Thirlwell joins Alan Licht Allstars for Futurist Intonarumori concert at Performa Festval

As part of the 2021 Performa Arts Festival NYC, on Oct 15 2021 JG Thirlwell joined Alan Licht, Keith Fullerton Whitman, MV Carbon, Laura Ortman and Seth Cluett in an ensemble performance on Intonarumori instruments, directed by Luciano Chessa . Intonarumori are experimental musical instruments which were invented and built by the Italian futurist Luigi Russolo between roughly 1910 and 1930.

The performance took place at the former Top Shop department store at the Rockefeller Center in midtown Manhattan, with broadcast direction by Victoria Keddie and an additional performance by Zach Layton‘s Nepenthae.
The performance will be broadcast here on Oct 20 2021 at 7pm EST, followed by a second performance for Intonarumori instruments featuring Margareth Kammerer, Nick Hallett, Zeena Parkins, Frank J. Oteri, Joan La Barbara, Elliott Sharp and others.

JG Thirlwell pens new composition for Burroughs opera

10.16_experiments_in_opera_temp_imageJames Ilgenfritz has commissioned JG Thirlwell to compose a composition for an opera with the text based on William S. Burroughs cut ups of Clockwork Orange author Anthony Burgess. The piece will form part of a larger opera entitled The Travel Agency is on Fire, drawn from a book of Burroughs cut-up experiments, where he re-appropriates everyone from William Shakespeare and Arthur Rimbaud to William Wordsworth and James Joyce. The other composers contributing to the opera include Jason Cady, Natacha Diels, Anne Guthrie, James Ilgenfritz, Travis Just, Lukas Ligeti, Charlie Looker, Elliott Sharp, Aaron Siegel and Katie Young.  
The opera will premiere on October 16 2015 at John Zorn‘s club The Stone in NYC as part of James Ilgenfrtiz’s residency. It will be performed by the Anagram Ensemble, consisting of  Megan Schubert, Amirtha Kidambi, Nick Hallett and  Michael Douglas Jones (voices) PK Harris and Sarah Bernstein (violins), James Moore (guitar), Jonathan Singer (percussion), Brian Chase (drums), James Ilgenfritz (basses) and Nathan Koci (conductor)