James Rushford: Selected Nocturnes

James Rushford is an Australian composer-performer whose work draws from a range of collagist and improvisatory musical languages and investigates the creases, cracks, and folds in traditions ranging from early music to New Age. His concerts subtly exaggerate their seemingly liminal aspects, such as atmosphere and the bodily presence of the performer, until these take on weight equal to that of the musical elements such as pitch, rhythm, and timbre. In Rushford’s long-standing practices on piano, synthesizer,  electroacoustic devices, and portative organ, he brings to each instrument a delicate touch and a harmonic sensibility in which unorthodox tunings coexist with influences from fin-de-siècle Impressionism, the twentieth-century avant-garde, and the structures of popular music. 

For this performance, Rushford will present a selection of works that will amount to two concurrent recitals: an electro-acoustic collage overlaid with a series of piano pieces that will weave his own work with those of far-flung figures including Ethiopian nun Emahoy Tsegué-Maryam Guèbrou, Greek-Armenian mystic G.I. Gurdjieff, and late Romantic composers Gabriel Fauré and Ferrucio Busoni. The two soundworlds will act as commentary on one another, like a series of footnotes. The form of the “nocturne” will be a running thread.

See also, James Rushford: Befall + Quire on October 5.