Bowerbird and FringeArts present Pure Lucia – Night 1: Quidditas Suchness, the first night of a two-part program dedicated to the work of composer Lucia Dlugoszewski. Featuring chamber music, film, and dance, the program highlights key moments in Dlugoszewski’s career, from her early experimental compositions to her long-standing collaboration with choreographer Erick Hawkins. Performers include Network for New Music, percussionist Dustin Donahue, pianist Agnese Toniutti, the David Taylor Brass Quintet, and the Erick Hawkins Dance Company.

Lucia Dlugoszewski’s name is pronounced LOO-sha dwoo-goh-SHEF-skee.

CONCERT PROGRAM
 
All music by LUCIA DLUGOSZEWSKI (1925 – 2000)
 
Song for the Poetry of Everyday Sounds to the poem of e e cummings (1952)
Separated Music (1958)
a.) for rates of speed
b.) for delicate accidents
For everyday objects and percussion; Performed by Dustin Donahue, Rachel Beetz, Michelle Purdy, and Andy Thierauf
 
Visual Variations on Noguchi (1945/1953)
Film by Marie Menken; score by Lucia Dlugoszewski (“The Poetry of Natural Sound”)
 
Excerpts from Openings of the (Eye) (1952)
Performed by Network for New Music
– Susanna Loewy, flute
– Charlie Abramovic, piano
– Phillip O’Banion, percussion
 
Angels of the Inmost Heaven (1971)
For brass quintet, performed by:
– Chris Coletti, trumpet
– Peter Evans, trumpet
– Eric Reed, french horn
– Joe Fiedler, tenor trombone
– David Taylor, bass trombone
 
INTERMISSION
 
Excerpts from Here and Now With Watchers (1957)
For solo timbre piano and two dancers; choreography by Erick Hawkins. Performed by:
Agnese Toniutti, timbre piano
Erick Hawkins Dance Company
– Jason Hortin
– Hayley Meier
 
Cantilever (1963)
For solo piano with four dancers; choreography by Erick Hawkins. Performed by:
Agnese Toniutti, piano
Erick Hawkins Dance Company
– Jason Hortin
– Hayley Meier
– JR Gooseberry
– Hailie Landers
 

This event is part of PURE LUCIA, a retrospective of the life and work of Lucia Dlugoszewski. View the program for the following night: Pure Lucia – Night 2: Duende Otherness

PROGRAM NOTES

This evening includes Dlugoszewski’s Song for the Poetry of Everyday Sounds, a 1952 work that explores the musical possibilities of everyday objects—paper tearing, beans and rice scattering, water pouring. Written in the same year as John Cage’s Water Music, this piece reflects a parallel interest in expanded sound sources. It is followed by Separated Music for Rates of Speed and Separated Music for Delicate Accidents, two works that incorporate Dlugoszewski’s invented percussion instruments, including the ladder harp. These compositions are early studies that led to 8 Clear Places, one of her major works for dance.

Visual Variations on Noguchi, a film by Marie Menken, is accompanied by Dlugoszewski’s 1953 score, The Poetry of Natural Sound, her only tape piece. Created at Louis and Bebe Barron’s pioneering electronic music studio, the work pairs abstracted imagery of Isamu Noguchi’s sculptures with a dense, layered composition that amplifies and manipulates everyday sounds into an intense, textural soundscape.

Openings of the (Eye) marks the beginning of Dlugoszewski’s four-decade collaboration with Erick Hawkins. Composed in 1952 for flute, piano, and percussion, the piece features a demanding and unconventional piano part. It will be performed by Network for New Music, a Philadelphia-based contemporary music ensemble.

Angels of the Inmost Heaven, composed in 1971 for brass quintet, is known for its complex textures, extreme virtuosity, and use of extended techniques. Originally written for an Erick Hawkins dance, the piece was recorded in 1975 by trombonist David Taylor, who worked closely with Dlugoszewski throughout her career. Taylor will also perform in this concert, leading the brass quintet in a rare live presentation of the work.

The second half of the program introduces live dance, with Erick Hawkins’s original choreography performed alongside Dlugoszewski’s music. Here and Now, with Watchers, from 1957, was their second collaboration and the first in which Dlugoszewski performed as a soloist. The music is for timbre piano, a technique she developed that involves direct interaction with the strings and frame to produce a distinct range of sounds. The piece was frequently performed by the Hawkins company through the 1960s. This performance, featuring Italian pianist Agnese Toniutti and the Erick Hawkins Dance Company, has been reconstructed using archival recordings, choreographic notebooks, and musical sketches.

