Bowerbird is pleased to present Philadelphia's Bismuth Quartet in a special concert featuring compositions by quartet members Carlos Santiago and Veronica Jurkiewicz. For this performance the Bismuth Quartet welcomes special guests Tom Kraines and Matt Engle. PROGRAM Carlos Santiago: Arc for string quartet Veronica Jurkiewicz: Chora for string quartet Arc/Chora sonically explores being alone and…
Bowerbird is pleased to present a rare performance by George Stavis, an American banjo player perhaps best known for his 1969 album Labyrinths , an album considered a landmark in the development of improvisational banjo performance. Opening the evening will be Elkhorn, the Philadelphia based guitar duo Jesse Sheppard and Drew Gardner, who are celbrating…
Bowerbird is pleased to present musician JJJJJerome Ellis and Philadelphia-based duo Jupiter Blue at The Rotunda. ABOUT THE MUSICIANS JJJJJerome Ellis is a blk disabled animal, stutterer, and artist. He prays, reads, gardens, cycles, wanders, and plays. Through music, literature, performance, and video he researches relationships among blackness, disabled speech, divinity, nature, sound, and…
Bowerbird is pleased to present a sneak preview screening of Sound Mechanic by Skizz Cyzyk about Baltimore native Neil Feather. Neil invents new musical instruments and sound making devices, frequently incorporating bicycle parts, bowling balls and sex toys. His inventions are then used in live performances and installations. This observational documentary feature gives the audience…
Philadelphia favorites Alash return to The Rotunda for a FREE concert. Alash are masters of Tuvan throat singing (xöömei), a remarkable technique for singing multiple pitches at the same time. Masters of traditional Tuvan instruments as well as the art of throat singing, Alash are deeply committed to traditional Tuvan music and culture. At the…
Bowerbird is pleased to present Franck Vigroux and Ulrich Krieger performing Dodécaèdre, a new piece for electronics and amplified-processed saxophone at The Rotunda. Made of tectonic tensions, beats, and electronic textures the new work is a very personal approach to sonic exploration. Opening the evening will be a solo set by Philadelphia-based multi-instrumentalist Julius Masri.…
Philadelphia favorites Alash return to The Rotunda for a FREE concert. Alash are masters of Tuvan throat singing (xöömei), a remarkable technique for singing multiple pitches at the same time. Masters of traditional Tuvan instruments as well as the art of throat singing, Alash are deeply committed to traditional Tuvan music and culture. At the same…
Austrian laptop music pioneer Fennesz recently released his first album in nearly five years, Agora, and it reinforces the inscrutable beauty of his aesthetic. His work is steeped in romanticism, with each piece patiently wending its way through meticulously plotted narratives of remarkable concision, marked by orchestral swells and shimmering ambience. Using a blend of…
Due to circumstances beyond our control this concert has been postponed to a date to be announced later. George Stavis is a singular player, among the finest 5-string banjo players of his generation. Although trained in the traditions of Pete Seeger and Earl Scruggs, in the late 1960s Stavis developed a unique approach to the…
Since her emergence in New York’s No Wave scene in the late 1970s as a percussionist in DNA, Japanese native Ikue Mori has used auto didacticism to forge one of the most singular aesthetics in contemporary music. Since switching from a richly intuitive approach to drums to electronics during the 1980s she’s refined an elusive,…
Ithaca composer and percussionist Sarah Hennies presents a cinematic version of her stunning 2017 video work Contralto, a bracing yet tender meditation on gender dysphoria viewed through the lens of transgender women finding a comfortable new speaking voice. Based on her experience in Ithaca College’s Voice and Communication Modification Program for People in the Transgender…
Bowerbird is pleased to present "Neil Feather: Sound Mechanic" an evening dedicated to the sonic contraptions of Neil Feather, inventor of such fantastical instruments as "The Wiggler", "The Nondo," "Thunderwheels," "Magnapooters," "Apex Roto-Zither," and the "Thumbsnake." The night will feature a performance of a work-in-progress chamber concerto composed for Feather’s instruments alongside the Arcana New…
Philadelphia-born, New Jersey-raised polymath Laraaji has maintained a pursuit of spiritual transcendence through music since the mid-70s. After several years of studiously developing an aesthetic informed by Eastern faiths and transcendental research in his long-time home in Harlem, in 1979 Brian Eno stumbled upon him busking in Washington Square Park in New York, improvising celestial…
Bowerbird is pleased to present New Perplexity (Daniel Fishkin, Cleek Schrey, Ron Shalom) in an evening of new works created during their upcoming artists-in-residence at Robert Wilson’s Watermill Center. New Perplexity is a composer-performer collective intent on creating new contexts for the daxophone, a thin hardwood strip played with a bow, created by the German…
Bowerbird is pleased to present an evening of screened and live audio visual shorts including the Philadelphia premiere of Phill Niblock’s newly mastered 1966 film The Magic Sun - an experimental work featuring Sun Ra and His Solar Arkestra that was produced using a unique negative process and ultra-tight close-ups on the moving hands and mouths of…
Bowerbird is pleased to present a double bill of fingerstyle and American primitive guitarists Yasmin Williams and Daniel Bachman. YASMIN WILLIAMS DANIEL BACHMAN ABOUT THE ARTIST Yasmin Williams is an acoustic fingerstyle guitarist with an unorthodox, modern style of playing. Her music has been commonly described as refreshing, relaxing, and unique and has…
Philadelphia favorites Alash return to The Rotunda for a FREE concert. Alash are masters of Tuvan throat singing (xöömei), a remarkable technique for singing multiple pitches at the same time. Masters of traditional Tuvan instruments as well as the art of throat singing, Alash are deeply committed to traditional Tuvan music and culture. At the same…
Bowerbird is honored to present a two evening retrospective of pioneering composer Johanna Beyer. The first evening features her percussion music and the second evening features her chamber music. Although Beyer's music was overlooked during her lifetime and for decades after her death, it was some of the most experimental and prophetic work created during…