ISSUE Project Room is pleased to announce the Darmstadt Institute 2011 festival. This year's festival welcomes the first U.S. performance by groundbreaking performance duo John Moran . . . and his neighbor, Saori since 2007, including the premiere of their new work "John Moran & Saori (...in Thailand)." Other highlights include: a celebration of composer Larry Austin's 80th birthday, including a presentation of his piece "Williams [re]Mix[ed]," an 8-channel tape piece based on John Cage's classic work; performance artist and DJ Terre Thaemlitz in a new lecture/performance/DJ-set "Soulnessless"; David Borden's ensemble Mother Mallard Portable Masterpiece Company, one of the first synthesizer ensembles and a pioneer of first-wave minimalism; and finally, Darmstadt favorites such asTILT Brass, Jennifer Walshe, IKTUS Percussion, Wet Ink Ensemble, and many more.
Darmstadt: Classics of the Avant-Garde began as a listening party at Galapagos Art Space, and has since grown to include a successful month-long festival at ISSUE Project Room curated by Zach Layton & Nick Hallett. Called “a provocative tweak for fans and foes alike,” (New York Times) and “extraordinary, leaving powerful, lasting impressions that mock the concept of taste,” (George Grella, The Big City), the Institute takes its name from the legendary Darmstadt Summer Institute in Darmstadt, Germany, home to European legends such as Karlheinz Stockhausen, Oliver Messiaen, Luigi Nono, and Iannis Xenakis, and occasionally Americans John Cage, Earle Brown, and Christian Wolff.
Composers presented range from veritable giants of the avant-garde to young, adventurous artists. A key component of the Institute is the juxtaposition of these experimental music legends with their younger colleagues, drawing comparisons between different generations of artists. Performance art, minimalism, modernism, opera, and conceptualism all make appearances at the Institute, reflecting the diversity of our city’s avant-garde history in a casual, non-institutional format.
