Ars Nova Workshop
presents

Andrea Parkins + David Watson
with
Andrea Parkins, accordion/electronics
David Watson, bagpipes/electronics

Originally from New Zealand, David Watson has lived and worked in New York City since 1987. An internationally respected musician and composer, he is a singular voice in experimental music. His groundbreaking work on Highland bagpipes has been featured in Matthew Barney’s “Cremaster 3”, and he has an ongoing trio “Glacial” with Sonic Youth’s Lee Ranaldo. Critics have described his work as “psychedelic bagpipe minimalism” and “brain-rearranging massive walls of constantly shifting drone”. Recently he released “Throats,” with vocalists Makigami Koichi and Shelley Hirsch, on Ecstatic Peace; and a double disc “Fingering an Idea,” on XI records. In addition, Watson is known for his collaborations with Ikue Mori, Kato Hideki, Shelley Hirsch, Chris Mann, Christian Marclay, Tony Buck, Eugene Chadbourne and John Zorn.

Improvising musician Andrea Parkins plays accordion, sampler, and piano, and none of her instruments are approached conventionally. As an accordionist, Parkins fragments the instrument’s traditional vocabulary and expands its capabilities with electronics and extended techniques, and she combines piano and accordion with digital sampling. During the 1990s Parkins led a trio with saxophonist Briggan Krauss and drummer Kenny Wollesen that released two CDs on the Knitting Factory Records label, Cast Iron Fact in 1996 and Slippage in 1998. Into the new millennium she has continued to make significant contributions to the utterly unique sound of tenor saxophonist Ellery Eskelin’s working trio, which includes the wiry and nimble Jim Black on drums. She also appears on Many Rings, the Knitting Factory Records release by improvising guitarist Joe Morris and his quartet (also including Karen Borca on bassoon and Rob Brown on alto saxophone and flute). In the 2000s, Parkins began performing in another innovative improvising trio, a collaborative endeavor that also features guitarist Nels Cline and drummer Tom Rainey — she can be heard on 2004′s Ash and Tabula released by Atavistic and on Downpour, released by the Victo label in 2007 and recorded live at the preceding year’s Festival International de Musique Actuelle de Victoriaville in Victoriaville, Quebec.

This event is FREE.