Doors open at 7:00pm
Tony Conrad and Charlemagne Palestine, masters of improvisation and drone, come together for a special duo concert at Brooklyn’s First Unitarian Congregational Society. Presented by ISSUE Project Room as part of a two-night celebration of Conrad’s 75th birthday, the evening-length performance pairs Conrad on violin with Palestine on pipe organ, grand piano, and voice.
In 2014 ISSUE presented Palestine’s first New York performance on the pipe organ, but his mystical techniques were first hatched in 1964 at the Unitarian Church on Central Park West. It was at Saint Thomas Church next to the Museum of Modern Art, where Charlemagne played carillon bells every afternoon during the sixties, that Conrad and Palestine were first introduced; as Palestine tells it, Conrad was drawn up by the church’s bell towers clanging, to find Palestine manning the bells. They became fast friends. Their nearly 5 decades-long association has seen few collaborations; in 2006, after a 30-year hiatus they released “An Aural Symbiotic Mystery“ (Sub Rosa), which Pitchfork called “the most inspired release of either of their careers.“
Conrad’s birthday celebration continues the following Saturday, March 7th at 6:30pm, with “Tony Conrad at 75,” a benefit for ISSUE Project Room hosted by Greene Naftali gallery. The night includes performances by Tony Conrad & Jennifer Walshe, David Grubbs & Eli Keszler, Tony’s brother Dan Conrad duo with MV Carbon, “global country band” Cornichons, and master of ceremonies Ned Sublette.
Tony Conrad is a pioneering visual artist, filmmaker, violinist, composer, and sound artist. In the 1960s, he was a leading figure in the development of minimalist music and was an early member of the Theater of Eternal Music, along with John Cale, La Monte Young, and others. As a visual artist, Conrad's acclaimed multidisciplinary work has been featured in the 2006 Whitney Biennial, the 2009 Venice Biennale, and in solo exhibitions around the world. He is represented by Greene Naftali gallery in New York and Galerie Daniel Buchholz in Germany. Conrad’s early career is the subject of a study by Branden Joseph, Beyond the Dream Syndicate: Tony Conrad and the Arts after Cage (Zone, 2008). He is also a founding member of the ISSUE Project Room Board of Directors.
“[Tony Conrad] proves to be the hot mess of drone, that’s no bullshit neither.“
- Tiny Mix Tapes
Charlemagne Palestine is an American composer, performer, visual, video and installation artist born in Brooklyn. A contemporary of Philip Glass, Terry Riley, Phill Niblock, and Steve Reich, Palestine has invented and performed intense, ritualistic musics since the sixties, intended to instill new expectations of beauty and meaning in sound in Western audiences. A composer-performer originally trained to be a cantor in synagogue, he has always performed his own works as soloist. His earliest pieces were compositions for carillon, voice and electronic drones, and he is perhaps best known for his intensely performed piano works, entitled Strummings. Palestine's performance style is ritualistic and shamanistic. He surrounds himself and his instruments with magical clothes and stuffed animal divinities, and begins every performance playing crystal glasses filled with cognac. In recent years he has been collaborating with many other performer/musicians around the world including Rhys Chatham, Z’ev, Oren Ambarchi, Perlonex, Mika Vaino, Gol, Mondkopf, Grumbling Fur among many others. Since 1999 Charlemagne resides in Brussels Belgium.
