Fred Frith / Shelley Hirsch Duo
Fred Frith guitar and more - Shelley Hirsch Voice/text Our improvisations are never the same way twice and get better and better all the time.
indescribably good interactive sometimes changing at break neck speed sometimes deliciously slow and melodic and sometimes pure noise–
not forgetting levity and not shying from intensity…
Fred Frith is a songwriter, composer, improviser, and multi-instrumentalist best known for the reinvention of the electric guitar that began with Guitar Solos in 1974.
He learned his craft as both improviser and composer playing in rock bands, notably Henry Cow, and creating music in the recording studio. Much of his compositional output has been commissioned by choreographers and filmmakers, but his work has also been performed by Ensemble Modern, Hieronymus Firebrain, Arditti Quartet, Robert Wyatt, Bang on a Can All Stars, Concerto Köln, and Rova Sax Quartet, among quite a few others.
Fred enthusiastically records and performs all over the place with icons of contemporary music, younger players you may never have heard of, and everyone in between. He is currently leading the Gravity Band, Eye to Ear (his film music group), and Cosa Brava, whose second CD—The Letter—was released to critical acclaim in 2012.
Fred teaches at Mills College in Oakland California and at the Musik Akademie in Basel, Switzerland. He is the subject of Nicolas Humbert and Werner Penzel’s award-winning documentary film Step Across the Border.
Shelley Hirsch is an internationally acclaimed vocalist, composer, and storyteller whose compositions, staged multimedia works, improvisations, radio plays, installations and collaborations have been produced and presented in concert halls, clubs, festivals, theaters, museums, galleries and on radio and television on 5 continents. She has appeared in and composed music for film and is the subject of 2 documentary portraits on Aspekte and Arte TV Programs in Germany.
Hirsch is the recipient of many awards, fellowships and prestigious residencies since in the music composition, electronic music, performance, new forms, multidisciplinary work, categories
She received the Prix Futura 1st prize from the International Media Competition in Berlin for radio version of her autobiographical musical “O’ Little Town of East New York” .
Hirsch can be heard on over 70 Cds including her recording “Singing (solos and duos w/David Simons and Samm Bennett) “States”; “The Far In Far Out Worlds of Shelley Hirsch” her autobiographical work “O’Little Town of East New York”-with David Weinstein; Haiku Lingo with him as well, 2 duo cds with Uchihashi Kasuhisa -Duets and Duets 10 Years ,a duo with turntable player Joke Lanz and “Where Were You Then ?“ a cd of songs and stories composed in collaboration with keyboard player Simon Ho. She has recorded as vocalist in the ensembles September Band and X- Communication on FMP and most recently with Hardcore Chamber Ensemble and can be heard singing on cds by Billy Martin, John Zorn, Elliot Sharp, Jon Rose, Nicolas Collins, Richard Teitelbaum, Alvin Curran, Raz Mesinai, David Watson, Arnold Dreyblatt, Jim Staley , Jamal Moss etc etc
She has improvised with musicians Christian Marclay,
Fred Frith, Anthony Coleman, Ikue Mori, Phill Niblock, Ikue Mori, Sylvie Courvousier, Marc Ribot, and has worked with visual artists Ursula Scherrer. Katherine Liberovskaya, Heike Liss and Jim Hodges. Along with their collaborative work Hirsch performed her compositions for Hodges recent one man retrospectives at the ICA in Boston and the Walker Art Center .
Her mostly solo music performance works include “States”, “My Father Piece,” “For Jerry” an homage to and virtual duet with the late Jerry Hunt; “The Passions of Natasha, Nokiko, Nicole ,Nannette and Norma” a collaboration w/visual artist Barbara Bloom; “O Little Town of East New York”, “Occidental Dreams of a Geisha “ and more.
Hirsch was the soloist with the Arturo Toscanini Symphony Orchestra in Modena and Lugo Italy for Butch Morris’s Folding Spaces project- Christian Marclay made Zoom! Zoom! for onomatopoetic images and improvised voice for her. and they have performed it at The Louvre in Paris, The Whitney Museum in NYC, Brava Theater San Francisco, Roulette in NYC,etc.
Hirsch was music director, composer performer for Zoe Beloff’s Psychopathological Musical in Two parts,” part of Beloffs 3D film installation“The Somnambulists”
Her writing has been published in several books but this is already getting way too long…
but-she mush say–she loves teaching workshops.
She is a long time board member at Roulette Intermedium NYC.