Judith Hamann
Judith Hamann
Blank Forms
Brooklyn, NY 11238
In homage to the work of Jerry Hunt (1943–1993), cellist and composer Judith Hamann presents a response to the artist’s esoteric and highly variable work, specifically around trace, memory, and shaking. This preliminary study filters and transforms aspects of Hunt’s distinct output through Hamann’s own investigations with the cello, incorporating playback, altered pitches, and hauntings of the artist’s celestial compositions.” To accompany this new work, Hamann will perform “A Coffin Spray (for Jeff),” a tender piece for cello and playback that draws on the artist’s ongoing investigations into breath work and extended soundings.
Judith Hamann is a cellist, composer, and performer who, in their process-driven and embodied practice, considers the ways sound operates as a subject, object, and actant. Trained in contemporary classical performance, they frequently challenge the boundaries of their instruments, whether the cello, voice, or body, considering how sonic thresholds offer generative sites of instability and movement. Their practice frequently crosses disciplines, incorporating improvisation, field recording, electro-acoustics, performance, and site-specific response, and is often collaborative in nature. Hamann, who received a Doctor of Musical Arts from UC San Diego, trained with renowned cellists including Charles Curtis and Séverine Ballon, and has worked with artists including Éliane Radigue, Tashi Wada, and La Monte Young. In their recent research, Hamann examines the acts of shaking and humming as formal and intimate encounters; interrogates ‘collapse’ as a generative imaginary surface; and considers the ‘de-mastering’ of bodies, both human and non-human, in settler-colonial heritage instrumental practice and pedagogy.
This program is part of a three-night series of performances by Hamann, and is made possible by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature.
