Ecstatic & Wingless is an audio documentary project on early 20th century birdsong and its direct relationship on human performance - and human action on birdsong. It tells the story not only of the first recordings of cagebirds but also the practice of bird-imitation, a field that produced amazing and eccentric celebrities during the 1910s-20s.…
Bowerbird is pleased to present Philadelphia based filmmaker and artist Tiona McClodden conducting a live presentation and artist talk for her project Af·fixing Ceremony: Four Movements for Essex, which recently debuted in recognition of 2015's Day With(out) Art. Af·fixing Ceremony commemorates the life and work of celebrated African-American poet Essex Hemphill who was a important…
Bowerbird is pleased to present Philadelphia based filmmaker and artist Tiona McClodden conducting a live presentation and artist talk for her project Af·fixing Ceremony: Four Movements for Essex, which recently debuted in recognition of 2015's Day With(out) Art. Af·fixing Ceremony commemorates the life and work of celebrated African-American poet Essex Hemphill who was a important…
TRAVELOGUE: CAIRO EGYPT 2015, 33 min, digital video, color 2002 2015, 60 min, digital video, color and nightvision b&w ABOUT THE EVENT A brazen multidisciplinary artist who studied film history and theory, C. Spencer Yeh presents a program of two new moving image works combining diaristic and documentary footage as part of his as…
A brazen multidisciplinary artist who studied film history and theory, C. Spencer Yeh presents a program of two new moving image works combining diaristic and documentary footage as part of his as part of his ISSUE Project Room residency in 2015. The recently completed TRAVELOGUE: CAIRO EGYPT crosses long takes and static shots captured via…
ABOUT THE EVENT Bowerbird is pleased to present pianist R. Andrew Lee at the intimate Biello Martin Studio in Old City Philadelphia. For his Philadelphia premiere,Lee will be performing works that encompass a variety of styles within minimal music. The first half opens with Eva-Maria Houben's Go and Stop, which explores the decay of tones…
R. ANDREW LEE performs Eva-Maria Houben - Go and Stop Paul A. Epstein - Changes 3, Changes 6, Drawing 6 Philip Glass - Etude Nos. 2, 5, and 6 William Duckworth - Imaginary Dances
Bowerbird is pleased to welcome Iancu Dumitrescu and Ana-Maria Avram to Philadelphia for an intimate, two concert portrait of "Romanian Spectralism". The first evening focuses on smaller chamber works - duos and trios - and the second evening features large ensemble works. The concerts will take place at the studio of Hi5 Recording in the…
Bowerbird is pleased to welcome Iancu Dumitrescu and Ana-Maria Avram to Philadelphia for an intimate, two concert portrait of "Romanian Spectralism". The first evening focuses on smaller chamber works - duos and trios - and the second evening features large ensemble works. The concerts will take place at the studio of Hi5 Recording in the…
ABOUT THE EVENT Bowerbird is pleased to welcome the E-MEX Ensemble from Essen, Germany to a special performance in the historic Christ Church sanctuary. The concert will feature works for pipe organ, flute, percussion, and narrator/actor including Gyorgy Ligeti cataclysmic masterpiece "Volumnia" and a world premiere by Philadelphia based composer Kyle Bartlett. THE PROGRAM…
PRISONER'S SONG Erik Ruin, shadow puppets and projections Gelsey Bell, voice, metallophone, and sound design Rick Burkhardt, director ABOUT THE EVENT Prisoner's Song is a performance created by composer Gelsey Bell and visual artist Erik Ruin about the prison experience. Using shadow puppets and projections alongside a variety of musical idioms, the piece draws…
ABOUT GLENN JONES Glenn Jones is a master of American Primitive Guitar, a style invented in the late 1950s by John Fahey, whose traditional fingerpicking techniques and wide-ranging influences were used to create modern original compositions. Jones, who led the post-rock ensemble Cul de Sac, brings his own made-up tunings, the use of custom-crafted partial…
Bowerbird is pleased to present the extraordinary bass-baritone Nicholas Isherwood for a concert that explores the connections and tensions between technology and that most enduring of sounds -- the human voice. In this program of world premieres, a group of composers created music for solo voice and electronics were selected by Nicholas Isherwood, who constantly…
Bowerbird is excited to welcome the San Francisco-based Del Sol String Quartet for an intimate concert in the Maas Building's Hi5 Studio. Featured on the program will be work Ruth Crawford Seeger's serialist "String Quartet" (1931), Ben Johnston's microtonal "“"String Quartet no. 10" (1995), and music by the radical early experimentalist George Antheil. ABOUT…
Bowerbird is pleased to present an encore screening of Philippe Garrel’s visually arresting silent film Le Révélateur, performed live with an original score by Philadelphia’s own Mary Lattimore and Jeff Zeigler. Le Révélateur was one of the first films of the Zanzibar group (a coterie of mostly French artists and filmmakers who began making experimental…
Bowerbird and Sebastian Petsu are pleased to welcome Jesse Sparhawk and Jeremy Toussaint-Baptiste to the Double Decker Music Series. Join us on Sunday, May 22nd at 8:00 p.m. (rain date, May 23rd) for a unique and intimate mobile concert experience on an open-top double-decker bus. Before, between, and after the music, tour guide Sebastian Darkly…
Bowerbird is pleased to present the Philadelphia premiere of Pierluigi Billone’s “1+1=1”, an 80 minute exploration into the boundless terrain of two bass clarinets performed by the California based duo of Samuel Dunscombe and Curt Miller. A student of Salvatore Sciarrino and Helmut Lachenmann, Billone’s music can sound elemental and primordial, yet at the same…
ABOUT THE EVENT Bowerbird is excited to present flutist Christopher Schelb and pianist Michael Tan in an all Sciarrino program. Schelb will perform selections from "L'opera per Flauto, Vol. 1" and Tan will perform four of Sciarrino's Nocturnes. There is something very particular that characterizes the music of Salvatore Sciarrino: it leads to a different…
