Shelley Hirsch

Last updated

Shelley Hirsch (born June 9, 1952 in Brooklyn, New York) is an American vocalist, [1] performance artist, composer, improviser, and writer. She won a DAAD Residency Grant in Berlin 1992, a Prix Futura award in 1993, [2] and multiple awards from Creative Capital, the Foundation for Contemporary Arts, [3] the New York State Council for the Arts, four from NYFA and six from Harvestworks Digital Media Arts Center. [4] She was a recipient of the Guggenheim Fellowship in Music Composition in 2017. [5]

Contents

Life

Born and raised in New York City, Hirsch dropped out of high school and moved to San Francisco, California, where she performed with The Theater of Man under Cecile Pineda, [6] explored extended vocal techniques, and began composing pieces for voice. In Berlin she had her first totally free improvised music concert with Sven-Åke Johansson, deepened in collaborations with Jon Rose and - back in New York City - with Christian Marclay.

Several of Hirsch's works were commissioned by New American Radio, [7] including #39 and The Vidzer Family (1991), and O Little Town of East New York, which was originally staged at Dance Theater Workshop in New York City (1991). As a radio play, O Little Town won first prize at the Prix Futura International Media Competition in Berlin. [8] Hirsch performed her solo composition, States, at Alice Tully Hall in 1999, recorded it for Roulette TV, [9] and expanded it to include a chorus at the Golden Mask Festival in Moscow, Russia (2016). [8]

Hirsch has appeared at festivals throughout Europe and has performed at the Kitchen, Roulette, BAM, and many other venues around and beyond New York City. She appears on the recordings of John Zorn, Elliott Sharp, Jim Staley, among 60 others, and has improvised with artists including Christian Marclay, Ikue Mori, David Weinstein and Anthony Coleman. She released the LPs Singing, mostly solo and duos with David Simons and Sam Bennett (Apollo, 1987) and the CD album Haiku Lingo (Review, 1989) with David Weinstein. In 1995, O Little Town of East New York was released on compact disc as part of the "Radical Jewish Culture" series on the record label Tzadik, followed by The Far In/Far Out Worlds of Shelley Hirsch (Tzadik 2002) and Where Were You Then? with Simon Ho (Tzadik 2012). [10] In 2008 her piece, "In the Basement," was included on the compilation album Crosstalk: American Speech Music (Bridge Records) produced by Mendi + Keith Obadike.

Other Hirsch collaborators include Fred Frith, Greetje Bijma, Chantal Dumas, David Moss, Jerry Hunt, [6] Toshio Kajiwara, Jin Hi Kim, Marina Rosenfeld and Ned Rothenberg, as well as visual artists Barbara Bloom and Jim Hodges, choreographer Noémie Lafrance, and filmmakers Nina Danino (Temenos soundtrack with Sainkho Namtchylak, 2001), Zoe Beloff, Abigail Child, and Lee Sachs. She recorded with September Band (Rüdiger Carl, Hans Reichel and Paul Lovens) and with X-Communication (Butch Morris, Martin Schütz and Hans Koch), and she has recorded interpretations of works by other composers, such as Cathy Berberian's, Stripsody, and Alvin Curran's, Philharmonie. [11]

In 2018, New York University Special Collections acquired her archive. [4]

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">John Zorn</span> American composer, saxophonist and bandleader

John Zorn is an American composer, conductor, saxophonist, arranger and producer who "deliberately resists category". His avant-garde and experimental approaches to composition and improvisation are inclusive of jazz, rock, hardcore, classical, contemporary, surf, metal, soundtrack, ambient, and world music. In 2013, Down Beat described Zorn as "one of our most important composers" and in 2020 Rolling Stone noted that "[alt]hough Zorn has operated almost entirely outside the mainstream, he's gradually asserted himself as one of the most influential musicians of our time".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Christian Marclay</span>

Christian Marclay is a visual artist and composer. He holds both American and Swiss nationality.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Elliott Sharp</span> American composer and musician

Elliott Sharp is an American contemporary classical composer, multi-instrumentalist, performer, author, and visual artist.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Annie Gosfield</span> American classical composer

Annie Gosfield is a New-York-based composer who works on the boundaries between notated and improvised music, electronic and acoustic sounds, refined timbres and noise. She composes for others and performs with her own group, taking her music to festivals, factories, clubs, art spaces and concert halls. Much of her work combines acoustic instruments with electronic sounds, incorporating unusual sources such as satellite sounds, machine sounds, detuned or out-of-tune samples and industrial noises. Her work often contains improvisation and frequently uses extended techniques and/or altered musical instruments. She won a 2012 Berlin Prize.

David Weinstein is an American musician and composer. He has been cited as avant garde and postmodern by The New York Times. He has performed his compositions in musical groups such as Impossible Music, and in collaboration with visual artists.

Nicolas Collins is a composer of mostly electronic music, a sound artist and writer. He received his BA and MA from Wesleyan University, and his PhD from the University of East Anglia. Upon graduating from Wesleyan, he was a Watson Fellow.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Zeena Parkins</span> American musician

Zeena Parkins is an American composer and multi-instrumentalist active in experimental, free improvised, contemporary classical, and avant-jazz music; she is known for having "reinvented the harp". Parkins performs on standard harps, several custom electric harps, piano, and accordion. She is a 2019 Guggenheim Fellow and professor in the Music Department at Mills College.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">William Winant</span> American percussionist

William Winant is an American percussionist.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Michiyo Yagi</span> Musical artist

Michiyo Yagi, a Japanese musician who studied koto under Tadao Sawai, Kazue Sawai and Satomi Kurauchi, and graduated from the NHK Professional Training School for Traditional Musicians. Between 1989 and 1990, during her tenure as visiting professor of music at Wesleyan University in Connecticut, U.S.A., she premiered numerous modern compositions for koto and came under the influence of maverick American composers such as John Cage, Conlon Nancarrow, and John Zorn. Her solo koto CD Shizuku was produced by Zorn and released on the Tzadik label in 1999. In 2001 she recorded "Yural" with her koto ensemble Paulownia Crush for the East Works label. Under the auspices of the Japan Foundation, Yagi toured Russia with this ensemble in the fall of 2004.

