Percussionist Han Bennink says the members of the ICP Orchestra aren’t trying to be wacky, even if their work is a bit, shall we say, zany. The band, whose acronym stands for Instant Composers Pool, will create odd versions of famous tunes. Or Bennink will toss his cymbals to the ground. Or the members will create a stack of albums onstage and top it with a bobble-headed dog. Listeners who go to see the Pittsburgh debut of the eight-piece group Tuesday in Oakland should be sure of only one thing: Don’t expect anything certain. Bennink, who helped found the band in 1967, says this is intentional. “That is why we pick the players we have,” he says of the curious outlook he and his colleagues have on music. “We don’t think of ourselves as ‘really unique.’ We just sort of do what we do.” One of the things the members of the band like a great deal, he says, is playing a wide variety of music. That might explain some of the avant-garde nature of ICP. For instance, he says, he once did a tour with on-the-edge pianist Cecil Taylor and then followed it by two weeks with soul singer Percy Sledge. Also, he once was doing concerts with tenor sax star Ben Webster to which he and keyboardist Misha Mengelberg added avant-garde duos at intermission. “Ben Webster nearly hit me,” he says. “He wanted to save me from what he called ‘that evil music.'” The current members of the band have been together for about a year and a half, although the band itself has been together longer. He and Mengelberg have been working together for 42 years. Bennink and keyboardist and saxophonist Wilem Breuker put the band together not necessarily as an avant-garde outfit, but one that is more expressionistic, Bennink says. Even without the odd thinking of Breuker, who left to form his equally curious Kollektief, the ICP Orchestra has stayed offbeat in its approach. And it’s been popular, as this two-week swing through the United States has shown. Bennink is talking from a concert hall in Ann Arbor, Mich., where the band has stopped for a sound check. “I’m tired, very tired,” he says of the trip that he says sometimes seems like a tour of airports. “And this patriotism is driving me crazy. Everywhere you look is a flag. It reminds me of Switzerland, where they put flags everywhere, too.” The ICP Orchestra will perform at 8 p.m. Tuesday at the Bellefield Auditorium, Oakland. Tickets are $10 or free with a University of Pittsburgh ID card. Details: (412) 422-8864. – Bob Karlovits MAUCERI AT KENNEDY CENTER Pittsburgh Opera music director John Mauceri will return to old stomping grounds when he conducts at the 2001 Kennedy Center Honors, which will be broadcast at 9 p.m. Dec. 26 on CBS. Mauceri, who was music director of Kennedy Center orchestras from 1978-88 and of Washington Opera from 1982-84, will lead a performance of the Sextet from Gaetano Donizetti’s “Lucia di Lammermoor.” He’ll conduct the entire opera here in April to conclude the Pittsburgh Opera’s season. Pittsburgh Opera’s music director also was music theater consultant to the Kennedy Center from 1981-96. The 2001 Kennedy Center honorees will be Julie Andrews, Van Cliburn, Quincy Jones, Jack Nicholson and Luciano Pavarotti. – Mark Kanny POETRY, STORY CONTEST HEArt (Human Equity Through Art), the Pittsburgh-based literary journal, announces its fourth annual poetry and short fiction contest. Entries must be previously unpublished, and address issues of social justice relating to class, gender, racial and sexual discrimination. Short stories should be no more than 7,000 words; poetry submissions are limited to three poems totaling no more than five pages. Entry fee is $15, and includes a copy of the winning issue; for $21, a year’s subscription to the journal is included. Multiple entries are accepted. First prize in both categories is publication in HEArt and $500. The deadline for all entries is Dec. 31. Send entries to HEArt Writing Contest, P.O. Box 81038, Pittsburgh, PA 15217-0538. Details: trfn.clpgh.org/heart . – Regis Behe “RINGS” HOT IN NEW ZEALAND New Zealanders are eagerly awaiting the release of the first Harry Potter film, which opens Nov. 29. But it’s the premiere of the first film in J.R.R. Tolkien’s “The Lord of the Rings” trilogy that has really cast a spell. Using the majestic scenery of his home country as a backdrop, New Zealand-born director Peter Jackson has filmed all three books in Tolkien’s classic, helping to spark much local interest. “The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring” opens in New Zealand movie theaters at one minute past midnight on Dec. 20. Fans who recently waited in line for hours took just 15 minutes to snap up all 400 tickets for the first screening, Hoyts Cinema marketing manager Karen Cafe says. Theater operators predict “The Fellowship of the Ring” will outsell Harry Potter 2-to-1. – The Associated Press

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