Sounds Modern presents The Some of It’s Parts: music to celebrate the art of Mark Bradford, at 2:00 pm on Saturday, October 17, in the Modern auditorium and streaming online.
Mark Bradford’s paintings are wonders of recontextualization – reinventing materials like billboards, rope, and end papers through their recombination into a deceptively smooth surface. A group performance is likewise much more than the sum of its parts. Modern composers and improvisors – particularly women, LGBTQ, and artists of color – are likewise reinventing chamber music performance, questioning the norms of the written score and making the concert stage a context for a meeting of diverse perspectives.
Composer, pianist, and vocalist Julius Eastman devised an unique notational practice that invites active engagement from performers who collaborate in the invention of gradually evolving mimimalist forms. His often shocking titles, including the work Sound Modern will present (Joy Boy) confront difference and demand engagement with Eastman’s own reality as a gay Black artist. Composer and violinist Daniel Bernard Roumain blends funk, rock, and hip-hop with concert music, inviting audiences and performers to find creative ways to resolve the contextual dilemmas posed by works like his Hip-Hop Etudes, three of which Sounds Modern will present. Bitches Set Traps, North Texas’s provocative feminist improvisation ensemble, pushes the boundaries of improvisation by exploring current events, feminism, misogyny, and cultural taboos, combining virtuoso performance with common household items and tropes of American culture. For this event, their work Hair Piece will explore the world of the beauty salon, the source of the End Papers that are thematic to the Modern’s exhibition of Bradford’s work.
The October 17 performance will be available as a live stream from the Modern. Sounds Modern also invites a limited audience to enjoy the event in person; please reserve your free ticket by calling 817.840.2154, as seats will be made available on a first-come first-served basis. Audience members will be seated apart from each other, and will wear masks to protect each other’s health and safety. The performance will last under forty five minutes, with no intermission.