Keir GoGwilt and Celeste Oram

Since 2016, composers Keir GoGwilt and Celeste Oram have worked together on reinterpretations of historic forms, from a violin concerto staged in the imaginary space of a burning cathedral to lecture-recitals on alternative musical histories of Aotearoa (New Zealand). Here, the duo presents a selection of original compositions and adaptations, including their first collaborative work, “Televisionmann” (2017), a multimedia performance composed by Oram and featuring GoGwilt on live violin in a duet with his televised self. Originally conceived as a re-staging of G. Ph. Telemann’s “Gulliver’s Travels” Suite for two violins (1728), the piece was made in the aftermath of the 2016 US presidential election. GoGwilt’s televised self appears outside of then-Senator Kamala Harris’s office and amid protests against Donald Trump’s “Muslim ban” (Executive Order 13769, which suspended travel from seven majority-Muslim countries for ninety days, among other actions).

Further selections from the program include compositions based on poems by Scotland’s Jackie Kay and Aoteorea’s Jo Randerson; an excerpt from GoGwilt’s work-in-progress, “A Treatise on Limited Freedoms,” a modular piece for open instrumentation, rooted in sustained tuning and improvisation; and a variation on the traditional Irish song “Craigie Hill,” the lyrics of which GoGwilt adapted into a “starling” poem on a 27-word matrix, transforming the folk narrative into a cyclical text complemented by the repeating motifs of his and Oram’s musical arrangement.

Keir GoGwilt is a violinist, composer, and musicologist who was born in Edinburgh and raised in New York City, where he currently lives. His work often takes research as a starting point, inflecting historical forms with collaborative experimentation. A current project, Zarabanda Variations, assembles a group of composers, performers, and poets to explore musical-colonial legacies of “New Spain,” or present-day Mexico and the United States. He is an artist-in-residence with the JACK Quartet Studio, a founding member of AMOC, and a frequent soloist with Ruckus Early Music.

Celeste Oram is a composer and musician who grew up in Aotearoa (New Zealand) and now lives in New York City. She frequently uses music-making as a catalyst to explore sonic and social histories and micro-cultures. Her recent work has spanned radio plays, orchestral music for dance-theater, chamber music for period instruments, and creative reimaginings of vocal polyphony.