Waters_Bluestone_Duel

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As the Waters_Bluestone_Duel (aka Bluestone_Waters_Duel) composer Joseph Waters & percussion god Dr. Joel Bluestone perform an ongoing series of works for live electronics and virtuoso percussion. Waters_Bluestone_Duel was created in 2000 to explore new ways for combining live electronics and virtuoso percussion. The idea is to create modern chamber music, with complex instrumental jousting and parallel maneuvers.

The Duel is committed to expanding the avant-garde classical literature to encompass a New Relevance . The New Relevance demands works that are non-elitist, rigorous and multi-level -- works that are simultaneously accessible and challenging. To this end Waters_Bluestone_Duel combines traditional virtuosity with a search for new timbres, performance practices and 21st century cross-cultural aesthetic reflection. It challenges timeworn, outmoded norms for the uses of classical music, the means by which it is presented, and the venues in which it is experienced. The Duel reunites performer and composer, focuses them on a common goal, and puts them onstage together. Waters is in residence at the School of Music and Dance of San Diego State University, home of maverick genius composer Harry Partch. The Waters_Bluestone_Duel strives to emulate Partch's uncompromising aesthetic values.

The Duel's motto: Get classical music onto the street corners!

Waters composes the music and performs the electronics via custom software and GUI that transform his laptop into a musical instrument.

Bluestone powers a percussion battery that calls on a vast collection of instruments, from exotic to backyard, including kettle drums (huge brass war drums first mounted by the Turks on elephants and used for battle), marimba, vibraphone, crotales, glockenspiel, tubular bells, gongs, cymbals, sleigh bells, & dozens of found objects, common & bizarre.

Bluestone whirls inside a circle of percussion, fists full of flying mallets, nailing two or three simultaneously.


Selected Performances:

• Veneto Jazz Festival 2006 — Venice, Italy
• 1st Festival Patagónico de Música Electroacústica — San Martin de los Andes, Argentina
• WEF -- Warsaw Electronic Festival — Warsaw, Poland
Visiones Sonoras 2005 — Festival Internacional de Música Electroacústica y Nuevas Tecnologias — Mexico City
• Theater Kikker — Utrecht, Netherlands
• Bomb The Space Festival — Wellington, New Zealand
• NWEAMO — San Diego, USA
• Radio Beethoven — Santiago, Chile
• Dance Conduit — Portland, Oregon, USA
• ACMC (Australasian Computer Music Conference) — Melbourne, Australia
• PAS 2001 (Percussive Arts Society) International Conference — Nashville, Tenessee
• SEAMUS 2004 (Society for Electro-Acoustic Music in the United States) — San Diego, USA
• ICMA 2004 (International Computer Music Conference) — Miami, Florida, USA
• Rosarito Art Center — Rosarito, Mexico
• ACMC (Australasian Computer Music Conference) — Wellington, New Zealand
• American Society of Composers Region IV Conference (Featured Guest Artists) — Winthrop University, South Carolina, USA

For bookings please contact Joseph Waters: josephwa@cox.net

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Equipment for Waters_Bluestone_Duel

• vibraphone (3 octaves F-F)
• marimba (4 octave is fine)
• (2) timpani (32 in. /82cm, 26 in. /6cm)(Ranges: low drum D to A. High drum B to E Flat.)
• (2) tam-tam (med/large, 26 in. /67cm)
• crotales ˆ 2 octaves and stands
• (2) 7 foot/2.2 meters Rack (to hang gong over timpani)
• Tubular Chimes (1.5 octave c-f)
• Glockenspiel (Bells) (2.5 octaves g-c) and stand (must be able to hang over vibraphone)
• Box (Big wooden box to be hit with a large rubber hammer. In the past we have used old speaker cabinets or a conductor's podium.)
• Bass Bow (to bow vibraphone)
• Metal Wind Chimes (on a cymbal stand)
• Trash Can Lid
• Chains
• 5 Triangles and stands,
• 2 Cymbals - 18 inch crash cymbal and stand, 20 inch swish cymbal and stand (Small and Large Cymbal OK)
• Bell Tree and trap table
• Tambourine with stand
• Cowbell with stand
• (2) Tables for computer.
• Large Thunder sheet.
• Table( 30 inch x 18 inch or 77cm x 46cm)
• Direct Box
• Thick String
• 12 Music Stands, 7 Stand Lights
















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