Questlove’s Electronium: The Future Was Then at BAM, Oct 25 & 26 An homage to pioneers of electronic music Electronium: The Future Was Then Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson Produced by BAM Featured artists: Dan Deacon, How To Dress Well, Jeremy Ellis- Live Drum Machine, Metropolis Ensemble conducted by Andrew Cyr, Sonnymoon American Express is the BAM 2013 Next Wave Festival sponsor BAM Howard Gilman Opera House Oct 25 & 26 at 8pm Tickets: $25, 35, 45 (weekday); $25, 40, 55 (weekend) Brooklyn, NY/Sep 16, 2013—Following the success of Shuffle Culture (2012 Spring Season), BAM welcomes back Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson with Electronium: The Future Was Then, a freely-associative and impressionistic musical homage to pioneers in the electronic music scene between 1948 and 1979. Questlove will be joined on stage by artists including Dan Deacon, How To Dress Well, Jeremy Ellis, Metropolis Ensemble conducted by Andrew Cyr, and Sonnymoon. In Electronium, seminal electronic and archival recordings will be paired with modern riffs on classic electronic music models such as Busoni’s New Esthetic in Music and Pierre Schaffer’s Cinq Etudes—in addition to music from technological innovators such as Bob Moog, Stevie Wonder, and George Clinton. The production’s title references the first electronic synthesizer created exclusively for the composition and performance of music. Initially created for Motown by composer- technologist Raymond Scott, the electronium was designed but never released for distribution; the one remaining machine is undergoing restoration. Complemented by interactive lighting and aural mash-ups, the music of Electronium: The Future Was Then honors the legacy of the electronium in a production that celebrates both digital and live music interplay. As the son of doo-wop star Lee Andrews (of Lee Andrews & the Hearts), Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson was exposed to music at an early age. He was performing on drums by the age of seven, and by 13 had become a musical director. His parents then enrolled him at the Philadelphia High School for the Creative and Performing Arts, where he was exposed to a wide range of music and other performing arts. In 1987 Questlove co- founded The Roots with high school classmate Tariq Trotter and has been with the group ever since. It is now the house band for Late Night with Jimmy Fallon. Questlove has also maintained an active career in music outside of his work with The Roots. He has produced artists such as Common, D’Angelo, Jill Scott, Erykah Badu, and Jay-Z, and more recently, Al Green, Amy Winehouse, and John Legend. He has played drums on albums by Christina Aguilera, John Mayer, and Joshua Redman, to name a few, and was one of a handful of musicians picked to back Hank Williams Jr. on a new version of “All My Friends Are Coming Over Tonight” for the season premiere of Monday Night Football. The list of Questlove’s side projects is equally impressive. In 2001 he helped create the Philadelphia Experiment, a collaborative instrumental jazz trio with bassist Christian McBride and avant-garde jazz pianist Uri Caine. In 2011 he partnered with Parisian star Keren Ann to present Philly-Paris Lockdown, a one-night celebration of 1900s Paris that took place at the Philadelphia International Festival of the Arts. In 2012 Questlove conceived and curated Shuffle Culture, a multi-artist, BAM-produced concert engagement exploring technology’s role in our relationship with modern music. In addition to the list of awards and nominations he has received as a member of The Roots, Thompson was named Best Scribe in Esquire magazine’s 2006 Esky Music Awards, was ranked 2nd in Rolling Stone’s list of “50 Top Tweeters in Music,” and placed 8th in a Rolling Stone reader’s poll for “Best Drummers of All Time.” Time magazine listed his among the Best Twitter Feeds of 2013 For a decade, Baltimore-based composer Dan Deacon has been a fixture in the American underground music scene. Through relentless touring, Deacon built himself a devoted grassroots following. His breakthrough 2007 album Spiderman of the Rings brought critical acclaim and exposed his work to an international audience. Since then, Deacon has begun expanding his output beyond indie/underground circles and has begun to emerge in the contemporary classical scene. In addition to Deacon’s solo work and composing for his own ensemble, he has worked on several acclaimed collaborations with So Percussion, including a 2012 performance at Zankel Hall, which Alex Ross of The New Yorker declared “one of the more entertaining and fulfilling evenings I’ve had in recent years.” Deacon has also worked with the Calder Quartet, Now Ensemble, and the Kitchener- Waterloo Symphony as well as composing for the score for Francis Ford Coppola’s film Twixt. Deacon has performed his work at several leading music and art venues, including London’s Barbican Centre, Carnegie