The program closes with Cantilever, premiered in Paris in 1963 and dedicated to Austro-American architect Frederick Kiesler. Initially created for solo piano and four dancers, the work was later adapted for different instrumental settings and larger dance ensembles. This performance presents the original version with choreography by Hawkins and music performed by Toniutti.

Quidditas, as drawn from James Joyce, refers to the essential whatness of a thing—its singular identity revealed in a moment of heightened perception. Suchness speaks to the unmediated experience of reality, where things simply are, free from interpretation or expectation. While quidditas captures the essence of a sound, suchness embraces its presence in time, unfolding without direction or resolution.

The program title Quidditas Suchness reflects Lucia Dlugoszewski’s deep interest in the essence and immediacy of sound. Quidditas speaks to the epiphanic recognition of a sound’s unique identity, while Suchness evokes the unfolding of sound as a presence in time, free from expectation or resolution. Together, these ideas encapsulate Dlugoszewski’s compositional world, where music is not structured toward a goal but experienced as a radical encounter with the present.

ABOUT THE ARTISTS

Lucia Dlugoszewski (1925–2000) was an American composer, poet, and performer whose work challenged the conventions of postwar music. Born in Detroit to Polish immigrant parents, she moved to New York in 1949, where she studied with Edgard Varèse and became immersed in the city’s experimental arts scene. She developed a radical performance practice called the “timbre piano,” which used mallets and objects to activate the strings and frame of the instrument, and she built an ensemble of invented percussion instruments in collaboration with sculptor Ralph Dorazio. For nearly fifty years, she was composer-in-residence for the Erick Hawkins Dance Company, creating over twenty scores in close dialogue with choreography. Her concert works—commissioned by the New York Philharmonic, Library of Congress, and others—expanded the expressive possibilities of acoustic instruments and often centered timbre and gesture over melody or harmony. Long overlooked, her legacy is now being rediscovered as a vital voice in 20th-century experimental music.

Erick Hawkins (1909–1994) was born in Trinidad, Colorado. He graduated in 1932 from Harvard University. German dancer Harald Kreutzberg so impressed him that he went to study with him in Austria. Then he studied with George Balanchine at the School of American Ballet. In 1937 he choreographed Show Piece which was performed by Ballet Caravan. Hawkins was the first man to dance with Martha Graham performing the male lead in a number of her works, including Appalachian Spring in 1944. Not long afterwards, he met and began collaborating with the experimental composer Lucia Dlugoszewski. Together they moved towards an aesthetic vision detached from realistic psychology, plot, social or political agenda and redefining dance technique according to newly understood principles of kinesiology, creating a bridge to later somatic studies. On October 14, 1994, one month before he died, he was presented with the National Medal of Arts by President Clinton.

As a composer and sound artist, Rachel Beetz considers sound as touch and is particularly influenced by natural and mechanical environments, the life of objects, interpersonal collaboration, and deep listening. Combining experimental field recordings and electronically modified flutes, her works examine community, environmentalism, and women’s work through sound, textiles, and lighting. Beetz’s sound projects have taken her from a sunless winter fjord to the mountains of Southern California, and to empty grain bins of the American Midwest. She held residencies in art houses in rural Iceland, the Women’s Center for Creative Work in Santa Fe, New Mexico, the Los Feliz Charter School for the Arts in Los Angeles, the Atlantic Center for the Arts in Florida, and the Walden Creative Musicians retreat. Her projects have been featured in concert halls and galleries in Australia, Iceland, India, the United Kingdom, and the United States. You can find her compositions and electronic music on Orenda and Populist records in addition to her independent artist bandcamp website.

Dustin Donahue is a percussionist dedicated to contemporary chamber music. He performs with the Partch Ensemble, Wasteland, and ECHOI, and appears with frequently the International Contemporary Ensemble. He has performed for many of North America’s top presenters of chamber music, such as the Los Angeles Philharmonic’s Green Umbrella series, Lincoln Center’s Mostly Mozart Festival, the Ojai Music Festival, the Festival Internacional Cervantino, and the Park Avenue Armory. An advocate for contemporary music, he frequently collaborates with living composers, such as recent projects with Carolyn Chen, Ash Fure, Laure Hiendl, Bruno Ruviaro, Steven Takasugi, and Yiheng Yvonne Wu. He is currently Assistant Professor of Percussion at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County.

