Premiere UK performance for two of Tony Conrad's pieces for String Quartet - both intense and remarkable interrogations of tuning and the harmonic series. The pieces will be introduced by Tony Conrad and performed by Anton Lukoszevieze (cello), Aisha Orazbeyava (violin), Angharad Davies (violin), Benedict Taylor (viola) and Colin Alexander (cello).

TONY CONRAD

Tony Conrad is considered one of the first "minimal" composer / performers, associated in his early period with La Monte Young, John Cale, Henry Flynt and legendary New York underground filmmaker Jack Smith. Conrad is also acknowledged as a pioneer of structuralist filmmaking (his 1960s film The Flicker is one of the key early works of the "structural" film movement), and in recent years he has presented and performed at festivals and events worldwide.

Conrad has worked in music composition, video, film, and performance and has taught video production and analysis in the Department of Media Study of the State University of New York at Buffalo since 1976. During the last ten years, Conrad has focused on music and performing recent works in new music venues, museums and clubs in the US and internationally. He has composed more than a dozen works, primarily for solo amplified violin with amplified strings, using special tunings and scales.

"Tony Conrad has significantly influenced cultural developments from minimalism to underground film, "concept art," postmodern appropriation, and the most sophisticated rock and roll. Creator of the "structural" film, The Flicker, collaborator on Jack Smith's Flaming Creatures and Normal Love, follower of Henry Flynt's radical anti-art, member of the Theatre of Eternal Music and the first incarnation of The Velvet Underground, and early associate of Mike Kelley, Tony Oursler, and Cindy Sherman, Conrad has eluded canonic histories." Branden W. Joseph, Beyond The Dream Syndicate (Tony Conrad and the Arts After Cage)