Annie Gosfield

Hailing from Philadelphia, Annie Gosfield works as a keyboardist, composer, and improviser, after residing for a stretch in California and taking up residence in New York by the late 1990s. During the opening years of the 1980s she appeared with the free improvisation ensemble Apes of God at underground locations across Los Angeles. Throughout the following decade she sustained regular partnerships with guitarist Roger Kleier, who joined the Rova Saxophone Quartet on her 1998 Tzadik album Burnt Ivory and Loose Wires. Funding arrived via grants from Meet the Composer, the Independent Composer's Association of California, and the NEA, the last of which supported her installation City Library at Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibits. Her output spans electronic and acoustic scoring, solo and chamber formats, and frequently draws on detuned strings together with improvisational passages. She has composed for gallery presentations by visual artists such as Georganne Deen and Manual Ocampo, and has shared stages with David Moss, LaDonna Smith, Zeena Parkins, and the Bang on a Can All-Stars.