Sam Pluta - Composer/Improviser

News and such :


Wet Ink Ensemble – Feb 8-10 and May 5-7, 2010 - Amherst College
Wet Inks will be in residence this spring at Amherst College, performing works in the ensemble's repertoire, plus new compositions by Amherst College students. Included is the premiere of my new work for the Wet Ink Touring Band.

Carrier Records Presents and – Mar 4, 2010, 8pm - Issue Project Room, Brooklyn
GBL and Wet Ink perform in the Carrier Records showcase at IPR.

MIVOS Quartet – Mar 10, 2010, 8pm - Galapagos Art Space, Brooklyn
MIVOS will be performing the revised and reduced version of my string quartet, LYRA.

Peter Evans Quintet – Mar 16, 2010, 10pm - Le Poisson Rouge, Manhattan
The Peter Evans quintet performs our wild combination of jazz, noise, and electronics. Craig Taborn to start the evening!!!

Wet Ink and Flexible Music – Mar 23, 2010 7pm - Galapagos Art Space, Brooklyn
Wet Ink Ensemble joins Flexible Music in a concert featuring music by Peter Ablinger, Alex Mincek, Sam Pluta and Seung-Ah Oh.

Wet Ink Festival of New American Music – May1 and 27, 2010 8:30pm - Roulette, Manhattan
Wet Ink Ensemble will perform two concerts of music by young and underrepresented American composers. The concerts will feature my new work for the Touring Band, plus music by Eric Wubbels, Kate Soper, Anthony Braxton, Ming Tsao, Mark Applebaum, Amy Williams, and others.

Yarn/Wire – June 5 8:30 pm - Roulette, Manhattan
Yarn/Wire will perform a program featuring works by Wet Ink composers Eric Wubbels, Alex Mincek, Kate Soper, and myself.

The Walden School – June 26 - Aug 1
This is my 10th year teaching at the Walden School, where I was just named the John R Plude Chair of Computer Music!

STEIM – Aug 8-21 - Amsterdam
I will be on retreat in beautiful Amsterdam, working on performance software and eating herring.

So what do I do anyway?

Well...I do a lot of a couple of things. I compose music for people to play, I improvise with my laptop (like right above where you are reading), improvise with people playing instruments, write electronic music that just plays itself, and make installations that lots of people can play with. I really like to combine these things, writing music for people to play while I improvise on my laptop, or writing something nobody plays to go along with people improvising, etc, etc... I've worked with dancers, video artists, theater companies, and have even done some film soundtracks.
I am the Technical Director for Wet Ink Ensemble, an amazing New York group dedicated to playing new music by young composers. Wet Ink just released our first album, with music by Eric Wubbels, Kate Soper, Jeff Snyder, Alex Mincek, and myself. Its available from Carrier Records, a label that Jeff Snyder and I founded in 2009. Of course, I continue improvising with the great quartet GBL, who are based in New York City. These guys are not only amazing musicians, but also some of my best friends. Plus, there is my duo with Jeff Synder, exclusiveOr, who make music on vintage 1960's and 70's synths, including one of the original Buchla 100/200's. We finally released our album on quiet design records in Austin, TX. Also on that label is the language of, a killer compilation including works by Alex Mincek, Alex Ness, Clara Latham, Jeff Snyder, Kate Soper, Eric Wubbels, Jim Altieri, and myself.
Performing over the last year with the Peter Evans Quintet has done wonders for my improv skills. These guys are just incredible performers, and our combination of jazz, noise, and electronics is, as far as I can tell, fairly unique and special.
I've studied music in a lot of great places. I am currently a DMA student at Columbia University. I received my Masters degree at the University of Texas at Austin and then got another at BEAST in the UK. I did my undergrad work at Santa Clara University in California. Probably the best education of all, though, has been teaching for the last 10 years at The Walden School, which is my favorite place in the world. They recently named me the John R Plude Chair of Computer Music, which is very exciting.

If you like my stuff and want to contact me, please email me at spluta at gmail dot com.

©2009 Sam Pluta