Andy Thierauf is a Philadelphia-based percussionist specializing in contemporary music with a focus on integrating percussion with theater, dance, and technology. He often performs with the Arcana New Music Ensemble, NakedEye Ensemble, Unseen Rain, among others as well as collaborating with choreographers and dance companies like Vervet Dance, the Naked Stark, and Anne Marie Mulgrew and Dancers Company. Andy teaches at Settlement Music School and is an adjunct professor at Kutztown University.

Michelle Purdyis a contemporary percussionist and teaching artist currently residing in Butler, Maryland. Her sonic explorations tend to favor the mingling of found objects with more traditional instruments and an affinity for chance and improvisation whenever possible. Purdy also has been studying Javanese & Balinese Gamelan under the tutelage of Prof Gina Beck and is a board member for The High Zero Foundation and 2640 Collective. Ms. Purdy teaches at Carroll Community College, Towson University & UMBC. She has performed locally in Baltimore’s High Zero & Artscape Festivals and abroad at So Percussion’s Summer Institute, IFCP at Mannes, June in Buffalo, Make Music New York, and The Center for Advanced Musical Studies at Chosen Vale. She received her B.A. in Percussion Performance at UMBC and her Master’s degree from SUNY Buffalo.

Marie Menken (1909–1970) was an influential American experimental filmmaker known for her lyrical, kinetic style and pioneering use of handheld camerawork. A central figure in New York’s avant-garde film scene, she created visually dynamic works such as Visual Variations on Noguchi (1945/52), Glimpse of the Garden (1957), and Notebook (1962). Menken was a mentor and inspiration to artists like Andy Warhol and Stan Brakhage, and her films continue to resonate for their immediacy, playfulness, and poetic intensity.

Network for New Music commissions and performs new musical works by emerging and established artists of all identities, engaging audiences with vibrant and thought-provoking experiences. We prioritize excellent performances, innovative curation, in-depth education programs, and cross-genre collaborations, enriching Philadelphia’s cultural life. The Network Ensemble, a flexible 20-member group whose musicians also perform with leading local ensembles like the Philadelphia Orchestra and Opera Philadelphia, presents meticulously rehearsed performances of music by composers from the United States and abroad. Since 1984, the Ensemble has presented over 650 works and recorded four CDs for Albany and Innova labels. Committed to education, the Network Ensemble has collaborated with students from institutions including Curtis Institute of Music, University of Pennsylvania, Temple University, and Swarthmore College. The Ensemble has maintained a residency at Haverford College since 2007, fostering emerging talent and deepening engagement with contemporary music.

Chris Coletti is a trumpeter, soloist, chamber musician, arranger, conductor, and educator with a career spanning some of the most prestigious stages and ensembles in the world. He regularly performs as a soloist with orchestras and appears in recital and chamber settings, performing on both modern and baroque trumpet.  He is Principal Trumpet of ROCO-Houston and the Huntsville Symphony Orchestra, and frequently performs and records as guest principal with the Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra and others. Drawn to bold, imaginative repertoire that spans styles and eras, Coletti has premiered countless works as a soloist, orchestral and chamber musician, and as music director of Ithaca College’s Contemporary Ensemble.  He has performed with a wide range of artists across genres, spanning Pierre Boulez, Jon Batiste, Kanye West, Gloria Estefan, Kurt Masur, and Riccardo Muti. A former member of the Canadian Brass, he toured internationally for over a decade and appears on more than a dozen of the ensemble’s acclaimed recordings. He is Assistant Professor of Trumpet at Ithaca College.

Peter Evans (b. 1981) is a visionary trumpeter, composer, and bandleader. Known for his fearless blend of genres and sounds, he leads several different projects, most notably the quartet Being & Becoming (with Joel Ross, Nick Joz and Tyshawn Sorey). Working in formats ranging from solo trumpet to large ensembles, Evans’ engagement with the creative process moves beyond traditional distinctions of style. A prolific recording artist, he has released 20 recordings under his name, mostly through his own label More is More Records. Evans has worked with a wide range of artists such as John Zorn, Ellliott Carter, Evan Parker, Craig Taborn and many more. A 2022 Guggenheim Fellow in Music Composition and the recipient of other major commissions from institutions such as the Donaueschingen Musiktage and Venice Biennale, Evans tours internationally and has been based in New York City since 2003.

