Vinny Golia Large Ensemble
THE VINNY GOLIA LARGE ENSEMBLE(2002)
(History)
Vinny Golia founded the Large Ensemble in 1982 to perform his original compositions for chamber orchestra. His style of composition strongly based in the Jazz tradition, blends heavily notated contemporary chamber music with improvisation, incorporates various extended instrumental techniques, 20th-century idioms, as well as world music concepts. Golia's music demands a talented and exceptional group of dedicated musicians, adept at both reading and improvising, and at home in a wide variety of styles. For the past twenty years Vinny has kept the ensemble going through his own financial resources, while continuing to compose prolifically for the ensemble, which has grown from its original size of fourteen to its current size of thirty five musicians. The ensemble includes; ten woodwinds (with doubles), three to four trumpets, four to five trombones, one tuba, two orchestral percussionists (mallets, chimes timpani, Hand Drums, etc.), one drums & percussion, one piano & keyboards, three violins, one viola, four cellos, two contrabasses, and a Conductor. The repertoire for the Large Ensemble now consists of over two hundred compositions, yet unfortunately most works have received only one live performance.
Despite the difficulties in funding live performance, Golia's compositions for the Large Ensemble have received both critical and popular acclaim through recordings. The first of these, Compositions for Large Ensemble on Golia's Nine Winds label, is a three-record set recorded at the 1982 Schoenberg Hall concert. This recording, as well as the second album, Facts of Their Own Lives, have been ranked in the "10 Best" lists by both critics and readers in journals across the United States, Canada, Japan and Europe, (please see enclosed reviews). These vinyl record sets have become much sought after collector's items. A third recording, Pilgrimage to Obscurity, was released as a CD in March of 1990 and received heavy airplay and very favorable reviews. Pilgrimage was listed as a 1990 top 10 recording in Coda magazine by a number of critics, it also received a four star review in the July 1991 issue of Downbeat Magazine. The Ensemble's second Nine Winds CD release Decennium Dans Axlan was voted one of the best recordings of 1993 by the Los Angeles Times.
Commemoration , a 2-CD tribute to the late clarinetist, John Carter contains music from a 21 part suite, A Moment of Truth, written by Vinny Golia. Reviews called this tribute Golia's, "most fascinatingly complex and richest work to date." Tutti Contare, a recording of pieces for dance troupe and large ensemble was released Spring 1996. Cadence Magazine called it "some of the most creative and compelling music done in the United States today." The Large Ensemble's current recordings include Portland 1996, which was recorded live on the 1996 Large Ensemble Spring tour and released in Spring 1997.
Lastly an audio/ video documentation of this tour is expected to be released on video. 1999 was a great year for the Large Ensemble with festival performances in Vancouver Canada, San Francisco, Portland, Los Angeles and other cities on the West Coast. The bands current release of The Other Bridge, Oakland 1999 is from this tour. Over the last two years the Ensemble has performed throughout the west coast and a boxed set of Large Ensemble music from this and other tours is scheduled for release to celebrate the 20 year history of this ensemble.
The VGLE will finish the year with concerts in Los Angeles and San
Diego.
"Often this is tremendous music; great vibrating blocks of sound
- tremendously sad, as befits the memorial theme - that you could stack
right up against the more intense moments of Messiaen or Ives..."
L.A. WEEKLY
"Few contemporary creative musicians have been so consistently devoted
to the challenge of melding compositional scope and improvisational development
with the Large Ensembe as Golia. This multi-instrumentalist can generate
equally multi-faceted exploration of thematic and textural elements, testing
both the combined voices of his 22 piece ensemble and many of its component
voices....Golia and his group are filling a very special niche in current
exploratory music."
JAZZ NEWS
"What gives unity and coherence to Golia's music, holding together
all the individual voices and free improvisation that exists within it,
is its conceptual depth. Conveying a sense of teeming, multi-form life against
a ground of silence and ultimate mystery, it reaches beyond melody, harmony
and rhythm to make an existentialist statement."
L.A. JAZZ SCENE
"At a time when resources make economical small-group free music
seem most feasible, Golia sets his sights on colossal compositions....ambitious
not only in scale, but in musical aspirations, it consists primarily of
long, structured compositional sections laced with accompanied and unaccompanied
solos and group improvisation...Golia utilizes the full timbral range, and
with this ensemble he has quite a paintbox to draw from."