Hall, the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York, the Getty Center in Los Angeles, and the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden at the Smithsonian. His latest album America was released on Domino Records in August of 2012. Research fellow Tom Krell makes ghostly, lo-fi R&B under the moniker How to Dress Well, a name he stumbled upon and adopted as his own in a Minneapolis bookstore in 2004. As a boy, Krell loved late-‘80s and early-‘90s R&B artists including Keith Sweat and Ready for the World, and since he was a late bloomer, he could sing along to songs by female vocalists well into his teens. However, in high school he played in various metal and hardcore bands, then switched to making drone-based music in his 20s. Krell made live experimental music as How to Dress Well by looping layers of his voice while he was living in Brooklyn, but it was when he moved to Cologne, Germany and collaborated with the likeminded artist cokc dokc that he began recording under that name. Krell blended his childhood love of R&B with the abstract noise of Black Dice, filtering it all through lo-fi recording techniques. He released the first How to Dress Well EP, The Eternal Love, in October 2009 as a free download via his blog, and more EPs followed at the rate of about one per month through April 2010. Krell signed to Lefse Records, which released his first official single, “Ready for the World,” in July 2010 and How to Dress Well's debut album, Love Remains, that October. Two years later, Krell returned with Total Loss, a more straightforward and cleanly recorded set of songs inspired by trying to be positive in the face of adversity. Jeremy Ellis pioneers an emerging style of music performance on drum machines with the finesse of a classical pianist and the soul of a Motown child. Since 1999, this acclaimed figurehead in new music has performed in dozens of countries, in part thanks to sponsorships with innovative companies like Propellerhead and Native Instruments. Events for MTV Scratch, an invite from JJ Abrams to play on the bridge of the Starship Enterprise, Google Zeitgeist, and sharing the BAM stage with Questlove highlight his career. Ellis expands his genre as the foremost teacher in his field providing clinics at venues such as Full Sail University, the Atlanta Institute of Music, Rockhal, and even a TED talk. Along with live clinics, Jeremy shares lessons on the JeremyEllisMusic Youtube channel and released a unique, full-length tutorial on MacProVideo.com. Currently working on a studio album, he looks forward to seeing his son crawl, and to joining Questlove again this fall before touring Japan. Grammy-nominated conductor Andrew Cyr is a leader in the rapidly growing contemporary music scene. His passion for creating new opportunities and platforms for outstanding young composers and performing artists to make new music led him to found Metropolis Ensemble in 2006. A multifaceted musician, Cyr has led performances with a number of internationally known musical artists who defy classification, including Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson, Dan Deacon, Deerhoof, and Babx. Recent engagements include his debut with the Colorado Symphony in 2013, his off-Broadway debut at New Victory Theatre conducting a new opera by David Bruce, and his debut at Kimmel Center’s Verizon Hall as part of Philadelphia’s International Festival of the Arts. Cyr’s latest studio album with Metropolis was released in July on Nonesuch Records, featuring the music of Timo Andres. A native of Fort Kent, ME, Cyr holds music degrees from Bates College, the French National Conservatory, and Westminster Choir College. Metropolis Ensemble is a New York–based chamber orchestra dedicated to making classical music in its most contemporary forms. Founded in 2006 by Grammy-nominated conductor Andrew Cyr, Metropolis Ensemble has commissioned 90 works of music from a dynamic mix of emerging composers. Metropolis Ensemble has been presented by Lincoln Center, BAM, Celebrate Brooklyn!, (le) Poisson Rouge, Carnegie’s Weill Music Institute, New Victory Theater (in collaboration with ROH II and The Opera Group), Wordless Music, and in broadcasts on NPR and NBC’s Late Night with Jimmy Fallon. In 2013, Metropolis Ensemble’s recording of Vivian Fung’s Violin Concerto (Kristin Lee, solo violin) was awarded Canada’s prestigious Juno Award for Best Classical Composition. The Ensemble’s debut album, featuring the music of Avner Dorman, was nominated for a Grammy Award in 2010. Metropolis Ensemble is equally dedicated to fostering music creativity in its local school communities through its education program Youth Works. Sonnymoon is the brainchild of musicians Dane Orr (NY) Anna Wise (CA) and Joe Welch (VA). Their dynamic journey through an experimental approach to pop music began in 2009 when front woman Anna Wise and producer Dane Orr began making music together after meeting in Boston.