Bowerbird is excited to close out it's 2014 - 2015 GATE season with this thrilling double bill of audio-visual spectaculars inspired by Iannis Xenakis' "Polytopes". The evening features a new electronic work by Bhob Rainey and a performance of Keroaän, Ian M Fraser and Reed Evan Rosenberg's laser, strobe, and sound performing Artificial Intelligence platform.…
This is a series about starting a new music ensemble. In Philadelphia. In 2015. But it is also a series for anyone that's ever tried to make something with other people. It's about starting a non-profit, or an ensemble, or a business, or choosing not too. It's about being unstoppable in the face of soul-crushing…
Bowerbird is excited to welcome back NYC based ensemble Either / OR to perform "For Philip Guston", Morton Feldman's late period masterpiece for piano/celesta, flute, and percussion. Upon hearing this expansive 4+ hour work, noted music critic Alex Ross wrote, "What makes "Guston" fundamentally and wondrously beautiful is its harmony. Feldman's whole career was a…
Bowerbird presents: New Works: CINÉ-ROMAN curated by J. Louise Makary ABOUT THE EVENT Chris Marker made his groundbreaking work La Jetée, a moving-image film made up of still photographs, in 1962, and it still stands as the most iconic ciné-roman in the canon. Many artists have admired Marker's innovative use of photomontage to weave…
Join Bowerbird as we welcome Swiss musician Corina Marti, an Early music specialist, in her Philadelphia premiere. Marti will be performing a concert of late fourteenth-century music for recorder and early keyboard instruments. The repertoire includes music from the two most important surviving sources: the London and the Faenza codices. In this concert Marti achieves…
Trefoil offers selections from the spectacular trecento style of 14th-century Italy. Music as described in Boccaccio's Decameron: Madrigals, ballate, canons, and estampie by Landini, Cicconia, and Jacopo di Bologna. TREFOIL is a trio of modern minstrels long active in early music, with experience in such ensembles as Les Arts Florissants, Concert Royal, Early Music New…
Join Bowerbird for a special screening of the sci-fi musical "Space Is the Place". Sun Ra (1914-1993) and his Intergalactic Myth-Science Arkestra land their yellow spaceship in Oakland; offer an alter-destiny; and battle the FBI, NASA, and a supernatural pimp named the Overseer. The film includes lively performances of such Arkestra favorites as "Watusi," "The…
Bowerbird presents: A NIGHT FOR JACK remembering Jack Rose featuring performances by Glenn Jones Nathan Bowles Daniel Bachman Chris Forsyth Megajam Booze Band plus DJs Ian Nagoski and Michael Chaiken ABOUT THE EVENT The only thing more monumental than Jack Rose's personal presence was his talent. He was one of those preternaturally gifted guitar…
ALASH are masters of Tuvan throat singing, 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…
Carol Robinson & Nate Wooley: Works of Eliane Radigue & Denis Dufour Werner Dafeldecker & Valerio Tricoli: Williams Mix Extended ABOUT THE EVENT Clarinetist Carol Robinson and trumpeter Nate Wooley give performances of new works by iconoclastic French composers Eliane Radigue and Denis Dufour. The program opens with Dufour's fascinating Cinq forms d'appel for…
ABOUT THE EVENT The Rotunda and Bowerbird are proud to present SANCTUARY, a series of sound based & site specific works created for The Rotunda's rarely seen main sanctuary. This space - which is covered by a massive 4 story, 80-foot diameter dome - will house new works by seven Philadelphia based artists - John…
ALL SOUND IS QUEER curated by Catherine Pancake, featuring artists Keir Neuringer, Alex Smith, Megan McShea, John Eaton, Jules Gimbrone, and Drew Daniel. ABOUT THE EVENT "Queerness abides in the refusal to preserve, in the willingness to end the space of ruinous, risky anonymity, to let sound pull us with it into the…
NAKATANI GONG ORCHESTRA - ten gong ensemble + TATSUYA NAKATANI - solo percussion set Vibrating metal. Glacial ambiance. Percussionist Tatsuya Nakatani returns to Philadelphia for a solo set and to lead a performance of the Nakatani Gong Orchestra (NGO) - an ensemble of 10 gongs played by local musicians and conducted by Natakatani. Anyone who…
Built upon shared interests in technology, machine learning, and artificial intelligence, Axon Ladder is a multimedia performance installation by Bhob Rainey and Catherine Pancake. Combining algorithmic electronic composition with real-time video manipulation, this world premiere evening length work offers a timely view into the intersection of advancing technology and human intuition. The performance features footage…
The powerhouse JACK Quartet returns to Philadelphia for a concert featuring the hypercomplex string quartets by Iannis Xenakis. A leading figure in twentieth century music, Xenakis (1922 - 2001) was trained as a civil engineer, then became an architect and developed revolutionary designs while working with Le Corbusier. Utilizing his technical background, Xenakis approached composition…
Bowerbird is pleased to present this concert portrait of the early electronic music of composer Andrew Rudin. The concert will feature Rudin’s Tragoedia performed with a live video accompaniment and Il Giuoco (1966), which Robert Moog said to be the first large-scale, original, serious composition created on his synthesizing instruments. Il Giuoco is accompanied by…
Bowerbird is very excited to present Trefoil, a trio of singer-instrumentalists that specialize in European Medieval music, performing works by Guillaume Dufay, Gilles Binchois, and others from their new CD Fleur de Valeur: A Medieval Bouquet. Like poets of all ages, medieval songwriters invoked the imagery and natural magic of flowers in the service of…
Bowerbird is pleased to present a rare screening of Werner Herzog's peculiar 1995 documentary film Death in Five Voices about the troubled life of eccentric sixteenth century composer Don Carol Gesualdo. Shot on location in Italy and featuring interviews with Gesualdo Consort director Gerald Pace, Il Complesso Barocco musical director Alan Curtis. From his sexual deviance…