THURSDAY JANUARY 9, 2014, 8:00 PM
(Admission by contribution, $10 suggested)
JD PARRAN & AMIR BEY: Elevated Moon
The Old Stone House
In Washington Park, 3rd Street & 5th Avenue
– map
Park Slope, Brooklyn
718-768-3195
Musical Ecologies continues Thursday, January 9 with a first-time collaboration between the multi-instrumentalist JD Parran and sculptor Amir Bey. Calling the program Elevated Moon, Parran will perform original solo works for flutes and melodious percussion while immersed in Bey’s mixed-media installation that will include costumes and tapestries. Taking inspiration from the movements of the planets while recognizing the elevated position the moon will occupy on this night, the evening will be an improvisation around the question: Does the Moon entirely determine our choices during its cycles, or are we choosing which of the Lunar channels we sail through? The evening will begin with an extended conversation with the artists and a reception will follow the performance.
Musical Ecologies is a monthly symposium on music and sound held every 2nd Thursday (except where noted) at the Old Stone House in Park Slope, Brooklyn. Curated and hosted by composer Dan Joseph, each event typically focuses on a single artist who presents a work or project either in the form of a talk or lecture, a multimedia presentation, a performance, or combination thereof. Each presentation is preceded by a 30-minute conversation with the curator and audience and a reception follows the performance.
About the artists:
A charter member of the St. Louis-based Black Artists Group (BAG), JD Parran is a multi-instrumentalist and composer who has mastered a wide variety of woodwind instruments, from the familiar tenor saxophone to the rarely heard alto clarinet, E-flat contrabass clarinet, bass saxophone and bamboo flute. He has appeared on more than 50 recordings over the last three decades, including collaborations with The Band, Anthony Braxton, Don Byron, Anthony Davis, Julius Hemphill, New Winds, Yoko Ono, Bill Dixon, Andrew Hill and Stevie Wonder among many others. His two most recent recordings, the collaboration Particle Ensemble and the solo release Window Spirits are both available from Mutable Music. Recent performances include the premiere of Anthony Davis’s clarinet concerto You Have the Right to Remain Silent with Boston Modern Orchestra Project with performances at Amherst College and Tufts University. Also a veteran educator, JD Parran teaches at BMCC CUNY, Brooklyn College and Greenwich House Music School. He has received commissions from the National Endowment for the Arts, Meet the Composer, the New York State Council on the Arts, the Jerome Foundation and the Helen W. Buckner Foundation.
Amir Bey is a curator, writer, astrologer, storyteller and mixed media sculptor who works in stone, wood, silkscreen, paper mache, video, copper, bronze, life casts and installations. He has worked with musicians and performers since the 1970s, including set designs for Idris Ackamoor and Rhodessa Jones of Cultural Odyssey, Maria Mitchell of Black Pearl Dance Co., and Lorna Littleway. Amir has organized over 100 exhibitions and performances in New York City since 1989 and has exhibited his work in Japan, Turkey, Spain, Martinique, and Germany. His Procession of Folk #3, a series of 12 faceted glass windows, is a permanent installation at the Mount Eden station on the #4 line in the Bronx. Recent collaborations include designing costumes, instruments, and set designs for alto saxophonist and composer Saco Yasuma and ensemble SYNERGY Sight and Sound. In April 2012 he had a one-person show at Gallery Sora in Tottori City, Japan entitled Opus Apis ("Bee Work") featuring honey bee-inspired leather masks and sculptures. Recent articles by Amir have appeared in Artvoices Magazine and the anthology By Any Means Necessary – Malcolm X: Real, Not Invented, published by Third World Press.
Upcoming on Musical Ecologies: Stephanie Loveless (2/6); Eleonor Sandresky (3/13); Mary Jane Leach (4/17) and Shem Guibbory (5/22)…
Facebook event page: facebook.com/events/625020540877659
Photos by Yusef Jones (L) and Saco Yusama (R)
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