Ikue Mori moved from her native city of Tokyo to New York in 1977. She started playing drums and soon formed the seminal NO WAVE band DNA, with fellow noise pioneers Arto Lindsay and Tim Wright. DNA enjoyed legendary cult status, while creating a new brand of radical rhythms and dissonant sounds; forever altering the face of rock music. In the mid 80's Ikue started in employ drum machines in the unlikely context of improvised music. While limited to the standard technology provided by the drum machine, she has never the less forged her own highly sensitive signature style.

Through out in 90's she has subsequently collaborated with numerous improvisors throughout the US, Europe, and Asia, while continuing to produce and record her own music. 1998, She was invited to perform with Ensemble Modern as the soloist along with Zeena Parkins, and composer Fred Frith, also "One hundred Aspects of the Moon" commissioned by Roulette/Mary Flagler Cary Charitable Trust. Ikue won the Distinctive Award for Prix Ars Electronics Digital Music category in 99. In 2000 Ikue started using the laptop computer to expand on her already signature sound, thus broadening her scope of musical expression. 2000 commissioned by the KITCHEN ensemble, wrote and premired the piece "Aphorism" also awarded Civitella Ranieri Foundation Fellowship. 2003 commissioned by RELACHE Ensemble to write a piece for film In the Street and premired in Philadelphia. Started working with visual played by the music since 2004. In 2005 Awarded Alphert/Ucross Residency. Recived the grant from Foundation for Contemporary Arts in 2006. Tate Modern commissioned the live sound track for Maya Deren's silent films and premired in 2007. In 2008 Celebrated 30th music year, presented 5 on-going projects at Japan Society in NYC.

Current working groups include MEPHISTA with Sylvie Courvoisier and Susie Ibarra, projects with Kim Gordon, duo project PHANTOM ORCHARD with Zeena Parkins, various projects with John Zorn. and John Zorn's Electric Masada.

ARTIST WEBSITE:

http://www.ikuemori.com/

Zeena Parkins (multi-instrumentalist, composer, improviser) well-known as a pioneer of the electric harp, has also extended the language of the acoustic harp with the inventive use of unusual playing techniques, preparations, and layers of digital and analog processing. Zeena makes use of anything within reach as a possible tool with which she can enhance the sonic capabilities of her harps. She accurately describes her harp as a "sound machine of limitless capacity" and has used, household objects and hardware store finds, including: alligator clips, nails, rubber erasers, rubber tubing, felt, bows, metal candy lids, oversized metal bolts, hair clips, glass jars, discarded strings, as well as more conventional: leslie cabinets, guitar pedals, and numerous other digital processing hardware and assorted and varied software.

Zeena's unique vision is one that seeks to both meld and highlight opposites and extends to her work for her ensemble compositions. She has blurred boundaries between improvised and composed, acoustic and electric, digital and analog, and processed and concrete sounds to create many of her pieces. She achieves this engagement of contrasts by using instrument blending and morphing, the recombination of cut-up sounds to form odd and breathtaking soundscapes, and scoring and formal constructions derived from extra-musical sources. This process is evident in ensemble works such as the Trilogy written for her Gangster Band (a septet that includes strings and percussion and electronics), orchestral works commissioned by Bang on a Can, orchestrations for the Kitchen Blend Group and her on-going project of re-constructions of Debussy's La Mer.

Zeena has received numerous commissions to provide scores for film, video, chamber orchestras, theater and dance. She has a strong commitment to provide sound for dance and has created over 30 scores for American and European choreographers. Zeena's work for dance has inspired her to explore unpredictable orchestrations and more ambitious sonic presentations including: her quadraphonic bubble wrap score for Money Shot and a 60- speaker installation built to hang over the audience in "(voice tells) 14 tiny pictures, no more no less," both for Jennifer Lacey; her live mixes and assemblages for Neil Greenberg and the numerous live music scores, both improvised and composed she has performed with her long-time collaborator Jennifer Monson.

Ms. Parkins has appeared on over 70 CD's and in hundreds of concerts in both large and small spaces all over the world. A lightning bolt of a performer, Zeena is a sought after collaborator, performing with Jim O'Rourke, Nels Cline, Lee Renaldo, Kaffe Matthews (Weightless Animals), Thurston Moore, and Pauline Oliveros. Special projects have included touring and recording with Bjork (Vespertine, World Tour and Family Tree Tour), Tin Hat Trio (Book of Silk), Yoko Ono (Blueprint for a Sunrise), Don Byron, Butch Morris (International Comprovisation Ensemble), Elliott Sharp (Psycho~Acoustic, Orchestra Carbon), Ikue Mori (Phantom Orchard, B Side, Hex Kitchen), John Zorn (Cobra, Bezique, Darts, The Bribe) and Fred Frith (Soloist in Traffic Continues , Graphic Scores, Skeleton Crew and Keep the Dog). Zeena has appeared in dozens of music festivals in Europe, South America, Japan and the States including: Lincoln Center Out-of-Doors, Lincoln Center Festival 2000, The Serious Fun Festival, ExperImenta in Buenos Aires, The Music Merge Festival in Tokyo, The Moers Festival in Germany, Willisau and Tacklos Festival in Switzerland, the LMC Festival in London, Vancouver Coastal Jazz and Blues Festival, Musique Action International in France, the Festival Mimi in Arles, City of Women Festival in Slovenia and the Festival Musique Actuelle in Canada.

PRESS QUOTES:

"Her style defeats categorazation, and is therefore all the more interesting." —New York Times

"Zeena Parkins... is my favorite living harpist... kucks of sonic gristle that she pulls from it are dandy as jack. A truely ginchy exploration of forgotten string potential." —Spin

"Parkins takes her celestial axe-heretofore thought of as delicate - and gets tough, unafraid of its recourse. It's what some listeners used to call abstract lyricism, and the way Parkins deftly deploys her spur-of-the-moment ideas is refreshing." —The New Paper

ARTIST WEBSITE:

http://www.zeenaparkins.com/