Very Long Cat is a new network music ensemble combining tabla (Shawn Mativetsky) and live coding (David Ogborn), rehearsing and performing via the Internet and employing an eclectic range of techniques and technologies drawn from the NIME and neighbouring universes. Our music seeks to bridge the gap between the centuries-old traditions of improvisation in Indian classical music, and the more recent traditions of live coding. We are constantly exploring the contrasting notions of new and old, innovation and tradition, East and West, fixed and improvised, acoustic and electronic, finding out how to communicate musically across great distances, and finding a vocabulary that works in bridging our two vastly different, yet surprisingly similar, musical worlds.
[photo credit: Caroline Tabah]
Featuring
David Ogborn - live coding
d0kt0r0 (a.k.a. David Ogborn): hacker, sound and code artist, live coding and guitar performer; director of the Cybernetic Orchestra and half of Very Long Cat (with Shawn Mativetsky); associate professor in the Department of Communication Studies and Multimedia, McMaster University (teaching in the undergraduate Multimedia program, and the MA in Communication and New Media).
http://www.d0kt0r0.net/
Shawn Mativetsky - tabla
Dynamic performer Shawn Mativetsky is considered one of Canada's leading exponents of the tabla, and is a pioneer in bridging the worlds of Western and Indian classical music. Called an “exceptional soloist” by critic Réjean Beaucage, WholeNote's Andrew Timar adds that “as a leading disciple of the renowned [Pandit] Sharda Sahai, he has serious street cred.” Shawn Mativetsky is highly sought-after as both performer and educator, and is active in the promotion of the tabla and North Indian classical music through lectures, workshops, and performances across Canada and internationally. Based in Montreal, Shawn teaches tabla and percussion at McGill University. His solo album, Payton MacDonald: Works for Tabla, was released in 2007, and Cycles, his recording of Canadian compositions for tabla, was released in the fall of 2011.
http://www.shawnmativetsky.com/
Related Event
The Very Long Cat concert is preceded, on Feb 17th, by the Live Coding as a Musical Interface Research Workshop, organized by the CIRMMT RA4 - Expanded Musical Practice.