Biography
The Brooklyn-rooted collective Barbez fuses an array of approaches and sources that exceed any single stylistic label. Its roster features a Theremin specialist of exceptional skill, a marimba-focused percussionist, and an artist who extracts sounds from a PalmPilot. Material spans Russian folk material, works by Kurt Weill, and interpretations of Black Sabbath alongside the Residents. Concerts range from buoyant to spectral to explosively unruly, sometimes traversing all three qualities inside one piece.
Guitar duties fall to Dan Kaufman (Rebecca Moore); Pamelia Kurstin (David Byrne, Simone Dinnerstein) handles Theremin; Peter Hess (Philip Glass Ensemble) plays clarinet and bass clarinet; Danny Tunick (the Clean) manages marimba and vibraphone; Catherine McRae (filmmaker Sam Green, the Quavers) contributes violin; Peter Lettre (Shearwater) covers bass; and John Bollinger (Sway Machinery) holds the drum chair.
An enduring alliance links the group with experimental theater director, filmmaker, and playwright John Jesurun, MacArthur Foundation “genius” grant recipient. Barbez has written and performed scores for multiple Jesurun productions staged at the Berliner Festspiele in Berlin, Germany and the Rubin Museum of Himalayan Art in New York. Jesurun has likewise directed three videos for the band.
Additional music supplied by Barbez has accompanied dance projects that include One and The Making of Americans, both created by Bessie-award winner Juliette Mapp and presented, respectively, by Danspace Project and Dance Theatre Workshop in New York.
The ensemble issued its first recording, a self-released self-titled album produced and engineered by Martin Bisi, in 2000; Bisi has remained the principal studio partner ever since. Signing with Important Records, the band delivered a second album, also titled Barbez, in 2002 that included appearances by Anthony Nozero of Drums & Tuba and toy instrument collector Ms. Moore. Insignificance followed in 2005. Although issued under Kaufman’s name, 2007’s Force of Light enlisted the full Barbez core and additional players to fuse the group’s boundary-crossing approach with settings for Paul Celan’s poetry. Six years later Bella Ciao appeared under the ensemble’s own name, uniting its continually shifting tonal and stylistic palette with the musical and literary heritage of Rome through poems by Paolo Pasolini and Alfonso Gatto while drawing on ancient Roman Jewish melodies and the Italian Resistance of the Second World War; vocalists Fiona Templeton and Dawn McCarthy appeared as guests. Those Who Came After: Songs of Resistance from the Spanish Civil War, released in 2017, presented ten emblematic songs from the era captured live with Bay Area singer Velina Brown at the Japan Society in 2016 during the annual commemoration of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade, the organization of American volunteers who traveled to Spain to oppose fascism in that conflict.
Guitar duties fall to Dan Kaufman (Rebecca Moore); Pamelia Kurstin (David Byrne, Simone Dinnerstein) handles Theremin; Peter Hess (Philip Glass Ensemble) plays clarinet and bass clarinet; Danny Tunick (the Clean) manages marimba and vibraphone; Catherine McRae (filmmaker Sam Green, the Quavers) contributes violin; Peter Lettre (Shearwater) covers bass; and John Bollinger (Sway Machinery) holds the drum chair.
An enduring alliance links the group with experimental theater director, filmmaker, and playwright John Jesurun, MacArthur Foundation “genius” grant recipient. Barbez has written and performed scores for multiple Jesurun productions staged at the Berliner Festspiele in Berlin, Germany and the Rubin Museum of Himalayan Art in New York. Jesurun has likewise directed three videos for the band.
Additional music supplied by Barbez has accompanied dance projects that include One and The Making of Americans, both created by Bessie-award winner Juliette Mapp and presented, respectively, by Danspace Project and Dance Theatre Workshop in New York.
The ensemble issued its first recording, a self-released self-titled album produced and engineered by Martin Bisi, in 2000; Bisi has remained the principal studio partner ever since. Signing with Important Records, the band delivered a second album, also titled Barbez, in 2002 that included appearances by Anthony Nozero of Drums & Tuba and toy instrument collector Ms. Moore. Insignificance followed in 2005. Although issued under Kaufman’s name, 2007’s Force of Light enlisted the full Barbez core and additional players to fuse the group’s boundary-crossing approach with settings for Paul Celan’s poetry. Six years later Bella Ciao appeared under the ensemble’s own name, uniting its continually shifting tonal and stylistic palette with the musical and literary heritage of Rome through poems by Paolo Pasolini and Alfonso Gatto while drawing on ancient Roman Jewish melodies and the Italian Resistance of the Second World War; vocalists Fiona Templeton and Dawn McCarthy appeared as guests. Those Who Came After: Songs of Resistance from the Spanish Civil War, released in 2017, presented ten emblematic songs from the era captured live with Bay Area singer Velina Brown at the Japan Society in 2016 during the annual commemoration of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade, the organization of American volunteers who traveled to Spain to oppose fascism in that conflict.
Albums
