On Thursday the 20th of October, Dana Jessen, Jesper Pedersen, and John McCowen take the stage in MENGI. This will be a triple delight!
House opens 20.30
Concert starts 21.00
Tickets are 3000 ISK
Hailed as a “bassoon virtuoso” (Chicago Reader), Dana Jessen tirelessly seeks to expand the boundaries of her instrument through original compositions, improvisations, and collaborative work with innovative artists. Over the past decade, she has presented dozens
of world premiere performances throughout North America and Europe while maintaining equal footing in the creative music community as an improviser. Her solo performances are almost entirely grounded in electroacoustic composition that highlight her distinct musical language. As a chamber musician, Dana is the co-founder of the contemporary reed quintet Splinter Reeds, and has performed with Alarm Will Sound, Amsterdam’s DOEK Collective, the San Francisco Contemporary Music Players, and the Tri-Centric Ensemble, among
many others. A dedicated educator, Dana teaches at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music and has presented masterclasses and workshops to a range of students from across the globe.
Jesper Pedersen is a composer and multi instrumentalist performer based in Reykjavík. He creates electronic music and sound art as well as works for acoustic instrumentation mediated by digitally generated animated notations. He performs on modular synthesizer in solo and collaborative settings and seeks to establish a dialogue with the machine through its network of patch cords and knobs. He often incorporates field recordings, found sounds and home made materials in his compositions and the music is otherworldly, composed of improvised sonic journeys that create an enveloping listening experience for audiences. Jesper collaborates with musicians and artists that have sonic interests ranging from experimental to ambient, as well as noise. He performs with Harp & Arp, Stormkrókur, Resterne af Rigsfællesskabet and releases music under his own name.
John McCowen is a composer/clarinetist focused on extending the possibilities of the clarinet. His work has been described by The New Yorker as “the sonic equivalent of microscopic life viewed on a slide”. John's multiphonic approach embraces drones, difference tones, and beating harmonics as a means to squeeze out the compositional potential within a single, acoustic sound source. Documents of this practice have been released by Edition Wandelweiser, International Anthem, Astral Spirits, SUPERPANG, Dinzu Artefacts, and others. John was a 2017 & 2019 artist-in-residence at Lijiang Studio in Yunnan, China, and also the 2020 artist-in residence at ISSUE Project Room in Brooklyn. He received the Elizabeth Mills Crothers Award for excellence in music composition in 2016 from Mills College where he received an MA in Music Composition under the tutelage of Roscoe Mitchell. John remains stubbornly dedicated to acoustic phenomena. His works do not utilize amplifier feedback or electronically-generated sounds unless specified.
More at:
www.danajessen.com