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DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20260620T180000
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20260620T200000
DTSTAMP:20260626T235916
CREATED:20260504T174820Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20260608T163121Z
UID:10001320-1781978400-1781985600@www.bowerbird.org
SUMMARY:Follow The Sound
DESCRIPTION:Please note this is an outdoor performance. In case of rain\, the performance will take place Sunday June 21st. \nBowerbird is pleased to co-present Follow the Sound at Stoneleigh: a natural garden. This unique program blends a naturalist-led walk through the garden\, with particular attention focused on birds\, bugs and ‘the here and now’ of the environmental soundscape\, interspersed with site-responsive impromptu performances by trombonist Dan Blacksberg and saxophonist Andrew Urbina along the way. This will be a rare and special opportunity for deep communal listening and attunement in a beautiful setting. \nEstimated run time: 60 minutes \nTicketing link will be available soon.\nThere will be two time-slots to choose from:\n6pm start and 6:30pm start \n$30 – Natural Lands member ticket\n$40 – Non-member ticket\n$20 – Young Adult ticket (30 and under)\n$10 ACCESS ticket \n\nABOUT THE ARTISTS \nGenre-defying and tradition-inhabiting trombonist\, improviser\, and klezmer musician Dan Blacksberg creates a vast musical universe that encompasses everything from the minute variations of a melody that power the unencumbered joy of a Yiddish Dance Party to the hair-raising extended techniques of the most avant-garde jazz and noise rock\, and most everything in between. \nAndrew Urbina (saxophone) is from the suburbs of Philadelphia and of Colombian descent. He is a freelance musician who performs and teaches throughout the United States\, Canada\, and Colombia. He earned a Bachelor of Music from New England Conservatory and a Masters of Music from McGill University both concentration in Jazz Studies. He also completed his PA K-12 Teaching Certification at Immaculata University. In the summer of 2008\, Andrew participated in the Banff International Workshop of Jazz and Creative Music at the Banff Centre led by Dave Douglas in Alberta\, Canada. The following year in January 2009\, Andrew performed at the VI Panama Jazz Festival with an ensemble from New England Conservatory and later from 2012-2016\, he lived in Bogota\, Colombia and was an active performer and educator throughout the country. In January 2016\, he had the opportunity to perform with the Ida y Vuelta ensemble at the X Festival Internacional de Musica in Cartagena\, Colombia. Currently as a performer\, Andrew is an active member of the Norman David Eleventet\, U.S.E. Trio\, Phantasma\, BeUs Quartet and performs regularly with various groups throughout the greater Philadelphia area. He is also an active and passionate educator and has worked in many educational settings such as La Universidad Sergio Arboleda\, McGill University\, PA Governor’s School of the Arts\, and Bala Cynwyd Middle School. He currently is a Music Teacher at Radnor Middle School where he teaches concert band\, jazz band\, general music and music technology. \n\nOrganized in collaboration with World Askew and funded in part by PECO\, Team Pennsylvania\, and Pennsylvania Creative Industries
URL:https://www.bowerbird.org/event/follow-the-sound-at-stoneleigh/
LOCATION:Stoneleigh: a natural garden\, 1829 County Line Road\, Villanova\, PA\, 19085\, United States
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/png:https://www.bowerbird.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/follow-the-sound-june-20.png
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20260613T190000
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20260613T200000
DTSTAMP:20260626T235916
CREATED:20260504T173633Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20260511T143041Z
UID:10001319-1781377200-1781380800@www.bowerbird.org
SUMMARY:The Music of Pauline Oliveros
DESCRIPTION:Please note\, this is an outdoor performance. The scheduled performance is Saturday June 13\, 7:00pm with a rain date of Sunday June 14\, 7:00pm \nBowerbird is pleased to co-present the Arcana New Music Ensemble performing music of Pauline Oliveros at Stoneleigh: a natural garden. Pauline Oliveros’ (1932-2016) life as a composer\, performer and humanitarian was about opening her own and others’ sensibilities to the universe and facets of sounds. Her career spanned fifty years of boundary dissolving music making. In the ’50s she was part of a circle of iconoclastic composers\, artists\, poets gathered together in San Francisco. In the 1960’s she influenced American music profoundly through her work with improvisation\, meditation\, electronic music\, myth and ritual. \nPROGRAM \nThe Well\nThe Gentle \nARCANA NEW MUSIC ENSEMBLE \nMolly Germer\, violin\nCarlos Santiago\, violin\nAlyssa Almeida\, cello\nTessa Ellis\, trumpet\nJay Krush\, tuba\nNicholas Handahl\, flute\nAndy Thierauf\, percussion \nNOTES \nWritten between 1982-1983 and commissioned by Philadelphia’s Relâche Ensemble\, The Well and The Gentle are two of Oliveros’ Sonic Meditations – text-based\, intuitive pieces rooted in listening with minimal instructions. \nThe performance will take place at the pool house\, an outdoor space in the heart of Stoneleigh’s bucolic campus (seating provided). The garden will open at 5:30 for audience members to come early and enjoy the grounds. Feel free to bring a blanket and picnic! \nTicketing link will be available soon\n$30 – Natural Lands member ticket\n$40 – Non-member ticket\n$20 – Young Adult ticket (30 and under)\n$10 ACCESS ticket \n\nABOUT THE ARTISTS \nPauline Oliveros’ (1932-2016) life as a composer\, performer and humanitarian was about opening her own and others’ sensibilities to the universe and facets of sounds. Her career spanned fifty years of boundary dissolving music making. In the ’50s she was part of a circle of iconoclastic composers\, artists\, poets gathered together in San Francisco. In the 1960’s she influenced American music profoundly through her work with improvisation\, meditation\, electronic music\, myth and ritual. \nShe was the recipient of four Honorary Doctorates and among her many recent awards were the William Schuman Award for Lifetime Achievement\, Columbia University\, New York\, NY\,The Giga-Hertz-Award for Lifetime Achievement in Electronic Music from ZKM\, Center for Art and Media\, Karlsruhe\, Germany and The John Cage award from from the Foundation of Contemporary Arts. \nOliveros was Distinguished Research Professor of Music at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute\, Troy\, NY\, and Darius Milhaud Artist-in-Residence at Mills College. She founded “Deep Listening®\,” which came from her childhood fascination with sounds and from her works in concert music with composition\, improvisation and electro-acoustics. She described Deep Listening as a way of listening in every possible way to everything possible to hear no matter what you are doing. Such intense listening includes the sounds of daily life\, of nature\, of one’s own thoughts as well as musical sounds. \n“Deep Listening is my life practice\,” Oliveros explained\, simply. Oliveros founded Deep Listening Institute\, formerly Pauline Oliveros Foundation\, now the Center For Deep Listening at Rensselaer\, Troy\, NY. Her creative work is currently disseminated through The Pauline Oliveros Trust and the Ministry of Maåt\, Inc. \nArcana New Music Ensemble is a group of Philadelphia-based musicians dedicated to presenting interesting\, beautiful\, and unconventional music in interesting\, beautiful\, and unconventional places. Founded in 2015\, the chamber ensemble is dedicated to contemporary classical music performing works by living composers and to reexamine music from the past\, often focusing on composers whose work has been overlooked. A hallmark of Arcana’s programming is its frequent use of portrait concerts\, which allow the ensemble to explore a composer’s work in depth. These programs balance music by widely recognized composers with works by those who are less well known or historically underrepresented. \n 
URL:https://www.bowerbird.org/event/the-music-of-pauline-oliveros-at-stoneleigh/
LOCATION:Stoneleigh: a natural garden\, 1829 County Line Road\, Villanova\, PA\, 19085\, United States
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/png:https://www.bowerbird.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/oliveros-at-stoneleigh.png
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BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20260605T200000
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20260605T220000
DTSTAMP:20260626T235916
CREATED:20260403T135044Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20260615T151610Z
UID:10001316-1780689600-1780696800@www.bowerbird.org
SUMMARY:Morton Feldman: Three Voices
DESCRIPTION:Bowerbird is pleased to present vocalist Charlotte Mundy performing Morton Feldman’s iconic work Three Voices at University Lutheran Church. \nFeldman’s “Three Voices” was written for the experimental vocalist and composer Joan LaBarbara in 1982. The original concept involved the live performer singing along with two pre-recorded parts projected through on-stage amplifiers\, creating an effect of three individual “voices”\, all with the same origin (Ms. LaBarbara). Three Voices is indeed a challenging and ground-breaking work\, and has very rarely been performed live with three singers due to its nearly impossible demands on the human voice and psyche – impeccable rhythmic concentration\, shrewd attention to tuning\, and the ability to sound as one voice in three parts. The text is based on Frank O’Hara’s poem\, Wind\, and shapes\, twists\, and morphs short phrases from the poem into an hour-long musical experience. \n\nABOUT THE ARTIST \nCanadian soprano Charlotte Mundy has been dubbed a “daredevil with an unbreakable spine” (SF Classical Voice)\, and “mesmerizing” (New York Times). As a founding member of TAK ensemble\, “one of the most prominent ensembles in the United States practicing truly experimental music” (I Care If You Listen)\, Mundy has performed at Lincoln Center and the Library of Congress\, premiering works by Tyshawn Sorey\, Erin Gee\, Eric Wubbels\, Brandon Lopez\, and Natacha Diels. Mundy is also a core member of Ekmeles\, described as “beyond expert – almost frightening in their precision” by Fanfare magazine and recent recipients of the Ernst von Siemens Ensemble Prize. \nMundy’s recent projects as a soloist include site-specific opera Newtown Odyssey by Kurt Rohde and Marie Lorenz; premieres of concert works by Alyssa Regent and Aida Shirazi\, and the debut of a new collaborative multimedia project with Christian Quiñones. Past performances include critically acclaimed renditions of Schoenberg’s Pierrot Lunaire\, Boulez’s Le Marteau sans Maître\, Feldman’s Three Voices\, George Benjamin’s Into the Little Hill\, Iannis Xenakis’ Akanthos\, and a set of music for voice and electronics presented by New York Festival of Song\, described as “an oasis of radiant beauty” by the New York Times. \nAs a recording artist\, Mundy is featured on recordings ranging from contemporary classical music to black metal to prog rock to ambient music. Her recent album with Francisco del Pino\, The Sea\, was named one of the 25 best albums of 2025 by Steve Smith. Mundy is the vocal soloist on the studio recording of Bekah Simms’ Juno award winning composition Bestiary I & II\, and her recordings as a member of TAK and Ekmeles have been widely praised. \nHer compositions have been performed at Roulette\, JACK theater\, University of New Mexico\, Fuse Factory\, and the Higher Ground festival. They include SWEET FLAG!\, whose score consists of home-made rosaries\, The Empress Negligee and Leopard Queen Dream for voice\, piñata/thurible/shakers and percussion\, and the surround sound/light/wind/smell installation\, Light as a Feather\, presented by Harvestworks Digital Media Arts. \nBorn in Toronto and based in Brooklyn\, Mundy studied classical voice at the University of Toronto\, contemporary performance at the Manhattan School of Music\, and is working toward a Doctor of Musical Arts degree at the CUNY Graduate Center. \n\n\n  \n\nFunding provided in part by New Music USA
URL:https://www.bowerbird.org/event/morton-feldman-three-voices-2026/
LOCATION:University Lutheran\, 3637 Chestnut Street\, Philadelphia\, PA\, 19104\, United States
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/png:https://www.bowerbird.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/June-5-three-voices.png
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20260604T200000
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20260604T220000
DTSTAMP:20260626T235916
CREATED:20260519T175058Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20260530T193500Z
UID:10001321-1780603200-1780610400@www.bowerbird.org
SUMMARY:MSHR
DESCRIPTION:Bowerbird is pleased to present MSHR with opening set by Grace Villamil at The Rotunda. \nIn collaboration with MUSICA PRACTICA / ELETTRONICA VIVA\, this performance brings together electronic sound artists who investigate cybernetics\, and embodied attunement via custom hardware and lighting networks to create immersive soundscape ceremonies. \n\nABOUT THE ARTISTS \n \nGrace is an interdisciplinary artist working with sound\, performance\, imagery\, and embodied archives. Her practice tends to how infrastructures of language\, urban noise\, sport\, and pedagogy shape how the body listens over time. Drawing from heritage: karaoke culture\, basketball\, and environmental sound\, her work proposes alternative modes of listening that resist pitch discipline\, virtuosity\, and assimilation. \nCurrent projects include mumulak; Interaural Space\, a community installation turned WPRB radio broadcast on noise\, migration\, and oral history; ⎤⎤⎤ (Superpang & Notice Recordings); Her work has been presented with Morphine Records\, Fridman Gallery\, and Black Mountain College Museum\, including community projects with IONE and the Pauline Oliveros Foundation. She’s performed works by Raven Chacon and collaborated live-visuals with Tyondai Braxton. Presentations include Amant\, Elbphilharmonie Kleiner Saal\, Kiosk Radio\, BXL\, The Broad / REDCAT\, Issue Project Room\, among others. \ngracevillamil.com/ \nMSHR is an art collective that collaboratively builds and explores sculptural electronic systems. \nTheir performances and installations integrate electrical signals and human presence\, weaving dense networks of causality to form audiovisual environments that babble with a life-like current. \nThey explore intuitive and technical gradients between sonic and sculptural forms\, using analog circuitry and open-source software to sculpt mutually resonant hyperobjects. \nMSHR was founded by Brenna Murphy and Birch Cooper in 2011 in Portland\, Oregon\, as an offshoot from the collective Oregon Painting Society. \nThe name MSHR is a modular acronym designed to hold varied ideas over time. It can be pronounced as an acronym or like one who meshes. \nMSHR \n 
URL:https://www.bowerbird.org/event/mshr/
