Three artist groups present works that challenge perceived norms of intimacy and collaboration: Emily Manzo performs solo piano collaborations with works by composers Mary Halvorson and Aaron Siegel; Bent Duo (David Friend on piano and Bill Solomon on percussion) perform Friend’s composition Judys, and Naama Tsabar and Kristin Mueller perform Tsabar’s Untitled (Double Face) where both performers will activate a two necked guitar  made by Tsabar, requiring them to lean on each other, negotiating movement and sound while playing.

Emily Manzo piano
David Friend piano
Bill Solomon percussion
Naama Tsabar guitar
Kristin Mueller guitar

“[Emily Manzo is] a uniquely protean artist who makes several scenes move” –Time Out New York

“[Bent Duo] created a virtuosic sonic performance, an environment where all the senses were heightened.” –The Brooklyn Rail

“Tsabar’s ‘deviant’ musical instruments invite chance and collaboration into the hallowed spaces of art” –ArtReview

A livestream will be available free of charge at 8pm on the day of the performance and archived for future viewing.

Emily Manzo is a pianist, vocalist, composer, and arts organizer whom TimeOut New York calls “a uniquely protean artist who makes several scenes move,” with The New York Times applauding her “exceptional attention to detail.” She has performed extensively across the U.S. and Europe in chamber, experimental, and rock music settings.

Her collaborative work spans many disciplines. She scored filmmaker Paul Rowley’s 2010 experimental feature The Rooms, which premiered at the Pompidou Centre in Paris. She has received songwriting and opera commissions from presenters including Bayerischer Rundfunk and Experiments in Opera, and has been fortunate to perform on Naama Tsabar’s sculptural, site-specific instruments.

Emily is a member of the Julius Eastman Memorial Dinner and has toured with the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Company, Till by Turning, Arooj Aftab, and the duo Christy & Emily. As a vocalist and pianist, her recordings appear on Tzadik, New Amsterdam Records, SHSK’H, The Social Registry, Big Print, Klangbad, Merge, and Jagjaguwar.

Bent Duo is a NYC-based experimental project that performs and creates innovative work. Founders Bill Solomon and David Friend come from classical music backgrounds and are deeply engaged in NYC’s New Music scene, with active careers performing with major ensembles and at celebrated venues and festivals in NYC, nationally, and abroad. In Bent Duo, they explore the outer reaches of experimental music practice and investigate new techniques for creating and performing new works that transcend conventional boundaries between disciplines, frequently with a focus on queer aesthetics and social practice. They have created a varied body of original work, including a performance piece premiered at Harvard Art Museums, collaborative electroacoustic music with Jace Clayton, a text-based work for Queer Percussion Research Group, and numerous installation works for community gardens and historic queer spaces. They have been invited to lecture on their work at institutions including Hartford Art School, Bard College, Louisiana State University, University of Leeds (UK), and Yale University.

Naama Tsabar’s practice fuses elements from sculpture, music, performance and architecture. Her interactive works expose hidden spaces and systems, reconceive gendered narratives, and shift the viewing experience to one of active participation. Tsabar draws attention to the muted and unseen by propagating sound through space and sculptural form. Between sculpture and instrument, form and sound, Tsabar’s work lingers on the intimate, sensual and corporeal potentials within this transitional state. Collaborating with local communities of female identifying and gender non-conforming performers, Tsabar writes a new feminist and queer history of fluency. Tsabar’s work was presented and performed in institutions internationally, among them The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum (New York), MoMA PS1 (New York), Palais de Tokyo (Paris), The Bass Museum (Miami), SFMoMA (San Francisco) and the Hamburger Bahnhof – Nationalgalerie der Gegenwart (Berlin).