Bowerbird is pleased to present the international collaboration between daxophone masters Daniel Fishkin (Philadelphia) and Kazuhisa Uchihashi (Japan). The daxophone is a thin hardwood strip played with a bow, created by German improviser/inventor Hans Reichel in 1987. The instrument’s sound, somewhere between a cello and a badger, ranges from furtive gurgles to wild screams.…
Bowerbird is pleased to present The World According to Sound, an immersive sonic experience by Sam Harnett and Chris Hoff. During the performance, the audience sits blindfolded at the center of a ring of loudspeakers. Listeners will be transported inside another person's head, and back in time a hundred years to the streets of Berlin.…
Bowerbird is pleased to present a triple bill featuring New York Bassist, James Ilgenfritz, composer and performer Bhob Rainey, and Philadelphia sound artist Gabrielle Losoncy.
Bowerbird is pleased to present Alan Licht and Chris Forsyth. Guitarist Alan Licht will be performing music from his solo acoustic album Currents.
Voice of the Eagle: The Enigma of Robbie Basho film screening with live performance by Eva and Jesse Sheppard and Andy McLeod. Bowerbird is pleased to present a screening of the 2015 biopic "Voice of an Eagle" about enigmatic guitarist Robbie Basho. The evening will be opened by performances by Andy McLead, and father-daughter duo…
Bowerbird is excited to present Emma Resmini, an extraordinary young virtuoso performing a program of contemporary music for flute. The program includes "Flautina" from Stockhausen's opera "Montag aus Licht" and Dai Fujikura's "Poison Mushrooms", a threnody to the victims of the Hiroshima bombing. Emma began playing at flute at the age of three and is…
Bowerbird is thrilled to welcome master percussionist Tatsuya Nakatani back to the Philadelphia for both a solo set and leading the "Nakatani Large Ensemble", a group consisting of workshop participants. Also on the evening will be CERBERUS- Alban Bailly (cello), Dan Capecchi (drums), and Matt Engle (bass) - a new Philadelphia based Trio that uses…
Bowerbird is excited to present a rare Philadelphia appearance by experimental vocal duo Audrey Chen and Phil Minton. Opening the evening will be cellist-singer Daniel de Jesús. With primary focus on the interplay between the uttered sounds of the mouth and vocal chords, Audrey Chen and Phil Minton plumb the depths of their most inherent…
Bowerbird is pleased to present the Daedalus Quartet, Penn's quartet-in-residence, for an evening that features "Ainsi la nuit" (Thus the Night) composed by the French composer Henri Dutilleux between 1973 and 1976. "Ainsi la nuit" is considered one of the most important works in the genre and has been called "one of the treasures of…
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…
Bowerbird is excited to present the music of Pauline Oliveros performed by the Arcana New Music Ensemble. One of the leading composers and performers of the 20th and 21st century, Pauline Oliveros' career spanned four decades and influenced generations of musicians. While Oliveros is most widely known for her improvisationally centered Deep Listening work, her…
Bowerbird is delighted to present violinist Maya Bennardo and pianist Karl Larson performing "For John Cage" by Morton Feldman. This evening length work is a pensive conversation between violin and piano that grows in strength and stridency as the piece progresses. Asymmetrical notes ebb and flow between the performers as they dare each the other…
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 excited to present a screening of "Wild Combination", director Matt Wolf's visually absorbing portrait of the seminal avant-garde composer, singer-songwriter, cellist, and disco producer Arthur Russell. Before his untimely death from AIDS in 1992, Arthur prolifically created music that spanned both pop and the transcendent possibilities of abstract art. Now, over fifteen years…
The American composer Tom Johnson (b. 1939) has made a career of quite literally composing by numbers. Motivated by mathematical concepts such as self-similarity, transformations, and tiling patterns, Johnson's compositions are rigorously formalistic, but his use of repetition and familiar musical materials makes the underlying processes recognizable and (usually) enjoyable. The centerpiece of this concert…
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 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 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…