LOCATION:The Rotunda\, 4014 Walnut St\, Philadelphia\, PA\, 19104\, United States
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/png:https://www.bowerbird.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/MSHR-June-4.png
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BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20260529T200000
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20260529T220000
DTSTAMP:20260626T235916
CREATED:20260330T162353Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20260529T141132Z
UID:10001315-1780084800-1780092000@www.bowerbird.org
SUMMARY:Laraaji
DESCRIPTION:ONLINE RSVP’s are filled.\nPlease note:\nDoors for those with online RSVPs will open at 7:15pm and all others may enter at 7:30pm. \nWe are thrilled to welcome back Laraaji\, a key figure in the evolution of ambient music whose distinctive sound has been captivating listeners for decades. Philadelphia-born and New Jersey-raised\, Laraaji has pursued spiritual transcendence through music since the mid-1970s. After years of developing an aesthetic shaped by Eastern philosophies and transcendental research in his longtime Harlem home\, Laraaji’s breakthrough came when Brian Eno discovered him busking in Washington Square Park in 1979\, improvising celestial meditations on his electric zither. This encounter led to a collaboration on Eno’s influential Ambient series\, resulting in the 1980 album Day of Radiance. \nSince then\, Laraaji has become a defining figure in new age and ambient music\, known for his commitment to hand-crafted sounds over synthesizers and his embrace of a human presence in his performances. Whether playing monochord instruments\, singing\, or using electronics-kissed percussion\, his music remains rooted in a cosmic African-American tradition. His soundscapes are as hypnotically beautiful as they are rich with moments of tension and dissonance\, bringing depth to his trance-inducing explorations. For over four decades\, Laraaji’s work has continued to evolve\, inviting listeners into deep states of reflection while remaining grounded in a deeply personal musical journey. \n\n\n  \n\n 
URL:https://www.bowerbird.org/event/laraaji-friday-may-29-2026-at-the-rotunda/
LOCATION:The Rotunda\, 4014 Walnut St\, Philadelphia\, PA\, 19104\, United States
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/png:https://www.bowerbird.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/May-29-Laraaji.png
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20260516T190000
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20260516T220000
DTSTAMP:20260626T235916
CREATED:20260105T174202Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20260615T151538Z
UID:10001298-1778958000-1778968800@www.bowerbird.org
SUMMARY:The Music of Ben Nobuto
DESCRIPTION:Bowerbird is pleased to present the NakedEye Ensemble performing a concert of music by Ben Nobuto. \nPROGRAM \nLucid (2020) for piano and electronics\nTell Me Again (2022) for piano\, electronics\, and film\ntrio (for ivy house) (2024) for flute\, cello\, piano & electronics\nLove Games (2023) for six players\, electronics & video\nThree Studies (2022) for percussion & electronics \nABOUT THE ARTISTS \nBen Nobuto (b.1996) is a British/Japanese composer and pianist from Kent\, UK\, with a distinctive style variously described as ‘postmodern’ (Nonclassical) and ‘utterly contemporary’ (Manchester Collective). His music celebrates the fragmentations from internet and pop cultures that disrupt (enrich?) our lives\, the video games we play to escape (narrate?) ourselves. There is a naturalness in the chaos of quotations that exudes joy\, playfulness\, and a touch of irony that never devolves into judgement. “I try to make music that feels really transparent and clear in its intention because I like the idea that even very complex music can be accessible and enjoyable to anyone if it’s presented in the right way. I think that’s why I’m also drawn to things like brightness\, joy\, humour\, playfulness and kitschy things – it gives the music a lightness and invites the listener in.” (Ben Nobuto\, classical-music.uk) \nAt only 29 years old\, Ben has created a significant body of work seductive in its story-telling and masterful in the way acoustic instruments\, electronic sounds\, and video work together. His Gen Z synthesized world of scattered internet pieces utilizes techniques that echo John Zorn (collage)\, Scott Johnson (phrase-painting)\, minimalism\, but build to an experience that is uniquely Ben Nobuto. “A lot of my inspiration comes from trying to imagine these dreamlike scenarios where random things can coexist\, like a virtual environment where you can place contradictory ideas side by side and somehow make them feel right. It feels a bit like how dreams work\, in that you don’t question why surreal or impossible things happen until after you wake up\, they just seem to make sense in that weird dream-logic way.” Ben graduated from the University of Cambridge in 2019\, where he holds a Bmus and MPhil Distinction-award degree in Music. He was the recipient of the 2019 Bliss Prize for composition. Ben is currently working on recording and producing his first album of original works. \nNakedEye is an electro-acoustic group with classical\, rock\, and jazz DNA on the forefront of cutting-edge and crossover music that defies conventional labels. Founded in 2013 and based out of Lancaster\, PA\, NakedEye has developed a fluid repertoire reflective of its DNA\, commissioning projects\, institutional and artistic collaborations\, and its mission of musical exploration and innovation. NakedEye commissions work from young emerging composers such as Angélica Negrón\, Molly Joyce\, Florent Ghys\, and Monica Pearce\, as well as established composers such as Jerome Kitzke\, Randall Woolf\, and Zack Browning. NakedEye is also fortunate to count among its core members the multi-talented composers Richard Belcastro and Rusty Banks. \nThree albums reflect the group’s stylistic diversity. “Storylines Crossing” (Starkland\, 2018) explores the group’s blues and jazz expressions. This CD received Global Music Awards’ Best Debut Album and Best Ensemble Album of 2018. “Toy” (New Focus Recordings\, 2019) takes the group’s focus on a miniaturist journey with original works featuring music for toy piano and toy instruments. “A Series of Indecipherable Glyphs” (New Focus Recordings\, 2022) offers Zappa-inspired rock inflections and their unique virtuosic rendition of Sinister Footwear II. \nIn addition to its regular season concerts in the Northeast\, NakedEye has been featured at New Music Gathering\, Queens New Music Festival\, The Chamber Music Society of St Louis\, The DCCC New Music Series\, Pikes Falls Chamber Music Festival\, Tribeca New Music\, as well as schools and universities in PA and DE. \nNakedEye Ensemble is led by pianist Ju-Ping Song and is supported in part by The Russo Family Foundation\, PA Council on the Arts\, The Amphion Foundation\, and New Music USA. \n\n\n  \n\nFunding provided in part by New Music USA
URL:https://www.bowerbird.org/event/the-music-of-ben-nobuto/
LOCATION:The Perch\, 2321 Emerald St\, Philadelphia\, PA\, 19125\, United States
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/png:https://www.bowerbird.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Bowerbird-Main-Img-2026-01-05T123652.524.png
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20260515T190000
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20260515T210000
DTSTAMP:20260626T235916
CREATED:20260105T183121Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20260615T151524Z
UID:10001296-1778871600-1778878800@www.bowerbird.org
SUMMARY:Equinox
DESCRIPTION:Bowerbird is pleased to present Variant 6 performing their program Equinox. \nServing as the centerpiece for this program is Philadelphia composer Benjamin C.S. Boyle’s first Cantata: To One in Paradise. The poem “To One is Paradise” is a poem by Edgar Allan Poe dating from his mature poetic period that features many of the poet’s favorite themes: young love\, divinity\, and death. The Cantata – composed 20 years ago by Boyle – will be performed in an all-new transcription by the composer for four vocal soloists of Variant 6 and pianist Laura Ward. In addition to Boyle’s work\, we will perform works by Brahms and Fauré for voices and piano on themes of love\, loss\, and darkness. \nPROGRAM \nGabriel Fauré:\nMadrigal\nPuisqu’ici-bas toute âme\nPleurs d’Or\nLes Djinns \nJohannes Brahms:\nDie Meere\nSpätherbst\nO Schöne Nacht \nBenjamin C.S. Boyle:\nTo One in Paradise \nVariant 6: \nRebecca Myers\, soprano\nLauren Kelly\, mezzo-soprano\nJames Reese\, tenor\nDaniel Schwartz\, bass \nLaura Ward\, piano \n\nABOUT THE ARTISTS \nVariant 6 explores the expressive potential of the human voice through vocal chamber music that is at once virtuosic\, poignant\, and approachable. Composed of artists with a diverse set of skills and a wide range of expertise\, we seek out repertoire that embodies this potential. We collaborate with artists of many disciplines\, creating refreshing interpretations of music of the past and innovative premieres of new works. Our concerts are unique and intimate musical experiences that foster deep conversation between artists and audience. Variant 6 shares our unique take on vocal chamber music with people all over the city of Philadelphia. Our approachable and collaborative projects create an environment where audiences of different backgrounds will feel inspired to attend our events\, respond to our music\, and get to know us as individuals.\nvariantsix.com \n\n\n  \n\n  \n\nFunding provided in part by New Music USA
URL:https://www.bowerbird.org/event/equinox/
LOCATION:Philadelphia Ethical Society\, 1906 Rittenhouse Square\, Philadelphia\, PA\, 19103\, United States
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/png:https://www.bowerbird.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Bowerbird-Main-Img-2026-01-05T115620.758.png
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20260503T100000
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20260503T120000
DTSTAMP:20260626T235916
CREATED:20260330T160852Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20260506T175643Z
UID:10001314-1777802400-1777809600@www.bowerbird.org
SUMMARY:Follow The Sound
DESCRIPTION:Bowerbird is pleased to present a morning birdwalk at the John Heinz National Wildlife Refuge at Tinicum led by Tony Croasdale interspersed with two performances by Matt Engle and Juan Castrillón. \nPlease take note of the weather and dress accordingly with appropriate footwear.\nMeet at the Environmental Education Pavilion\, to the right of the visitor center\, near the parking lot\, there are toilets and a water fountain nearby. Map \nEstimated run time: 120 minutes\nDistance: approx. one mile\nTerrain: ADA accessible\nFree admission – reservations are encouraged\n \n\nABOUT THE ARTISTS \nMatt Engle grew up in the Philadelphia area and has been an active member of the creative and improvised music scene for 20 years. Matt defies categorization seamlessly moving among different styles and disciplines. His work extends to the world of electronic music\, featured on his recording with poet Michael Szekely under the name The Alternate View. Recently Matt recorded with the Chad Taylor Quintet for a release on Otherly Love records entitled Smoke Shifter. His love of the acoustic bass matches the intimacy of the pairing of his mind and body to this particular instrument. His deep interest in birds\, waves\, unique people\, esoteric sounds\, the moon and all celestial objects helps to increase the emotional\, spiritual and creative content of his work in music.\nHe has contributed to many situations in music previously performing and/or recording with Chad Taylor\, Bobby Zankel\, Sonic Liberation Front\, Shot By Shot\, Yapp\, Split Red\, Dave Liebman\, Marshall Allen\, Sam Newsome\, Rick Iannacone\, jaimie branch\, Elliott Levin\, Anthony Pirog\, Raymond King\, David Middleton\, Dan Blacksberg\, Vince Johnson\, Muhammad Ali\, Oliver Lake\, Tim Berne\, Pete Angevine\, Thurman Barker\, and Brandon Seabrook among many others. \nMiddleear | Oído Medio\nJuan Castrillón is a multimodal cultural anthropologist\, ethnomusicologist and musician with regional expertise in Türkiye and the Northwest Amazon in Colombia. His research interests include theories of listening\, media archives\, contemporary healing arts\, mimesis\, and modalities of inscription. His multimodal work and performances dialogue with contemporary debates about decoloniality\, heterogenesis\, visual and sound/music cultures\, and indigenous analytics of the person\, space\, magic\, and technology. \nTony Croasdale started birding at about nine years old. Tony has performed field research in the Canadian Arctic\, Alaska\, Brazil\, Peru\, and in the Mid-Atlantic. He was the singer of R.A.M.B.O.\, a hardcore punk band and birded extensively while on tour. Tony works as an environmental educator and co-hosts the Urban Wildlife Podcast <http://www.urbanwildlifecast.com/>. \n  \n\nOrganized in collaboration with World Askew and funded in part by PECO\, Team Pennsylvania\, and Pennsylvania Creative Industries
URL:https://www.bowerbird.org/event/follow-the-sound-may-2026/
LOCATION:John Heinz National Wildlife Refuge at Tinicum\, 8601 Lindbergh Blvd\, Philadelphia\, PA\, 19153\, United States
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/png:https://www.bowerbird.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/May-3-Follow-the-sound.png
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20260423T200000
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20260423T220000
DTSTAMP:20260626T235916
CREATED:20260406T171812Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20260615T151557Z
UID:10001317-1776974400-1776981600@www.bowerbird.org
SUMMARY:Experiments in Neuroaesthetics: Evoking Voices from Biological Systems
