Residency #136
OCTOBER 12 – NOVEMBER 1, 2009
Application deadline: May 22, 2009

ELLIOTT SHARP, music/composition

Composer, multi-instrumentalist, and producer Elliott Sharp has been a central figure in the experimental music scene in New York City for over thirty years. He has released over 200 recordings spanning the musical spectrum and currently leads the ensemble projects Orchestra Carbon and Terraplane as well as performing the solo acoustic guitar project The Velocity of Hue and the electronic Tectonics. His work combines an integrated, humanistic, and cross-cultural approach to creativity and collaboration with a fascination for scientific systems, and he has pioneered techniques of applying fractal geometry, chaos theory, and genetic metaphors to musical composition and interaction as well as pioneering the use of the personal computer in improvisation with his Virtual Stance project. He has worked with a diverse range of artists, including Ensemble Modern, Qawwali singer Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, pop singer Debbie Harry, the Radiosinfonie Frankfurt, turntable artist Christian Marclay, blues legends Hubert Sumlin and Pops Staples, jazz greats Jack deJohnette and Sonny Sharrock, and Bachir Attar, leader of the Master Musicians of Jahjouka from Morocco. Sharp's work has been featured at festivals worldwide, including the 2008 New Music Stockholm festival, the 2007 Hessischer Rundfunk Klangbiennale, and the 2003 and 2006 Venice Biennales. In 2004, he created and directed Radio HyperYahoo with vocals and texts by Tracie Morris, Steve Buscemi, Eric Bogosian, Jack Womack, and others. He functioned as music director and a performer in the Al-Mashreq All-Stars, a collaborative project with Arab and American musicians at the 2002 Lincoln Center Summer Festival.   He has composed for video artists Nam June Paik and Paul Garrin and for filmmakers Toni Dove, Jonathan Berman, and Illppo Pohjola.

*For more information about Elliott Sharp please visit http://www.repple.se/datacide/

Residency Statement

This residency will welcome those musicians who see no barriers between the definitions of composer-performer-improviser and who are conversant in sound: acoustic, electronic, analog, and digital.  We will present and discuss our work and find modes of collaboration.

Application Requirements

Applicants should submit a bio and resume, 2 audio CD's or DVD's, and any relevant URL's.