Trombonist/composer Joe Fiedler is known to critics as “among the most impressive trombonists to emerge in the past couple of decades.” (Harvey Pekar, Signal to Noise) Based in New York since 1993, he has performed and recorded in a long and eclectic list of musical settings ranging from jazz (Andrew Hill, Charles Tolliver) to the avant-garde (Anthony Braxton, Cecil Taylor) to Afro-Caribbean (Celia Cruz, Eddie Palmieri) to pop (Marc Anthony, Jennifer Lopez). In addition, Fiedler is the leader of the groups Open Sesame, the Joe Fiedler Trio and Big Sackbut. His diverse discography features more than 200 recordings, including fourteen as a leader.

Eric Reed is the horn player of the American Brass Quintet and co-principal horn of the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra. A member of the Orchestra of St. Luke’s, he also performs with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center and Ensemble Échappé, and is a former member of the Canadian Brass. He has appeared with the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, New York Philharmonic, Philadelphia Orchestra, and International Contemporary Ensemble, among others. A committed educator, Reed teaches at The Juilliard School, NYU, and Mannes. Recent premieres include works by Jennifer Higdon, John Zorn, Nina C. Young, and William Bolcom. He is also a member of Brassology, a genre-bending brass octet. Festival credits include Aspen, Bard, Bridgehampton, and Mostly Mozart. Reed holds degrees from Rice University and Juilliard, and lives in The Bronx with his wife, violinist Sarah Zun, and their sons, Oliver and Elliot.

David Taylor received his B.S. and M.S. from the Juilliard School and began his career with Leopold Stokowski’s American Symphony Orchestra and the New York Philharmonic under Pierre Boulez. Simultaneously, he was part of the Thad Jones/Mel Lewis Jazz Orchestra and recorded with Duke Ellington, The Rolling Stones, and Blood, Sweat & Tears. A prolific soloist and chamber musician, Taylor has appeared with ensembles including the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, St. Luke’s Chamber Orchestra, and the Adelaide Philharmonic. He has commissioned works from composers such as Frederic Rzewski, Charles Wuorinen, and Lucia Dlugoszewski, and performed with Yo-Yo Ma, Itzhak Perlman, and Wynton Marsalis. A frequent collaborator in both classical and jazz scenes, Taylor has recorded with Miles Davis, Barbra Streisand, and Aretha Franklin. He is a recipient of NARAS’s Most Valuable Player Virtuoso Award and currently teaches at the Manhattan School of Music and Mannes College.

Agnese Toniutti is an Italian pianist specialized in contemporary and 20th Century music. She dedicates herself to the exploration and research on peculiar piano repertoire, often revolving around the concept of sound and its role in musical composition. Her work investigates the complementarity of composition and improvisation in musical creativity, both as an author and interpreter. Cage, Scelsi, Cardini are some of her favorites; incursions into the territory of improvisation, performance and extemporary composition, are also encouraged by studying Seventies’ art movements. Her collaborations often include other artistic disciplines (acting, photography, dance, visual arts, and multimedia). Among her recent projects is the release of Subtle Matters (Neuma Records, 2021), a recording where she re-interprets the “timbre-piano” invented by Lucia Dlugoszewski, and the verbal scores by Philip Corner, and the recording of Sonatas and Interludes for prepared piano by John Cage (Neuma Records 2023), both Best Bandcamp Contemporary Classical of the month. As a soloist and chamber music pianist she has performed in several venues and international festivals in Europe and the USA.

Erick Hawkins Dance Company, founded in 1951, has been touring the world since the 1960’s. With unwavering integrity and uncompromising working methods, Hawkins choreography is based on a collaboration of music, art, and dance. The dances are performed to live music, often composed especially for each dance, along with commissioned sets by artists and sculptors. Known for a fluid, effortless style of movement, each dance is energetic yet poetic, serene yet harmonious. These works with significant musicians and artists have made considerable cultural contributions. Dedicated to preserving the legacies of choreographer Erick Hawkins and his partner, composer Lucia Dlugoszewski, the company continues to develop dances based on Hawkins’ pioneering movement theory. Reconstructing and reimagining their work is critical to keeping the form and aesthetic of mid-century modern dance alive. A valuable piece of dance history would be lost to future generations without Hawkins’ and Dlugoszewski’s unique vision.