DESCRIPTION:Bowerbird is pleased to co-present Gene Coleman’s program Experiments in Neuroaesthetics: Evoking Voices from Biological Systems. \nIn the music of Giacinto Scelsi\, Luigi Nono and Pauline Oliveros\, and in the films of Stan Brakhage\, there was a desire to reveal the “inner voices”. Working with new biodata technologies and systems\, we reach a new reality\, where the inner voices of the body\, mind\, via biological systems\, can be Evoked – seen and heard in unprecedented ways. How can we create music and art in this new reality? This program shows three different approaches\, which are linked by use of The Source\, a Biodata device that can translate electric biorhythms into various media. The program features work by: KAVI (Ilze Briede)\, The Quantum Global Organoid Orchestra (q.GOO)\, and The Neuro Music Ensemble Conjure. \n\nPROGRAM \nKAVI: Emergent Feedback Loops: Cybernetics and the Human Brain \nqGOO (Quantum Global Organoid Orchestra): q.GOO_ PhiladelphiaNeuroMusicAI/42026 \nGene Coleman: EVOCARE (2026) for string quartet and neuro electronics\nConjure Neuro Music Ensemble + Guests\nAdam Vidiksis\, Neuro electronics\nSam Wells\, Neuro electronics\nTom Kraines\, Cello\nGene Coleman (Composition and Direction)\nWith special guests\nMelinda Rice and Molly Germer\, Violins\nMaren Rothfritz\, Viola \n\nABOUT THE PROGRAM \nKAVI (Ilze Briede)\, a Latvian–Canadian artist and researcher working across visual art\, digital design\, interactive installation\, and live audiovisual performance. Her work Emergent Feedback Loops: Cybernetics and the Human Brain\, uses her biodata to generate complex visual structures\, accompanied by improvisational responses from musicians. Her work examines how physiological data—such as brain activity and other biosignals—can function as generative inputs for artistic systems. This performance presents ongoing dissertation research and a research-creation inquiry within computational arts\, exploring the integration of live human brain data into cybernetic systems. Drawing on unprocessed neural signals\, the work resists reductionist models of data interpretation and knowledge construction\, aiming to create more authentic\, unpredictable experiences that foreground emergence\, unpredictability\, and co-evolution. A feedback loop among performers\, the computational system\, and spectators forms a dynamic\, interdependent ecology in which visual\, sonic\, and spatial elements continuously evolve in real time. This research is supported by a developing biophysical sensing device from BioMECI called The Source\, designed to collect and translate physiological signals into performative outputs. Through this system\, brain activity becomes an active agent within a cybernetic environment\, enabling new forms of interaction and perception. Positioned at the intersection of art\, science\, and technology\, this work proposes a framework for data-driven performance centered on relationality\, embodiment\, and collective world-building. \nThe Quantum Global Organoid Orchestra (q.GOO) presents its composition\nq.GOO_PhiladelphiaNeuroMusicAI/42026. This work extends contemporary practice in media art\, neuroscience\, and AI by making perceptible the hidden rhythms of living neural matter and prompting new questions about perception\, agency\, and the future of embodied computation. \nThe Neuro Music Ensemble Conjure performs EVOCARE\, a composition by Gene Coleman for string quartet and neuro electronics. Coleman calls this “Neuro Music” – music modeled on the auditory pathways of the brain and nervous system. EVOCARE reveals the inner voices of the body and mind using a new Biodata technology called The Source\, which translates our nervous system rhythms into sound. EVOCARE is a dynamic dialog between acoustic music and the Biorhythms of perception\, interoception\, affect\, emotion and thought. \nThis program is produced by The Institute for Music and Neuroaesthetics\, Bowerbird and The Rotunda \n\nABOUT THE ARTISTS \nIlze Briede (artist name Kavi) is a Latvian–Canadian artist and researcher working across visual art\, digital design\, interactive installation\, and live audiovisual performance. Her creative and pedagogical practice engages with biophysical sensing\, creative coding\, and projection-based media to explore the aesthetic and epistemological potential of physiological data. Kavi is currently a PhD candidate in Digital Media at York University\, Toronto\, where her research investigates the design of cybernetic systems for performance and immersive narrative environments driven by real-time biophysical signals. Her work examines how physiological data—such as brain activity and other biosignals—can function as generative inputs for artistic systems\, enabling alternative modes of perception\, participation\, and knowledge production.\nwww.ka-vi.com/ \nGene Coleman is a composer\, musician and director. Among his Awards: Guest Composer at Chigiana International Festival (2026)\, Composer in Residence at Contemporanea Monferrato (2024)\, New Jersey Arts Council Fellowship (2024)\, Nichibei Creative Arts Fellow (2021 and 2001)\, Artistic Director of Site/Sound Philadelphia (2019)\, Fromm Foundation Commission (2019)\, Director of Philadelphia Composers Forum (2016-19)\, Guggenheim Fellow in Music Composition (2014)\, Berlin Prize for Music from the American Academy in Berlin (2013) and William Penn Composer in Residence at The American Academy in Rome (2012). He has created many works for various instrumentation and media. Central to his interests is the inventive use of sound\, image and time. He sees Art as a way to create experiences that expand our understanding and feelings of the world. For many years he has explored global transformations of culture with his group Ensemble N_JP and music’s relationship with science\, video and architecture. His most recent research and compositions explore Neuro Music\, Neuroaesthetics and Neurotechnologies. In 2023 his album of Neuro Music compositions called “Exploratorium” was published by the UK label False Walls. He studied painting\, music and film making at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago\, where his teachers included experimental film artists Stan Brakhage and Ernie Gehr\, composer Robert Snyder\, and visual artists Barbara Rossi and Oliver Jackson. Coleman is an Affiliated Researcher for Music and Neuroaesthetics in the META Lab at the University of California Santa Barbara. He is the founder and director of the Institute for Music and Neuroaesthetics\, a research space for musicians\, artists and people in Neuroscience. More at: https://www.genecolemancomposer.com/ and https://www.falsewalls.co.uk/release/exploratorium/  \nThe Quantum Global Organoid Orchestra (q.GOO) is an experimental art–science collaboration that brings together living neural tissue\, generative media\, and networked human participation to explore new forms of emergent\, cross-species creativity. The project centers on brain organoids—lab-grown clusters of neural cells cultivated in partnered neurobiology labs—which produce spontaneous electrical activity. This neural activity is captured through microelectrode arrays (MEAs) and translated in real-time into sound\, visual structures\, and computational behaviors. In this sense\, the organoids function as active “performers” within a hybrid ensemble composed of biological\, human\, and machine processes. \nFeaturing the following contributors: \ntransLAB: Marcos Novak (director)\, Nefeli Manoudaki\, Iason Paterakis\, Mert Toka and Diarmid Flatley\nATMOS Implementation: Lucian Parisi\nn-D::StudioLab: Mark-David Hosale (director) and Ilze [Kavi] Briede\nSBCAST: Alan Macy (director) \nScientific collaborators:\nThe Kosik Neurobiology Lab: Kenneth Kosik (director) and Tjitse van der Molen \nAbstract: \nBeyond AI models\, the constantly and rapidly evolving q.GOO project assembles Superconductivity for Minds: a globally distributed ecology in which actual and artificial brain organoids\, bio-inspired algorithmic and quantum computational processes\, spectral sound\, coupled human-computer collaboration\, and networked planetary environments begin to co-compose intelligence through Agentic Media Ecologies and Perforated Systems. This project explores what becomes thinkable when the “emergent possible” of the hybrid natural-artificial environment itself becomes agentive —reciprocally both data-driven and data-driving— when cognition is distributed across heterogeneous Umwelten\, and when the path toward Superoptimal AGI/ASI runs not through isolated systems\, but through recursively coupled permeable\, porous\, and perforated outer and inner worlds. \nModelled on complex ecosystems such as coral reefs\, rainforests\, and the planet itself\, and also perception\, cognition\, civilization\, and culture as emergent systems\, the project and its variants are structured operationally by the notion of “perforated systems” — systems that\, like living cells\, consist of an autonomous internal behavior protected by a permeable\, porous\, or literally perforated “membrane.” This arrangement allows all parts to maintain their integrity but also to send and receive energy and information to and from each other and from the overall environment. Diverse coordinating processes provide algorithmic environmental homeostasis by adjusting the data flowing through the perforations. \nThis “free-but-perforated” operational strategy is also a statement regarding human collaboration and environmental sustainability. Each participant contributes a “species” that is free to be whatever it needs to be\, provided it remains “perforated” and can receive and send data and information that can alter its behavior. The work thus instantiates a “media ecosystem” where the result is ecosystemically regulated by the health of the whole\, which is always richer and more interesting than the sum of its parts. \nThe Quantum Global Organoid Orchestra (q.GOO) is an experimental art–science collaboration that brings together living neural tissue\, generative media\, and networked human participation to explore new forms of emergent\, cross-species creativity. The project centers on brain organoids—lab-grown clusters of neural cells cultivated in partnered neurobiology labs—which produce spontaneous electrical activity. This neural activity is captured through microelectrode arrays (MEAs) and translated in real-time into sound\, visual structures\, and computational behaviors. In this sense\, the organoids function as active “performers” within a hybrid ensemble composed of biological\, human\, and machine processes. \nq.GOO evolves from the SIGGRAPH 2023 Synaptic Time Tunnel project and the Protonoesis series by collaborators at UCSB’s transLAB (directed by Marcos Novak) and the Kosik Neurobiology Lab (directed by Ken Kosik). These works form closed-loop systems in which organoid signals influence generative algorithms\, which in turn shape the audiovisual environment surrounding the installation. Audience members encounter an immersive\, multi-modal field where neural activity\, machine interpretation\, and human agency intermingle\, suggesting a form of “distributed cognition” that exceeds any one participant. \nThe project invites reflection on the aesthetic and ethical dimensions of working with living neural material\, asking what it means to situate organoids—entities neither fully biological subjects nor inert tools—as participants within artistic systems. q.GOO foregrounds sensation\, emergence\, and relationality. It proposes a speculative model of collective intelligence\, where biological and computational systems co-produce meaning. Through this\, the Quantum Global Organoid Orchestra extends contemporary practice in media art\, neuroscience\, and AI by making perceptible the hidden rhythms of living neural matter and prompting new questions about perception\, agency\, and the future of embodied computation. \n\n\n\nFunding provided in part by New Music USA
URL:https://www.bowerbird.org/event/experiments-in-neuroaesthetics/
LOCATION:The Rotunda\, 4014 Walnut St\, Philadelphia\, PA\, 19104\, United States
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BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20260412T190000
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20260412T210000
DTSTAMP:20260626T235916
CREATED:20251222T155208Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20260408T155027Z
UID:10001294-1776020400-1776027600@www.bowerbird.org
SUMMARY:Alash Ensemble
DESCRIPTION:**Please note: The performance starts at 7:00pm. Seating and admission to the building for the performance will be on a first come first served basis. Doors will open at 6:15pm. RSVPing helps us to anticipate attendance but does not guarantee entry. If you RSVP but do not check in by 6:50pm\, we may give your spot away to someone waiting in line.** \n  \nBowerbird is pleased to present Philadelphia favorites Alash at The Rotunda for two FREE concerts – 2pm and 7pm. \nAlash 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 time\, they are fans of western music. Believing that traditional music must constantly evolve\, the musicians subtly infuse their songs with western elements\, creating their own unique style that is fresh and new\, yet true to their Tuvan musical heritage. \nPresented with The Rotunda. \n\n\n 
URL:https://www.bowerbird.org/event/alash-ensemble-2026-7pm/
LOCATION:The Rotunda\, 4014 Walnut St\, Philadelphia\, PA\, 19104\, United States
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/png:https://www.bowerbird.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/Bowerbird-Main-Img-90.png
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BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20260412T140000
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20260412T160000
DTSTAMP:20260626T235916
CREATED:20251222T155726Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20260408T154420Z
UID:10001295-1776002400-1776009600@www.bowerbird.org
SUMMARY:Alash Ensemble
DESCRIPTION:**Please note: The performance starts at 2:00pm. Seating and admission to the building for the performance will be on a first come first served basis. Doors will open at 1:15pm. RSVPing helps us to anticipate attendance but does not guarantee entry. If you RSVP but do not check in by 1:50pm\, we may give your spot away to someone waiting in line.** \nBowerbird is pleased to present Philadelphia favorites Alash at The Rotunda for two FREE concerts – 2pm and 7pm. \nAlash 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 time\, they are fans of western music. Believing that traditional music must constantly evolve\, the musicians subtly infuse their songs with western elements\, creating their own unique style that is fresh and new\, yet true to their Tuvan musical heritage. \nPresented with The Rotunda. \n\n\n 
URL:https://www.bowerbird.org/event/alash-2pm-april-2026/
LOCATION:The Rotunda\, 4014 Walnut St\, Philadelphia\, PA\, 19104\, United States
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/png:https://www.bowerbird.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Bowerbird-Main-Img-54-2.png
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BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20260411T200000
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20260411T220000
DTSTAMP:20260626T235916
CREATED:20260105T172236Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20260615T151504Z
UID:10001297-1775937600-1775944800@www.bowerbird.org
SUMMARY:Audra
DESCRIPTION:Bowerbird is pleased to present Audra performing an evening of music for voice and saxophone\, featuring Meredith Monk’s Hocket for Two Voices\, two moody folk-song arrangements by Karin Rehnqvist\, Cecilia McDowall’s dramatic White Fox Woman\, Thomas Kessler’s Cage-inspired Is it?\, Gelsey Bell’s spacious Avatrix\, and Griffin Candey’s love songs\, I Shall Be Coming Back To You. In some pieces\, voice and saxophone are combined into a hyper-instrument\, creating a new\, hybrid sound out of the two performers. In other cases\, the voice is in the story-telling spotlight with the saxophone playing a supporting role. \n\nABOUT THE ARTISTS \nNoa Even (saxophone) and Anika Kildegaard (voice) are Audra\, a genre-defying new music duo exploring the dynamic interplay and sonic intersections between soprano voice and saxophone. Their debut performances in early 2025 included the Spotlight Series at Rowan University (NJ)\, No Exit presents in Cleveland (OH)\, and the Fuse Factory in Columbus (OH). This season’s performances include the Andrea Clearfield Szalon\, Harrison Township Historical Society concert series (NJ)\, 2640 Space in Baltimore\, and Bowerbird in Philadelphia. \n\nFunding provided in part by New Music USA
