Kevin James, Composer - Works and Compositions

UPCOMING EVENTS

March 2-6, 2011

Premiere performances of Dialogue with Vanishing Languages featuring ELISA MONTE DANCE and the [kaj] ensemble at The Joyce Theater in New York City.

March 22, 2011

Premiere of Djawon Dreaming by The FULCRUM POINT NEW MUSIC ENSEMBLE at The Harris Theater in Chicago.

Fall 2011 & beyond

National and international touring of Dialogue with Vanishing Languages by ELISA MONTE DANCE. Premieres of works featuring the Dalabon and Ainu Languages with partners including SPEAK PERCUSSION to be followed by recording and release of CDs. Check back for dates and locations

scroll down for the project calendar, description, partners, sponsors and donations link

This performance helped raise funds for Kevin to spend time with the Quileute people recording tribal history and individual stories in the Quileute language. Some of the resulting work will become a part of this piece of music. Kevin continues to work with the tribal council to help them to archive documentation of their language and culture.

Many thanks to the Quileute Tribal Council and to Shure Microphones for their support.

This work was followed by a field recording expediion in Arnhem Land (many thanks to linguist Seb Harris for guiding that expediction and the Meet the Composer for their generous support) and five months in Japan courtesy of the Japan/US Friendship Commission to conduct similar research into the Ainu language.

To be a part of this adventure, please consider a tax-deductible contribution by clicking on the "donate" tab below.

Counting in Quileute is the first of five pieces based on aural qualities of nearly extinct languages that Kevin will be completing for his ongoing Languages Project.

The languages Kevin will focus on are to include Quileute (a Native American tribe of the Pacific Northwest) Dalabon and Jawoyn (Australian aboriginal languages of Arnhem Land), and Hokkaido Ainu (aboriginal language of the large northern Japanese island).

Kevin spent over two years collecting archival recordings of each of the languages, and traveled to each of these parts of the world to create new field recordings of nearly all of the remaining native speakers of them.

Please check back here for links to news articles, blogs, media and information on some of the folks who are sponsoring this project.

MEANWHILE - We kicked it all off with a series of in-progress performances by the new music all-stars of the the [kaj] ensemble. . The performances were held at a fantastic Greenwich Village loft that beautifully intensified the intimacy of the performances.

Check out the pics to the left and use the link at the top of the page to hear some audio samples.

photos courtesy of Natasha Kermani.

On January 24th, 2008 Marie Smith-Jones passed away at the age of 89. Despite Ms. Smith-Jones’ stereotypically American name, she was the last native speaker of the Eyak language of Alaska. We are currently in the midst of a unique period in the history of the human race in which, for the first time, rather than increasing in number the known languages of the world are becoming extinct at an alarming rate. Half of the languages currently spoken will disappear from the Earth by the end of the century.

This past Summer Charlotte Kalama passed away. Her voice is featured prominently in these works. The Quileute language now has two remaining native speakers.

This project will be a large scale exploration of the extraordinary subtleties of human language. It will result in works with musical palettes never heard before and it will introduce uniquely intimate and personalized approaches to performance and musical communication. As all of the pieces will be accompanied by taped material culled from the field recordings of the various languages, it will both seek to acknowledge the world's consumption of this most fragile resource and to embody it's renewal.