Gray Sound Sessions, Vol.2: Seth Parker Woods
Gray Sound Sessions is pleased to present:
Seth Parker Woods' Fracture and Adornment
Tuesday, April 14th, 8pm
via the Gray Center's Facebook page and the Gray Sound Sessions webpage.
The Gray Center for Arts and Inquiry is pleased to host its second in a series of Gray Sound Sessions: cellist Seth Parker Woods, who will present a performative offering featuring works by composers Fredrick Gifford, Coleridge Taylor-Perkinson, and Monty Adkins. These three works revolve around themes of fracture and adornment; the parsing, scrambling and celebrated embellishment of language and human emotion. Along with a recited text written by Dudley Randall, these works seem all the more pointed and poignant given the state in which our world currently finds itself.
***This free performance is sponsored by the Gray Center for Arts and Inquiry, but we encourage listener-watchers to consider making their own donations to the artist here.
Program
Fredrick Gifford: Difficult Grace (2019) for speaking cellist and electronics. Text: Primitives, by Dudley Randall*
Coleridge -Taylor Perkinson: Calvary Ostinato, from Lamentations: Black Folk Song Suite (1980)
Monty Adkins: Winter Tendrils (2014/2020) for cello and electronics
About Seth Parker Woods
Hailed by The Guardian as “a cellist of power and grace” who possesses “mature artistry and willingness to go to the brink,” cellist Seth Parker Woods has established a reputation as a versatile artist straddling several genres. In addition to solo performances, he has appeared with the Ictus Ensemble (Brussels, BE), Ensemble L’Arsenale (IT), zone Experimental (CH), Basel Sinfonietta (CH), New York City Ballet, Ensemble LPR, and Orchestra of St. Luke’s (US). A fierce advocate for contemporary arts, Woods has collaborated and worked with a wide range of artists ranging from the likes of Louis Andriessen, Elliott Carter, Heinz Holliger, G. F. Haas, Helmut Lachenmann, Klaus Lang, and Peter Eötvos to Peter Gabriel, Sting, Lou Reed, Dame Shirley Bassey, and Rachael Yamagata to such visual artists as Ron Athey, Vanessa Beecroft, Jack Early, Adam Pendleton, and Aldo Tambellini.
About Gray Sound Sessions
The Gray Center has launched Gray Sound Sessions, a free, streaming weekly music-and-sound series featuring concerts but also happenings and experiments with form and platform. The series showcases searching performances from some of our favorite musicians and sound-makers including Opera Povera, Seth Parker Woods, a•pe•ri•od•ic, Viola Yip and Nicola Hein, and many more. In each case, we ask these artists not only to present work of their choice, but also—often through the performance itself—to reflect on the peculiar place of music and sound in this moment, and on the special power of those who labor them into being.
All Gray Sound Sessions will take place on Tuesday evenings at 8PM Central Daylight Time on the Gray Center’s Gray Sound Sessions page and the Gray Center's Facebook page. All events are sponsored by the Gray Center and free and open to the public, but we ask listener-watchers to consider making their own donations to the featured performers. The series is the initiative of Seth Brodsky (Gray Center Director), Zachary Cahill (Gray Center Director of Programs and Projects), and Seth Parker Woods (Artist-in-Residence at the University of Chicago). Others will surely be brought into the mix. We look forward to tuning in with you, near and far!