Hi, all. I'm about to go on a solo tour through North America, performing vocals through a Linux laptop running PD. Compared to many of you, what I'm doing PD-wise is pretty simple, but those of you on the tour path might be interested...

Joseph Zitt's Surprise Me with Beauty North American Tour 2K2

Contact: Joseph Zitt jzitt@metatronpress.com (202) 321-8443

Vocalist/composer/poet/improvisor Joseph Zitt is heading out on his first solo North American tour in January and February 2002. The tour is in support of his new book, "Surprise Me With Beauty: the Music of Human Systems" , and the CDs "All Souls" (created in collaboration with Thomas Bickley) and "Collaborations" (featuring a performance with bassists Vattel Cherry and Jane Wang, and live and studio interaction with each of the members of the electroacoustic chamber ensemble Gray Code).

In the course of the tour, he will perform sets both solo (vocal through computer processing) and in collaboration with local improvisors. He also will lead workshops in structured improvisation, incorporating the participants, if possible, in the performances in the same cities.

In addition to his published books and CDs, recordings of his performances with various ensembles are online at http://www.metatronpress.com/mp3/ and writings and other information are at http://www.metatronpress.com/jzitt/ .

The following dates are scheduled, with more to be announced, and possibilities open for further dates afterward and along the way. The information in the message, along with maps and directions to many venues, is kept up to date at http://www.metatronpress.com/jzitt/tourdates.html

Wednesday, Jan 2: Washington, DC All Souls Church, Unitarian 1500 Harvard Street, NW (16th and Harvard) Washington, DC 20009 8 PM

Friday, Jan 4: Birmingham, AL Pilgrim Congregational Church 3801 Montclair Road Birmingham, AL 35213 7 PM with the Eric Zinman Trio, Tony Wren, Marj McDaid, LaDonna Smith, and poets.

Saturday, January 5: Atlanta, GA Eyedrum, 290 MLK Jr. Dr. Suite 8, Atlanta, GA 30312 10 PM

Sunday, January 6 - Tuesday, January 8: Carrboro, NC (venues and events TBA) with the Alliance for Improvised Music

Sunday, January 13: Nashville, TN Ruby Green 514 Fifth Avenue South, Nashville, TN

Monday, January 14: Louisville, KY Artswatch 2337 Frankfort Ave. Louisville Ky 40206 9 PM

Wednesday, January 16: Dallas, TX (venue and time TBA) with QslashC

Thursday, January 17: Austin, TX Improvisation Workshop Heloise Gold's Tai Chi Studio 2525 Wallingwood, Building 7, suite 702 B, Austin, TX
9 PM

Friday, January 18: Austin, TX Cafe Mundi 1704 E 5th St Austin, TX 78702 6 PM with QslashC and friends 512-236-8634

Saturday, January 19: Austin, TX Sound Exchange 2100A Guadalupe Austin, TX 78705 6 PM

Sunday, January 20: Houston, TX Sound Exchange 1846 Richmond Houston, TX 77098 8 PM with Philip Gayle

Tuesday, January 22: Baton Rouge, LA Louisiana State University (Venue and time TBA)

Thursday, January 24: El Paso, TX Bridge Center for Contemporary Art 1 Union Fashion Center San Antonio and Stanton El Paso, TX 79901

Wednesday, January 31: San Francisco, CA Luggage Store Gallery 1007 Market Street (nr 6th) San Francisco, CA 94103

Saturday, February 3: Berkeley, CA Large group performance (Details TBA)

Wednesday, February 6: Seattle, WA Subtext Reading Series Richard Hugo House 1634 11th Ave on Capitol Hill Seattle, WA 7:30 PM

Friday, February 8: Portland, OR (venue and time TBA)

Saturday, February 9: Victoria, BC Martin Batchelor Gallery 712 Cormorant Street (across from City Hall) Victoria, BC with Lance Olsen & Jamie Drouin

Wednesday, February 13: Olympia, WA KAOS-FM Radio on "What's This Called? / No Skinny Ties" hosted by Jim McAdams 11 PM-1 AM

• • • • • • BIOGRAPHY - - - - - -

Joseph Zitt's vocal performance combines a background in traditional synagogue and world musics with a mastery of extended vocal techniques. While he often approaches performance non-verbally, focusing on the vocal sounds themselves rather than the meanings of words, he also includes moving and surprising uses of text in work that straddles the line between music and poetry. In his solo and ensemble performances and workshops, he works to create music that is both complex and clear, exemplifying the best that each person can bring to free and structured improvisation.

His recent recording, "All Souls", in collaboration with Thomas Bickley, presents a free long-form improvisation, created on the spot with intertwining voices exploring the architecture and objects in a resonant room and its surroundings. His latest recording, "Collaborations", captures live improvisations performed with bassists F. Vattel Cherry and Jane Wang, with percussionist Brian Fending, and with guitarist Jonathan Matis (both members, along with Zitt, Bickley, and Matthew Ross Davis, of the ensemble Gray Code), as well as a studio collaborations with Thomas Bickley and Craque.

His newest book, "Surprise Me With Beauty: the Music of Human Systems", collects writings and scores from over 20 years that present and embody new visions of human interaction through structured group improvisation. Believing, as John Cage said, that "the performance of a piece of music can be a metaphor ... of how we want society to be", Zitt develops and discusses the creation of ensemble musics that are clear, multifaceted, and enjoyable. These scores help reveal and encourage people's strengths in performance while allowing for acceptance of and recovery from honest human frailty and error.

Composer Pauline Oliveros has called the book "a wonderful invitation to participate in making music for musicians, interested people, and educators. These scores will encourage you to sound the silenced self."

Joseph Zitt studied cantorial music at Yeshiva University, electronic and ethnic music and composition at Rutgers University with Daniel Goode, Phillip Corner, and Barbara Benary, and voice with Martha Randall.

He has performed in a wide variety of solo and ensemble contexts, including performing with the ensemble Comma in Pauline Oliveros's "Lunar Opera" at Lincoln Center in New York City, and with the ensemble Gray Code at the Knitting Factory in New York and at the 2001 Vision Festival in Washington, DC. He has worked extensively in the realms of free and structured improvisation with musicians including Toshi Makihara, John Berndt, LaDonna Smith, Thom the World Poet, and Philip Gelb. In annual tours of Texas, his group QslashC, a large and varied ensemble of musicians, poets, and dancers, explores improvisation methods and structures in engaging (and often hilarious) events. He has also led the Human Systems Performance Group, which moves among dance, theatrical, musical, and video performance to develop effective multimedia events, and created electronic theatre scores for the PAM Repertory Company in Brooklyn, NY.

His recordings includes Comma's "(voices)" and Gray Code's "Live in Philadelphia 2000" on the Metatron Press label, the solo CD "Jerusaklyn" from MP3.com, and the vocal solo "mouth. midnight." on the "lowercase" compilation on the Bremsstrahlung label. His other works include the book "Shekhinah: The Presence" from Metatron Press and the ambient video dance work, "Gentle Entropy, each of which has accompanying CDs from the MP3.com label.

He founded and manages Silence: the John Cage Internet discussion list, and has developed and managed Web sites for businesses and arts organizations, including the Austin International Poetry Festival and Metatron Press. MP3s and streaming recordings of many of his performances, as well as those of other Metatron Press artists, are online at http://www.metatronpress.com/mp3/.