Thursday, October 27th at 8pm ET, ISSUE is pleased to invite Members to a reception and presentation of the first ever collaborative piece between cellist and composer Lucy Railton and intermedia artist Max Eilbacher. The installation of the commissioned collaboration will be presented at Fridman Gallery in the Lower East Side. Due to the pair’s distance from New York at the time of performance, they will “grapple with the distance from performance and virtuosity already inherent in fixed media presentations—all the while considering how ‘performer’ detachment plays a role in the creation and the experience of such works in this stage of a post-pandemic cultural environment.” The duo’s new work will also stream for free on ISSUE’s site.
Railton and Eilbacher were first paired together in 2020 for an inaugural split release on Edition’s Mego Portraits GRM, a label solely focusing on the release of recent musical pieces created for and commissioned by the Groupe de Recherches Musicale in France. Their new work for Distant Pairs will be their first collaboration and will continue in the territories of sonic engagement heard on their 2020 release, incorporating and intertwining cello and custom digital synthesis methods.
Members can RSVP for free to this event using their Member Code. The reception will include complimentary beer and wine. For more information about membership and the night’s events, please contact Emma Roberts, Development Manager, at emma@issueprojectroom.org. ISSUE Members directly support artists and ISSUE’s ongoing programming initiatives and commissions during this challenging time for performing arts.
Lucy Railton is a cellist and composer based in Berlin and London focused on improvisation, contemporary and electronic music, field recording and psychoacoustics. She has released her own music on Modern Love, Editions Mego - GRM Portraits, PAN (with Peter Zinovieff), Takuroku and SN Variations (with Kit Downes) and has toured internationally as a solo performer or in collaboration with artists from a range of disciplines, most recently Rebecca Salvadori, Farida Amadou, Catherine Lamb, Kali Malone, Khyam Allami and Stephen O’Malley. As a cellist she has been involved in projects lead by Pauline Oliveros, Iancu Dumitrescu, Mary Jane Leach and Philippe Parreno and has worked with the Tate Modern (Fluxus Long Weekend), Institute of Contemporary Art, London (Kammer Klang) and Blank Forms, New York (Henning Christiansen retrospective) and in 2018 was associate composer with the UK theater producers Complicité for the work Everything that rises must dance, a co-creation with choregrapher Sasha Milavic Davies and 200 female participants. Currently she is involved in the presentation of works by Maryanne Amacher, Iannis Xenakis and Morton Feldman and her engagement with this repertoire has occasioned extensive explorations of resonance, psychoacoustics, synthesis and microtonality, preoccupations that are ever present in her own work. Lucy also established the 10 year long new music series Kammer Klang at Cafe Oto, London and co-founded and co-directed the London Contemporary Music Festival from 2013-2016.
Max Eilbacher works with sound. That work materializes in a variety of forms; compositions, musical performances, conceptual systems, perceptual choreography, installations, and theoretical sculpture. No matter how the final work may be categorized, the art typically utilizes speakers and sound waves. A frequent concern throughout the works is an inquiry into the inextricable and complex relationship between sound and experience. At each incident of sound, a phenomenological abyss must be transversed. He is aware the listener is the agent taking such a leap. Composition (or whatever may be emanating from a speaker) is the practical enactment of such a leap. Originally from Baltimore Maryland, he has very recently relocated to Berlin. In his undergraduate studies in Baltimore, he completed a major in cinematic arts with a minor in computer music and animation, all while maintaining an active touring schedule with a diverse range of projects, including the musical group Horse Lords, whose just intonation-based trance music exemplifies a modern response to the minimalist tradition. Throughout these different projects, what is apparent is an arrangement and an intention of sounds that explore the capacity of structure, timing, and detail to pinpoint the elusive meeting place of the perception of form. Interested in the role of acoustics in the sonic assemblage of the social, political, and physical, he draws from a diverse tradition and practice of sound, musical composition, and artistic creation. He has presented solo compositions, abstracted electronic mediums, and performed with a number of different groups throughout North America, Canada, Europe, and Japan.
During the Fall, 2022 ISSUE is continuing to commission artists as part of the Distant Pairs series, producing collaborative work at a time when the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has drastically impacted their ability to travel and perform, and altered the nature of collective work and performance. Pairing artists in disparate locations who cannot work together in “traditional” ways, the Distant Pairs series examines the collaborative process, methods of working, and partnership amidst these constrained conditions.
Full Distant Pairs Series Schedule*
Irmin Schmidt & Leah Singer: Wednesday, October 19th
DEBIT & Flora Yin-Wong: Thursday, October 20th
James Fei & Yan Jun: Wednesday, October 26th
Lucy Railton & Max Eilbacher: Thursday, October 27th - Presented online and as an ISSUE Member Event at Fridman Gallery
*All Times 8pm ET