URL:https://www.bowerbird.org/event/audra-duo/
LOCATION:University Lutheran\, 3637 Chestnut Street\, Philadelphia\, PA\, 19104\, United States
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BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20260328T200000
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20260328T220000
DTSTAMP:20260626T235916
CREATED:20251215T171028Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20260615T151450Z
UID:10001293-1774728000-1774735200@www.bowerbird.org
SUMMARY:Solo and Chamber Music of Elliott Carter
DESCRIPTION:Bowerbird is pleased to present the Arcana New Music Ensemble performing solo and chamber music of Elliott Carter. \nPROGRAM: \nTwo Thoughts About the Piano\nFigment V for marimba\nEsprit Rude/Esprit Doux II\nEpigrams\nEnchanted Preludes\nGra for clarinet\nCanon for 4 \nARCANA NEW MUSIC ENSEMBLE: \nAnna Lim – violin\nTom Kraines – cello\nNic Handahl – flute\nJonathan Leeds – clarinet\nDavid Hughes – piano\nAndy Thierauf – marimba \n\nABOUT THE ARTISTS \nComposer Elliott Carter (December 11\, 1908 – November 5\, 2012) is internationally recognized as one of the most influential American voices in classical music\, and a leading figure of modernism in the 20th and 21st centuries. He was hailed as “America’s great musical poet” by Andrew Porter and noted as “one of America’s most distinguished creative artists in any field” by his friend Aaron Copland. Carter’s prolific career spanned over 75 years\, with more than 150 pieces\, ranging from chamber music to orchestral works to opera\, often marked with a sense of wit and humor. He received numerous honors and accolades\, including the Pulitzer Prize on two occasions: in 1960 for his String Quartet No. 2 and in 1973 for his String Quartet No. 3. Other awards include Germany’s Ernst Von Siemens Music Prize and the Prince Pierre Foundation Music Award. Carter was the first composer to receive the United States National Medal of Arts\, and is one of a handful of composers inducted into the American Classical Music Hall of Fame. He was recognized twice by the Government of France: being named Commander of the “Ordre des Arts et des Lettres\,” and receiving the insignia of Commander of the Legion of Honor in September 2012. \nFounded in 2015\, the Arcana New Music Ensemble is a group of Philadelphia-based musicians dedicated to presenting interesting\, beautiful\, and unconventional music in interesting\, beautiful\, and unconventional places.\nThe Arcana New Music Ensemble is a Philadelphia-based chamber ensemble dedicated to contemporary classical music. Its mission is to perform works by living composers and to reexamine music from the past\, often focusing on composers whose work has been overlooked. A hallmark of Arcana’s programming is its frequent use of portrait concerts\, which allow the ensemble to explore a composer’s work in depth. These programs balance music by widely recognized composers with works by those who are less well known or historically underrepresented. \nFounded in 2015 by musicologist Thomas Patterson\, harpist Elizabeth Huston\, and curator Dustin Hurt\, Arcana was created to provide a platform for Philadelphia’s many skilled performers interested in exploring both new works and important compositions from the past hundred years. Since 2020\, the ensemble has been co-directed by Andy Thierauf and Dustin Hurt.\nIn 2016\, Arcana partnered with Pig Iron Theatre Company to present Samuel Beckett\, Words and Music by Morton Feldman and began a multi-year project devoted to the music of Moondog (Louis Hardin). The following year included a portrait concert of Galina Ustvolskaya\, collaborations with Variant 6 and Prometheus Chamber Orchestra\, and performances of works by Julius Eastman\, including Stay On It\, Femenine\, and Thruway. \nIn 2018\, Arcana presented rare works by Pauline Oliveros and portrait concerts of Tom Johnson\, James Tenney\, and Ben Patterson\, along with a second Moondog program. In 2019\, the ensemble presented concerts focused on Claude Vivier and Johanna Beyer and participated in a program of George Crumb’s chamber works. From 2020 onward\, the ensemble’s programming has included a retrospective of David First\, collaborations with the Wildflowers Composer Festival\, and concerts highlighting Iranian and Iranian-American composers. Recent seasons have featured portrait concerts of Sarah Hennies\, Raven Chacon\, and George Walker\, the launch of the annual Postal Pieces project\, and performances of Pauline Oliveros’s The Well and the Gentle and Lucia Dlugoszewski’s Black Lake. \nSupport for this program provided by the Amphion Foundation and New Music USA
URL:https://www.bowerbird.org/event/solo-and-chamber-music-of-elliott-carter/
LOCATION:The Perch\, 2321 Emerald St\, Philadelphia\, PA\, 19125\, United States
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BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20260320T200000
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20260320T220000
DTSTAMP:20260626T235916
CREATED:20260212T182453Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20260213T152630Z
UID:10001313-1774036800-1774044000@www.bowerbird.org
SUMMARY:Screening: Cunningham Ballett and Channels/Inserts
DESCRIPTION:David Tudor’s musical partnership with the Merce Cunningham Dance Company spanned nearly five decades\, from the company’s founding in 1953 until Tudor’s death in 1996. As a founding member\, Tudor served not only as a virtuoso performer of revolutionary piano works but also as an essential collaborator in shaping the company’s sonic identity. Working alongside John Cage\, Gordon Mumma\, Christian Wolff\, and Takehisa Kosugi\, Tudor helped pioneer a radical approach to the relationship between sound and movement—one in which music and dance coexisted independently yet in the same time and space. This screening\, the second of two film programs dedicated to Tudor’s work with the Cunningham company\, presents “Cunningham Ballett” (1958) and “Channels/Inserts” (1982). \n\nPROGRAM:\nCunningham Ballett (1958) | 24 min\, black & white\, sound\, digital transfer\nPerformance for Camera: Brussels\, Belgium\, 1958. This film for television includes “Changeling” (1957)\, “Suite for Two” (1956)\, and “Springweather and People” (1955). Dancers: Carolyn Brown and Merce Cunningham. Musicians: John Cage and David Tudor.\nChannels/Inserts (1982) | 31:40 min\, color\, sound\, 16 mm film on HD video\nChoreography: Merce Cunningham. Direction/Editing: Charles Atlas. Music: David Tudor\, “Phonemes” \n\nABOUT THE FILMS \nTo create Channels/Inserts\, Cunningham and Atlas divided the Cunningham Dance Company’s Westbeth studio into sixteen possible areas for dancing and used chance methods based on the I Ching to determine the order in which these spaces would be used\, the number of dancers to be seen\, and the events that would occur in each space. Atlas employed cross-cutting and animated mattes or wipes to indicate a simultaneity of dance events occurring in different spaces\, as well as to allow for diversity in the continuity of the image. The sound score is a recording of David Tudor’s PHONEMES. \nDancers are dressed in everyday clothing and at times stop dancing to congregate casually. This cessation\, of course\, is legible neither as dance nor “not-dance\,” but is in-between and liminal\, pointing to Cunningham’s persistent interest in “pedestrian” movement. Movement\, the choreographer seems to indicate\, exists in a continual tension—the everyday appears in the dance phrase and the dance phrase appears in the everyday\, or bear each other’s traces. The dancing body is always-already an everyday body and in turn\, the everyday body always-already contains the potential for movement read as dance. \n\n\nThis event is part of DAVID TUDOR: A VIEW FROM INSIDE\, an exhibition at Drexel’s Pearlstein Gallery from January 15 to March 21\, 2026. \n\n\nMajor support for DAVID TUDOR: A VIEW FROM INSIDE has been provided by The Pew Center for Arts & Heritage\, with additional support from the Musical Fund Society of Philadelphia.
URL:https://www.bowerbird.org/event/screening-cunningham-ballett-and-channels-inserts/
LOCATION:The Rotunda\, 4014 Walnut St\, Philadelphia\, PA\, 19104\, United States
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/png:https://www.bowerbird.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/Tudor-Cunningham-Ballett.png
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BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20260307T200000
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20260307T220000
DTSTAMP:20260626T235916
CREATED:20260107T171405Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20260227T191259Z
UID:10001306-1772913600-1772920800@www.bowerbird.org
SUMMARY:Tudor works for Live Electronics
DESCRIPTION:Bowerbird is pleased to present Composers Inside Electronics—Phil Edelstein\, Ron Kuivila\, and Michael Johnsen\, with Daniel Fishkin—performing works by David Tudor. \nComposers Inside Electronics (CIE)\, formed in 1973 with David Tudor\, pioneered a collaborative approach to live electronic music that treated circuits and components as instruments in themselves rather than as tools. This closing concert of A View from Inside: David Tudor at 100 features an evening of Tudor’s electronic compositions spanning 1970 to 1984. \nThe program opens with Pepscillator\, one of Tudor’s sound environments created for the Pepsi Pavilion at Expo ’70 in Osaka\, Japan. Using chains of audio processors creating multiple self-oscillating feedback loops\, Pepscillator exemplifies Tudor’s approach to designing systems of electronic components whose interconnections define both the work’s structure and its real-time performance. Pulsers (1976) explores rhythms created electronically by analog circuitry\, with time-bases that can be varied and destabilized by the performer. Dialects (1984) transforms vowel-like and fricative sound sources—the beating of insects’ wings and modulated alpha waves—through vocoder circuits and percussion generators triggered by Jackie Matisse’s vibrating wire flower sculptures. \nThe concert offers a rare opportunity to experience Tudor’s electronic works performed by artists who worked directly with him and who continue to realize and evolve his vision through their own research and performance practice. \n\nPROGRAM \nDavid Tudor: Pepscillator (1970)\n     Phil Edelstein and Daniel Fishkin\, electronics \nDavid Tudor: Pulsers (1976)\n     Michael Johnsen\, electronics \nDavid Tudor: Dialects (1984)\n     Ron Kuivila\, electronics and sculpture by Jackie Matisse \n\n\nThis event is part of DAVID TUDOR: A VIEW FROM INSIDE\, an exhibition at Drexel’s Pearlstein Gallery from January 15 to March 21\, 2026. \n\n\nARTIST BIOS \nPhil Edelstein in the early 1970s co-founded Electronic Body Arts (EBA)\, a collaboration between choreography\, music\, and engineering\, and is a founding member of Composers Inside Electronics (CIE). He has collaborated on Rainforest IV and CIE projects since their inception in 1973 and on the evolution of the automated installation version Rainforest V\, principally with John Driscoll. Another recent project with Driscoll is their installation Cluster Fields. His work includes compositions\, performances\, software\, and sound installations for architectural spaces and focused sound fields. Recent focus is the development of compositional and orchestration tools for constructing sound fields for installation and performance. Current projects include updates to Impulsion\, where synthetic and encoded reverberant spaces are folded upon themselves and acoustically rendered\, and performances and new realizations of works by David Tudor such as Pepscillator. \nDaniel Fishkin’s ears are ringing. His lifework investigating the aesthetics of hearing damage has received international press (Nature Journal\, 2014)\, and he has been named a “tinnitus ambassador” by the Deutsche Tinnitus-Stiftung. He is the only luthier to have studied directly with daxophone inventor Hans Reichel. His instruments have toured internationally\, including Canada\, Norway\, Germany\, France\, Japan\, Kazakhstan\, and Australia. He is the first USA-based artist to receive the P.I.G. Prize (2021) from Henrik Vibskov. He holds an MA in Music Composition from Wesleyan University and a PhD in Composition and Computer Music from the University of Virginia. He is Assistant Professor of Music Production at Ramapo College of New Jersey. His current favorite wood is Gymnanthes lucida (Oysterwood). \nMichael Johnsen is a circuit designer\, performer\, and researcher from Pittsburgh. His recent research concerns circuit-level understanding of David Tudor’s “folkloric” homemade instruments and related lutherie\, resulting in restoration\, cloning\, and performance of vintage circuits\, along with publications and lectures. His performance work is characterized by a relative lack of ideas per se and an intense focus on observation—the way a shepherd watches sheep. As a performer and builder of live electronics\, he cultivates an integrated menagerie of custom devices whose idiosyncratic behaviors are revealed through complex interactions\, producing teeming chirps\, sudden transients\, and charming failure modes\, embracing the dirt in pure electronics. He has shown work at Arter (Istanbul)\, singuhr (Berlin)\, INA GRM (Paris)\, the Getty (Los Angeles)\, MdM Salzburg\, Kagurane (Tokyo)\, MoMA\, SF Cinematheque\, Radio France\, Idiopreneurial Entrephonics (Connecticut)\, The Kitchen (New York)\, High Zero (Baltimore)\, and Musique Action. He co-edits ubu.com/emr\, designs synthesizers for Pittsburgh Modular\, and may be reached at johnsen.rahbek gmail.com. \nRonald Kuivila composes music and designs sound installations involving homemade and home-modified electronics\, software\, and household objects. Homemade devices of his own design pioneered the use of ultrasound (In Appreciation) and sound sampling (Alphabet) in live performance. Other works explore compositional algorithms (Loose Canons)\, speech synthesis (The Linear Predictive Zoo)\, and high-voltage phenomena (Pythagorean Puppet Theatre). Many of his works are sound installations. Radial Arcs\, commissioned by Ars Electronica\, coordinates 96 stun guns; Sparks on Paper uses strings activated by low-power static fields to resonate vellum. Long-term installations have included Visitations at Mass MoCA and Weather at Six at Wesleyan University. Making the World Safe for Piezoelectricity organizes commonplace objects into large-scale time structures. Bellona Times combined telephones and wavefield diffusion with a fragmented presentation of the FBI interrogation of January 6 rioter Danny Rodriguez. His first professional New York performance was in 1978 in two studio events with the Merce Cunningham Dance Company at the invitation of David Tudor. \n\nMajor support for DAVID TUDOR: A VIEW FROM INSIDE has been provided by The Pew Center for Arts & Heritage\, with additional support from the Musical Fund Society of Philadelphia.