Katherine Duke began her study with Erick Hawkins and Lucia Dlugoszewski in 1983. She made her professional debut in 1986 with the Erick Hawkins Dance Company at Lincoln Center. Jamake Highwater wrote “…Katherine Duke represents the idealization of Hawkins’s four decades of creating dance.” Duke became Artistic Director of the Erick Hawkins Dance Company in 2001. To preserve and perpetuate the musical, compositional, and choreographic legacies of both Dlugoszewski and Hawkins, Duke has facilitated the reconstruction of classic repertory and new works for many universities and professional companies. Her passion is to share, in its purest form, the beauty of the technique, the unique approach to choreography, and the principles of this legacy through intensives, workshops, and commissions. She continues to bring the Erick Hawkins Dance Company into the present with archival research enriching the Company’s repertory through unexplored works by Hawkins and Dlugoszewski, commissioned choreographers, and her own work.

JR Gooseberry is a distinguished dancer, choreographer, and educator. Embarking on 13 international tours in over twenty countries with advocates of music education, The Young Americans, J.R. experienced national television exposure early on and has now become its Associate Director and Choreographer. Under Bill and Robyn Brawley, J.R. performed alongside Broadway stars Brian Stokes Mitchell, Kelli O’Hara, Susan Egan, and Hugh Panero. He has danced with CalliOpus Contemporary Dance, the Contempo Ballet Company, and currently serves as the choreographer for HEART Global. His dance mentorships include Ms. Brawley, Heidi Jarrett, Alex Little, Jose Costas, Linda Sohl-Ellison, Jason Hortin, Louis Kavouras, Cathy Allen, and Rachel Berman. J.R. received a BFA from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, where he was introduced to the Hawkins technique and aesthetic and performed Hawkins’ Cantilever for the Martha Graham University Showcase 2023 at the Joyce Theater in New York City.

Jason Hortin studied dance in Olympia, Washington, with Debbi Waits Halfhill. Hortin earned a BFA from University of Nevada, Las Vegas and MFA from the University of Arizona. While at UNLV, Hortin performed Hawkins’ Black Lake and Lucia Dlugoszewski’s Radical Ardent in Las Vegas and New York. Hortin also performed with Moving People Dance Theatre, Robert Moses, and Ronn Stewart. With River North Dance Chicago, Hortin performed works by Frank Chavez, Lynn Taylor-Corbett, Lauri Stallings, Harrison McEldowny, Daniel Ezralow, Randy Duncan, Kevin Iega Jeff, and Julia Rhoads. Hortin danced with Hubbard Street Dance Chicago performing over 60 masterworks by Lou Conte, Jiri Kylian, Crystal Pite, William Forsythe, Kyle Abraham, Mats Ek, Sharon Eyal, Ohad Naharin, Nacho Duato, and Twyla Tharp and is now répétiteur for Penny Saunders, Chaves, and Robyn Mineko Williams. Hortin choreographs for HSDC, Bolles High School, Extensions Dance Company, Snowy Range Dance Festival, UNLV, and UA.

Halie Landers is a dynamic performer with extensive training in modern, ballet, jazz, contemporary, aerial silks, and musical theater. Over the past 19 years, Lander’s pursuits in dance and choreography have provided her with incredible opportunities including performing the leading role in Hawkins’ Agathlon, the leading role in Martha Graham’s Heretic, as well as performing at the University of South Korea. She earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts in dance performance and choreography from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. Landers also received UNLV’s  Outstanding Graduating Senior Award.

Hayley Meier is a performing artist, choreographer, and educator. Her early training was under Timothy M. Draper. In 2009 she earned a BFA in dance from the University of Arizona on full scholarship where she was honored with the inaugural Hayley Meier Award (now known as the Triple Threat Award). Upon graduation, Meier danced with Rochester City Ballet. She then joined Frank Chaves’ River North Dance Chicago performing works by Adam Barruch, Ashley Rowland, Garrett Moulton, Hanna Brictson, Ivan Perez, Kevin Iega Jeff, Mauro Astolfi, Randy Duncan, Robert Battle, Sherry Zunker, and Sidra Bell. Receiving her MFA from the UA, Meier was awarded the Creative Achievement Award for the School of Dance and Arizona Arts Undergraduate Advising/Mentoring Award as an Assistant Professor of Practice at UA. At South by Southwest in Austin, Texas she contributed to the widely praised StellarScape production blending music, science, visual art, dance, and technology.

Major support for PURE LUCIA: THE MUSIC OF LUCIA DLUGOSZEWSKI has been provided by The Pew Center for Arts & Heritage with additional support from the Amphion Foundation. Presented in collaboration with FringeArts.