Saturday, January 10th at 9pm and Sunday, January 11th at 4pm
ISSUE PROJECT ROOM
At the Old American Can Factory
232 3rd Street, 3rd Floor
Brooklyn, NY 11215

TONY CONRAD AND GENESIS BREYER P-ORRIDGE
TO PERFORM TOGETHER FOR THE FIRST TIME

Tony Conrad and Genesis Breyer P-Orridge will meet for the first time and perform on two consecutive days in improvisatory concerts centered on their mutual love for violin. The shows will take place at ISSUE Project Room on January 10 at 9 p.m. and January 11 at 4 p.m. The event will be recorded for an album release and filmed by Marie Losier for her upcoming feature documentary on P-Orridge.

The idea to unite the two influential musicians was conceived at the screening of “Marie Losier’s Film Portraits” at the French Institute Alliance Française in September of 2008. Upon watching Losier’s documentary, “Tony Conrad DreaMinimalist,” P-Orridge confessed that violin, which figured prominently in the film, was her favorite instrument and that hearing Conrad’s personal story made her cherish it even more. “I initially wanted to create a scene for the film on Genesis in which she and Tony would just play the violin together,” says Losier. “But very quickly this idea developed into a strong desire to see the two musicians I love perform live for an audience. Even though their paths have not crossed up until this point, it only felt natural to me that they should.”

Tony Conrad started playing violin in his teenage years, but the first experiences with the instrument were largely negative. At the urging of a symphony musician Ronald Knudsen, Conrad concentrated on playing the violin slowly and in tune. “If I were really careful, it might take me a long time just to get my violin really in tune,” writes Conrad in “Four Violins,” an essay accompanying the CD box set “Tony Conrad. Early Minimalism Volume One.” “And anything that I could play slow I could play fast; the secret of playing well was playing more slowly.” Soon Conrad was looking for more polyphonic music to play on the instrument. A chance discovery of Heinrich Ignaz Franz Bibers’s “Mystery Sonatas” with their inventive constructions around timbre as opposed to melody had a transformative effect. “For the first time, my violin sounded truly wonderful. It rang, and sang, and spoke in a rich soulful voice - the timbre of the instrument… My body merged with the body of the violin; our resonances melted together in rich dark colors, harsh bright headlights. Slower; slower.”

Violin has been one of Genesis Breyer P-Orridge’s primary instruments since the days of Throbbing Gristle. Preferring the electric variety, she has carried it through a myriad of projects including Psychic TV and Thee Majesty. P-Orridge’s approach to music is as equally cerebral as it is emotional and physical. In the words of The New York Times critic Ben Ratliff, “Any record or performance involving Genesis P-Orridge has been about ideas as much as about music, and the ideas were generally about how to slip free from the normative impositions of life, the binary one-thing-or-the-otherness of art, manners, sex or anything else.”

Losier discovered a striking resemblance between Conrad and P-Orridge while working on film portraits of the two artists. “I realize now how close Tony and Genesis are in technique and spirit, how much they share in their experimentation with sound, noise, voice, handmade musical instruments, and in their particular love for violin,” says Losier. “The ISSUE Project Room concerts will be a meeting of two fabulous violins.”

Tony Conrad and Genesis Breyer P-Orridge will be joined for these 2 performances by Morrison Edley of Psychic TV / PTV3 on percussion.

TICKETS:$15
http://issueprojectroom.org/tickets.html
reservations@issueprojectroom.org

Special thanks to Suzanne Fiol and Zach Layton
Photo: Marie Losier