PRESS RELEASE

March 20th, 2006

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE 
Contact: 
Travis Weller 
travis@newmusiccoop.org
512-423-4888

On March 31st, Austin New Music Co-op is excited to present special
guests The Nonsense Company for an evening of edgy, thought-provoking
contemporary theatre and new music performances. Along side new works by
local composers, the Wisconsin-based interdisciplinary trio will perform
inventive and compelling assemblages of word and sound.

NEW MUSIC CO-OP PRESENTS: 
THE NONSENSE COMPANY 
An Evening of Experimental Theater & New Music
Saturday, March 31st - 8:00PM
Ballet Austin - 3002 Guadalupe
TICKETS: $8 IN ADVANCE AT END OF AN EAR
$10 AT THE DOOR, $8 STUDENTS AT THE DOOR
For more information visit:
(http://newmusiccoop.org/upcoming/)

NMC and Madison, WI group The Nonsense Company will perform a concert
that brings together experimental music, theater, and socio-political
thinking in an evening of truly unique performances. Visiting ensemble
The Nonsense Company is a trio of performers seasoned equally in the
performance of theater and experimental music. They've been widely
heralded as "one of the most original, inventive, and compelling" groups
currently performing today.  The Nonsense Company performs in a wide
variety of contexts and spaces, for audiences not frequently exposed to
new music and theater as well as for enthusiasts.  For their Austin
performance, The Nonsense Company will perform a challenging program of
percussion music and theater pieces.

"Strange and compelling pieces... introspective, recursive, highly
charged... stunningly choreographed into visual theater as well as an
aural melange." -- Dave Romm, KFAI Minneapolis

"Expands my view of theatre and everything else... An extremely well
polished, thoughtful, and poignant work of art." -- Audience member,
Minnesota Fringe Festival

The Austin New Music Co-op will present a complimentary selection of
experimental music/theater pieces, featuring new works by local
composers Brent Fariss and Brandon Young as well as percussion works by
Stuart Saunders Smith and Vinko Globokar.

About the Nonsense Company

The Nonsense Company performs unique new works in the fields of
contemporary music and theater, focusing on the musical use of speech in
estranged contexts, the application in theater of techniques native to
musical performance, and the effects of innovative aesthetic practice on
social and political thinking.  The Company's name is borrowed from
Franz Schubert's ensemble, die Unsinn Gesellschaft, who with radically
spare resources spawned a revolution in the music and poetry of the
nineteenth century.

"One of the most interesting concerts of the festival... The Nonsense
Company [presented] one of the most solid, free and critical aesthetic
propositions, a reproof to the vast majority of ensembles that performed
at Darmstadt...." -- Alberto Bernal, Educacion

The company's current members, Rick Burkhardt, Andy Gricevich, and Ryan
Higgins, have worked and studied with composers and performers such as
Steve Schick, Chaya Czernowin, John Fonville, Red Fish Blue Fish,
Herbert Bruen, The Performers' Workshop Ensemble, Ed Harkins, Brian
Ferneyhough, and Helmut Lachenmann, as well as with theater directors
Matt Wilder, David Wheeler, and Stefan Novinski. Their programs
emphasizing the works of startling new composers and playwrights have
received repeated invitations to theater and music festivals throughout
the United States, Mexico, and Europe.

About Austin New Music Co-op

 The New Music Co-op is a community of composers and performers from the
Austin area dedicated to increasing awareness and understanding of new
music. Since 2001, the NMC has presented a wide range of innovative and
compelling new works and created a unique environment for collaboration
and the free exchange of musical ideas. Notable New Music Co-op concerts
have included John Cage's Songbooks, Music for the extinct instruments
of Luigi Russolo, Pauline Oliveros' Four Meditations for Orchestra (with
the composer in attendance), a three-day series of the works of the New
York School, and Terry Riley's In C. New Music Co-op members come from
highly diverse backgrounds, from classical performance to electronic
music to formal composition to rock bands. The group runs by consensus,
and gains its strength from its members' varied experiences and
interests. The New Music Co-op is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization,
and all donations to the group are tax-deductible. This project is
funded in part by the City of Austin through the Cultural Arts Division
and by a grant from the Texas Commission on the Arts.

For more information: http://newmusiccoop.org/upcoming/

Contact: 
Travis Weller 
travis@newmusiccoop.org 
512-423-4888