URL:https://www.bowerbird.org/event/tudor-works-for-live-electronics/
LOCATION:Community Education Center\, 3500 Lancaster Avenue\, Philadelphia\, PA\, 19104\, United States
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/png:https://www.bowerbird.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Mar-7-Tudor-Live-Electronics-CIE.png
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BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20260306T200000
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20260306T220000
DTSTAMP:20260626T235916
CREATED:20260107T170820Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20260227T191251Z
UID:10001305-1772827200-1772834400@www.bowerbird.org
SUMMARY:Forest Speech and Piano
DESCRIPTION:Bowerbird is pleased to present pianist Amy Williams and a performance of David Tudor’s Forest Speech led by Composer Inside Electronic’s Phil Edelstein with Daniel Fishkin\, Michael Johnsen\, Victoria Keddie\, Eugene Lew\, and Gianna Santucci. \nThis concert celebrates David Tudor’s dual legacy as both a revolutionary pianist and electronic music pioneer. The program opens with Amy Williams performing works by Morton Feldman\, John Cage\, and Earle Brown that were written for and premiered by Tudor in the 1950s. As one of the most sought-after interpreters of piano music in his generation\, Tudor’s performances transformed indeterminate scores into vivid sonic experiences\, establishing new possibilities for what piano performance could be. Williams\, a composer and pianist known for her deep engagement with contemporary repertoire and her acclaimed recordings of Morton Feldman and other experimental composers\, brings her own interpretive insight to these historically significant works. \nMichael Johnsen performs Tudor’s Untitled (1972)\, a seminal work of live-electronic music in which modular electronic components are configured to form feedback loops that generate sounds without exterior input. Composed for simultaneous performance with John Cage’s vocalization of his Mesostics Re Merce Cunningham\, Untitled represents Tudor’s pioneering experiments in creating electronic sound without oscillators\, tone generators\, or recorded natural sound materials. \nThe evening concludes with Forest Speech (1976)\, a rarely performed work from Tudor’s Rainforest family that uses amplified objects as “instrumental loudspeakers.” Developed in 1976 and expanded as a group version in 1978\, Forest Speech transforms sound into vocal-like illusions through formant resonances and vocoder-like circuit networks. This performance version utilizes everyday objects fitted with sonic transducers—metal barrels\, plastic tubing\, found materials—that resonate and shape electronic sound\, creating a dense acoustic environment where physical materials become active participants in the composition. \n\nPROGRAM \nMorton Feldman: Intermission 6 (version 1) (1953)\nEarle Brown: Four Systems (1953)\nMorton Feldman: Extensions 3 (1952)\nJohn Cage: Water Music (1952)\nMorton Feldman: Intermission 6 (version 2) (1953)\nAmy Williams\, piano \nDavid Tudor: Untitled (1972)\nMichael Johnsen\, electronics \nDavid Tudor: Forest Speech (1976)\nwith Phil Edelstein\, Daniel Fishkin\, Michael Johnsen\, Victoria Keddie\, Eugene Lew\, Gianna Santucci \n\n\nThis event is part of DAVID TUDOR: A VIEW FROM INSIDE\, an exhibition at Drexel’s Pearlstein Gallery from January 15 to March 21\, 2026. \n\n\nARTIST BIOS \nPhil Edelstein in the early 1970s co-founded Electronic Body Arts (EBA)\, a collaboration between choreography\, music\, and engineering\, and is a founding member of Composers Inside Electronics (CIE). He has collaborated on Rainforest IV and CIE projects since their inception in 1973 and on the evolution of the automated installation version Rainforest V\, principally with John Driscoll. Another recent project with Driscoll is their installation Cluster Fields. His work includes compositions\, performances\, software\, and sound installations for architectural spaces and focused sound fields. Recent focus is the development of compositional and orchestration tools for constructing sound fields for installation and performance. Current projects include updates to Impulsion\, where synthetic and encoded reverberant spaces are folded upon themselves and acoustically rendered\, and performances and new realizations of works by David Tudor such as Pepscillator. \nDaniel Fishkin’s ears are ringing. His lifework investigating the aesthetics of hearing damage has received international press (Nature Journal\, 2014)\, and he has been named a “tinnitus ambassador” by the Deutsche Tinnitus-Stiftung. He is the only luthier to have studied directly with daxophone inventor Hans Reichel. His instruments have toured internationally\, including Canada\, Norway\, Germany\, France\, Japan\, Kazakhstan\, and Australia. He is the first USA-based artist to receive the P.I.G. Prize (2021) from Henrik Vibskov. He holds an MA in Music Composition from Wesleyan University and a PhD in Composition and Computer Music from the University of Virginia. He is Assistant Professor of Music Production at Ramapo College of New Jersey. His current favorite wood is Gymnanthes lucida (Oysterwood). \nMichael Johnsen is a circuit designer\, performer\, and researcher from Pittsburgh. His recent research concerns circuit-level understanding of David Tudor’s “folkloric” homemade instruments and related lutherie\, resulting in restoration\, cloning\, and performance of vintage circuits\, along with publications and lectures. His performance work is characterized by a relative lack of ideas per se and an intense focus on observation—the way a shepherd watches sheep. As a performer and builder of live electronics\, he cultivates an integrated menagerie of custom devices whose idiosyncratic behaviors are revealed through complex interactions\, producing teeming chirps\, sudden transients\, and charming failure modes\, embracing the dirt in pure electronics. He has shown work at Arter (Istanbul)\, singuhr (Berlin)\, INA GRM (Paris)\, the Getty (Los Angeles)\, MdM Salzburg\, Kagurane (Tokyo)\, MoMA\, SF Cinematheque\, Radio France\, Idiopreneurial Entrephonics (Connecticut)\, The Kitchen (New York)\, High Zero (Baltimore)\, and Musique Action. He co-edits ubu.com/emr\, designs synthesizers for Pittsburgh Modular\, and may be reached at johnsen.rahbek gmail.com. \nVictoria Keddie is an interdisciplinary artist working across sound\, video\, installation\, performance\, and research. Her practice investigates architectures of communication—acoustic\, spatial\, and technological—and how gesture\, noise\, and interference shape experience. For over a decade she co-directed E.S.P. TV\, a mobile platform for hybrid media and broadcast performance. She teaches at the University of Pennsylvania\, where she designed a spatial sound studio for Fine Arts\, and directs the Spatial Sound Consortium with Harvestworks\, linking international studios. She has performed and exhibited at the Whitney Museum of American Art\, Pioneer Works\, Fridman Gallery (US)\, the Barbican (UK)\, Berghain (DE)\, Goethe-Institut (NY/CO)\, and MAPS (DK). Fellowships include NYSCA/NYFA (2022)\, Max Planck Institute for Empirical Aesthetics (2023)\, and the Bemis Center (2024). In 2025 she was Composer-in-Residence at EMS\, Stockholm. \nEugene Lew is a Philadelphia-based guide\, producer\, educator\, and organizer engaged in performance\, design\, access\, management\, transformation\, (attempted) capture\, storage\, and playback of shared IRL experiences\, with a sound/music bias. His practice centers on fleeting moments\, aggregate independent decision-making\, and stochastic phenomena. He values serendipitous collaborations and long-term partnerships exploring cycles of remembering\, learning\, forgetting\, and reconstructing. \nGianna Santucci is an interdisciplinary artist and percussionist from Merritt Island\, FL\, based in Philadelphia. She received an MFA in Painting (University Fellowship) from Tyler School of Art and a BFA in Fine Arts and BM in Music Performance from Florida Southern College. Her work has been exhibited at Icebox Project Space\, Vox Populi\, and Cherry Street Pier in Philadelphia. Recent performances include New Ear::SPATIAL at Fridman Gallery\, the Low Tech Electronics Faire at the Charles Library\, and Chilladelphia at Thunderbird Hall. Through multimedia installations\, her work engages militarized sound\, subculture\, transmission\, and rhythm. \nAmy Williams is a composer of music described as “simultaneously demanding\, rewarding and fascinating” (Buffalo News) and “fresh\, daring and incisive” (Fanfare). Her works have been presented internationally by leading soloists and ensembles including the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra\, Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra\, JACK Quartet\, Ensemble Aleph\, Dal Niente\, Wet Ink\, Talujon\, International Contemporary Ensemble\, and pianist Ursula Oppens. Recordings appear on Albany\, Parma\, VDM (Italy)\, Blue Griffin\, Centaur\, and New Ariel. She has a deep connection to Morton Feldman—her father and Feldman were close colleagues at the University at Buffalo. As half of the Bugallo-Williams Piano Duo\, she has performed worldwide and recorded six CDs for Wergo (Nancarrow\, Stravinsky\, Varèse/Feldman\, Kurtág). She has taught at Bennington College and Northwestern University and is currently Associate Professor of Composition at the University of Pittsburgh. \n\nMajor support for DAVID TUDOR: A VIEW FROM INSIDE has been provided by The Pew Center for Arts & Heritage\, with additional support from the Musical Fund Society of Philadelphia.
URL:https://www.bowerbird.org/event/forest-speech-and-piano/
LOCATION:Community Education Center\, 3500 Lancaster Avenue\, Philadelphia\, PA\, 19104\, United States
CATEGORIES:Tudor
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/png:https://www.bowerbird.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Mar-6-Forest-Speech-and-Piano.png
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20260305T200000
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20260305T220000
DTSTAMP:20260626T235916
CREATED:20260117T174236Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20260615T151403Z
UID:10001310-1772740800-1772748000@www.bowerbird.org
SUMMARY:Morton Feldman's Triadic Memories
DESCRIPTION:Bowerbird is pleased to present pianist Amy Williams performing Morton Feldman’s monumental Triadic Memories\, one of the towering masterworks of late 20th-century piano literature. \nABOUT THE WORK\nCompleted in 1981 and jointly dedicated to pianists Roger Woodward and Aki Takahashi\, Triadic Memories is Feldman’s longest solo piano composition\, lasting approximately 90 minutes. Following its first German performance\, Feldman described the work as the “biggest butterfly in captivity”—a characteristically poetic phrase that captures both its delicacy and vast scale.\nThe work represents a profound meditation on memory and perception. The entire score is written in triple piano\, at times even quintuple piano\, creating an intimate sonic landscape where subtle gradations of touch and color become paramount. Feldman described his compositional method as “a conscious attempt at formalizing a disorientation of memory\,” where chords are repeated without discernible pattern. The listener experiences what Feldman compared to walking through Berlin\, where buildings appear similar yet distinct—a regularity that suggests direction but ultimately reveals itself as illusion.\nFeldman regarded Triadic Memories as a spatial landscape through which one moves\, where lengths of time\, rests\, and silences increase\, constantly testing the listener’s musical memory. Materials are continually recontextualized through different voicings and registers\, with subtle shifts in harmony and texture creating a work that is simultaneously static and constantly evolving. The piece invites deep concentration and reflection\, transforming our experience of musical time itself.\nThis rarely performed work stands among Feldman’s great late compositions—pieces that sought to make music into an experience of life-changing force\, a transcendent art form that wipes everything else away. \nABOUT THE ARTIST\nAmy Williams is a composer of music that is “simultaneously demanding\, rewarding and fascinating” (Buffalo News)\, “fresh\, daring and incisive” (Fanfare). Her compositions have been presented at renowned contemporary music venues on four continents by many of the leading contemporary music soloists and ensembles\, including the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra\, Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra\, JACK Quartet\, Ensemble Aleph\, Dal Niente\, Wet Ink\, Talujon\, International Contemporary Ensemble\, and pianist Ursula Oppens. Her pieces appear on the Albany\, Parma\, VDM (Italy)\, Blue Griffin\, Centaur and New Ariel labels.\nWilliams has a particularly deep connection to Feldman’s music—her father and Feldman were close colleagues at the University at Buffalo\, giving her a lifelong relationship with the composer’s work. As a member of the Bugallo-Williams Piano Duo\, Ms. Williams has performed at important new music festivals and series worldwide and recorded six critically-acclaimed CDs for Wergo (works of Nancarrow\, Stravinsky\, Varèse/Feldman and Kurtág).\nShe has taught at Bennington College and Northwestern University and is currently Associate Professor of Composition at the University of Pittsburgh. \nABOUT THE COMPOSER\nMorton Feldman was born in New York in 1926. He studied music and piano with several teachers at a young age before becoming a student of Stefan Wolpe after graduating from high school in 1944. Although Feldman mastered atonality\, the pair spent much of their time together simply arguing about music and Feldman struggled to find an artistic voice when composing music.\nFeldman’s artistic development took shape in 1949 when Feldman met composer John Cage\, commencing a lifelong artistic association of crucial importance to American music in the 1950s. Cage was instrumental in encouraging Feldman to have confidence in his instincts\, which resulted in totally intuitive compositions. From then on\, Feldman never worked with any systems that anyone has been able to identify\, working from moment to moment\, from one sound to the next. During this vital time of his musical career\, his friends during the 1950s in New York included the composers Earle Brown and Christian Wolff; painters Mark Rothko\, Philip Guston\, Franz Kline\, Jackson Pollock and Robert Rauschenberg; and pianist David Tudor.\nThe painters in particular influenced Feldman to search for his “physical sound-world\,” one that was more immediate and direct than had existed before. It is said that his use of repetition of individual elements creates a vast field of shimmering colors and textures. He rejected standard notation which resulted in his experimentation with graph notation; Projection 2 was one of his earliest scores using this highly visual system. In these scores\, the players have some input in the overall structure as they select their notes from within a given register and time. These led to a series of groundbreaking works\, often considered controversial in regard to their inaccessibility to the general public. However\, Feldman was not happy with the amount of improvisation and freedom given to the performer\, so he returned to more precise forms of notation. It was at this time that many would say he created his most “visual” pieces\, including Rothko Chapel\, Why Patterns?\, and For Philip Guston.\nAfter partially rejecting the use of graph notation and aleatory music\, his works of the late 70s and 80s grew longer: his compositions expanded in length to such a degree that allowed him to focus on the passage of time and the movement of blocks of sound through musical space. The scale of these works allowed Feldman to have control over the piece he wrote. Nine of Feldman’s one-movement compositions last for over one and a half hours each. His infrequently played String Quartet No. 2 can last up to six hours\, with no break for the performers.\nIn 1973\, the University of New York at Buffalo asked Feldman to become the “Edgard Varèse Professor\,” a post he held for the rest of his life. In June 1987\, Morton Feldman married the composer Barbara Monk. On September 3\, 1987\, he died at his home in Buffalo at age 61. \n\nFunding provided in part by New Music USA
URL:https://www.bowerbird.org/event/morton-feldman-triadic-memories/
LOCATION:Trinity at 22nd\, 2212 Spruce Street\, Philadelphia\, PA\, 19103\, United States
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/png:https://www.bowerbird.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Morton-Felman-Amy-Williams-Triadic-Memories.png
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20260225T180000
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20260225T190000
DTSTAMP:20260626T235916
CREATED:20260107T165652Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20260223T182302Z
UID:10001304-1772042400-1772046000@www.bowerbird.org
SUMMARY:Performing with the Merce Cunningham Dance Company
DESCRIPTION:Bowerbird is pleased to present an online conversation with John D. S. Adams\, John David Fullemann\, David Meschter\, and Robert E. Miller\, hosted by exhibition co-curators You Nakai and Dustin Hurt. \nDavid Tudor’s work with the Merce Cunningham Dance Company required not only innovative compositional thinking but also the technical expertise of skilled audio engineers who could realize his ambitious sonic visions in performance. This conversation brings together audio engineers who worked closely with Tudor and the Cunningham company\, exploring the practical challenges and creative solutions involved in touring complex electronic systems\, adapting performances to diverse venues\, and maintaining the integrity of Tudor’s work across hundreds of performances worldwide. The panel will discuss their experiences working alongside Tudor\, the technical innovations developed to meet the demands of his compositions\, and how the role of the audio engineer became inseparable from the artistic process itself. Through their firsthand accounts\, this discussion illuminates a crucial but often overlooked dimension of Tudor’s practice: the collaborative relationships with engineers that made his groundbreaking electronic works possible. \nPhoto by Molly Davies.   \n\nThis online program starts at 6:00pm Eastern US time as a Zoom Webinar. Registration is required\, but free. \n\n\nThis event is part of DAVID TUDOR: A VIEW FROM INSIDE\, an exhibition at Drexel’s Pearlstein Gallery from January 15 to March 21\, 2026. \n\n\nMajor support for DAVID TUDOR: A VIEW FROM INSIDE has been provided by The Pew Center for Arts & Heritage\, with additional support from the Musical Fund Society of Philadelphia.
