Bowerbird is pleased to present an online talk with Mark Davenport, hosted by exhibition co-curators You Nakai and Dustin Hurt.

David Tudor is largely remembered for his performances of mid-twentieth-century avant-garde piano music and his close association with John Cage, but much less is known about his personal life or the intentional artist’s community he co-founded in 1954. The Gate Hill Cooperative, established with Cage and others who had emerged from the experimental environment of Black Mountain College, became Tudor’s home for over forty years—the place where he produced practically his entire compositional oeuvre. Tudor was only 28 when he moved to Gate Hill, and it was there that he developed the electronic and collaborative practices for which he continues to garner international recognition. Musicologist and cultural historian Mark Davenport, who grew up at Gate Hill, will draw on his decade-long research project and forthcoming book Community, Art, Education and the Search for Meaning: From Black Mountain College to the Gate Hill Cooperative to provide rare access and insight into Tudor’s life during the formative early years of the community. This conversation offers a unique personal and scholarly perspective on the environment that shaped Tudor’s artistic evolution.

Photo: David Tudor at the Gate Hill Cooperative (c. 1960). Photograph by Betsy (Epstein) Williams. Courtesy of Mark Davenport/Landkidzink Image Collection.

This online program starts at 6:00pm Eastern US time as a Zoom Webinar. Registration is required, but free.

This event is part of A VIEW FROM INSIDE: DAVID TUDOR AT 100, an exhibition at Drexel’s Pearlstein Gallery from January 15 to March 21, 2026.

Major support for A View from Inside has been provided by The Pew Center for Arts & Heritage
with additional support from the Musical Fund Society of Philadelphia.