On Tuesday, December 10th, following his sold out first-ever U.S. concert at MoMA PS1, ISSUE has invited musician Beverly Glenn-Copeland to 22 Boerum for an intimate artist talk, a screening of a short documentary on his life & practice by the Canadian Broadcasting Company’s In the Making series, plus a solo performance of “Deep River.”
The event is exclusively accessible to ISSUE Members, Donors, and all who support ISSUE during our Year-End Campaign. Tickets are free with an RSVP and include Free Drinks. RSVP to Corinne Daniel: corinne@issueprojectroom.org to confirm attendance.
Glenn-Copeland is a septuagenarian Canadian trans man who departed the U.S. for Canada in the early 1960s and has not returned since. His unique musical style is an idiosyncratic mix of ambient electronica, jazz, classical, and psychedelic folk, featured on two renowned self-released albums—an eponymous record from 1970, reissued by Super-Sonic Jazz this year, and the synth masterpiece Keyboard Fantasies, a cassette released in 1986. After a twenty year absence, Glenn-Copeland has returned to the stage with a rich path of life in hindsight.
The diverse work of legendary singer, composer and transgender activist Beverly Glenn-Copeland has been gathering momentum in recent years thanks to a reissue of the extraordinary folk-jazz explorations of his debut self-titled album (1970) and the widespread discovery of his acclaimed masterpiece Keyboard Fantasies (1986); an ahead-of-it’s-time synth exploration which somehow combines the essence of new-age minimalism, early Detroit techno and the warmth of traditional songwriting. Throughout a fifty year recording career, Beverly Glenn-Copeland's music has defied categorisation and genre, its only consistency being the extraordinary fusion of vision, technology, spirituality and place. Now in his mid-70’s, Beverly Glenn-Copeland (Glenn to his friends and acquaintances), was born into a musical family and studied the classical piano repertoire from ‘cradlehood,’ listening to his father playing the piano four to five hours a day. He moved from his hometown of Philadelphia to study classical music at McGill University, Montreal in 1961 (focusing on the European song repertoire) before he suddenly felt called to write music that would weave influences from the myriad musical cultures he had come to love. After many years of absence from the concert stage, Glenn-Copeland has resumed performing with his new band, Indigo Rising, in Canada and Europe. With great joy and appreciation Glenn-Copeland acknowledges his deep connection with the younger generations that are now so enthusiastically embracing his music!