DOWNBEAT
"This is creative music on a grand scale, Braxtonish neo-bop to
meditative chamber music. Golia prefers the term Large Ensemble to big band
because it connotes a far wider spectrum of music. And here Golia has the
full palette of musical colors he's been craving all these years, and the
players who can realize his complex arrangements."
OPTION
"Not only has Golia succeeded in consolidating the talents of many
of the L.A.'s areas more venturesome musicians, he has crafted a collection
of charts that challenge and titillate their creative sensibilities. Golia's
lengthy suite-like compositions employ a wide spectrum of tonal colors,
intriguing combinations of corresponding and contrasting lines and sturdy
riff-based passages... it is sufficient to note that whether taken in small
doses or in one sitting, this explosively charged package is guaranteed
to spark your interest and imagination..."
RECORD REVIEWS
VINNY GOLIA LARGE ENSEMBLE
VINNY GOLIA'S LARGE ENSEMBLE
* = Original Members
+ = Lira Artists
CONDUCTOR(s)
Marc Lowenstein
Vinny Golia
TRUMPETS
*John Fumo
Rob Blakeslee
Jeff Kaiser
Ed Harkins
TROMBONES
*+Michael Vlatkovich
George McMullen
Scot Ray
Bruce Fowler
Phil Teele - Bass Trombone
TUBA
Bill Roper
WOODWINDS
* +Vinny Golia
Jennifer Roth
Jason Mears
Kim Richmond
Alan Lechusza
Paul Sherman
Eric Barber
Bill Plake
Sarah Shoenbeck
Tara Spieser
PIANO/KEYS
*Wayne Peet
PERCUSSION
Devin Maxwell
Brad Dutz
*+Alex Cline
VIOLINS
Jeff Gauthier
Ludvig Girdland
Ronit Kirschman
CELLO
Jessica Catron
Guenevere Measham
Rob Zimmerman
BASSES
Joe McNalley
Ivan Johnson
Hal Unserud
VINNY GOLIA LARGE ENSEMBLE |
PORTLAND 1996 FEATURING:Jeff Gauthier, Kim Richmond, Steve Adams, Michael Vlatkovich, Bill Roper, Wayne Peet |
NINEWINDS RECORDS - 0180 Availabe at the 9Winds records site http://memberrs.aol.com/ninewinds |
VINNY GOLIA LARGE ENSEMBLE |
TUTTO CONTARE FEATURING:David Ocker, John Fumo, Rob Blakeslee, Harry Scorzo, Michael Vlatkovich, Bill Plake and others
|
NINEWINDS RECORDS - 0170 Availabe at the 9Winds records site http://memberrs.aol.com/ninewinds |
VINNY GOLIA LARGE ENSEMBLE |
COMMEMORATION FEATURING:Wayne Peet, Ken Filiano, Alex Cline, Bruce Fowler, Kim Richmond, Bill Roper, Bill Plake, Steve Fowler, David Ocker, Michael Vlatkovich, Harry Scorzo, and others |
NINEWINDS RECORDS - 0150/0160 Availabe at the 9Winds records site http://memberrs.aol.com/ninewinds |
VINNY GOLIA LARGE ENSEMBLE |
DECENNIUM DANS AXLAN FEATURING: John Fumo, Rob Blakeslee, Bruce Fowler, Bill Plake, Steve Fowler and others |
NINEWINDS RECORDS - 0140 Availabe at the 9Winds records site http://memberrs.aol.com/ninewinds |
VINNY GOLIA LARGE ENSEMBLE |
PILGRIMAGE TO OBSCURITY FEATURING: Vinny Golia, Michael Acosta, John Rapson, David Ocker, David Johnson, Michael Vlatkovich, Steve Fowler and others |
NINEWINDS RECORDS - 0130 Availabe at the 9Winds records site http://memberrs.aol.com/ninewinds |
VINNY GOLIA LARGE ENSEMBLE |
FACTS OF THEIR OWN LIVES FEATURING:Vinny Golia, John Rapson, Tim Berne, Steve Fowler, Michael Vlatkovich, Alex Cline, and others |
NINEWINDS RECORDS - 0120 Availabe at the 9Winds records site http://memberrs.aol.com/ninewinds |
VINNY GOLIA LARGE ENSEMBLE |
COMPOSITIONS FOR LARGE ENSEMBLE FEATURING: Vinny Golia, Bobby Bradford, John Carter, Tim Berne, Rickey Kelley and others |
NINEWINDS RECORDS - 0110 Availabe at the 9Winds records site http://memberrs.aol.com/ninewinds |