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'Darkness Visible'--Composer-guitarist Bryce Dessner & visual artist
Matthew Ritchie join forces at MIT
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Evan Ziporyn, Kenan Sahin Distinguished Professor of Music
at MIT, performs in 'The Morning Line' in Seville
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For Immediate Release: January 5,
2009
Contact:
Lynn Heinemann
MIT Office of the Arts
77 Massachusetts Ave., Rm E15-205
Cambridge, MA 02139
e-mail heine@media.mit.edu
(617) 253-5351
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Cambridge, MA...Composer/guitarist Bryce Dessner,
lead guitarist in The National and The
Clogs, and acclaimed visual artist Matthew Ritchie,
whose
Games
of Chance and Skill is a permanent work at MIT's Zesiger Center,
join forces at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology on January
28 & 29
for two events
that blur the lines between indie rock, ambient music, contemporary
classical music, and installation art. They will be joined by sound
designer David Sheppard, guitarist Aaron
Dessner, composer/clarinetist/MIT Professor
Evan Ziporyn, and student musicians from MIT and Wellesley
College. Both events, free and open to the public, will be held in
the Broad
Institute Auditorium (Building NE30, 7 Cambridge
Center, at the corner of Ames and Main Streets).
On January 28, at 7 p.m, Dessner & Ritchie will present Darkness
Visible, a lecture/performance concerning their recent collaboration,
The
Morning Line.
Commissioned by Thyssen Bornemisza Art Contemporary, this massive
installation, an outdoor 'anti-pavilion' laced with 58 sound speakers,
was the sensation of the 2008 Venice Architecture Biennale and
Seville Art Biennale and will continue traveling the world in 2009-2010.
Ritchie describes the piece as "an anti-pavilion, not
an enclosure, but an opening of space, a conversion of place
into language."
Also into sound: for the Seville Biennale, Dessner, Sheppard and Ziporyn
created Propolis, a
25-minute spatial work for live and pre-recorded bass clarinet
and real-time sound processing. The January 28 event will include a live performance of Propolis, slides
and footage of Morning Line, and a chance to interact with
the artists in extended dialogue and question-and-answer period.
On January 29, a concert of Dessner's music will
take place at 8 p.m. This will
include the Boston-area premiere of Dessner & Ritchie's Raphael,
a multi-media work featuring video by Ritchie, and live music performed
by fellow National guitarist Aaron Dessner and a chamber orchestra
of MIT & Wellesley
students, performing on electric guitars and amplified strings. The
concert will also include Dessner's Blind
Willy for electric guitar and string quartet, as
well as duos by the Dessner brothers and live sound processing by
David Sheppard.
Bios:
Bryce Dessner, primarily known for his work in indie
rock, is a classically trained guitarist and composer whose work
has been featured in film, installation art, and new music venues including
the Kitchen and the New York Guitar Festival. An avid promoter of boundary-crossing
musical innovation, he is founder and artistic director of Cincinnati's
Music Now Festival, where he has brought together such diverse
artists as Sufjan Stevens, Dirty Projectors, the Bang on a Can All-stars,
Benjamin Verdery and Grizzly Bear. As co-founder of Brassland Records,
he has provided a haven for such artists as Doveman, Nico Muhly,
and Erik Friedlander. Equally at home in concert halls and rock clubs, equally
adept at performing complex musical scores and rocking out, he represents
the new breed of American musician in the 21st century.
Matthew Ritchie exploded onto the art scene at the
1997 Whitney Biennial: the Boston Globe describes his work as "mind-bending." His
work has been featured at the Houston Contemporary and MassMOCA.
Evan Ziporyn is
a founding member of the Bang on a Can All-stars and Artistic Director
of MIT's Gamelan Galak Tika. He is Kenan Sahin Distinguished Professor
of Music at MIT.
This residency is sponsored by MIT Music and Theater Arts, with additional
support from MIT's List Visual Arts Center. For more information, email
info@beelinefestival.com or
call (617) 452-2302.
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