... The music of Gavin Bryars falls under no category. It is mongrel, full of sensuality and wit and is deeply moving. He allows you to witness new wonders in the sounds around you by approaching them from a completely new angle. With a third ear maybe... Michael Ondaatj Arcana performs Gavin Bryars medieval inspired…
Bowerbird and the Arcana New Music Ensemble are excited to present the music of Ben Patterson (1934-2016), an important and under-recognized leader of the early Fluxus movement, an international, interdisciplinary community of experimental artists that began in the early 1960s. The program represents Patterson's wide range of compositional strategies. For example - Paper Piece (for 1…
Bowerbird is excited to present a rare evening of all contemporary music for brass ensemble featuring musicians from the Arcana New Music Ensemble. The program encompasses a wide variety of compositional voices from the last sixty years, including Lois V. Vierk's thorny Jagged Mesa, Michael Nyman's very un-Cagein For John Cage, and more recent works…
WEATHER UPDATE: CONCERT IS HAPPENING AS PLANNED. Bowerbird is pleased to present the the extraordinary vocal ensemble Ekmeles performing Madrigals and Animals, a program celebrating the ongoing history of madrigals - the complex multi-part songs born during the Renaissance period known for their creative text setting (including imitating animals calls). Karola Obermüller’s mass:distance:time relates directly to this…
The music of the Canadian composer Claude Vivier (1948-1983) combines diverse influences–from the the cerebral constructions of the European avant-garde to exoticist borrowings from East Asia– into a haunting and inimitable artistic voice. Vivier's intense and colorful music mirrors his life as an eccentric and bon vivant who met a tragic death at the age…
Bowerbird is pleased to present the world premiere of Greg Brown’s Fall and Decline performed by Variant 6. The new work composed for voices and electronics is based on texts of Sadakichi Hartmann, Eprenius, Todd Hearon, Edward Gibbon, and Omar Khayyam. The composition contemplates the inevitable decline of all things natural and manmade. Variant 6…
Bowerbird is pleased to present color as time, an ensemble led by Philadelphia composer / performer Joshua Stamper that inhabits the blur between classical, jazz, folk, and experimental textures. Playing at the edges of the composed and the improvised, the music is inspired by Elliott Carter's and Olivier Messiaen's time-stretching compositional techniques, immersed in a…
Bowerbird is honored to present a two evening retrospective of pioneering composer Johanna Beyer. The first evening features her percussion music and the second evening features her chamber music. Although Beyer's music was overlooked during her lifetime and for decades after her death, it was some of the most experimental and prophetic work created during…
Bowerbird is honored to present a two evening retrospective of pioneering composer Johanna Beyer. The first evening features her percussion music and the second evening features her chamber music. Although Beyer's music was overlooked during her lifetime and for decades after her death, it was some of the most experimental and prophetic work created during…
Bowerbird, in collaboration with the University of Pennsylvania Department of Music, is pleased to present Amy Williams performing Sonatas and Interludes, John Cage's groundbreaking cycle for prepared piano. The work was composed in 1946–48, shortly after Cage's introduction to Indian philosophy and the teachings of art historian Ananda K. Coomaraswamy, both of which became major…
Philadelphia favorites Alash return to The Rotunda for a FREE concert. Alash are masters of Tuvan throat singing (xöömei), a remarkable technique for singing multiple pitches at the same time. Masters of traditional Tuvan instruments as well as the art of throat singing, Alash are deeply committed to traditional Tuvan music and culture. At the same…
Bowerbird is pleased to present the Philadelphia premiere of the Boston-based experimental music ensemble Ordinary Affects and a new evening length work by Magnus Granberg, a Swedish composer closely associated with the Wandelweiser movement. Of Granberg's recent How Vain Are All Our Frail Delights?, journalist Ben Harper notes, " combines individual sounds and small fragments…
Bowerbird, in collaboration with The University of Pennsylvania's Music Department and the Kislak Center, are pleased to present "Maryanne Amacher: An Introduction" a talk by scholar-artist Bill Dietz on the life and work of Maryanne Amacher (1938 – 2009). Featuring rarely presented archival material, the talk will illuminate Amacher's unique methodology and studio practice. Maryanne…
Sound, space, and psychoacoustic phenomena are explored as three different facets of Maryanne Amacher's creative work are joined together in a single evening for the first time. The program features two of Amacher’s rare compositions including live instruments: Adjacencies (for percussion and spatialized, four-channel electronics) and Petra (for two pianos). The artistic collective Supreme Connections will also…
Ways of Hearing is a multi-part workshop lead by the artist group Supreme Connections that explores the complexity and nuance of Maryanne Amacher's artistic practice and her idea of "perceptual geography" as an approach to composition. These events will include in depth listening and discussion of archival audio, and the presentation of unpublished images of…
Sound, space, and psychoacoustic phenomena are explored as three different facets of Maryanne Amacher's creative work are joined together in a single evening for the first time. The program features two of Amacher’s rare compositions including live instruments: Adjacencies (for percussion and spatialized, four-channel electronics) and Petra (for two pianos). The artistic collective Supreme Connections will also…
Bowerbird is pleased to present a double bill of fingerstyle and American primitive guitarists Yasmin Williams and Daniel Bachman. YASMIN WILLIAMS DANIEL BACHMAN ABOUT THE ARTIST Yasmin Williams is an acoustic fingerstyle guitarist with an unorthodox, modern style of playing. Her music has been commonly described as refreshing, relaxing, and unique and has…
Bowerbird presents acclaimed ensembles Variant 6, Warp Trio, and the Kevin Sun Quartet in Philadelphia composer Kevin Laskey's new evening-length work Almanac. Crossing many stylistic borders, the work explores an almanac’s dual nature as information compendium and prophetic text. Dark sibylline prophecies emerge from catalogic texts about colors and food and flowers. And despite its…
