DUO UNPREPARED
IMPROVISED MUSIC
ANDRE GRIBOU / PIANOS
ROGER BRAUN / PERCUSSION
Featuring Prepared Piano & Percussion from Around the World
Completely Improvised Concerts Spanning a Multitude of Musical Vocabularies
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view performances (youtube playlist)
Duo Unprepared
Duo Unprepared presents completely improvised concerts spanning a multitude of musical vocabularies and features prepared piano and percussion instruments from around the world. The group began when Roger Braun and Andre Gribou, working together in a wide variety of performance settings since 2000 (including classical, jazz, and world music), found they had an unusual chemistry performing completely improvised music. As their affinity for performing improvised music together grew, they began to collaborate with other artists including world-renown improvisational dancers, Chris Aiken and Angie Hauser. Duo Unprepared has appeared on numerous concert series including Washington D.C.’s Dance Place performance series, the University of Michigan, Ohio University, Oberlin College, and Denison University. They also create live improvised scores to film, including Chaplin’s Modern Times, Kubrick’s 2001, Dali’s Destino, and Coppola’s, Apocalypse Now. As Trio Unprepared, with percussionist Anthony DiSanza, they recently performed in a tour Wisconsin Universities and at the International Society for Improvised Music Conference, in Chateau d’Oex, Switzerland.
Each concert performance by Duo Unprepared is unique. All musical decisions are made in the moment, providing audiences with a thrilling opportunity to experience music as it is being created. Any musical style is possible in their performances, with influences from classical, contemporary, jazz, rock, and world traditions present in the musical dialogue. Audiences are drawn into the creative process as well, deciding when to applaud (or not) as the improvised pieces unfold.
The instrumentation of Duo Unprepared is vast. Andre Gribou performs on two pianos, sometimes simultaneously. One piano is prepared, as developed by John Cage and further explored by other composers, and provides the inspiration for the group’s name and unique sound. Roger Braun performs on a huge array of percussion instruments, including prepared vibraphone, drum set, marimba, boombakini, gongs, drums, melodica, musical saw, and numerous idiophones from around the world.
Duo Unprepared presents completely improvised concerts spanning a multitude of musical vocabularies and features prepared piano and percussion instruments from around the world. The group began when Roger Braun and Andre Gribou, working together in a wide variety of performance settings since 2000 (including classical, jazz, and world music), found they had an unusual chemistry performing completely improvised music. As their affinity for performing improvised music together grew, they began to collaborate with other artists including world-renown improvisational dancers, Chris Aiken and Angie Hauser. Duo Unprepared has appeared on numerous concert series including Washington D.C.’s Dance Place performance series, the University of Michigan, Ohio University, Oberlin College, and Denison University. They also create live improvised scores to film, including Chaplin’s Modern Times, Kubrick’s 2001, Dali’s Destino, and Coppola’s, Apocalypse Now. As Trio Unprepared, with percussionist Anthony DiSanza, they recently performed in a tour Wisconsin Universities and at the International Society for Improvised Music Conference, in Chateau d’Oex, Switzerland.
Each concert performance by Duo Unprepared is unique. All musical decisions are made in the moment, providing audiences with a thrilling opportunity to experience music as it is being created. Any musical style is possible in their performances, with influences from classical, contemporary, jazz, rock, and world traditions present in the musical dialogue. Audiences are drawn into the creative process as well, deciding when to applaud (or not) as the improvised pieces unfold.
The instrumentation of Duo Unprepared is vast. Andre Gribou performs on two pianos, sometimes simultaneously. One piano is prepared, as developed by John Cage and further explored by other composers, and provides the inspiration for the group’s name and unique sound. Roger Braun performs on a huge array of percussion instruments, including prepared vibraphone, drum set, marimba, boombakini, gongs, drums, melodica, musical saw, and numerous idiophones from around the world.