URL:https://www.bowerbird.org/event/performing-with-the-merce-cunningham-dance-company/
LOCATION:Zoom Webinar
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/png:https://www.bowerbird.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Feb-25_-Tudor-Talk_-Cunningham-Sound.png
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BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20260220T200000
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20260220T220000
DTSTAMP:20260626T235916
CREATED:20260117T165738Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20260213T133023Z
UID:10001309-1771617600-1771624800@www.bowerbird.org
SUMMARY:Screening: Variations V and RainForest
DESCRIPTION:David Tudor’s musical partnership with the Merce Cunningham Dance Company spanned nearly five decades\, from the company’s founding in 1953 until Tudor’s death in 1996. As a founding member\, Tudor served not only as a virtuoso performer of revolutionary piano works but also as an essential collaborator in shaping the company’s sonic identity. Working alongside John Cage\, Gordon Mumma\, Christian Wolff\, and Takehisa Kosugi\, Tudor helped pioneer a radical approach to the relationship between sound and movement—one in which music and dance coexisted independently yet in the same time and space.  This screening\, the first of two film programs dedicated to Tudor’s work with the Cunningham company\, presents “Variations V” (1965) and “RainForest” (1968). \n\nPROGRAM: \nVariations V (1966) | 49:05\, black & white\, sound\, 16 mm film on video\nChoreography: Merce Cunningham. Director: Arne Arnbom. Music: John Cage\, “Variations V.” performed by Cage\, David Tudor\, and Gordon Mumma. Distortion of TV images: Nam June Paik. Film images: Stan VanDerBeek.  \nRainForest (1968) | 28 min\, color\, sound\, digital transfer\nFilmed by D.A. Pennebaker (Leacock and Pennebaker) as part of the 1968 Buffalo Arts Festival’s program “Who’s Afraid of the Avant-Garde.” Choreography: Merce Cunningham. Music: David Tudor\, “Rainforest.” Costumes: Jasper Johns. Sets: Andy Warhol. \n\n\n\nABOUT THE FILMS \nFirst composed and performed in 1965\, Variations V is a true testament to 1960’s experiments with “intermedia”—a coexistence and cutting across of artistic genres that profoundly informed Cunningham’s choreographic practice. Video is materially integrated into the performance\, with projections by Stan VanDerBeek and overlaid TV distortions by Nam June Paik enveloping the dancers. Twelve sound-sensitive electronic poles dot the stage; sound is triggered by the dancers’ movements and then altered or delayed by the musicians. Variations V predates Cunningham’s “video-dances\,” demonstrating a different moment in his relation to the technology. \nA kind of explicit\, corporeal engagement with video as medium is reflected in the performance’s sound component. Sound\, like video\, exists in this dance visually and even kinetically. The viewer of this 1966 archival performance gains access to the locus of sound production\, seeing John Cage and David Tudor perched over a wide spread of electronic equipment. Cunningham pays attention to the musicians’ movements in his 1968 book Changes: Notes on Choreography\, their “constant scuttling” moving “back and forth on the platform to fix things\, wiring that came out\, a plug\, etc.” The performance moves dialectically between its phenomenological whole and the “varied” elements of sound\, video and dance that constitute it. \nUnlike most of Cage and Cunningham’s collaborations\, sound and movement are more technically codependent than autonomous in Variations V. Cunningham writes in Changes\, “John decided to find out if there might not be ways that sound could be affected by movement\, and he and David Tudor proceeded to find out that there were.” \n\n\nThis event is part of DAVID TUDOR: A VIEW FROM INSIDE\, an exhibition at Drexel’s Pearlstein Gallery from January 15 to March 21\, 2026. \n\n\nMajor support for DAVID TUDOR: A VIEW FROM INSIDE has been provided by The Pew Center for Arts & Heritage\, with additional support from the Musical Fund Society of Philadelphia.
URL:https://www.bowerbird.org/event/screening-variations-v-and-rainforest/
LOCATION:The Rotunda\, 4014 Walnut St\, Philadelphia\, PA\, 19104\, United States
CATEGORIES:Tudor
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/png:https://www.bowerbird.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Feb-20_-Tudor-Cunningham.png
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20260218T180000
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20260218T190000
DTSTAMP:20260626T235916
CREATED:20260107T165032Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20260216T180434Z
UID:10001303-1771437600-1771441200@www.bowerbird.org
SUMMARY:David Tudor at Gate Hill
DESCRIPTION:Bowerbird is pleased to present an online talk with Mark Davenport\, hosted by exhibition co-curators You Nakai and Dustin Hurt. \nDavid 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. \nPhoto: David Tudor at the Gate Hill Cooperative (c. 1960). Photograph by Betsy (Epstein) Williams. Courtesy of Mark Davenport/Landkidzink Image Collection. \n\nThis online program starts at 6:00pm Eastern US time as a Zoom Webinar. Registration is required\, but free. \n\n\nThis event is part of DAVID TUDOR: A VIEW FROM INSIDE\, an exhibition at Drexel’s Pearlstein Gallery from January 15 to March 21\, 2026. \n\n\nMajor support for DAVID TUDOR: A VIEW FROM INSIDE has been provided by The Pew Center for Arts & Heritage\, with additional support from the Musical Fund Society of Philadelphia.
URL:https://www.bowerbird.org/event/david-tudor-at-gate-hill/
LOCATION:Zoom Webinar
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/png:https://www.bowerbird.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Feb-18_-Tudor-Talk_-Gate-Hill.png
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BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20260213T200000
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20260213T220000
DTSTAMP:20260626T235916
CREATED:20251215T163437Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20260615T151347Z
UID:10001292-1771012800-1771020000@www.bowerbird.org
SUMMARY:Postal Pieces 2.0
DESCRIPTION:Bowerbird is pleased to present the Arcana New Music Ensemble performing Postal Pieces 2.0\, the second iteration of “Postal Pieces\,” a concert featuring living composers in Philadelphia and beyond composing postcard-sized works inspired by James Tenney’s unorthodox set of compositions. \nTenney’s “Postal Pieces\,” composed between 1954 and 1971\, are a series of ten concise works each printed on a postcard. These pieces capture Tenney’s exploration of sound and form\, focusing on minimalist structures\, intonation\, and what he called “Swell” forms—gradual crescendos and decrescendos that create a unique auditory experience. Conceived originally as musical “letters” to friends and collaborators\, such as Pauline Oliveros and La Monte Young\, these works reflect Tenney’s deep connections within the avant-garde music scene and his penchant for inviting listeners into meditative states of listening. \nSets of the these newly commissioned postcard works will be available for purchase at the concert\, with all proceeds benefiting the Arcana New Music Ensemble. Previous postcard sets will also be available and are available to purchase online. \nPROGRAM \nAndrew Burke: This One Time\nCynthia Folio: Neural Disarray\nElijah Daniel Smith: A Little\nEvan Kassof: A Note From The Future\nJay Fluellen: Arcana Variances\nMeredith Gilna: Meeting\nPaul Schuette: Building Blocks\nSarah Hennies: As Long As Possible \nARCANA NEW MUSIC ENSEMBLE \nAlize Rosznyai\, voice\nCarlos Santiago\, violin\nDavid Hughes\, piano\nTom Kraines\, cello\nJonathan Leeds\, clarinet\nAaron Stewart\, saxophone\nTessa Ellis\, trumpet\nAndy Thierauf\, percussion \n\nABOUT THE ARTISTS \nJames Tenney (1934–2006) was an American composer\, theorist\, and performer renowned for his innovative contributions to experimental and electronic music. A student of notable figures such as Carl Ruggles\, Edgard Varèse\, and John Cage\, Tenney was a central figure in the development of post-war avant-garde music. His work often explored concepts of indeterminacy\, microtonality\, just intonation\, and the physics of sound\, integrating mathematical and acoustical theories into his compositions.\nTenney’s diverse output includes works for computer-generated sound\, instrumental ensembles\, and unconventional notations that challenge traditional musical forms. He was also a significant educator\, teaching at the California Institute of the Arts and York University\, influencing a generation of composers with his boundary-pushing ideas. His collaborations and associations with artists such as Steve Reich\, La Monte Young\, and Philip Glass positioned him as a vital connector in the experimental music scene. Tenney’s legacy is marked by his relentless curiosity and his ability to blend rigorous theoretical frameworks with an intuitive approach to sound\, profoundly shaping the landscape of contemporary music. \nFounded in 2015\, the Arcana New Music Ensemble is a group of Philadelphia-based musicians dedicated to presenting interesting\, beautiful\, and unconventional music in interesting\, beautiful\, and unconventional places.\nThe Arcana New Music Ensemble is a Philadelphia-based chamber ensemble dedicated to contemporary classical music. Its mission is to perform works by living composers and to reexamine music from the past\, often focusing on composers whose work has been overlooked. A hallmark of Arcana’s programming is its frequent use of portrait concerts\, which allow the ensemble to explore a composer’s work in depth. These programs balance music by widely recognized composers with works by those who are less well known or historically underrepresented. \nFounded in 2015 by musicologist Thomas Patterson\, harpist Elizabeth Huston\, and curator Dustin Hurt\, Arcana was created to provide a platform for Philadelphia’s many skilled performers interested in exploring both new works and important compositions from the past hundred years. Since 2020\, the ensemble has been co-directed by Andy Thierauf and Dustin Hurt.\nIn 2016\, Arcana partnered with Pig Iron Theatre Company to present Samuel Beckett\, Words and Music by Morton Feldman and began a multi-year project devoted to the music of Moondog (Louis Hardin). The following year included a portrait concert of Galina Ustvolskaya\, collaborations with Variant 6 and Prometheus Chamber Orchestra\, and performances of works by Julius Eastman\, including Stay On It\, Femenine\, and Thruway. \nIn 2018\, Arcana presented rare works by Pauline Oliveros and portrait concerts of Tom Johnson\, James Tenney\, and Ben Patterson\, along with a second Moondog program. In 2019\, the ensemble presented concerts focused on Claude Vivier and Johanna Beyer and participated in a program of George Crumb’s chamber works. From 2020 onward\, the ensemble’s programming has included a retrospective of David First\, collaborations with the Wildflowers Composer Festival\, and concerts highlighting Iranian and Iranian-American composers. Recent seasons have featured portrait concerts of Sarah Hennies\, Raven Chacon\, and George Walker\, the launch of the annual Postal Pieces project\, and performances of Pauline Oliveros’s The Well and the Gentle and Lucia Dlugoszewski’s Black Lake. \n\nFunding provided in part by New Music USA
URL:https://www.bowerbird.org/event/postal-pieces-2-0/
LOCATION:University Lutheran\, 3637 Chestnut Street\, Philadelphia\, PA\, 19104\, United States
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/png:https://www.bowerbird.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Bowerbird-Main-Img-2025-12-15T112654.671.png
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20260211T180000
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20260211T190000
DTSTAMP:20260626T235916
CREATED:20260107T164447Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20260209T220833Z
UID:10001302-1770832800-1770836400@www.bowerbird.org
SUMMARY:Rainforest & Composers Inside Electronics
DESCRIPTION:Bowerbird is pleased to present an online talk with John Driscoll and Phil Edelstein\, hosted by exhibition co-curators You Nakai and Dustin Hurt. \nJohn Driscoll and Phil Edelstein are founding members of Composers Inside Electronics (CIE)\, a collaborative group formed in 1973 that has been central to the evolution and continuation of David Tudor’s Rainforest works. In this conversation\, they trace the remarkable trajectory of Rainforest from its origins as a 1968 sound score for Merce Cunningham’s dance to its transformation into Rainforest IV\, a groundbreaking performed installation where each collaborator designs and constructs sculptural loudspeakers that become instruments in themselves. Driscoll and Edelstein will discuss the collaborative workshop in New Hampshire that birthed Rainforest IV\, the research into rotating speakers and directional sound that emerged from their work together\, and how they have continued to develop Tudor’s vision in the decades since his passing. This includes their creation of Rainforest V\, a self-running installation version that has been acquired by institutions including MoMA and has introduced Tudor’s radical approach to sound sculpture to new audiences worldwide. The conversation offers rare insight into what it means to sustain and evolve a collaborative artwork across generations while honoring its original spirit of experimentation and shared discovery. \n\nThis online program starts at 6:00pm Eastern US time as a Zoom Webinar. Registration is required\, but free.  \n\n\nThis event is part of DAVID TUDOR: A VIEW FROM INSIDE\, an exhibition at Drexel’s Pearlstein Gallery from January 15 to March 21\, 2026. \n\n\nMajor support for DAVID TUDOR: A VIEW FROM INSIDE has been provided by The Pew Center for Arts & Heritage\, with additional support from the Musical Fund Society of Philadelphia.
