Acclaimed cellists Charles Curtis and Judith Hamann perform Duets, a series of string duos by Los Angeles-based composer Tashi Wada. This NY Premiere celebrates the release of Wada's Duets LP, the inaugural release from his Saltern imprint of Important Records. The program also includes Curtis performing works for solo cello by Alvin Lucier, JS Bach, and Luigi Dallapiccola. This event sees Curtis and Wada's return to ISSUE after their performance last year, part of ISSUE’s anniversary celebration “Ten Years Alive on the Infinite Plain.”
"How far can we enter into a single moment, such that for that brief speck of time, for an instant, unison is registered? This would suggest a different sense of unison, as a state of complete integration hidden behind the disparity and change caused by the passing of time."
—From Charles Curtis' liner notes for Duets
Cellist Charles Curtis has created a new body of work for solo cello through his collaborations with composers La Monte Young and Marian Zazeela, Alvin Lucier, Éliane Radigue, Christian Wolff and Tashi Wada, artists Alison Knowles and Mieko Shiomi, and filmmakers Raha Raissnia, Luke Fowler and Jeff Perkins. Rarely-heard works of Terry Jennings, Morton Feldman and Richard Maxfield have also been signposts in Curtis's interpretive life. In the 1980's Curtis participated in weirdo rock bands such as King Missile, Dogbowl and Bongwater and he performed with the noise formation Borbetomagus. Trained at Juilliard with Leonard Rose and Harvey Shapiro, Curtis received the Piatigorsky Prize of the New York Cello Society. For ten years Curtis was Principal Cellist of the Symphony Orchestra of the NDR in Hamburg; a former faculty member at Princeton and Brooklyn College, since 2000 Curtis has been professor of music at the University of California, San Diego.
Tashi Wada grew up in New York and lives in Los Angeles. His practice is informed by experimental music and art—particularly the work of artists affiliated with Fluxus, including his father Yoshi Wada—and interdisciplinary performance. Wada's compositions use apparently simple structures and carefully calibrated tuning systems to generate rich and unanticipated perceptual effects. He presents his music often in collaboration with other artists including Charles Curtis and Stephan Mathieu, in addition to performing regularly with his father. The Duets LP (Saltern, 2014) is Wada's third solo release following his Alignment LP (Yik Yak, 2010) and Gradient 7" (De Stijl, 2012).
The evening following this performance, Saturday, September 13th at 8pm, Tashi Wada returns to ISSUE to present an expansive duo performance with his father, highly-esteemed composer and Fluxus artist Yoshi Wada.
Judith Hamann is a Melbourne-based musician whose main instrument is violoncello. Her performance practice stretches across various genres encompassing elements of improvised, art, experimental and popular music. Judith has performed as either a soloist or a chamber musician for the Melbourne International Arts Festival, Melbourne International Jazz Festival, Liquid Architecture, The NOW Now, and New Music Network, among others. She has performed internationally with Golden Fur, a new music ensemble she co-founded, and also performs with Francis Plagne Band and the Un-Australian String Quartet with Jon Rose.
