Rhys Chatham and Angie Eng: Echodes

Paris-based musician and composer Rhys Chatham — the beloved first music curator of The Kitchen in the 1970s — has reached legendary status in experimental music circles, best-known most recently for high profile productions of his rugged noise symphonies written for hundreds of guitars. Media artist Angie Eng and Chatham team up for this live multi-media concert, with drummer Kevin Shea and electric bassist David Sims joining on stage. Playing both guitar and trumpet, Chatham deploys extended playing techniques inherited from the glory days of free jazz (Don Cherry, Bill Dixon, Jac Berrocal...) as well as leaders of the minimalist movement (Tony Conrad, Jon Hassell, La Monte Young…) of which he is one of the successors, arriving at a mix that ebulliently exits from his various horns and axes while simultaneously going through stomp boxes and electronic devices. Accompanying the music is Eng's real-time generated projected imagery of hand-manipulated objects and video footage depicting abstracted spiritual symbols and cultural rituals that recreate what Chatham describes as an "enigmatic cinema of flickers, jump cuts, and flying objects all too human too ignore."

This program is made possible with support from The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts. Music programs at The Kitchen are made possible with generous support from The Amphion Foundation, the Mary Flagler Cary Charitable Trust, The Aaron Copland Fund for Music, and with public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs and the New York State Council on the Arts, a state agency.

Photo: Courtesy of the artists

October 15–October 16, 2010

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