Minneapolis, January 18, 2013—Revered experimental percussionist, composer, and Wilco drummer Glenn Kotche performs one of his most ambitious projects to date: an epic percussion opera-as-solo performance combining 19 instruments, live electronics, and Alaskan field recordings. A richly layered new work by noted Alaska-based contemporary composer John Luther Adams and written expressly for Kotche, Ilimaq (Inupiaq for “spirit journeys”) melds the rigor of modern music with found sounds of the natural world. Minneapolis percussionist/composer Martin Dosh (Fog, Andrew Bird) then joins Kotche for a kindred collaboration that clicks together loops, samples, and a battery of instruments to create a one-of-a-kind sonic mélange. The Walker presents Kotche’s Ilimaq + Martin Dosh Collabotation on Saturday, February 16, at 8 pm in the William and Nadine McGuire Theater.
Glenn Kotche
Kotche has received international attention for his “unfailing taste, technique and discipline” (Chicago Tribune), and has been commissioned to write pieces for Kronos Quartet, Bang on a Can All-Stars and So Percussion. In addition to collaborating with renowned contemporary music sextet Eighth Blackbird, Kotche’s compositions have been performed at venues as wide-ranging as Highland Park’s Ravinia, Carnegie’s Zankel Hall in New York and Teatro Castro Alves in Salvador, Brasil. In 2006, Kotche was invited as a featured performer at the Modern Drummer Festival, was the headlining performer at the inaugural concert for New York’s Wordless Music, and was an artist-in-residence at SoundRes in Lecce, Italy.
In addition to his work as a composer and solo percussionist, Kotche is member of the ground-breaking American rock band Wilco, with whom he has played since 2001. The first album recorded after Kotche joined the group, Yankee Hotel Foxtrot was met with critical and mass acclaim with Rolling Stone magazine recently calling it the 3rd best album of the decade. Follow-up albums include the Grammy-winning A Ghost is Born, Sky Blue Sky, and Wilco’s latest release, the Grammy-nominated Wilco (The Album).
Regarded as one of the world’s best live bands, Wilco has performed at virtually every major jazz, rock, and folk festival in North America, Europe, Brazil, Japan, Australia and New Zealand and have headlined shows everywhere from Madison Square Garden to Tanglewood to Millennium Park to Massey Hall. The band recently became festival curators successfully launching the inaugural Solid Sound Festival in North Adams, MA.
Beyond Wilco, Kotche records and performs regularly with the jazz experimental duo On Fillmore. Their latest recording, Extended Vacation (Dead Oceans / BounDee, 2009) was released to critical acclaim, with the New York Times calling it “a peculiar update of early-1960s exotica, with a heart of darkness in a place of setting sun.” Their previous release, Sleeps with Fishes (Drag City, 2003 and Columbia Music Entertainment, 2007), landed them at the prestigious 2005 Percussion Pan Festival in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
Dosh
Martin Luther King Chavez Dosh (born September 6, 1972), known in music as Dosh, is a musician and multi-instrumentalist based in Minneapolis, Minnesota. As an artist, Dosh is a percussionist who uses various electronics, often with a Fender Rhodes. Dosh has been characterized mostly as experimental and electronic-based due to his use of many samplers and looping machines and the rhythmic feel of much of his music, with songs often relying on Dosh alone on keyboards, xylophone, and drums. Dosh is often in collaboration with other musicians during live sets and on recording, both locally and nationally known.
In 2007 Dosh released Triple Rock featuring four new live tracks with guest musicians Andrew Bird, Mike Lewis, JT Bates, Adam Linz and Jeremy Ylvisaker, recorded in Dosh’s hometown of Minneapolis at the Triple Rock Social Club, as well as a four-part suite of new, previously unreleased tracks titled Henderson, which are a tribute to Dosh’s cat which was killed by a car in front of his house. Wolves and Wishes, the fourth Dosh full-length CD, featuring help from Bonnie ’Prince’ Billy, Andrew Bird, Fog, and Odd Nosdam followed in 2008. Dosh released Tommy in 2010 and Silver Faces in 2011.
Dosh grew up in the Twin Cities. At a young age he also took piano lessons and then discovered FM radio in the early ’80s. Dosh began drumming at age 15. By the time he left home for Simon’s Rock College at age 16, he had decided music would likely be his profession, however, he subsequently got a degree in creative writing.
Dosh is known for the incorporation of his family life into his work. His EP, Naoise is named after his son. On Naoise is Happy Song for Tadgh, a reference to Naiose’s half-brother, Tadgh. He is also known for writing a song for his future wife at the time called, I Think I’m Getting Married. Dosh performs frequently with Andrew Bird and contributed significantly to his 2007 album, Armchair Apocrypha, co-writing songs like The Supine and Simple X.
Dosh is a member of Cloak Ox, a four-piece band featuring Andrew Broder, Jeremy Ylvisaker and Mark Erickson.
John Luther Adams
Called “one of the most original musical thinkers of the new century” (Alex Ross, The New Yorker), Adams is a composer whose life and work are deeply rooted in the natural world. He composes for orchestra, chamber ensembles, percussion and electronic media, and his music is recorded on Cold Blue, New World, Mode, Cantaloupe, and New Albion.
Born in 1953, Adams grew up in the South and in the suburbs of New York City. He studied composition with James Tenney and Leonard Stein at the California Institute of the Arts, where he was in the first graduating class (in 1973). In the mid-1970s he became active in the campaign for the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act, and subsequently served as executive director of the Northern Alaska Environmental Center.
Adams has taught at Harvard University, the Oberlin Conservatory, Bennington College, and the University of Alaska. He has been composer in residence with the Anchorage Symphony, Anchorage Opera, Fairbanks Symphony, Arctic Chamber Orchestra, and the Alaska Public Radio Network, and has served as president of the American Music Center.
Postshow Reception
Saturday, February 16
Meet the artists after the show a reception in the McGuire Theater’s Balcony Bar.
Tickets to Glenn Kotche are $20 ($16 Walker members) and are available at walkerart.org/tickets or by calling 612.375.7600.
Look Up and Drink Up!
Balcony Bar
Meet the artists, talk about the show, and enjoy a drink at happy hour prices, including specialty cocktails with Prairie Organic vodka. Located in the McGuire Theater, the Balcony Bar is open one hour before and after all evening performances.
Commissioned by the Walker Art Center with support provided by the William and Nadine McGuire Commissioning Fund, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, Producers’ Council members Leni and David Moore, Jr./The Moore Family Foundation, and the National Endowment for the Arts. Co-commissioned by Duke Performances, Stanford University, and the University of Texas at Austin.
Performing Arts Supporters
The Walker Art Center’s performing arts programs are made possible by generous support from the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation through the Doris Duke Performing Arts Fund, the William and Nadine McGuire Commissioning Fund, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, and the National Endowment for the Arts.
Producers’ Council
Performing Arts programs and commissions at the Walker are generously supported by members of the Producers’ Council: Russell Cowles; Sage Cowles; Nor Hall and Roger Hale; King’s Fountain/Barbara Watson Pillsbury and Henry Pillsbury; Emily Maltz; Dr. William W. and Nadine M. McGuire; Leni and David Moore, Jr.; Josine Peters; Mike and Elizabeth Sweeney; and Frances and Frank Wilkinson.