<i>The Big Gundown</i> (album) 1986 studio album by John Zorn

The Big Gundown is an album by American composer and saxophonist/multi-instrumentalist John Zorn. It comprises radically reworked covers of tracks by the Italian film composer Ennio Morricone.

Death Ambient is an American experimental and ambient music trio comprising Kato Hideki, Ikue Mori, and Fred Frith (guitar). The group was formed by Kato and Mori in 1995 and recorded three albums: Death Ambient (1995) Synaesthesia (1999), Drunken Forest (2007) with guest Jim Pugliese (percussion).

<i>Filmworks 1986–1990</i> 1990 soundtrack album by John Zorn

Filmworks 1986–1990 features the first released film scores of John Zorn. The album was originally released on the Japanese labels Wave and Eva in 1990, on the Nonesuch Records label in 1992, and subsequently re-released on Zorn's own label, Tzadik Records, in 1997 after being out of print for several years.

"For Zorn, filmscores have always been a place to experiment, and the FilmWorks Series is in many ways a microcosm of his prodigious output. This original installment of the FilmWorks Series presents three scores ranging from punk-rockabilly ; a jazzy Bernard Herrmann fantasy; to a quirky classical/improv/world music amalgam for Raul Ruiz's bizarre film The Golden Boat. Zorn's infamous one-minute arrangement of Morricone's classic The Good, The Bad and The Ugly, is included as a bonus track. This is the place where it all began."

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sylvie Courvoisier</span> Swiss musician

Sylvie Courvoisier is a composer, pianist, and improviser.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Michihiro Sato</span>

Michihiro Sato (佐藤通弘, Satō Michihiro; surname Sato; name sometimes listed as Sato Michihiro;, is a prominent Japanese player of the Tsugaru-jamisen.

<i>Locus Solus</i> (album) 1983 studio album by John Zorn

Locus Solus is an album of improvisations by John Zorn and other musicians. Originally released as a double vinyl album on Rift records in 1983 it was re-released as a CD with additional tracks on Eva/Wave in 1990 and on Zorn's Tzadik Records label in 1997.

David Watson is an American musician originally from New Zealand. Watson has lived and worked in New York City since 1987. Originally known as a guitarist, since 1991 Watson's work has also featured new music for the Highland Bagpipes.

Tyshawn Sorey is an American composer, multi-instrumentalist, and professor of contemporary music.

Maria Chavez is an improviser, curator and sound artist born 1980 in Lima, Peru. Her family moved to Texas when she was two years old. The following year doctors found and released liquid in her ears alleviating what had been a serious impediment to her speech and hearing. By age 16 she began working with sound and turntables. Her sound installations, visual objects and live turntable performances focus on the values of the accident and its unique, complicated possibilities with sound emitting machinery like the turntable. Influenced by improvisation in contemporary art, her work extends outside of the sound world to straddle varied disciplines of interest. The sound installations and live turntable performances of Maria Chavez focus on the paradox of time and the present moment, with many influences stemming from improvisation in contemporary art.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Okkyung Lee</span> South Korean composer (born 1975)

Okkyung Lee is a South Korean cellist, improviser, and composer.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Roulette Intermedium</span>

Roulette Intermedium is a performing arts and new music venue located in Brooklyn, New York City. Founded in 1978, it has been located in the neighborhoods of Tribeca and SoHo in Manhattan, and now resides in a renovated theater in downtown Brooklyn. Roulette is a nonprofit organization focusing on fostering experimental dance, new music, and performance.

References

  1. Page, Tim (20 September 1983). "STAGE: SHELLEY HIRSCH, SINGER". The New York Times . p. 19. Retrieved 19 July 2012.
  2. "Shelley Hirsch: O Little Town". Archived from the original on 2012-07-17. Retrieved 2012-07-17.
  3. "Grant Recipients : Foundation for Contemporary Arts". Foundationforcontemporaryarts.org. Retrieved 2020-03-17.
  4. 1 2 "Shelley Hirsch". Shelleyhirsch.com. Retrieved 2020-03-17.
  5. "John Simon Guggenheim Foundation | Shelley Hirsch". Gf.org. Retrieved 2020-03-17.
  6. 1 2 Schell, Michael. "Radio Eclectus". Interview with Shelley Hirsch, June 9, 2022. Radio Eclectus. Retrieved 10 June 2022.
  7. "The New American Radio Catalogue: By Artist". somewhere.org. Archived from the original on 19 February 1997. Retrieved 13 January 2022.
  8. 1 2 "Shelley Hirsch : Foundation for Contemporary Arts". Foundationforcontemporaryarts.org. Retrieved 2020-03-17.
  9. "Shelley Hirsch". Roulette.org. Retrieved 2020-03-17.
  10. "Welcome to Tzadik". Tzadik.com. Retrieved 2020-03-17.
  11. "Shelley Hirsch". Discogs.com. Retrieved 2020-03-17.

Further reading