about andrea
parkins
Andrea Parkins is a New York-based sound artist, composer, and
improviser who plays electronically-processed accordion, laptop sampler,
electronic keyboards, and piano. Parkins sonically expands her accordion with
analog electronics and by fragmenting traditional accordion syntax with noise
and other disruptive allusions. In live performance, this idiosyncratic
approach to the instrument collides with densely polyrhythmic keyboard tactics
and laptop sampling that pays homage to mid-20th century musique-concrete
and ’70s analog synth sounds. Parkins’ composition projects
have included solo works; small and large ensemble pieces; and sound design for
her own multi-media sculptural installations. During the past 15 years, she has
performed in New York City and toured throughout North America and Europe as an
ensemble leader, solo artist, and collaborator, and as a member of Ellery
Eskelin’s widely acclaimed avant-jazz trio with Jim Black. Her latest
ensemble project is a collaboration with guitarist Nels Cline and drummer Tom
Rainey that will release a CD on the Atavistic label in 2004. Performance plans
for 2004 include concerts in Europe with this new trio as well as with Swiss
electronic musician Gunter Mueller, gigs in North America with bagpiper David
Watson and turntablist Toshio Kagiwara, and an interactive work at The Kitchen
in New York City. In recent years,
Parkins has received several performance grants from Meet the Composer and two
production residency grants from Harvestworks in New York City. Parkins’
audio work, Freak Cloud Idiom, was among those featured in “Bitstreams,” a digital art
exhibition at the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York in 2001. Also in
2001, Parkins was awarded a grant by the the city of Hamburg, Germany for an
artist’s project/residency. Currently, Parkins is developing a series of
MAX/MSP-based generative audio works, with programming by Matthew Ostrowski,
that are inspired by Rube Goldberg’s circuitous contraptions. She plans
to return to Europe during the winter of 2004 to perform a solo project
featuring these pieces, to be followed by a CD release in the spring.
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