| Numinous The Music of Joseph C. Phillips Jr. |
Year 3: 2002
Numinous at 25
3. 2002
#numinous25
#numinousmusic25
This was the first year that there was more than one performance in the year! In March The Maffei Dance Company performed two works "Flying," which was for the dance Multi-Matrix, and Penumbra at the old Merce Cunningham Studios in the West Village. JoLea’s company performed the scores with live music from four musicians from Numinous and me conducting. I loved, and still love, how beautiful and dynamic and exciting JoLea's choreography still resonates with me and wish we could do them again! The collaboration with JoLea was my first, but not my last collaboration with dance (which future #numinous25 will highlight), but it was my first NYC collaboration and felt like my first “real” new music performance as a composer in the city!
Numinous performed at Greenwich House Music School in April and it was really my first Numinous performance where I felt we were more getting things together the way I wanted. I rented out the hall and we had the most people up until that time in attendance—some I didn’t even know! So I was hopeful that this was a turning point for the ensemble.
That summer I took some of my first NYC “professional” shots on a roof in Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn with a good friend (only a year earlier I had stood that same roof to watch smoke from the Twin Towers, which led to my 2004 piece about that experience).
In that fall, I was thinking about recording our first album so I went to scope out three recording studios as possibles: Clinton Studios in Chelsea, Avatar Studios in Hell’s kitchen (former Power Station studio), and Systems Two in Brooklyn. All had recorded iconic albums so I was excited and nervous to visit each, especially knowing I was there to figure out what place to record MY first NYC album! I liked all of them but Systems Two felt the most comfortable and the most supportive so I planned for our sessions there in early 2003 (Mike, Joe, and Nancy of Systems Two became friends and until their closing in 2018, they and that iconic studio was the place we recorded the first three Numinous albums).
And finally in September AND December we performed at the old Cutting Room, as a warm up for some of the compositions we were going to record two months later.
#numinous25
#numinousmusic25
This was the first year that there was more than one performance in the year! In March The Maffei Dance Company performed two works "Flying," which was for the dance Multi-Matrix, and Penumbra at the old Merce Cunningham Studios in the West Village. JoLea’s company performed the scores with live music from four musicians from Numinous and me conducting. I loved, and still love, how beautiful and dynamic and exciting JoLea's choreography still resonates with me and wish we could do them again! The collaboration with JoLea was my first, but not my last collaboration with dance (which future #numinous25 will highlight), but it was my first NYC collaboration and felt like my first “real” new music performance as a composer in the city!
Numinous performed at Greenwich House Music School in April and it was really my first Numinous performance where I felt we were more getting things together the way I wanted. I rented out the hall and we had the most people up until that time in attendance—some I didn’t even know! So I was hopeful that this was a turning point for the ensemble.
That summer I took some of my first NYC “professional” shots on a roof in Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn with a good friend (only a year earlier I had stood that same roof to watch smoke from the Twin Towers, which led to my 2004 piece about that experience).
In that fall, I was thinking about recording our first album so I went to scope out three recording studios as possibles: Clinton Studios in Chelsea, Avatar Studios in Hell’s kitchen (former Power Station studio), and Systems Two in Brooklyn. All had recorded iconic albums so I was excited and nervous to visit each, especially knowing I was there to figure out what place to record MY first NYC album! I liked all of them but Systems Two felt the most comfortable and the most supportive so I planned for our sessions there in early 2003 (Mike, Joe, and Nancy of Systems Two became friends and until their closing in 2018, they and that iconic studio was the place we recorded the first three Numinous albums).
And finally in September AND December we performed at the old Cutting Room, as a warm up for some of the compositions we were going to record two months later.
Thanks and credit to all the original photos on this website to: David Andrako, Concrete Temple Theatre, Marcy Begian, Mark Elzey, Ed Lefkowicz, Donald Martinez, Kimberly McCollum, Geoff Ogle, Joseph C. Phillips Jr., Daniel Wolf-courtesy of Roulette, Andrew Robertson, Viscena Photography, Jennifer Kang, Carolyn Wolf, Mark Elzey, Karen Wise, Numinosito. The Numinous Changing Same album design artwork by DM Stith. The Numinous The Grey Land album design and artwork by Brock Lefferts. Contact for photo credit and information on specific images.