Philip Glass comes to ISSUE Project Room, New York’s City’s only European-style chamber music hall, for Philip Glass: Music with Friends, a three-day (June 13-15) festival of intimate concerts. Each night, the iconic composer will perform solo and with a different lineup of artists for an audience of approximately 200 people. The engagement comprises Glass’s only performances in Brooklyn during his 75th birthday year.
This second evening of the three day festival includes solo by Philip Glass, and a special presentation of Tristan Perich's "Momentary Expanse," for solo vibraphone (Michael McCurdy) and 2-channel 1-bit electronics, and "What's thought of as a boundless, continuous, expanse..." for five sopranos and 15-channel 1-bit electronics with text by Bernadette Mayer, performed by Quince Contemporary Vocal Ensemble, with Aubrey von Almen, Kayleigh Butcher, Amanda DeBoer, Liz Pearse, and Delea Shand. The evening closes with a duo performance by Glass and long-time collaborator Jon Gibson.
Jon Gibson is a composer, multi-wind instrumentalist (saxophones, flutes, clarinets) and visual artist who has taken part in numerous landmark musical events over the past three and a half decades, performing in the early works of Steve Reich, Terry Riley, LaMonte Young and Philip Glass, with whom he continues to perform in various configurations, along with a host of other musicians, choreographers and artists including Merce Cunningham, Nancy Topf, Nina Winthrop, Lucinda Childs, JoAnne Akalaitis, Simone Forti, Thomas Buckner, Harold Budd, David Behrman, Elizabetta Vittoni and Moacir Santos. A founding member of the Philip Glass Ensemble, Gibson has collaborated with Glass since 1968.
Tristan Perich’s work is inspired by the aesthetic simplicity of math, physics and code. The WIRE Magazine describes his compositions as “an austere meeting of electronic and organic.” 1-Bit Music, his 2004 release, was the first album ever released as a microchip, programmed to synthesize his electronic composition live. His latest circuit album, 1-Bit Symphony (Cantaloupe, 2010) has received critical acclaim, called “sublime” (New York Press), and the Wall Street Journal said “[its] oscillations have an intense, hypnotic force and a surprising emotional depth.” His award winning work coupling 1-bit electronics with traditional forms in both music (Active Field, Observations) and visual art (Machine Drawings, Interval Studies) has been presented around the world, from Sonár and Ars Electronica to the Whitney Museum and bitforms gallery. Perich was ISSUE’s Artist-in-Residence during 2009.
With the precision of modern chamber musicians and flexibility of classically trained singers, Quince Contemporary Vocal Ensemble specializes in experimental repertoire that is changing the paradigm of contemporary vocal music. Recently described as "a new force of vocal excellence and innovation" by The Brooklyn Rail, Quince continually pushes the boundaries of traditional vocal ensemble literature.
Formed during their graduate work in 2009, Quince converged in 2011 to become an independent ensemble. Members Aubrey von Almen, Kayleigh Butcher, Amanda DeBoer, and Liz Pearse have extensive performance experience in opera, early music, art song, and musical theater and use their breadth of stylistic knowledge to inform the varied and dynamic music commissioned by the ensemble.
Michael McCurdy performs nationally and internationally with Mantra Percussion, Skogensemble, the experimental pop ensemble Hi Red Center and as a soloist at new music festivals and universities throughout the United States. Michael is a champion of new music — commissioning, premiering and recording works by established composers such as Michael Gordon, Gavin Bryars, David Lang, Richard Felciano, Michael Fiday, Annie Gosfield, Karen Tanaka, and Ushio Torikai. Michael has also developed relationships with many emerging composers to commission and perform new works. He completed a doctorate in percussion performance at the State University of New York at Stony Brook in 2006. Michael is the executive director of Red Poppy Music — managing, publishing and promoting the works of Michael Gordon, David Lang and Julia Wolfe.
