FREE | MORE INFO HERE
Roulette kicks off its Fall 2025 Season with a FREE outdoor performance in partnership with Bryant Park’s Picnic Performances. Pianist Vicky Chow will perform composer/sound artist Tristan Perich’s Surface Image, an evening-length work for solo piano composed by Perich specifically for Chow, and premiered at Roulette in 2013. Surface Image places the solo piano within a dense frenzy of 1-bit sound. Forty loudspeakers, each wired to hand-built electronics, blanket the stage and accompany Chow’s playing, accumulating in a dense polyphonic cascade of piano notes and 1-bit tones.
Also on the bill is violinist, violist and experimental composer Jessica Pavone, who will present new material with her String Ensemble, as well as a solo opening set from bassoonist, performance artist, and composer Joy Guidry.
7pm — Joy Guidry bassoon, electronics
7:40 — J. Pavone String Ensemble: Marija Kovacevic (violin), Charlotte Munn-Wood (violin/viola), Jessica Pavone (viola/composer)
8:30 — Vicky Chow and Tristan Perich
The concert is part of Bryant Park Picnic Performances, a free outdoor festival that welcomes all New Yorkers to experience the city’s vibrant arts and culture. The series provides a platform for extraordinary artists and serves as a vital outdoor venue for a wide array of New York’s cultural institutions.
Hong Kong/Canadian/American pianist Vicky Chow has been described as “brilliant” (The New York Times) and “one of our era’s most brilliant pianists” (Pitchfork). Since joining the Bang on a Can All-Stars in 2009, she has collaborated and worked with composers/artists/ensembles/orchestras such as Tania León, Meredith Monk, Steve Reich, Philip Glass, Terry Riley, George Lewis, John Zorn, Julia Wolfe, David Lang, Michael Gordon, Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company, Sasha Waltz Dance Company, BBC Orchestra, LA Philharmonic, Toronto Symphony Orchestra, Symphonietta Riga, Alarm Will Sound, International Contemporary Ensemble, The Knights, Wild Up, Tyshawn Sorey, Andy Akiho, Kronos Quartet, Longleash Trio, Trinity Choir, Wet Ink Ensemble, Yarn/Wire, Momenta Quartet among many others. She has performed around the globe, touring in over 40 countries, and has released over 25 solo and chamber albums on various labels, to critical acclaim. Originally from Vancouver, Canada, she is based in Brooklyn, NY. She serves as faculty at the Bang on a Can Summer Institute, the Nief-Norf Summer Festival, and has been on faculty at the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity. She is on the Board of Advisors for Composers Now, and is also a mentor at The Juilliard School. A graduate of The Juilliard School (B.M. ’05, M.M. ’07 Piano Performance) and The Manhattan School of Music (M.M. Contemporary Performance ’09) Ms. Chow is a Yamaha Artist. www.vickychow.com
Tristan Perich‘s work is inspired by the aesthetic simplicity of math, physics and code. The WIRE Magazine describes his compositions as “an austere meeting of electronic and organic.” His 2004 release, 1-Bit Music, was the first album ever released as a microchip, programmed to synthesize his electronic composition live. The follow-up release, 1-Bit Symphony, was called “sublime” (New York Press), and the Wall Street Journal said “its oscillations have an intense, hypnotic force and a surprising emotional depth.” More recently, Drift Multiply (Nonesuch, New Amsterdam), for 50 violins and 50 speakers, was described by the New York Times as “a constantly evolving landscape where sounds coalesce and prism, where the violins both pull into focus and blur into a soothing ether.” Perich’s work coupling 1-bit electronics with traditional forms in both music and visual art has been presented around the world, from Sonar and Ars Electronica to the Museum of Modern Art and bitforms gallery. He has been commissioned by the LA Philharmonic, So Percussion, Yarn/Wire and more. He received a 2011 New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship. He was a featured artist at Sonár 2010 in Barcelona, and in 2009, Austria’s Prix Ars Electronica awarded him the Award of Distinction for his composition Active Field (for ten violins and ten-channel 1-bit music). Rhizome awarded him a 2010 commission for an audio installation with 1,500 speakers. Perich was artist in residence at Issue Project Room in 2008, at Mikrogalleriet in Copenhagen in 2010, and at the Addison Gallery in Andover, MA and Harvestworks in New York in Fall 2010. His work has received support from New York State Council on the Arts, the American Music Center, Meet the Composer and others. He has spoken about his work and taught workshops around the world. Perich studied math, music and computer science at Columbia University and received a masters in art, music and electronics at Interactive Telecommunications Program at Tisch School of the Arts, NYU. Tristan Perich’s first recording project for Erased Tapes, Open Symmetry, was released in June 2024.
As an instrumentalist and composer, Jessica Pavone explores music’s tactile and sensory elements as a vibration-based medium. Inspired by processes centered on intuition and instinct, she channels these ideas into compositions by focusing on how music feels when played and heard, exploring the effects of sonic vibrations on the body, and weaving her experiences as an instrumentalist into works that transcend time. Developing original music for solo viola has been an integral part of her practice. In 2017, Pavone created the J. Pavone String Ensemble as an expansion of this solo viola repertoire. The pieces for the group borrow from and expand upon traditional music notation, alternating between metered and duration-based sections, and improvised and notated instructions. The scores prioritize an intentionally fluid style that allows musicians to sculpt aspects of the pieces by carving out open, liminal spaces, which provide freedom for reinterpretation, making each performance unique. Pavone participates as a violist in her ensembles, whose approach focuses on a vision of collective improvisation that emphasizes a collaboratively woven fabric, in contrast to the traditional improvisatory method that prizes the showmanship of the soloist. The group has performed around the United States and beyond—including at Bang on a Can Long Play Festival (NYC), the Suoni Per Il Popolo Festival (Montreal), and Black Mountain College Museum + Arts Center (Asheville)—and released four studio albums to critical acclaim from The Wire, The New Yorker, Pitchfork, JazzTimes, and San Francisco Classical Voice. Chris Ingalls from Pop Matters described their music as “too stunning to lump into genres.”
Joy Guidry is a bassoonist, versatile improviser, performance artist, and composer of experimental, daring new works that embody a deep love of storytelling; Joy’s music channels their inner child in honor of their ancestors and predecessors. The San Diego Tribune has hailed their performances as “lyrical and haunting…hair-raising and unsettling.” Joy was born in Houston, Texas, into a creative family that has shaped who she is today. Joy holds a bachelor’s degree in Bassoon Performance from the Peabody Conservatory and a Graduate Performance Diploma from the Mannes School of Music. She has presented her original work at The Whitney Museum for American Art, Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego, The Kitchen, Redcat, among many other venues. Joy has been commissioned by The National Sawdust, Long Beach Opera, JACK Quartet, Gaudeamus Festival, and the I&I Foundation. Joy has been featured in festivals, including the La Biennale di Venezia, A’Larme Festival, Cologne Jazz Week, Angel City Jazz Festival, Spoleto Festival USA, Big Ears Festival, and many more. In addition, Joy Guidry is the winner of the 2021 Berlin Prize for Young Artists. Joy Is currently playing on a Heckel Bassoon number 6101.
