22 Oct Torben Ulrich & Chrysanthe Tan
Torben Ulrich & Chrysanthe Tan
Live Improvisational Performance
Saturday, November 11th, 3PM
Torben Ulrich
Artist Reception
Sunday, November 12th, 3-6PM
No RSVPs necessary
Torben Ulrich will be performing a live poetry improvisation with violinist Chrysanthe Tan on Saturday, November 11th at 3PM. This is a ticketed event and space is incredibly limited.
UPDATE: Saturday’s Performance has sold out. There is no RSVP necessary for Sunday’s Reception.
Torben Ulrich (born Oct. 4, 1928) has been called one the most colorful and unique voices in Danish culture of the 20th and 21st centuries, stemming from his lifelong activities as poet, musician, radio and newspaper journalist, painter, filmmaker, performer and athlete, all attempting to explore these fields within a transdisciplinary approach. This view has long been grounded in a process-oriented, wide-ranging study of movement in spiritual, philosophical and athletic traditions, accentuating the practical while including the historical aspects of alchemy, dance, yogic studies, Buddhism, Christian and Jewish Kabbalah, Sufism, Taoism, etc.
Torben’s work with ball, rope, racquet, and rice paper can be traced back to 1971, but stems from a tennis career spanning back to the late 1940s, when he was also a jazz musician and journalist, performing at CoBrA Happenings and writing hundreds of thousands of words about music and philosophy. This lifetime dedication to sport and music had a profound influence upon his son, Lars, who aspired to a professional tennis career before switching gears to co-found the band Metallica.
Ulrich explores play and the athletic event with the aforementioned materials as tools for creating artifacts of ongoing playfulness. In the most recent series Torben has begun with a poetic text, followed by a served or stroked net, then rope, then ball. The resultant images, termed Balligraphies, are keenly reminiscent of Japanese brush paintings, and are a captured continuation of the type of athletic studies documented by Jørgen Leth in his influential, experimental film, Motion Picture–which starred Torben Ulrich in 1969. In 1986 Torben received Denmark’s Gerlev Prize for athletico-cultural contributions, and he reteamed with Leth for the film Moments of Play. His catalog of writings, recordings, and awards is vast, and includes the ITF’s Davis Cup Award.
Chrysanthe Tan is an autistic Cambodian-Greek-American composer, violinist, singer-songwriter, and poet. As a solo artist, Tan performs electroacoustic music incorporating violin, looping pedals, vocals, and other instruments. As a composer, they gravitate toward intimate solo & chamber music that incorporates spoken text. Throughout most of 2015, Tan toured the world as pop star Ariana Grande’s violinist on the Honeymoon Tour, playing in arenas across North America, Europe, and Asia. In 2015, Tan released their debut album, Stories, comprised of chamber music for piano, strings, and electronics, and is currently working on a second album, called Homecoming.
Last year, Chrysanthe also had the pleasure of participating as an ASCAP composer in the Lyric Project, composing music for the experimental feature film Mono, and scoring Marvin Lemus‘s short film “Vamonos,” which premiered at the Los Angeles Film Festival and went on to Frameline, Outfest, Outfest Fusion, CineArts, San Diego Latino Film Festival, Maryland Film Festival, and more. In December, Chrysanthe launched a Patreon page as a new means for them to share more compositional and experimental work and better connect with the people supporting the diversity of their art-making. Today, they fill their schedule with commissions for concert music (specializing in text/poetry + music pairings) and custom lullabies.
Aside from composing and touring, Chrysanthe is active in the contemporary classical performance scene as a soloist, collaborator, and one half of the violin+guitar duo Duo Meranti, a Balkan, folk, and contemporary classical project with composer/guitarist Sean Hayward. Among their extensive repertoire is a set of new Macedonian pieces by Miroslav Tadic, written especially for them.
In addition to credits with Ariana Grande, Chrysanthe has an extensive television resume (Glee, 1600 Penn, America’s Next Top Model, American Music Awards, MTV Movie Awards, etc) and has performed, toured, and recorded with numerous artists including Bastille, Paul Anka, Alicia Keys, Common, Lupe Fiasco, Nicki Minaj, Halsey, Skylar Grey, Jennifer Hudson, Marc Anthony, Marco Antonio Solís, Cheyenne, Justin Bieber, David Foster, ZZ Ward, Frank Ocean, Dumbfoundead, and Hélène Segara.
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Matt Kennedy
Gallery Director
323 547 3227
info@gallery30south.com