Bowerbird is pleased to present percussionist Stuart Jackson performing David Tudor’s Coefficient: Frictional Percussion and Electronics (1991). This late electro-acoustic work, originally composed for percussionist Michael Pugliese, exists not as a traditional score but as a set of materials, circuits, and performance practices developed through experimentation. Frictional gestures—scraping, rubbing, sustained contact—activate microphones and transducers, creating a feedback system where acoustic actions continuously shape and destabilize the electronics. The result is a dense, evolving sound environment in which percussion and electronics become inseparable. Jackson developed his version of Coefficient through extensive archival research and hands-on experimentation with Tudor’s materials. Because no fixed score exists, his realization emerged through an iterative process of reconstruction and refinement—treating Tudor’s materials not as instructions to reproduce, but as a framework to activate. Jackson will perform the work and discuss his research process, offering insight into how this materially elusive piece can be brought into the present through practice.

PROGRAM

Presentation on the reconstruction of Tudor’s Coefficient: Frictional Percussion and Electronics

– pause –

John Cage: Solo for Cymbal (1960)

David Tudor: Coefficient: Frictional Percussion and Electronics (1991)

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.

ABOUT THE ARTISTS

Stuart Jackson is a percussionist and uilleann piper from Virginia, currently based in Montréal, Canada. As a researcher, he specializes in reconstructing poorly documented and unpublished electroacoustic works from the 20th century. This project on reviving experimental compositions has received support from the Fonds de recherche du Quèbec and the Paul Sacher Stiftung in Basel, Switzerland.

He has presented solo percussion concerts at the Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal (MAC) and Ausgang Plaza in Montréal, and performed as an uilleann pipe soloist with the Soho Rep Theatre and the Wordless Music Orchestra. With the Montréal percussion ensemble Sixtrum, he has performed at the Timespans Festival in New York City, Semaine du Neuf in Montréal, and the Musica Festival (with Les Percussions de Strasbourg) in Strasbourg, France. He is currently a post-doctoral fellow at the Université de Montréal working with Jonathan Goldman and Guillaume Boutard.

co-presented with The Rotunda