HISTORY OF OUR FESTIVAL
2007
The 2007 Look & Listen Festival was a resounding success. Synopsis to come.
2006
2006 Look & Listen Festival featured a different gallery each night! The variegated surroundings enhanced a star-studded performer lineup that included Lisa Bielawa, the Borromeo String Quartet, eighth blackbird, So Percussion, Patricia Spencer and Linda Hall, Ethel, Daedalus String Quartet, Biava string quartet, Grace Cloutier, Carla Kihlstedt, Percussion Discussion, L&L Prize winning composer Erin Gee, Harris Wulfson, Jeremy Eig, Conor Nelson, and Sadie Rosales.
Lively panels hosted by John Schaefer and Bruce Hodges featured Keynote speakers David Lang and Suzanne Bocanegra as well as composers Lisa Bielawa, Carla Kihlstedt, Erin Gee, Carlos Sanchez Gutierrez, and for the first time, the panel discussions included the visual artists whose works were up in the gallery during the Festival: Bill Henson (photography) and Judy Glantzman (paintings).
Works by Bielawa, Anthony Davis, Osvaldo Golijov, Ravel, Sarah Kirkland Snider, Bartok, Gee, John King, Julia Wolfe, Wulfson, Marcelo Zarvos, Boulez, Thierry DeMay, David Lang, Sanchez-Gutierrez, David Little, and ambient pieces by Joshua Hilson, Juliana Trivers, and Ryan Dorin provide the Festival with a wonderfully terrific aural accent to the stunning visuals of Henson (Robert Miller), Glantzman (Betty Cuningham), and Alex Katz (Pace).
2005
The 2005 Festival at Robert Miller Gallery featured panel interviews with composers Christopher Ariza, Derek Bermel, Aaron Jay Kernis, Joan Jeanrenaud, David Lang, and Meredith Monk, visual artists Laruie Fendrich, Judy Glantzman, John Torreano, and William Wegman, and were moderated by Steven Mackey, John Schaefer, and Bruce Hodges. Featured composers on the Festival included Monk, Jeanrenaud (original Kronos Quartet member), Perle, Nancarrow, Greenstein, Danciger, Ariza, Kernis, Bermel, Feldman, Lang, Reich, Higdon, Gordon, and Rzewski. Performers included Monk and her Ensemble, Jeanrenaud, Daedalus, Contrasts, Lark, eighth blackbird, So Percussion, NOW ensemble, Yamami, Koo, Sutter, and the Yale Percussion Trio, among others. The gallery featured an exhibit of the Canadian surrealist painter Jean-Paul Riopelle.
2004
The 2004 Festival at Robert Miller Gallery featured panel interviews with composers Martin Bresnick, John Corigliano, Steve Reich, Joan Tower, and cellist Fred Sherry; painters Nancy Davidson and Philip Pearlstein; and painter and art critic Peter Plagens. The events were moderated by composer Steven Mackey and showcased performances of music by Bresnick, Corigliano, Reich, and Tower, as well as Debussy, Stravinsky, Ligeti, Crumb, Xenakis, Takemitsu, Davidovsky, Look & Listen Festival Prize winner Peter Gilbert. Large-scale works by the Australian photographer Bill Henson set a moody, comtemplative environment.
2003
The 2003 Festival at Art In General welcomed special guest panelists George Crumb, Steven Mackey, Donald Lipski, and Fred Sherry. Highlights included the Look & Listen Festival Prize winning piece, Interaction, by Mei-Fang Lin and performed by Ryan Dorin, the Daedalus Quartet's performance of George Crumb's Black Angels, and improvisation by Fred Sherry and Steven Mackey. The unique installations -- imaginative proposals for use of space at the gallery -- made the atmosphere at Art In General particularly inventive.
2002
Held in TriBeCa's Ace Gallery, the 2002 Look & Listen Festival paired several contemporary music performances with Tim Hawkinson's indescribably unique installation, Überorgan. Gage Averill, the chairman of the NYU music department, delivered the guest lecture and hosted a panel of both visual artists and musicians that sparked lively discussion about the creative process.
2001
In 2001, founder and President David Gordon, while enjoying one of Joan Towers’ Second Helpings series concerts at the DIA Center, was struck by the intimacy between audience and performers and the effect of extended viewing of the visual art in the space. Thinking it would be great to have more such concerts, he approached fellow NYU composer and Ph.D. student Sean Carson with the idea. Sean was immediately committed to the project, and the two of them set out to put together a Festival in 2003. Fortunately, everyone they spoke to about the idea, from graduate students to professors to performers to friends and family, loved it and volunteered their own ideas and time, making a Festival in the spring of 2002, one year ahead of schedule, a possibility. David, Sean, and third original board member, Sarah Snider, contacted all the performers, composers, and galleries they knew, and everything fell into place when Ace Gallery owner Douglas Chrismas told David, “If you guys are supporting new music, I’m willing to support new music.” The rest is history.
View the Programs from our past Festivals:
2004 Festival Program
2003 Festival Program
2002 Festival Program
