborated with noted soloists and ensembles like R. Andrew Lee, the S.E.M. Ensemble, Nadia Shpachenko, and Ensemble Dedalus and his work has featured at venues such as Roulette, the ISSUE Project Room, Paris' Palais de Tokyo Museum, and Carnegie Hall. Waller is currently working on the follow-up to his acclaimed debut recording The South Shore (XI Records) and this fall season is composing new pieces for Stephane Ginsburgh, Seth Parker Woods and Nicolas Horvath.

Martin Iddon (composer)

Martin Iddon was born in Manchester in 1975. He studied composition and musicology at the Universities of Cambridge and Durham and studied composition privately with Steve Martland, Chaya Czernowin, and Steven Kazuo Takasugi. His music is performed across the world, most particularly in New York, Southern California, Germany, and Austria. Recent performances include ones at the Zentrum für Kunst und Medien (Karlsruhe, Germany), Kings Place (London, UK), the DiMenna Center (New York City, USA), the Uzerche Music Festival (Uzerche, France), the Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival (Huddersfield, UK), and the MATA Festival (New York City, USA) by Ensemble SurPlus, Distractfold, ekmeles, the Kairos Quartett, Heather Roche, Eva Zöllner, Rei Nakamura and others. A portrait CD, pneuma, was released in 2014 on Another Timbre, regarded by Richard Pinnell as "slow, quiet and brooding, almost menacingly so [...] a fascinating album", by Julien Héraud as "beautiful, innovative, intelligent, personal and rich", and by Kurt Gottschalk as "simply—and complexly—wonderful". His music is published by Composers Edition.