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…
90 mins, black and white, German with English subtitles
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…
Currently over 100 feet in length, LONG/GONE is a single intricately-cut piece of paper which flows freely from image to image. Narratives and scenarios (often drawn from classic works of literature from Homer to Dante) emerge and collapse and spill over into each other. In performance, Erik scrolls the paper-cut continually across the surface of…
One of the most influential American composers of the 20th century, James Tenney (1934-2006) combined the experimental spirit of Cage and company with a rigorous grounding in acoustics, perception, and information theory. This program explores Tenney’s music for string instruments, from his diagrammatic Postal Pieces (1965-71) to his last major work, the string quartet Arbor…
The Double Decker Music series is a unique, intimate mobile concert experience on an open-top double-decker bus. Each evening features live music performances in an urban setting paired with a guided tour of Philadelphia's attractions. The Double Decker Music Series is hosted by Sebastian Petsu, a Philadelphia tour guide on buses and on foot since 2005 His love of both Philadelphia's music…
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,…
The Double Decker Music series is a unique, intimate mobile concert experience on an open-top double-decker bus. Each evening features live music performances in an urban setting paired with a guided tour of Philadelphia's attractions. The Double Decker Music Series is hosted by Sebastian Petsu, a Philadelphia tour guide on buses and on foot since 2005 His love of both Philadelphia's music…
