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Neuringer Keir

Born in Brooklyn in 1976, he composes and improvises acoustic and electronic music, writes socio-political performance texts and essays, and creates interdisciplinary artworks, all with the aim of bringing audiences into a state of emotional and intellectual curiosity that meets the conditions for meaningful dialogue with, and transformation of, the culture at large.

Raised in suburban New York, he learned the saxophone from an early age, studied composition as a Fulbright Scholar in Cracow, and was a graduate of The Hague’s interdisciplinary ArtScience Institute, where he created video, theatre, and installation works. He has cultivated a personal and intensely physical approach to solo saxophone improvisation, plays analogue electronics and Farfisa organ, and sings and narrates text. Among his closest collaborators are Rafał Mazur, Ensemble Klang, and DJ Sniff, and other musicians, composers, ensembles, theatre makers and choreographers in the creative arts communities in Cracow, The Hague, Amsterdam, upstate New York, and Philadelphia. With Mazur, Tomasz Chołoniewski, and others, he helped to establish Cracow’s now thriving free improvisation scene in 2001. Touch was an audiovisual performance series that he curated in The Hague for four seasons. He has shared bills with Deerhoof, Faust, Philip Jeck, and Peter Brotzmann, and improvised with Evan Parker, Misha Mengelberg, and electronic music pioneers (and former mentors) Joel Ryan, Marek Chołoniewski, and Michel Waisvisz. He travels widely to present his work, giving workshops on its techniques and socio-political ramifications throughout Europe and North America. He lives in Philadelphia.

 

Selected works: Of the Sun and the Moon for flute (1995), Clarinet Quartet (1995), Prelude in the style of Claude Debussy for piano (1996), Sonata for saxophone and piano (1997), Prelude for bass clarinet (1998), String Quartet No. 1 (1998), Concerto for tuba and ensemble (1998), Ungoliant for 14 instruments (1998), Mechanical Failure for oboe / violin, bassoon / cello and piano (1999), Piano Quartet (1999), 3 Bagatelles for orchestra (1999), Music for David Gordon’s Brain in a Jar for saxophone and interactive computer (with Marek Chołoniewski, 2000), String Quartet No. 2 (2000), Piano Concerto (2000), the code we use to speak about our disrespect is called time for voice and six percussionists (2001), in what little hand for four hands and computer (with Marek Chołoniewski, 2001), Stachowski Variation for percussion objects and computer (2001), (übers glasperlenspiel) for saxophone quartet (2002), The Scattering of Numbers for large ensemble and reciter (2002), A Language Older Than Words (duet with Rafał Mazur, 2003), Fear/Repetition for reciting voice and loud instruments (2003), (5+x)aphorisms for saxophone, piano and bass (2003), we get it in the pocket, you get it in the neck for octet (2003), (laqoiopal) versions for large ensemble and for five string instruments (2003), O.D. to Joy, music to a video by Kate Moore (2004), Bound to Violence for two actors (2004), Bronze Age for trombone and tape players (2004), Archivum Mirum Et Turbarum for large ensemble (2004), Dodging Bullets for any instruments, playback and video (2004), Urojenia, installation for a show by Paweł Jurek (2005), Things You Cannot See, music video (2005), Another World Bank, installation (2006), Registering Our Exasperation, installation (2006), An Abridged List of Options, music video (2006), Revolution, music video (2006), Parade, video preludes for Ensemble Klang (2007), Insect Out for electronic and recorded sounds (2007), The Love Story for saxophone, tapes and mixing console (2007), One is One (Preludes & Fugues), 48 texts to a performance by Ensemble Klang (2008), Drum/C4 for five improvising percussionists (2009), Quiet System for any instruments and cassette player (2009), The Yiddish Language for Cornell University Klezmer Ensemble (2009), The Dutch Language for Ensemble Klang (2009), Places, or: The Hague Invasion Act for any instruments, video and dancer (2010), Elegy for the schoolboys at Ghazi Khan for Ensemble Modelo 62 (2010), Questionnaire, music video (2010), A Bloodletting, music video (2010), Unison Lines (with Rafał Mazur, 2010), improvisations (with Rafał Mazur, 2010), The Love Story: Let My Music Hear Children, recording (2010), The Love Story: U$ DRONE, recording (2010), AFGHANISTAN: AND BIDE YOUR TIME, recording (2011), AFGHANISTAN: «CONQUISTADORS», recording (2011), Revolutions in Buffalo, installation (2011), String Quartet No. 3 (2011), Ahhhhh to a choreography by Lindsay Gilmour (with Chris Seeds, 2011), Critical Foreign Dependencies Initiative 2008 for instruments and narrator (2012), Revolutions in Toronto, installation (2012).