Bowerbird Presents Yarn/Wire In Philadelphia Premiere Performance Of CURVO TOTALITAS, December 2

Bowerbird, the Philadelphia based non-profit organization that shares music, dance, film, and related art forms with audiences at locations across the region, presents New York percussion and piano quartet Yarn/Wire in the Philadelphia premiere performance of curvo totalitas by Catherine Lamb at University Lutheran Church on Friday, December 2, 2022 at 8:00 p.m.

curvo totalitas, which will be presented in its 2017 version, is written for two synthesizers, steel sheet, and tam tam. Lamb creates a sound world that is at once meditative and intense, focusing the listener's attention on the resonant metals played by the percussionists. The two keyboard players act as live sound engineers, creating introspective melodies and slowly changing colors drawn directly from the percussion instruments' sounds. The shimmering expansiveness of the piece provides space for audiences to enjoy a highly personal listening experience, finding moments of calm or tension in any given moment.

Yarn/Wire's season continues in 2023 performing as part of Miller Theatre's Composer Portraits series presenting the music of Øyvind Torvund on Thursday, March 2, 2023 at 8:00 p.m. alongside JACK Quartet, Laura Cocks (flute), Rane Moore (clarinet), and Giacomo Baldelli (guitar). Yarn/Wire will also travel to Knoxville, TN to perform the music of Annea Lockwood at Big Ears festival from March 30 - April 2, 2023.

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curvo totalitas (Philadelphia Premiere)

Yarn/Wire
Friday, December 2, 2022 at 8:00 p.m.
University Lutheran Church | 3637 Chestnut St. | Philadelphia, PA 19104
Tickets: $12 - $20
Ticket Link: https://www.bowerbird.org/event/catherine-lambs-curvo-totalitas/

This is an "in person" event. In consideration of the ongoing pandemic and the safety of those in our community, Bowerbird is requiring all audience members, staff, and performers to wear a mask while inside the venue (please note that musicians will have the option to perform without masks once on stage).

Program:
Catherine Lamb - curvo totalitas (Philadelphia Premiere)

Yarn/Wire Artists:
Laura Barger, synthesizer
Julia Den Boer, synthesizer
Russell Greenberg, percussion
Sae Hashimoto, percussion

Catherine Lamb (b. 1982, Olympia, WA. U.S.) is an active composer exploring the interaction of tone, summations of shapes and shadows, phenomenological expansions, the architecture of the liminal (states in between outside/inside), and the long introduction form. She began her musical life early, later abandoning the conservatory in 2003 to study Hindustani music in Pune, India. She received her BFA in 2006 under James Tenney and Michael Pisaro at CalArts in Los Angeles, where she first developed her research into the interaction of tone and continued to compose, teach, and collaborate with musicians (such as Laura Steenberge and Julia Holter on Singing by Numbers).

Yarn/Wire is a New York-based percussion and piano quartet (Sae Hashimoto and Russell Greenberg, percussion; Laura Barger and Julia Den Boer, pianos) dedicated to the promotion of creative, experimental new music. According to New York Classical Review, "Yarn/Wire may well be the most important new music ensemble on the classical scene today." Founded in 2005, and admired for the energy and care it brings to today's most adventurous compositions, the ensemble seeks to expand the representation of composers including but not limited to those who identify as women, LGBTQIA+, Black, African, Indigenous, Latina(o)(x), Asian, or Arab so that it might begin to better reflect our communities and experience new creative potential.

Yarn/Wire's expansive and international 2022-23 season includes festival performances at Tzlil Meudcan (Israel), Wien Modern (Austria), and Northwestern University New Music Conference (Illinois); returns to the TIME:SPANS (NYC), Festival 20/21 (Belgium), and Rainy Days (Luxembourg) Festivals; a Composer Portrait of Øyvind Torvund presented by Miller Theatre (NYC), which continues the ensemble's long-running relationship with Torvund; plus appearances at Pioneer Works in Brooklyn and The Stone. Recent performance highlights include a residency at Pioneer Works featuring Katherine Young's Biomes; premieres by Taylor Brook and Diana Rodriguez at the America's Society in NYC; a video event and Composer Portrait of Thomas Meadowcroft at Miller Theatre; a concert of solo works at Indexical in Santa Cruz; and the continuation of the Yarn/Wire International Institute and Festival, a summer festival for composers and performers interested in exploring the collaborative side of contemporary music. Their ongoing commissioning series, Yarn/Wire/Currents, serves as an incubator for new experimental music in partnership with Brooklyn-based arts organization Blank Forms.

The ensemble additionally will be in residence at Northwestern University and Adelphi University, and will return for residency activities at Duke University in the 22-23 season. In the previous season, Yarn/Wire was in residence at Cornell, Boston Conservatory at Berklee, UC Santa Cruz, UC Berkeley, Brandeis University, and University of Pennsylvania.

In Fall 2022, Yarn/Wire continues their multi-year residency at Girard College in Philadelphia developing a new multidisciplinary performance work, Be Holding, using poet Ross Gay's book-length poem inspired by Philadelphia basketball champion Julius Erving (a.k.a. "Dr. J") as its libretto. The commission will explore themes of Black genius and beauty in the face of racial violence and inequities, and the school will host Gay, composer Tyshawn Sorey, director Brooke O'Harra, and Yarn/Wire, with the world premiere scheduled for Spring 2023.

Yarn/Wire's numerous commissions include works from composers such as Annea Lockwood, Enno Poppe, Michael Gordon, George Lewis, Ann Cleare, Catherine Lamb, Tyshawn Sorey, Peter Evans, Alex Mincek, Thomas Meadowcroft, Misato Mochizuki, Sam Pluta, Tyondai Braxton, Kate Soper, and Øyvind Torvund. The ensemble enjoys collaborations with genre-bending artists such as Tristan Perich, Ben Vida, Mark Fell, Sufjan Stevens, and Pete Swanson.

The quartet has performed at festivals all over the world including the Lincoln Center, Edinburgh International, Rainy Days (Luxembourg), Ultima (Norway), Transit (Belgium), Contemplus (Prague), and Wien Modern (Austria) Festivals, Shanghai Symphony Orchestra Hall, Dublin SoundLab, Monday Evening Concerts (Los Angeles), Brooklyn Academy of Music, and New York's Miller Theatre.

Yarn/Wire has recorded for the WERGO, Kairos, Northern Spy, Distributed Objects, Black Truffle, Shelter Press, Populist, and Carrier record labels in addition to maintaining their own imprint. Recent and upcoming releases include Tonband, featuring works by Enno Poppe and Wolfgang Heiniger, on the WERGO label; Annea Lockwood's Becoming Air and Into the Vanishing with trumpeter Nate Wooley on Black Truffle Records; Yarn/Wire Currents 7 featuring works by Victoria Cheah, Zeno Baldi, and Diana Rodriguez; Marcel Zaes' Parallel Prints; the piano and percussion works of Andrew McIntosh; and many more. For more information, please visit www.yarnwire.org.

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