EDWARD WARE
BIOGRAPHY - creator, founder and director of Mad Lab Music
Since my earliest recollections, in one way or another, I have been involved with art, music and performance: piano lessons, choir practice, dance competitions, art classes, drum set and classical percussion studies all evolved into my becoming a professional musician and composer. Naturally, other equally compelling forces also found their way into my life, shaped its direction and influenced my perspectives, among them, early encounters with the philosophy of Taoism, in the form of the Tao Te Ching and the I Ching proved particularly significant.
Plans to travel to West Africa for drumming and ideas to pursue sculptural studies in Europe gave way to time spent in China, immersing myself in the profound arts and practices of Chi Gung, Tai Chi Chan, Bagua Zhang and meditation - disciplines I continue to explore and share with students.
When I first moved from New Zealand to New York in 1990, I was looking for musical challenges and artistic growth. New York City was an environment that provided that and much more. I worked with a countless array of musicians amassing a wealth of experience in various styles of jazz, improvised, classical and new music from the heavily notated to the completely free.
Well known names I have worked with include jazz guitarists Jerome Harris, Ben Monder, Pete McCann, slide innovator Dave Tronzo, avant rock/jazz guitarist Marc Ribot, trumpeters Dave Douglas, Lewis Barnes, saxophonists Phillip Johnston and Tony Malaby, trombonist Joe Fiedler, pianists Chris Anderson and Anthony Coleman, bass players Peter Herbert, Mark Helias, Dave Hofstra, Ken Filiano, Peter Warren and Dominic Duval as well as free jazz luminaries such as saxophonists Joe McPhee, Chris Kelsey, Daniel Carter, pianist Matthew Shipp, bassist William Parker and experimental percussionist Ikue Mori, along with a host of new music artists such as composer Jerome Kitzke, pianist Kathleen Supové, bass clarinetist Michael Lowenstern, vocalist Theo Bleckmann, band leader/composer Kitty Brazelton and sound painting pioneer Walter Thompson.
In the mid '90's I was asked by New York’s then leading avant garde jazz venue ‘The Knitting Factory’, to be the drummer for the clubs first live internet broadcast from Switzerland’s Montreux Jazz Festival performing with British saxophonist Courtney Pine and Miles Davis’ percussionist Mino Cinelu. Another notable invitation for me was being the first jazz musician and composer to be officially asked to teach and perform at the prestigious Shanghai Conservatory of Music in China.
I continued to study composition (Masters in Composition from City University of New York 2004), theory and analysis privately (with Paul Caputo) and in recent years I’ve turned my creative energies increasingly toward writing, composing for independent theatre and film projects as well as for individual musicians, such as classical guitarist Matthew Marshall and ensembles, such as Peter Herbert’s Vienna based group ‘Bass Instinct’.
I have recorded for many independent labels including Knitting Factory Works, CRI and CIMP. My own independent release in 2001, 'Ed Ware's Tree', received critical acclaim including a four star review in the January 2001 issue of Down Beat magazine, with that trio being engaged for two seasons by Carnegie Hall. Recent projects include ‘The Unseen Thread’ with Butoh dancer Josephine Grundy, a reimagining of the music of Shostakovich with guitarist Harvey Valdes and a duo ‘FLOC’ with trumpeter Audun Waage, all available here edwardware.bandcamp.com
I currently divide my time between New York and Barcelona. I also, in no particular order, continue to compose, record, teach, perform and study.
MAD LAB MUSIC
… is about excellence in creativity.
..it’s a place to take chances, focus my passion for the importance of art in human life, and to feel and manifest its universal impulses.
It’s a space to think about sound: to contemplate its nature and consider what gives it substance and vitality.
This is where I freely explore and experiment with musical forms and materials, so as to discover which expressions can best bring new meaning and life to ideas.
Ultimately it is from here that I create works which seek to amplify the spirit of our humanity.
Feel
To listen is to feel and to feel is to listen.
To listen fully, deeply and completely is a whole body experience that requires a conscious engagement with our inner selves. Vibration - the language of sound - is felt inwardly. Composition is effectively the creation of maps of inner worlds, of Talismans in sound ... of felt journeys through inner space.
…if you can think - and not make thoughts your aim…
….. although the human condition is infinitely more mysterious and complex than thought alone, it is intrinsic to our condition and to that of music. It allows us, for example, to consider tonal implications and meaning; to create structures which enable us to speak to the most intimate aspects of our experience and to the vastness of our universe.
Part of music’s importance as art is that it manifests through time: it lets us feel thinking and think about feeling.
Think
Experiment
The spirit of experimentation is the life blood of artistic evolution and change.
The process of searching and exploring is needed not only to uncover the unexpected and extraordinary, but also to refine, re-frame and reconsider what we ‘know’ in order to sustain its vitality and constantly asses its relevance to creative challenges of the present.
Create
To create is to produce from process.
...it is to be in a dialogue with energies, to facilitate their expression and bring them into the world as tangible living entities. It is itself a kind of deep listening; a simultaneous process that exists in a state of receptivity and expressivity. A dichotomy reflective of the primary forces that shape our lives and our world.
Mad Lab Music Productions is where I invite artists, creatives and potential collaborators to come and connect to share their vision. Through a process of discussion and listening we establish a firm foundation for co-operation and clarification of their project and ideas. I can then go on to create music written specifically to support and realize that vision - be it in film, theatre, dance, performance, mixed media or other visual art.
I am interested in working with open minded artists, comfortable with both the risk and exploration of the avant garde but equally engaged with the depth of wisdom embedded in established language.
Through a net work of musicians on both sides of the Atlantic (New York and Barcelona), leading recording technologies and studio facilities in Barcelona, mlm productions can bring music for creative projects to fruition in an exciting and timely manner.