URL:https://www.bowerbird.org/event/rainforest-composers-inside-electronics/
LOCATION:Zoom Webinar
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/png:https://www.bowerbird.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Feb-11_-Tudor-Talk_-Rainforest-CIE.png
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20260204T180000
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20260204T190000
DTSTAMP:20260626T235916
CREATED:20260107T162443Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20260209T220711Z
UID:10001301-1770228000-1770231600@www.bowerbird.org
SUMMARY:Curating David Tudor
DESCRIPTION:Bowerbird is pleased to present an online talk with Nancy Perloff and Ron Kuivila\, hosted by exhibition co-curators You Nakai and Dustin Hurt. \nNancy Perloff\, curator at the Getty Research Institute\, oversees the David Tudor Papers\, one of the most significant archives of experimental music in the 20th century. Ron Kuivila\, Professor of Music at Wesleyan University and performer of Tudor’s work\, is custodian of the David Tudor instrument collection and has spent decades studying\, reconstructing\, and performing Tudor’s electronic systems. Together\, they offer unique perspectives on the challenges and insights of preserving\, interpreting\, and presenting Tudor’s legacy—from navigating complex archival materials to understanding the physical instruments and circuits that defined his work. This conversation explores what it means to curate an artist whose practice resisted fixed documentation\, and how institutions can make Tudor’s elusive but transformative work accessible to new generations of artists and scholars. \n\nThis online program starts at 6:00pm Eastern US time as a Zoom Webinar. Registration is required\, but free.  \n\n\nThis event is part of DAVID TUDOR: A VIEW FROM INSIDE\, an exhibition at Drexel’s Pearlstein Gallery from January 15 to March 21\, 2026. \n\n\nMajor support for DAVID TUDOR: A VIEW FROM INSIDE has been provided by The Pew Center for Arts & Heritage\, with additional support from the Musical Fund Society of Philadelphia.
URL:https://www.bowerbird.org/event/curating-david-tudor/
LOCATION:Zoom Webinar
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/png:https://www.bowerbird.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Feb-4_-Tudor-Talk_-Ron-Nancy.png
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20260131T200000
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20260131T220000
DTSTAMP:20260626T235916
CREATED:20260109T184929Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20260615T151329Z
UID:10001307-1769889600-1769896800@www.bowerbird.org
SUMMARY:AT 100 - Earle Brown and Morton Feldman
DESCRIPTION:Bowerbird presents the Arcana New Music Ensemble in a centenary celebration of Earle Brown and Morton Feldman\, two pioneering American composers born in 1926 whose radical experiments in the 1950s and 60s transformed how music could be notated\, performed\, and experienced. \nBrown’s selections represent his most radical period of graphic notation. December 1952 and Four Systems present performers with abstract visual fields rather than traditional staff notation\, inviting spontaneous decisions about pitch\, duration\, and intensity. One Through Five continues this exploration of open form\, where the score becomes a framework for collective improvisation rather than a fixed composition. \nFeldman’s early pieces chart his move toward what he called a “physical sound-world.” Only\, from 1947\, predates his meeting with John Cage and the artistic breakthrough that followed. His graph notation works like Projection 1 and King of Denmark give performers freedom within defined registers and time frames\, creating fields of shimmering color and texture. A Very Short Piece for Trumpet\, though composed later in 1986\, distills his aesthetic into concentrated form. \nThe performance is part of Icebox Project Space’s Light and Sound Series. \n\nPROGRAM \nEarle Brown: Four Systems (1954) \nEarle Brown: December 1952 from Folio I (1952) \nEarle Brown: One Through Five from Folio II (1970) \nMorton Feldman: Only (1947) \nMorton Feldman: A Very Short Piece for Trumpet (1986) \nMorton Feldman: King of Denmark (1964) \nMorton Feldman: Projection 1 (1950) \nARCANA NEW MUSIC ENSEMBLE: \nCarlos Santiago\, violin\nMelinda Rice\, viola\nTom Kraines\, cello\nDavid Middleton\, electric bass\nTessa Ellis\, trumpet\nJay Krush\, tuba\nAaron Stewart\, saxophone\nNoa Even\, saxophone\nNicholas Handahl\, flute\nJonathan Leeds\, clarinet\nAnne Ishii\, percussion and electronics\nTara Middleton\, voice\nAndy Thierauf\, percussion \n\nThis program is supported by the Penn Treaty Special Services District\n \n\nFunding provided in part by New Music USA
URL:https://www.bowerbird.org/event/at-100-earle-brown-and-morton-feldman/
LOCATION:Icebox Project Space\, 1400 N. American St\, Philadelphia\, PA\, 19122\, United States
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/png:https://www.bowerbird.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Bowerbird-Main-Img-2026-01-09T134535.949.png
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20260117T190000
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20260117T210000
DTSTAMP:20260626T235916
CREATED:20260107T153658Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20260220T201547Z
UID:10001299-1768676400-1768683600@www.bowerbird.org
SUMMARY:Tudor Piano
DESCRIPTION:Bowerbird is pleased to present pianist Adam Tendler in a solo performance of works by Christian Wolff\, Toshi Ichiyanagi\, Henry Cowell\, Morton Feldman\, John Cage\, and others. \nBefore David Tudor became renowned for his pioneering electronic compositions\, he was celebrated as one of the most fearless and virtuosic interpreters of experimental piano music. Throughout the 1950s and 1960s\, Tudor served as the primary champion of the New York School composers and works associated with the Fluxus movement\, premiering scores that challenged every convention of notation\, performance\, and the relationship between composer and interpreter. His performances transformed indeterminate works and event scores into vivid sonic experiences\, treating open-ended instructions not as puzzles to solve but as frameworks for spontaneous decision-making and physical engagement. \nThis concert honors Tudor’s legacy as a performer by presenting a diverse program of works he premiered during this formative period—pieces that blur the boundaries between composition and improvisation\, notation and action\, music and theater. Adam Tendler brings his own adventurous spirit and deep expertise in experimental repertoire to these historically significant works\, continuing the tradition of radical interpretation that Tudor embodied. \n\nPROGRAM \nChristian Wolff — Suite I (1954) \nToshi Ichiyanagi — Music for Piano No. 4 (1960) \nMorton Feldman — Three Pieces for Piano (1954) \nEarle Brown — Forgotten Piece (c.1954) \nBo Nillson — Schlagfiguren (1978) \nHenry Cowell — The Fairy Bells (1929) \nJohn Cage — Solo from Concert for Piano and Orchestra (1957-8) with Indeterminacy (1959) \nJohn Cage — 4’33” (1952) \n\n\nThis event is part of DAVID TUDOR: A VIEW FROM INSIDE\, an exhibition at Drexel’s Pearlstein Gallery from January 15 to March 21\, 2026. \n\n\nABOUT THE ARTIST \nA “daring pianist” praised for his “adventurousness and muscular skill” (The New York Times)\, 2026 Grammy-nominated artist Adam Tendler has been called “the hottest pianist on the American contemporary classical scene” (Minneapolis Star Tribune)\, “relentlessly adventurous” (Washington Post)\, a “remarkable and insightful musician” (LA Times)\, an “intrepid… maverick pianist” (The New Yorker)\, and “one of contemporary classical music’s most intentional and daring pianists” (Seven Days). “If you’re a cutting-edge composer these days\,” said CBS Sunday Morning’s Lee Cowan\, “you want Adam to perform your pieces.” A pioneer of DIY culture in classical music\, at age 23 Tendler performed solo recitals in all fifty states as part of a grassroots tour called America 88×50\, and has since become one of classical music’s most recognized and celebrated artists\, receiving Lincoln Center’s Emerging Artist Award\, the Yvar Mikhashoff Prize\, and appearing as soloist with the London Symphony Orchestra\, LA Phil\, Sydney Symphony\, Toronto Symphony Orchestra\, NJ Symphony\, Vermont Symphony Orchestra\, as well as on the main-stages of Carnegie Hall\, the Barbican Centre\, Sydney Opera House\, BAM\, David Geffen Hall\, Walt Disney Concert Hall\, Milan Fashion Week\, and other leading series and stages worldwide. His Inheritances album is a 2026 GRAMMY® for Best Classical Instrumental Solo and a New York Times Critic Pick\, which wrote\, “You will be moved\, profoundly and intensely.” Tendler has commissioned major works from composers ranging from Christian Wolff to Devonté Hynes (aka Blood Orange)\, Nico Muhly and Laurie Anderson. He is featured on Wild Up’s Grammy-nominated third volume of Julius Eastman’s music\, and has also released albums of music by Franz Liszt\, Robert Palmer\, and of his own original work. He is the author of two books\, a Yamaha Artist\, and serves on the piano faculty at NYU. \n\nMajor support for DAVID TUDOR: A VIEW FROM INSIDE has been provided by The Pew Center for Arts & Heritage\, with additional support from the Musical Fund Society of Philadelphia.
URL:https://www.bowerbird.org/event/tudor-piano-adam-tendler/
LOCATION:University Lutheran\, 3637 Chestnut Street\, Philadelphia\, PA\, 19104\, United States
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/png:https://www.bowerbird.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Jan-17_-Tudor-Piano.png
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BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20260117T160000
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20260117T180000
DTSTAMP:20260626T235916
CREATED:20260107T161620Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20260120T213800Z
UID:10001300-1768665600-1768672800@www.bowerbird.org
SUMMARY:David Tudor: Bandoneon!
DESCRIPTION:Bowerbird is pleased to present a free screening of Bandoneon! (a combine)\, a documentary about David Tudor’s groundbreaking 1966 performance\, followed by a Q&A with filmmaker Julie Martin. \nBandoneon! was Tudor’s first full concert work as a composer\, performed as part of 9 Evenings: Theatre & Engineering—a legendary collaboration between ten New York artists and thirty engineers from Bell Telephone Laboratories. Tudor played the bandoneon as input into a complex sound and visual modification system that moved sound between speakers and controlled lights and video images\, animating the entire 69th Regiment Armory space. This documentary reconstructs the original performance through archival film and vintage photographs\, featuring interviews with the performers\, engineers\, and Tudor’s fellow composers. The film offers rare insight into one of the most ambitious experiments in live electronic performance and interdisciplinary collaboration of the 1960s. Julie Martin\, who directed the film and worked closely with Experiments in Art and Technology (E.A.T.) co-founder Billy Klüver\, will discuss the project and answer questions following the screening. \n\n\nThis event is part of DAVID TUDOR: A VIEW FROM INSIDE\, an exhibition at Drexel’s Pearlstein Gallery from January 15 to March 21\, 2026. \n\n\nMajor support for DAVID TUDOR: A VIEW FROM INSIDE has been provided by The Pew Center for Arts & Heritage\, with additional support from the Musical Fund Society of Philadelphia.