Musician Biographies
Roger Braun is Professor of Percussion at Ohio University, where he was recognized as the institutions’ Presidential Teacher in 2016. His prior teaching appointments include University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point, University of Michigan-Flint, Albion College, and the Interlochen Arts Camp. He has presented numerous percussion master classes and clinics throughout the United States, and internationally has given master classes with Galaxy Percussion in Japan, presented at the 2008 Seoul Drum Festival in South Korea, the 2009 Cross Drumming Festival in Poland, and adjudicated the symphonic percussion competition at the 2004 Percuba Festival in Havana.
Braun can be heard on more than a dozen CD recordings, including performing, directing and producing Sticks and Stones: Music for Percussion and Strings, a CD of contemporary music for Equilibrium. He has performed extensively throughout the United States, Europe, and Asia. The wide range of his work includes orchestral percussion with symphonies, world percussion with the Biakuye Percussion Group, latin jazz with Los Viejos Blanquitos, completely improvised music with frequent collaborator Andre Gribou, and contemporary music with Galaxy Percussion and the Ohio Percussion Collective.
Also a composer, Roger Braun’s compositions and arrangements have been performed around the world and draw upon contemporary, jazz, and world music influences. His repertoire includes works for percussion ensemble, jazz percussion ensemble, solo marimba, string quartet, saxophone quartet, prepared vibraphone, and solos and etudes for snare drum. His music is published by his company, Ohio Percussion.
Braun earned his Bachelor of Music degree from the University of Michigan with highest honors and his Master of Music degree from the Eastman School of Music. His primary teachers were Michael Udow, Salvatore Rabbio, and John Beck.
André Gribou has composed for and collaborated with many nationally and internationally known artists in the creation of works for documentaries, video, dance and theater. Artists that he has collaborated with have included Mark Haim, Chris Aiken, Peter Bingham, Mark Dendy, Douglas Nielson, David Parsons, Margaret Beals, Nusha Martynuk and Carter McAdams, Lenora Champagne and the Lark String Quartet. In 2012 he received, in collaboration with Eric Arvai, the Emmy Award for Musical Score for the soundtrack to the documentary David Hostetler: The Last Dance. Previous Emmy nominations include the theme music for the WCBS-TV NFL Today Preview and the documentary PassionWorks: The Story of Flying. He also composed the soundtrack for the Emmy award-winning documentary Wandering Souls: Tet 68. His score for Water for Tea, the first of numerous NASA-TV projects, received the top prize at the Communicator Awards: the Crystal Award for Excellence and the Award of Distinction for Original Music. Subsequent soundtrack for NASA included Footprints, the first movie created for the Science on a Sphere format, which was cited by Time magazine as one of the Best Inventions of 2006. He recently completed the soundtracks for Loop and Waterfalls, the newest movies to be created in this new format.
As a pianist, his performance venues have included Lincoln Center, The United Nations, and The American New Music Consortium. In 1997, André Gribou and choreographer/dancer Mark Haim performed the world premiere of their duet The Goldberg Variations at The American Dance Festival. Gribou and Haim went on to perform The Goldberg Variations throughout the United States and abroad, including sold-out performances at the Kennedy Center; the Center for the Contemporary Arts in Yekaterinburg, Russia; and the Seoul Dance Festival in Korea. They also presented The Goldberg Variations as part of the Lincoln Center Institute Arts in Education Program. Gribou was subsequently invited by the Lincoln Center Institute to present a solo piano program: Time Travel with the Virtuoso Keyboard. Other recent collaborations have included performing with the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company in Copenhagen, Denmark.
André Gribou holds degrees from the Hartt School of Music and The Juilliard School. He has served as Music Director at the Ohio University School of Dance and joined the Ohio University School of Music Piano, Composition and General Studies faculty in the fall of 2004. For five consecutive years his course on The History of Rock Music has won “Best Class at Ohio University” as part of the Athens News “Best of Athens” Readers Choice Awards. He was on the faculty at The American Dance Festival from 1994 to 2005 and previous to joining the Ohio University faculty, André served on the faculties of The Juilliard School, Trinity College, New York University, and the United Nations International School.
