International Ensemble N_JP (featuring Sho master Ko Ishikawa and live electronics from Toshimaru Nakamura) will give the Philadelphia premiere of new works by composer and director Gene Coleman. The program includes his new music and film piece "Sendai Transmissions" and "Bairo", a new work made in collaboration with contemporary Indian choreographer Shaily Dadiala.
Flutist Claire Chase, "the young star of the modern flute" (The New Yorker) and a 2012 MacArthur Fellow, celebrates the release of her third solo album, DENSITY, featuring tour de force flute works by Steve Reich, Alvin Lucier, Philip Glass, Marcos Balter, Mario Diaz de Leon, and the seminal 1936 flute solo Density 21.5 by…
The internationally acclaimed JACK Quartet returns for a concert featuring masterworks by Witold Lutoslawski, Helmut Lachenman, and the world premiere of Philadelphia based composer Adam Berenson's String Quartet No. 3. In addition to the new work, JACK will perform Lachenmann's own String Quartet No. 1 "Gran Torso" (1972), and Lutoslawski's radical aleatoric contribution to the…
SOUND POETRY EFFECTS CATALOG curated by Danny Snelson, with live performances by Caleb Beckwith, Mark Johnson, Timothy Leonido, Kate McGuire, John Paetsch, and Danny Snelson Join Bowerbird for its first event exploring sound poetry, an artistic form that bridges literary and musical composition. As Joan La Barbara reminds us, voice is the original instrument. Already…
ALASH ENSEMBLE wth beat boxer Shodekeh, double bassist Garth Stevenson, and vocalist/guitarist Annie Lynch 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…
Created the year he died, Cages only feature-length film One11 (1992) was composed entirely using 1,200 random operations devised by a computereach determining the movements of a crane-mounted camera and the qualities of lighting within an empty room. A meditation on the perception of emptiness that harks back to Cages much earlier 433 (1952), One11…
• Variations I (1958) performed by Christopher Colucci and Jorge Cousineau • Variations II (1961) performed by Nate Wooley and Susan Alcorn • Variations III (1962) performed by Bonnie Jones and Jesse Kudler With vastly open and indeterminate scores and happenings, Variations I – VIII (1958 – 1967) is a series of compositions that foreshadows…
Bernard Parmegiani (b. 1927): "De natura sonorum" (1975) Suite in twelve movements Digital artist Peter Price will perform live projected visuals to accompany the digital playback. The concert will be preceded by a brief introductory talk by Thomas Patteson. ABOUT THE EVENT Building on the acoustic investigations of his teacher Pierre Schaeffer, the founder of…
Difficult to summarize, yet unified in ethos and affect, this evening features three solo projects - Diamond Terrifier (Sam Hillmer of the Zs's), Partrick Higgins (in an extensive reworking of JS Bach's music), and Wait (a solo electronics project by Robert J). Also on the evening is a new quartetFemme Tops featuring Alex Hampshire, Rick…
When we think of documentary films, we probably call to mind certain familiar forms, such as archival footage of World War II battles or British-accented narration of natural scenes. But conceived in the broadest terms, the documentary is an extremely diverse cinematic genre with at least as much room for artistic experimentation as the fictional…
Bowerbird pays homage to the eclectic past of the GATE series, and offers a synth laden night of psychedelic slow jams and industrial thrashes. Headling the evening will be New York City's post-punk electronic band OUTPOST featuring Mark C of the 80s no wave band Live Skull on guitar, synths, and vocals, with Stuart Argabright…
There is something wonderfully fleeting about improvised music. The music itself lives for only the briefest of moments, and collaborations, even extended ones, can come and go quite often. Maybe this has to do with the relative ease with which partners can interchange with one another, or the transient nature of its practitioners, but in…
SHOT X SHOT with special guest MATT MITCHELL Shot x Shot is a Philadelphia quartet that has forged a distinctive sound through five years of steady collaboration. Their work is based in collective improvisational compositions that run the gamut from delicate to ruthless. The band was formed in 2004 while the members were students…
THE PROGRAM Rafael Toral - Tatsuya Nakatani Vuitton (Alex Nagle - Joe Lentini) Dave Smolen ABOUT THE ARTIST Rafael Toral is researching performance possibilities in electronic music. Using custom-built or modified electronic instruments, he's developing the long-term Space Program to structure musical phrasing in "post-free jazz electronic music". Approaching jazz as a system of…
Graham Lambkin and Jason Lescalleet are both highly respected artists, with small but intensely hardcore followings. Since 2001, they've been gradually moving closer towards realizing a collaborative project, and The Breadwinner is the results of two years of recording, reworking and polishing. Lambkin first entered the public consciousness at 19 when he formed his band…
Bowerbird presents SONIC MIRRORS featuring music by The International Nothing, Lopass Mates, and Ko Koed. For as much as the duo format highlights the creative boundaries of its individual artists, duos featuring two of the same instrument push these frontiers even further. Hidden beneath a veneer of sameness, the minute and nuanced details of sound…
Nate Wooley / Ivar Grydeland Ben Hall / Chris Riggs Bring It Inside with McOmber Toshi Makihara ABOUT THE ARTISTS Guitarist Ivar Grydeland (b.Trondheim 1976) started his music education degree in the mid-nineties. Having a base as a free jazz artist, Grydeland has continually expanded his experimental style to include new sounds. This…
Maria Chavez is an avant-turntablist from Peru, living in New York City. She focuses on electro acoustic sound of vinyl and needle and has a collection of needles from immaculate to ruined that she calls her "pencils of sound" and a collection of records that provide the palette. She has toured with Christiina Carter (Charlambides,…