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Gordon Beeferman

Gordon Beeferman, composer and pianist, has created a diverse body of adventurous work spanning opera, orchestral, chamber, and vocal music, jazz and free improvisation, and collaborations with dance and other arts. His chamber opera “The Rat Land,” written with librettist Charlotte Jackson, was hailed by The New York Times as "complex and daringly modern...gritty, fidgety and intriguing.” Beeferman leads two groups which perform his compositions: Other Life Forms, a quartet, and Music for an Imaginary Band, a septet, described by Time Out New York as a "commanding avant-jazz ensemble." A "fully liberated pianist" (Cadence Magazine), Beeferman has performed extensively in New York as well as across the US and Canada; highlights include appearances at Roulette, ISSUE Project Room, the Vision Festival, MATA Festival, Hallwalls (Buffalo, NY), and the Music Gallery (Toronto), and on tour with the Philip Glass Ensemble in Einstein on the Beach. His music has been commissioned and/or performed by the New York City Opera orchestra, Minnesota Orchestra, Albany Symphony, Quartet New Generation recorder collective, Momenta Quartet, American Brass Quintet, eighth blackbird, California EAR Unit, and others. He has received commissions from the Fromm Foundation, the BMI Foundation, and Concert Artists Guild, three BMI Student Composer Awards, a Tanglewood fellowship, and residencies at the MacDowell Colony, Yaddo and the Copland House. Beeferman’s collaborations with choreographers have been produced in New York at the Joyce SoHo, Danspace Project at St. Mark’s Church, The Chocolate Factory, and Abrons Arts Center. His recordings are available on OutNow, Generate, Genuin, and Summit Records. Current projects include The Enchanted Organ: A Porn Opera, a new collaboration with Charlotte Jackson. www.gordonbeeferman.com

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4
Album Review

Gordon Beeferman: Other Life Forms

Read "Other Life Forms" reviewed by Troy Dostert


A keyboardist and composer with ambitious reach, Gordon Beeferman creates music designed to surprise and challenge. He specializes in avant-garde contexts, whether with his Organ Trio (alongside guitarist Anders Nilsson and drummer Ches Smith) or in a larger septet format, with Music for an Imaginary Band (Generate Records, 2009). And then there's his work writing operas with librettist Charlotte Jackson, the most recent of which is The Enchanted Organ: A Porn Opera. So it's not really a shock to encounter ...

63
Album Review

Gordon Beeferman: Other Life Forms

Read "Other Life Forms" reviewed by Glenn Astarita


New York-based pianist, composer Gordon Beeferman is also a 2016 New York Foundation for the Arts Fellow, in addition to his multifarious career spanning several music genres and extensive collaborations with a diverse array of artists and bands. On this outing he leads a quartet, featuring a notable cast of like-minded futurists. Beeferman is armed with a distinct compositional style and is perhaps an under-recognized leader amid the 'new' music vibe, where progressive jazz is fused with classical, ...

Album Review

Gordon Beeferman: Four Parts Five

Read "Four Parts Five" reviewed by Alberto Bazzurro


Disco assolutamente futile, persino fastidioso, nel suo incessante, inesorabile, impietoso rimuginare attorno a pochi patterns che vengono ripetuti per qualche decina di secondi (o più) ciascuno, per passare poi al successivo, e così via. Questo, lungo i quattro brani che compongono l'album (appena mezzoretta di musica, ma che fatica arrivare ciò nonostante alla fine!), senza soluzioni altre da un'autoreferenzialità totale e -come dicevamo -veramente fastidiosa, creativamente impalpabile da qualunque proiezione la si guardi. Nulla o quasi di ...

107
Album Review

Jeff Arnal/Gordon Beeferman/Seth Misterka: Rara Avis

Read "Rara Avis" reviewed by John Kelman


Consisting of three relatively wet-behind-the-ears yet nonetheless daring improvisers, Rara Avis is notable for its obstinate devotion to pure instrumental sounds. Most artists working in the modern creative/avant-garde area of jazz are want to use prepared instruments, play inside the piano box or bow cymbals; here percussionist Jeff Arnal, electric pianist Gordon Beeferman and saxophonist Seth Misterka stick to a more traditional approach. Still, they manage to coax a variety of sounds out of their respective instruments, creating an inventive ...

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Performance / Tour

Gordon Beeferman/Jeff Arnal October 6 @ Roulette

Gordon Beeferman/Jeff Arnal October 6 @ Roulette

Source: All About Jazz

Friday - October 6, 2006

ROGUE STATES CD Release Concert

Gordon Beeferman (piano) Jeff Arnal (percussion)

Roulette 20 Greene St (between Canal and Grand St) New York, NY 8:30 PM $15 / Students $10 / Members free www.roulette.org www.generaterecords.net/gen11.htm

“The pianist Gordon Beeferman and the percussionist Jeff Arnal create tightly knit improvisations that range from the angular to the pastoral"--The New Yorker ...

"Complex and daringly modern...Mr. Beeferman’s music, with its skittish melodic lines and pungent atonal harmony, is gritty, fidgety and intriguing." - New York Times

"...A multitude of curiously interesting motifs - all enamored with great depth and an irrefutable touch of class." ejazznews

“A rich palette… Rogue States surprises with its density and variety of approaches.” - Jazzosphere

“The pianist Gordon Beeferman and the percussionist Jeff Arnal create tightly knit improvisations that range from the angular to the pastoral"—The New Yorker

“A particularly strong and well-balanced duo excursion… There is a strong thread or connection that runs though all of this, both players breathing and thinking as one inter-connected force.” —Bruce Gallantner, Downtown Music Gallery

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Photos

Music

Recordings: As Leader | As Sideperson

Other Life Forms

Different Track Recordings
2018

buy

Four Parts Five

Innova Recordings
2016

buy

Out in Here

OutNow Recordings
2014

buy

Rara Avis

Generate Records
2004

buy

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