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Lee Ranaldo presents a special performance of his Hurricane Transcriptions with electric guitar quartet Dither and drummer Brian Chase.
Doors at 6:15 pm / music begins at 6:30 pm. Masks and proof of vaccination are required for entry. Tickets allow access to the Museum garden and galleries during the performance.
This piece has its origin on the day in October, 2012 when Hurricane Sandy struck New York City. I noticed the strong winds were creating strange acoustic effects, which sounded like demented choirs, dense tonal clusters and harmonies, both consonant and dissonant. The gale was playing the city buildings like a giant Aeolian harp! I grabbed my portable digital recorder, suited up and went out into the storm to collect these sounds. As I walked the streets in my neighborhood the sounds shifted on every corner. I recorded what I could. Over the following week, with New York’s power grid a casualty of the storm, I transcribed what I heard and from these sonic impressions I built the piece, initially for a European orchestra, now realized for the current ensemble.
Lee Ranaldo
New York City 2021
Musician, visual artist, and writer, Lee Ranaldo co-founded Sonic Youth in 1981, and has been active in New York and internationally for 40 years as composer, performer, and producer; also exhibiting visual art worldwide and publishing several books of journals, poetry, and writings on music. His new solo acoustic composition “In Virus Times” was released in Spring 2021 on Mute. Ranaldo lives and works in New York City. leeranaldo.com
Dither, a New York–based electric guitar quartet, is dedicated to an eclectic mix of experimental repertoire which spans composed, improvised, and electronic music. Formed in 2007, the quartet has performed across the United States and abroad, presenting new commissions, original compositions, multimedia works, and large guitar ensemble pieces. Dither’s members are Taylor Levine, Joshua Lopes, James Moore and Gyan Riley.
Dither produces an annual Extravaganza, a raucous festival of creative music and art, which has been called an “official concert on the edge” by the New Yorker and “the here and now of New York’s postclassical music scene” by Time Out New York. They have released four full-length albums, including Dither plays Zorn on Tzadik, featuring the premiere recordings of several of John Zorn’s improvisational game pieces, which was named one of the year’s “best avant albums” by Rolling Stone. ditherquartet.com
Brian Chase, based in Brooklyn, New York, drums for Grammy-nominated rock band Yeah Yeah Yeahs and NYC’s experimental music scene. In 2007, Brian began Drums and Drones, a solo project which applies principles of harmonic resonance to percussion; initial inspiration for the project comes from La Monte Young and Marian Zazeela’s legendary Dream House installation. Drums and Drones: Decade, a triple album with 144 page book (Chaikin Records), was released in 2018; the collection was described in The Wire as “luscious laboratory experiments in listening to stretched skins, wooden vessels and metallic surfaces.” As an educator, Brian was a visiting professor at Bennington College and guest lecturer at So Percussion’s Summer Institute at Princeton University. Essays and writings have appeared in John Zorn’s Arcana series, Modern Drummer magazine, and culture blog Talkhouse. Performer and artist residencies have been held at Headlands Center for the Arts and The Stone. In 2018, Brian started his record label, Chaikin Records, which focuses primarily on the NYC avant-garde arts community. chaikinrecords.com and chasebrian.com
Now in its eleventh season, the Bang on a Can | Artists at Noguchi series features musicians performing an inclusive blend of music from across genres and across the world. noguchi.org/bangonacan
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