OT? Concert Announcement

October 29th, 1998 8:00pm
Interpretations Series Concert
Merkin Concert Hall
129th West 67th Street
New York City

David First will premiere "A Bet on Transcendence Favors the House" - an
evening's length work for cello, JI keyboards, pedal steel guitar, percussion,
electric guitar, and computer controlled drones in JI.

Charles Curtis - cello
Bob Hoffnar - pedal steel guitar
Michael Schumacher - keyboard
David Simons - percussion
David First - guitar and electronics programming


Things to do today:

1) Explore and resolve the inherent difficulties encountered whenever human
contrivance meets - and attempts to bond with - the inscrutable laws of
nature.

2) Chase through canonical instructions designed to trigger imitative gestures
modeled after the phenomenon of shape-shifting periodic wave relationships
observed in the physical world.

3) Pit the best of faithful intentions - that of achieving a sustainable state
of perfection - against an overwhelming hierarchical gravity which always
has the last disappointing word.

4) Make change. Try again.


Odds at post time:

27/16
27/20 45/32
9/8
9/5 15/8
3/2
6/5 5/4
1/1
8/5 5/3
4/3
16/15 10/9
16/9
64/45 40/27
32/27


David First has had his music performed in New York at Experimental
Intermedia, the Kitchen, La MaMa, Roulette, Merkin Hall, Exit Art, the
Knitting Factory, Bang on a Can Festival, The Cooler, and CBGB's. He has also
had his music presented at Podewil,the USArts Festival, and at the Institut
Unzeit (Berlin) as well as at the Ijsbreker (Amsterdam), the Heidelberger
Festival for Experimental Music and Literature (Heidelberg), ZwischenTone
Festival (Kvln), The Impakt Festival (Utrecht), Het Apollohuis (Eindhoven) at
the Kunstforeningen (Copenhagen), and the Uppsala Konstmuseum (Uppsala).

He has received grants and awards from the National Endowment for the Arts,
the Phaedrus Foundation, Casio Inc., the Yamaha Communications Center and was
a nominee for the Cal Arts/Alpert award in 1994. First has two CD recordings
on O.O. Discs as well as works on the CRI, Aerial, and Homestead labels.

"a fascinating artist with a singular technique"
Alex Ross
New York Times

"a bizarre cross between Hendrix and La Monte Young"
"The music grew and grew in scintillating, illusionary beauty long past the
point at which you thought it could still surpass itself"
Kyle Gann
Village Voice

"The next big thing in guitar gods"
K. Leander Williams
Time Out NY