Christine Southworth : RhythmQwest Your Window to the World of Entertainment

Christine Southworth (b. 1978), through her work with robots and automated music systems as co-founder and Director of Ensemble Robot, is making groundbreaking music based on the interaction between science, technology and creativity. Employing sounds from man and nature, from Van de Graaff Generator to honeybees, Balinese gamelan to seizmic data from volcanos, Southworth is introducing a brand new genre of music to Boston, born out of the area’s complex community of scientists and artists.

Her 2005 & 2007 performances of Zap! overfilled the Boston Museum of Science’s Theater of Electricity with energized crowds of students, professors, artists, children, and adults. The Boston Phoenix called the show “truly electrifying,” describing that “Ever since Bob Dylan, ‘going electric’ has had many connotations, but this was something different: though Zap! utilized the talents of a flutist, two keyboardists, a cellist, a guitarist, a bassist, a drummer, a vocalist, a double-helix-shaped robotic xylophone, sound engineers, and computer programmers, the centerpiece of Southworth’s performance was electricity itself, as millions of volts buzzed, fizzled, and sparked in deafening cracks that punctuated her music.” (Will Spitz, Boston Phoenix)

Southworth received a B.S. from MIT in 2002 in mathematics and music and M.A. in Computer Music & Multimedia Composition from Brown University in 2006. She composes for Western ensembles, Balinese gamelan, and mixed ensembles of gamelan, western instruments, electronics, and robots. Her compositions draw from her interests in modern American and European music, jazz, Balinese music, and rock and roll, and have received awards and recognition from the LEF Foundation, American Composers Forum, Meet the Composer, New England Foundation for the Arts (NEFA), the MIT Eloranta Fellowship, and Bang on a Can. Her music has been played throughout the U.S., Europe, and Indonesia by ensembles including Gamelan Galak Tika, the Calder Quartet, and Ensemble Robot. Her music is available on Airplane Ears recordings Zap! (2008) and Gamelan Galak Tika: Bronze Age Space Age (2009)

Current Projects

Christine is currently co-producing the Bang on a Can/Airplane Ears Music production of A House in Bali, a new opera by Evan Ziporyn, to be premiered in June in Bali and September in Berkeley, CA. For details please visit www.houseinbali.org

Recently commissioned by Bang on a Can and The Calder Quartet, Christine is composing two pieces, for the Bang on a Can All-Stars and for the Calder Quartet with volcanoes, to be premiered next fall/winter. She is also working on an album of songs for rock band, gamelan, and computer voices for Gamelan Galak Tika.

Lexington, MA

southsea@kotekan.com

www.kotekan.com

Steve Reich, Kraftwerk, Bang on a Can, Led Zeppelin, Rush, Philip Glass, Mark Mothersbaugh, David Bowie, David Byrne, Balinese gamelan, Evan Ziporyn, Lou Harrison, Falco, Michael Gordon

Bang on a Can, Mark Mothersbaugh, Balinese gamelan, Steve Reich, Philip Glass, Lou Harrison

Airplane Ears Music

independent label

Thursday, October 15, 2009

Explorers Club Lowell Thomas Annual Awards Dinner
On the Brink of Uncertainty, Exploring Risk: A Survival Guide from the Field
Cipriani Wall Street, NY, NY

World premiere of Southworth's EXPLOSIVE new work for strings and volcanos, performed by the Calder Quartet, featuring seismograph data and footage of volcanoes courtesy National Geographic. Commisioned by The Explorers Club. Tickets go on sale June 1 at www.explorers.org

Friday, January 8, 2010 7:30 pm
Cleveland Museum of Art

Gamelan Galak Tika presents ROCK GAMELAN featuring Christine Southworth's Heavy Metal and Evan Ziporyn's classics Tire Fire and Amok!

Gauguin exhibition–related program
The Artist As Itinerant

Gauguin made several journeys to “primitive” islands, first to the Caribbean and then the Pacific. His purpose was “to escape European civilization and everything that is artificial and conventional.” Two concerts explore the theme of the artist as itinerant from different angles. Paul Gauguin: Paris, 1889 runs October 4, 2009 through January 18, 2010.

“An intoxicating tone of wave-like rhythms and ringing sonorities.”
–Newark Star-Ledger
“An exuberant blast of metal fireworks.”
–New York Times
The Western concert music tradition is dotted with brilliantly colorful iconoclasts who traveled the world over to find themselves (Colin McPhee, Lou Harrison, Terry Riley). Into this line of peripatetic spirits comes American composer Evan Ziporyn. Thirty members strong, Ziporyn’s Gamelan Galak Tika (classical Javanese for “intense togetherness”) has devoted itself both to studying traditional Balinese music and dance and to developing new works by Balinese and American composers. $34, CMA members $33.
www.galaktika.org
These programs made possible in part by: The Ernest L. and Louise M. Gartner Fund, The P. J. McMyler Musical Endowment Fund, The Anton and Rose Zverina Music Fund , Additional support has been provided by: The Musart Society, John P. Murphy Foundation

Wednesday, February 24, 2010, 7:30
Merkin Hall @ The Kaufman Center, New York, NY
129 West 67th Street, New York, NY 10023
NEW SOUNDS® LIVE: BANG ON A CAN ALL-STARS 2010 PEOPLE’S COMMISSIONING FUND CONCERT

World premiere of Southworth's new piece for the Bang on a Can All-Stars, commissioned by Bang on a Can People's Commissioning Fund. More details soon!

Bang on a Can All-Stars
The 2010 People’s Commissioning Fund (PCF) Concert

Three world premieres commissioned by the people! New York’s electric chamber ensemble Bang on a Can All-Stars take on new works by Nik Bärtsch, Oscar Bettison and Christine Southworth, plus more in their highly anticipated annual celebration at Merkin Hall. The PCF is a radical partnership between artists and audiences to commission works from adventurous composers.
A special edition of WNYC’s New Sounds® Live with host John Schaefer.

TICKETS: 3-concert subscription: $60
New Sounds Live subscribers can purchase tickets to concerts in the Contemporary Contexts series for $20 (phone and in person orders only).
Single tickets: $25, $30 premium seating

Friday, March 5, 2010 8 pm

Bowker Auditorium @ UMass Amherst
80 Campus Center Way, Amherst, Massachusetts 10003
Rock Gamelan goes to UMass! Gamelan Galak Tika presents signature works for Balinese gamelan, electric guitars, and electronics by group director Evan Ziporyn, Christine Southworth, and Dewa Ketut Alit.

$20, $15; Five College/GCC/STCC students/17 & under $15
Experience Galak Tika, America's most innovative Balinese gamelan, performing traditional and contemporary music and dance for Balinese gamelan, electric guitars, electronics, and Ensemble Robot's Heliphon. Performing Evan Ziporyn's rock gamelan classics Tire Fire and Amok!, traditional works featuring stunning Balinese topeng (masked dance), performed by master Balinese dancers I Madé Bandem and Ni Lu Suasti, plus Christine Southworth's exhilarating Heavy Metal for gamelan and robotic glockenspiel, this concert promises to present a musical hybrid that “expands the horizons of both music and humanity’s relation to machines.”

Saturday, October 30, 2010

Zankel Hall, Carnegie Hall, NYC

Bayu Sabda Idep, Evan Ziporyn's stunning work for string orchestra and Beta Gamelan, at Carnegie Hall. Galak Tika will perform with New York cutting-edge chamber orchestra, Signal, on this ALL ZIPORYN concert in Zankel Hall.

Albums

ZAP!

$6.00

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Music

ZapSurge

$0.99

See all Music from Christine Southworth