Bowerbird presents acclaimed ensembles Variant 6, Warp Trio, and the Kevin Sun Quartet in Philadelphia composer Kevin Laskey's new evening-length work Almanac. Crossing many stylistic borders, the work explores an almanac’s dual nature as information compendium and prophetic text. Dark sibylline prophecies emerge from catalogic texts about colors and food and flowers. And despite its…
Bowerbird is pleased to present the Philadelphia premiere of the Boston-based experimental music ensemble Ordinary Affects and a new evening length work by Magnus Granberg, a Swedish composer closely associated with the Wandelweiser movement. Of Granberg's recent How Vain Are All Our Frail Delights?, journalist Ben Harper notes, " combines individual sounds and small fragments…
Bowerbird, in collaboration with the University of Pennsylvania Department of Music, is pleased to present Amy Williams performing Sonatas and Interludes, John Cage's groundbreaking cycle for prepared piano. The work was composed in 1946–48, shortly after Cage's introduction to Indian philosophy and the teachings of art historian Ananda K. Coomaraswamy, both of which became major…
Bowerbird is honored to present a two evening retrospective of pioneering composer Johanna Beyer. The first evening features her percussion music and the second evening features her chamber music. Although Beyer's music was overlooked during her lifetime and for decades after her death, it was some of the most experimental and prophetic work created during…
Bowerbird is pleased to present color as time, an ensemble led by Philadelphia composer / performer Joshua Stamper that inhabits the blur between classical, jazz, folk, and experimental textures. Playing at the edges of the composed and the improvised, the music is inspired by Elliott Carter's and Olivier Messiaen's time-stretching compositional techniques, immersed in a…
The music of the Canadian composer Claude Vivier (1948-1983) combines diverse influences–from the the cerebral constructions of the European avant-garde to exoticist borrowings from East Asia– into a haunting and inimitable artistic voice. Vivier's intense and colorful music mirrors his life as an eccentric and bon vivant who met a tragic death at the age…
WEATHER UPDATE: CONCERT IS HAPPENING AS PLANNED. Bowerbird is pleased to present the the extraordinary vocal ensemble Ekmeles performing Madrigals and Animals, a program celebrating the ongoing history of madrigals - the complex multi-part songs born during the Renaissance period known for their creative text setting (including imitating animals calls). Karola Obermüller’s mass:distance:time relates directly to this…
... The music of Gavin Bryars falls under no category. It is mongrel, full of sensuality and wit and is deeply moving. He allows you to witness new wonders in the sounds around you by approaching them from a completely new angle. With a third ear maybe... Michael Ondaatj Arcana performs Gavin Bryars medieval inspired…
Praised by The Washington Post for “captivating” performances that draw from its notable “meld of intellect, technique and emotions,” the Aizuri Quartet was awarded the Grand Prize at the 2018 M Prize Chamber Arts Competition, along with top prizes at the 2017 Osaka International Chamber Music Competition in Japan, and the 2015 Wigmore Hall International…
The Berlin-based Reidemeister Move pushs the possibilities of long tones in natural harmonies for low instruments. Robin Hayward's self-designed microtonal tuba and contrabassist Christopher Williams' slow bows meld in an unearthly fusion of overtones, undertones, noise, bodily rhythms, and spatial resonance. The members' work with Berlin's echtzeitmusik scene and LaMonte Young's legendary Theatre of Eternal…
Bowerbird is pleased to welcome pianist Marilyn Nonken and cellist Stephen Marotto to perform Morton Feldman's 1981 masterpiece - "Patterns in a Chromatic Field". This 80-minute odyssey offered an opportunity for contemplation, as cello and piano explored different degrees of stasis and patterns of harmony and color. Patterns in a Chromatic Field reflects his lifelong…
Louis Thomas Hardin, Jr., better known as Moondog, is one of the most famous and influential outsider musicians of the twentieth century. Born in Kansas to a devoutly religious family, Hardin was blinded at age 16 when he dug up a live dynamite cap. For 30 years, from the early 1940s to the early 1970s,…
Bowerbird is pleased to present a night featuring New York-based pianist Anthony Coleman + Philadelphia trombonist Dan Blacksberg. These far-reaching musicians will each play full solo sets before coming together at the end to play an extended duo piece A key figure of the downtown New York scene since the early 1980s, pianist Anthony Coleman…
Bowerbird is pleased to present Liminar, a Mexico City based ensemble for contemporary music. The program features "Acustica", Kagel's extraordinary masterwork for "experimental sound producers". PROGRAM Mauricio Kagel: Acustica Michael Pisaro: Tombstones Samuel Cedillo: Monologo III for viola Christian Wolff: Exercise 14 plus more tba. LIMINAR Wilfrido Terrazas, flutes Omar López, sax Carmina Escobar, voice…
Bowerbird is excited to present the Philadelphia premiere of the Quince Vocal Ensemble performing Morton Feldman's "Three Voices" with all three parts performed live. Feldman'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…
Bowerbird is pleased to welcome San Francisco's Friction Quartet to their premiere Philadelphia performance. The program will feature the world premiere of a new string quartet by New Zealander composer (and Philadelphia based) Rosie Langabeer. Opening the evening will be Murmuration celebrating the debut album, "Revised Notes" FRICTION QUARTET Otis Harriel, Violin; Kevin Rogers, Violin;…
Bowerbird is pleased to present a program of rarely performed solo works by Morton Feldman. The concert, which features members of the Arcana New Music Ensemble, includes pieces for electric guitar, trumpet, voice, percussion, cello, piano, and pipe organ. Feldman: The Possibility of a New Work for Electric Guitar (1966) Nick Millevoi, electric guitar Feldman:…
Bowerbird is pleased to present "The Geometry of Thinking", a multimedia concert featuring the work of Philadelphia based composer Gene Coleman with Adam Vidiksis, Marilyn Nonken, Toshimaru Nakamura,, members of The Crossing and Ensemble N_JP. These works embrace Coleman's highly interdisciplinary approach to composition, which integrates sources as varied as Experimental Film, Japanese Gagaku, Monteverdi's…