Born: 1970 Primary Instrument: Flute
“McGowan’s music strives for an idiom in which various musics ” American popular, European classical and avant-garde, Carnatic, a fascination with proportionally intricate rhythms, the use of microtones in the search for new subtleties of melody ” and many others, rub against each other and generate new meanings.” This is how musicologist Bob Gilmore describes composer and flutist Ned McGowan. Born in the United States in 1970 and living in the Netherlands since 1994, McGowan has built his career by collaborating closely with ensembles such as the Axyz Ensemble, Calefax, the Zephyr Quartet and Hexnut.
His taste for diversity emerged already as a teenager who took classical flute lessons, played jazz and listened to rock. After finishing studies in flute at the San Francisco Conservatory and the Cleveland Insitute of Music, he moved to Amsterdam to continue his research. Over the course of eight years, he studied both flute and composition in Amsterdam and The Hague, exploring a wide range of subjects ” from extended techniques to Carnatic forms and rhythms, from jazz improvisation to West-African drumming. His compositional voice was profoundly influenced by these experiences, even though he never directly follows any of these traditions stylistically.
Ned is also highly active in fostering the Amsterdam musical community through the Karnatic Lab Foundation, an organization he founded with Gijs Levelt in 1999 to promote both composed and improvised new music. This umbrella organization runs a monthly concert series, programs a yearly festival with international guests, and has its own record label (Karnatic Lab Records) and house ensembles: Axyz, a contemporary music ensemble, Spinifex Orchestra, a nine piece jazz ensemble, and McGowan’s own quintet, Hexnut.
The last five years Ned McGowan has taken an interest in the contrabass flute, as it opens up the bass musical role in addition to the more common melodic role of the flute. He can be heard playing contrabass and normal flute on many CDs available on Karnatic Lab Records.
From 2000 until 2002 McGowan was a professor of flute at the Djam School for Jazz in Amsterdam. From 2000 until 2005, Ned McGowan was director of the Huygens-Fokker Foundation, a center that promotes the use and understanding of microtonality in music. Within that capacity he lectured on microtonal subjects and programmed regular concerts throughout the Netherlands.
Awards:
Henriette Bosmans Prize from the Dutch Composer’s UnionNed McGowan, a composer and flutist, proved there's still plenty of life in old-fashioned virtuosity with “Bantammer Swing,” a playful, athletic concerto for his unwieldy contrabass flute. - Steve Smith, New York Times, April 28, 2008
If you're having a slow day, his music samples will wake you right up. - Alex Ross, the Rest is Noise, March, 2007
Hexnut
Hexnut
Karnatic Lab Records
2007
Susanna Borsch: electro-recorders; Stephie Büttrich: voice and text; Gijs Levelt: trumpet; Ned McGowan: flute and contrabass flute; Ere Lievonen: piano
Tools
Ned McGowan (all compositions)
Karnatic Lab Records
2006
Nandi Dasaru
Axyz Ensemble
Karnatic Lab Records
2005
including 'Alap'
Paximadi
Messing met PVC
Karnatic Lab Records
2005
Gijs Levelt: trumpet; Ned McGowan: PVC contrabass flute, flute; Martha Mavroidi: voice, lafta, darbouka, frame drum, tuning fork
Rickshaw Chase
Bhedam
TryTone
2001
including 'Stone Soup'
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