Sounds Modern presents The Some of It’s Parts: Music to Celebrate the Art of Mark Bradford

This performance will be in the Modern's auditorium and available as an online event.

Mark Bradford’s paintings are wonders of recontextualization, reinventing materials like billboards and end papers through their recombination into a deceptively smooth surface. A group performance is likewise much more than the sum of its parts. Modern composers and improvisors–particularly women, LGBTQ, and artists of color–are likewise reinventing chamber music performance, questioning the norms of the written score and making the concert stage a context for a meeting of diverse perspectives. Composer, pianist, and vocalist Julius Eastman devised a unique notational practice that invites active engagement from performers who collaborate in the invention of gradually evolving minimalist forms. His often-shocking titles, including Joy Boy, the work Sounds Modern will present, confront difference and demand engagement with Eastman’s own reality as a gay Black artist. Composer and violinist Daniel Bernard Roumain blends funk, rock, and hip-hop with concert music, inviting audiences and performers to find creative ways to resolve the contextual dilemmas posed by works like his Hip-Hop Etudes, three of which Sounds Modern will present. Bitches Set Traps, North Texas’s provocative feminist improvisation ensemble, pushes the boundaries of improvisation by exploring current events, feminism, misogyny, and cultural taboos, combining virtuosic performance with common household items and tropes of American culture. For this event, their work Hair Piece will explore the world of the beauty salon, the source of the key material and motif of the works in the Modern’s exhibition Mark Bradford: End Papers. 

Performance Program

The October 17 performance will be livestreamed on the Modern's YouTube Channel. We also invite a limited audience to enjoy the event in person; please reserve your free ticket by calling 817.840.2154, as seats will be made available on a first-come, first-served basis. Audience members will be seated apart from one another and will wear masks to protect everyone’s health and safety. The performance will last under forty-five minutes, with no intermission.