URL:https://www.bowerbird.org/event/david-tudor-bandoneon-screening/
LOCATION:URBN Annex screening room\, 3401 Filbert Street\, Philadelphia\, PA\, 19104\, United States
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BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20260116T200000
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20260116T220000
DTSTAMP:20260626T235916
CREATED:20251219T202600Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20260220T201038Z
UID:10001291-1768593600-1768600800@www.bowerbird.org
SUMMARY:Tudor & Cage
DESCRIPTION: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. \n\nPROGRAM \nPresentation on the reconstruction of Tudor’s Coefficient: Frictional Percussion and Electronics \n– pause – \nJohn Cage: Solo for Cymbal (1960) \nDavid Tudor: Coefficient: Frictional Percussion and Electronics (1991) \n\n\nThis event is part of DAVID TUDOR: A VIEW FROM INSIDE\, an exhibition at Drexel’s Pearlstein Gallery from January 15 to March 21\, 2026. \n\n\nABOUT THE ARTISTS \nStuart 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. \nHe 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. \nco-presented with The Rotunda \n\nMajor support for DAVID TUDOR: A VIEW FROM INSIDE has been provided by The Pew Center for Arts & Heritage\, with additional support from the Musical Fund Society of Philadelphia.
URL:https://www.bowerbird.org/event/stuart-jackson-plays-tudor-and-cage/
LOCATION:The Rotunda\, 4014 Walnut St\, Philadelphia\, PA\, 19104\, United States
CATEGORIES:Tudor
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END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20251212T200000
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20251212T220000
DTSTAMP:20260626T235916
CREATED:20251124T155854Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20251215T161119Z
UID:10001290-1765569600-1765576800@www.bowerbird.org
SUMMARY:In The Mirror of Maya Deren
DESCRIPTION:Bowerbird is pleased to present a special screening of In The Mirror of Maya Deren at The Rotunda. \n“More than anything else\, cinema consists of the eye for the magic—that which perceives and reveals the marvelous in whatsoever it looks upon.” –Maya Deren \nWith In The Mirror of Maya Deren\, documentary filmmaker Martina Kudlacek has fashioned not only a fascinating portrait of a groundbreaking and influential artist\, but a pitch-perfect introduction to her strikingly beautiful and poetic body of work. Crowned “Fellini and Bergman wrapped in one gloriously possessed body” by the L.A. Weekly\, Maya Deren (née Eleanora Derenkovskaya) is arguably the most important and innovative avant-garde filmmaker in the history of American cinema. Using locations from the Hollywood hills to Haiti\, Deren made such mesmerizing films as At Land\, Ritual in Transfigured Time\, and her masterpiece\, Meshes of the Afternoon\, which won a prestigious international experimental filmmaking prize at the 1947 Cannes Film Festival. Starting with excerpts from these films\, In The Mirror of Maya Deren seamlessly and effectively interweaves archival footage with observances from acolytes and contemporaries such as filmmakers Stan Brakhage and Jonas Mekas\, dance pioneer Katherine Dunham\, and Living Theater founder Judith Malina. With an original score by experimental composer John Zorn. \n\nABOUT THE ARTISTS \nOne of the most important American experimental filmmakers and entrepreneurial promoters of the avant-garde in the 1940s and 1950s\, Maya Deren was also a choreographer\, dancer\, film theorist\, poet\, lecturer\, writer and photographer. \nThe function of film\, Deren believed\, like most art forms\, was to create an experience; each one of her films would evoke new conclusions\, lending her focus to be dynamic and always-evolving. She combined her interests in dance\, Haitian culture and subjective psychology in a series of surreal\, perceptual\, black and white short films. Using editing\, multiple exposures\, jump cutting\, superimposition\, slow-motion and other camera techniques\, Deren created continued motion through discontinued space. She abandoned the established notions of physical space and time turning her vision into a stream of consciousness. \nPerhaps one of the most influential experimental films in American cinema was her collaboration with Alexander Hammid on Meshes of the Afternoon (1943). She continued to make several more films of her own\, including At Land (1944)\, A Study in Choreography for Camera (1945)\, and Ritual in Transfigured Time (1946) – writing\, producing\, directing\, editing\, and photographing them with help from only one other person\, Hella Heyman\, as camerawoman. She also appeared in a few of her films but never credited herself as an actress\, downplaying her roles as anonymous figures rather than iconic deities. \nJohn Zorn is an American avant-garde composer\, arranger\, record producer\, saxophonist and multi-instrumentalist. Zorn’s recorded output is prolific with hundreds of album credits as a performer\, composer\, or producer. His work has touched on a wide range of musical genres\, often within a single composition\, but he is best-known for his avant-garde\, jazz\, improvised and contemporary classical music. Zorn has led the punk jazz band Naked City\, the klezmer-influenced quartet Masada and composed the associated ‘Masada Songbooks’\, written concert music for classical ensembles\, and produced music for film and documentary. Zorn has stated that “I’ve got an incredibly short attention span. My music is jam-packed with information that is changing very fast… All the various styles are organically connected to one another. I’m an additive person – the entire storehouse of my knowledge informs everything I do. People are so obsessed with the surface that they can’t see the connections\, but they are there.” \nAfter releasing albums on several independent US and European labels\, Zorn signed with Elektra Nonesuch and attracted wide acclaim in 1985 when he released ”The Big Gundown” with his interpretations of music composed by Ennio Morricone. This was followed by the album ”Spillane” in 1987\, and the first album by Naked City in 1989 which all attracted further worldwide attention. Zorn then recorded on the Japanese DIW label and curated the Avant subsidiary label before forming Tzadik in 1995\, where he has been prolific\, issuing several new recordings each year and releasing works by many other musicians. \nZorn established himself within the New York City downtown music movement in the early 1980s but has since composed and performed with a wide range of musicians working in diverse musical areas. By the early 1990s Zorn was working extensively in Japan\, attracted by that culture’s openness about borrowing and remixing ingredients from elsewhere\, where he performed and recorded under the name Dekoboko Hajime\, before returning to New York as a permanent base in the mid 1990’s. Zorn has undertaken many tours of Europe\, Asia\, and the Middle East\, often performing at festivals with varying ensembles to display his diverse output. \n\n\n\nCo-presented with The Rotunda
URL:https://www.bowerbird.org/event/in-the-mirror-of-maya-deren/
LOCATION:The Rotunda\, 4014 Walnut St\, Philadelphia\, PA\, 19104\, United States
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BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20251206T200000
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20251206T220000
DTSTAMP:20260626T235916
CREATED:20250804T153846Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20260615T151254Z
UID:10001279-1765051200-1765058400@www.bowerbird.org
SUMMARY:Blackbox Ensemble
DESCRIPTION:Bowerbird is pleased to present the Blackbox Ensemble performing contemporary chamber works by Annie Nikunen\, Ileana Perez-Velazquez\, Baldwin Giang\, and James Diaz at University Lutheran Church. \n\nABOUT THE ARTISTS \nThe BlackBox Ensemble is a collective of contemporary music performers based in New York City dedicated to exploring the wide-ranging world of the music of our time. Founded in 2018\, our upcoming 2024-2025 season includes concerts at home in New York and around the country\, including the season-opening performance of the Southern Exposure Series at the University of South Carolina\, a performance at the Timucua Arts Foundation\, and residencies at the University of Chicago\, University of Florida\, and University of Central Florida. Our 2023-2024 season included major performances in New York City and beyond\, including touring engagements in Washington\, DC\, Florida\, Michigan\, and throughout the Northeast. Our season began with The Sound of Space Between Us\, a site-specific\, outdoor music and dance performance at the Clark Art Institute in Williamstown\, Massachusetts. We then presented the live premiere of Borrowed Landscape\, a radio play by German playwright duo tauchgold with music by Dai Fujikura\, at the Noguchi Museum\, in a program that also features music by Anna Thorvaldsdottir\, inti figgis-vizueta\, and Toru Takemistu. We then reprised our performance of Borrowed Landscape at the Smithsonian Institute of Asian Art as part of a two-concert series. In addition\, we celebrated our 5-year anniversary with our inaugural BlackBox Festival\, including our debut at Roulette Intermedium. Finally\, our season included residencies at University of Florida\, University of Michigan\, NYU\, and the Kaufman Music Center’s Special Music School. \nOur 2022-2023 season included a season-opening performance marathon on Pier 45 in Manhattan\, a portrait concert of Jessie Cox\, and performances at Culture Lab LIC and the Columbia University Sacred Music Series. Throughout the season\, the ensemble was supported by the Chamber Music America’s Ensemble Forward grant for emerging ensembles\, through which they received coaching and mentorship from Alan Pierson\, Conductor and Co-Artistic Director of Alarm Will Sound. Past projects include world premieres by Paul Novak (for the 2021 New Music Gathering Conference)\, Annie Nikunen\, Erich Barganier\, and composer-vocalist Tanner Porter; Gallery of Sound” a performance of solo pieces performed in isolated rooms at an underground bar and record store in Midtown Manhattan; a performance of Julius Eastman’s “Femenine” on the Brooklyn waterfront; and “Elegy\,” a video concert featuring music by Juhi Bansal\, Carlos Simon\, Yaz Lancaster\, Brittany J. Green\, and Jessica Mays. Reviewing this program\, I Care If You Listen wrote” “the 45-minute chamber music program showcased five worthy contemporary composers\, with earnest performances that did justice to the extramusical connotations.” \nOur name\, BlackBox\, is inspired by this term’s meaning in other fields. In theatre\, a Black Box is a type of performance space – usually a square room with black walls – that offers flexible staging and seating arrangements\, creating an environment ripe for creative experimentation and intimate human connection. Meanwhile\, in science\, computing\, and the humanities\, a “black box” is a system with defined inputs and outputs whose inner workings are unknown. We believe that music\, as a cultural medium\, fills the role of the black box\, enacting an ambiguous but vital relationship between artistic expression and social life. In doing so\, we follow the inspiration of the theatrical definition – to foster experimentation\, innovation\, and human connection. In all of our programs\, we aim to present contemporary classical music in a format that is approachable\, innovative\, and impactful. \n\n\n\nFunding provided in part by New Music USA
URL:https://www.bowerbird.org/event/blackbox-ensemble/
LOCATION:University Lutheran\, 3637 Chestnut Street\, Philadelphia\, PA\, 19104\, United States
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END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20251205T200000
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20251205T220000
DTSTAMP:20260626T235916
CREATED:20250723T170449Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20251206T230230Z
UID:10001280-1764964800-1764972000@www.bowerbird.org
SUMMARY:Sova
DESCRIPTION:We are pleased to present Sova in a solo set at University Lutheran Church with an opening set by Koof Ibi. \n\nABOUT THE ARTIST \n“Ghostly\, delicate\, elegant…” (Independent Clauses) \nFor Sova – the stage name of New York-based pianist/composer Sophia Subbayya Vastek – the piano has always been home. A second generation pianist\, she holds a deep reverence for her collective history\, coupled with an exploratory ear\, and moves quietly between musical worlds. Over the years\, her intuitive playing style — rooted in tenderness\, improvisation\, and classical training — has evolved into a dynamic\, cinematic sound. \nDescribed as performing with “passion and profound tenderness” (Second Inversion) and “serene strokes and lyrical beauty” (Brooklyn Rail)\, her music is quietly devastating\, blossoming into ambient-inspired soundscapes that range from whisper-soft echoes to expressive cascades.  \nHer most recent LP\, In Our Softening\, produced by Sam Torres (Polymouth Music)\, features nine of her own beguiling piano compositions\, each track a part of a thoughtfully woven tapestry. Recorded entirely on an upright piano built in 1902 – complete with a giant crack in the soundboard – the album draws listeners in with its vulnerable and vibrant intimacy. Exploring themes of loss\, rebirth\, and finding softness within an increasingly hard world\, the album has been called “a tender and revelatory balm” by editors at I Care If You Listen\, “heaven on earth” (Sun 13)\, and “one of the very best things I’ve heard all year” by longtime music journalist Steve Smith (Night After Night). The record also made it onto Bandcamp’s All-Time Best Selling Solo Piano list. \nHer music has been released on OPIA\, the record label founded by Ólafur Arnalds\, Innova Recordings\, and more. Her debut album\, Histories (2017)\, was produced by Grammy-winning engineer Adam Abeshouse\, and described as “a beautiful mosaic of the larger cultural intersections of our world” (Second Inversion). She has also released an EP of the complete solo piano works by composer Lili Boulanger (1893-1918)\, entitled Lili (2020\, reissued 2023).  \nEqually important to the music itself are the spaces in which Sova’s music exists. Whether she is performing or presenting\, she is dedicated to creating musical experiences that are grounded in care and intentional gathering. In that spirit\, she is a co-curator of the popular Lift Series at the Troy Savings Bank Music Hall\, which finished its sold-out fifth season. She also hosts concerts in her home – a converted church-space in Troy\, NY called Troy Listening Room – that highlight risk-taking\, independent musicians.  \nIn 2022\, Sova was recognized as a composer by the New York State Council on the Arts and New York Foundation For the Arts (NYSCA/NYFA) as a Music/Sound Fellow\, a statewide program focused on the evolution of contemporary art. Her music has been featured on NPR\, BBC\, and KEXP\, and she has performed across three continents. \nKoof Ibi is a multi-instrumentalist in the Philadelphia area. On any given day you could find him strolling down Broad Street straight into the Kimmel Center with brass bands like The West Philadelphia Orchestra\, sharing the big stage with Japanese Breakfast\, or performing in the Philadelphia Museum of Art with poet/musician Moor Mother. Koof effortlessly blends his diverse musical influences into his own distinct style. At his solo shows Koof combines live instruments\, loops\, and effects pedals to create surprising soundscapes\, re-invented covers\, and sonic liberation.\nwww.koof.bandcamp.com\nwww.koofibi.com \n\n
URL:https://www.bowerbird.org/event/sova/
LOCATION:University Lutheran\, 3637 Chestnut Street\, Philadelphia\, PA\, 19104\, United States
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END:VEVENT
END:VCALENDAR