Roger Braun is Professor of Percussion at Ohio University, where he was recognized as the institutions’ Presidential Teacher in 2016. His prior teaching appointments include University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point, University of Michigan-Flint, Albion College, and the Interlochen Arts Camp. He has presented numerous percussion master classes and clinics throughout the United States, and internationally has given master classes with Galaxy Percussion in Japan, presented at the 2008 Seoul Drum Festival in South Korea, the 2009 Cross Drumming Festival in Poland, and adjudicated the symphonic percussion competition at the 2004 Percuba Festival in Havana.
Braun can be heard on more than a dozen CD recordings, including performing, directing and producing Sticks and Stones: Music for Percussion and Strings, a CD of contemporary music for Equilibrium. He has performed extensively throughout the United States, Europe, and Asia. The wide range of his work includes orchestral percussion with symphonies, world percussion with the Biakuye Percussion Group, latin jazz with Los Viejos Blanquitos, completely improvised music with frequent collaborator Andre Gribou, and contemporary music with Galaxy Percussion and the Ohio Percussion Collective.
Also a composer, Roger Braun’s compositions and arrangements have been performed around the world and draw upon contemporary, jazz, and world music influences. His repertoire includes works for percussion ensemble, jazz percussion ensemble, solo marimba, string quartet, saxophone quartet, prepared vibraphone, and solos and etudes for snare drum. His music is published by his company, Ohio Percussion.
Braun earned his Bachelor of Music degree from the University of Michigan with highest honors and his Master of Music degree from the Eastman School of Music. His primary teachers were Michael Udow, Salvatore Rabbio, and John Beck.
André Gribou has composed for and collaborated with many nationally and internationally known artists in the creation of works for documentaries, video, dance and theater. Artists that he has collaborated with have included Mark Haim, Chris Aiken, Peter Bingham, Mark Dendy, Douglas Nielson, David Parsons, Margaret Beals, Nusha Martynuk and Carter McAdams, Lenora Champagne and the Lark String Quartet. In 2012 he received, in collaboration with Eric Arvai, the Emmy Award for Musical Score for the soundtrack to the documentary David Hostetler: The Last Dance. Previous Emmy nominations include the theme music for the WCBS-TV NFL Today Preview and the documentary PassionWorks: The Story of Flying. He also composed the soundtrack for the Emmy award-winning documentary Wandering Souls: Tet 68. His score for Water for Tea, the first of numerous NASA-TV projects, received the top prize at the Communicator Awards: the Crystal Award for Excellence and the Award of Distinction for Original Music. Subsequent soundtrack for NASA included Footprints, the first movie created for the Science on a Sphere format, which was cited by Time magazine as one of the Best Inventions of 2006. He recently completed the soundtracks for Loop and Waterfalls, the newest movies to be created in this new format.
As a pianist, his performance venues have included Lincoln Center, The United Nations, and The American New Music Consortium. In 1997, André Gribou and choreographer/dancer Mark Haim performed the world premiere of their duet The Goldberg Variations at The American Dance Festival. Gribou and Haim went on to perform The Goldberg Variations throughout the United States and abroad, including sold-out performances at the Kennedy Center; the Center for the Contemporary Arts in Yekaterinburg, Russia; and the Seoul Dance Festival in Korea. They also presented The Goldberg Variations as part of the Lincoln Center Institute Arts in Education Program. Gribou was subsequently invited by the Lincoln Center Institute to present a solo piano program: Time Travel with the Virtuoso Keyboard. Other recent collaborations have included performing with the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company in Copenhagen, Denmark.
André Gribou holds degrees from the Hartt School of Music and The Juilliard School. He has served as Music Director at the Ohio University School of Dance and joined the Ohio University School of Music Piano, Composition and General Studies faculty in the fall of 2004. For five consecutive years his course on The History of Rock Music has won “Best Class at Ohio University” as part of the Athens News “Best of Athens” Readers Choice Awards. He was on the faculty at The American Dance Festival from 1994 to 2005 and previous to joining the Ohio University faculty, André served on the faculties of The Juilliard School, Trinity College, New York University, and the United Nations International School.