Gareth L. Davis/Elliott Sharp

Gareth Davis – bass clarinet
Elliott Sharp – guitar

Gareth Davis and Elliott Sharp will perform Sharp's recent graphic score Sylva Sylvarum.  Like its predecessor Foliage, the score to Sylva Sylvarum was created by processing notation with graphic editing software in the same manner that Sharp would process the 'physical' sound of instruments: modulating, filtering, layering, inverting, distorting, sequencing.  The resultant images serve both as a score to the musicians and as retinal art.  In the case of Sylva Sylvarum, over 250 images were sequenced and then layered with satellite videos of various regions of earth to form an animated movie.  In performance, foreground and background shift: the performer both manifests the music and provides the 'underscore' to the movie.

Elliott Sharp
A central figure in NYC's avant-garde scene for over thirty years, Elliott Sharp leads the projects Orchestra Carbon, SysOrk, Tectonics and Terraplane, and has pioneered ways of applying fractal geometry, chaos theory, and genetic metaphors to musical composition and interaction. Winner of the 2015 Berlin Prize in Music and a 2014 Guggenheim Fellowship, Sharp has composed for Hilary Hahn, Ensemble Modern, RadioSinfonie Frankfurt, and JACK Quartet. His work has been featured in the Darmstadt, Donaueschingen, and Frankfurt Klangbiennale festivals; and the Venice Biennale (2003, 2007, 2012). His wide range of collaborators have included Qawwali singer Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan; Debbie Harry; blues legends Hubert Sumlin and Pops Staples; jazz greats Jack Dejohnette and Sonny Sharrock; turntable innovator Christian Marclay; and Bachir Attar of the Master Musicians Of Jahjouka. His work is the subject of the documentary "Doing The Don't" and he has been featured on National Public Radio's All Things Considered. 

Gareth Davis studied with Antony Pay and Roger Heaton in London and then with Dutch Bass Clarinet virtuoso, Harry Sparnaay. Since his debut at London's Wigmore Hall, Gareth has gone on to play throughout Europe, North America and Asia under conductors including Riccardo Chailly, Sir Simon Rattle, Diego Masson, Gregory Rose and Roger Norington with orchestras and ensembles including the Philarmonia, Sinfonietta, ECO, Asko, Netherlands Radio Orchestra and Sinfonia 21. Gareth has been strongly involved in New Music having had pieces written for him by many composers such as, Salvatore Sciarrino, Jonathan Harvey, Toshio Hosokawa, Gavin Bryars, Peter Eotvos and Misato Mochizuki. He has worked extensively with the Hilliard Ensemble's countertenor David James, soprano Sarah Leonard, harpsichord virtuoso Jane Chapman, Heinz Holliger, Sine Nomine, Kreutzer Quartet the Rossetti Quartet and Xenakis Prize winning contra bassist, Corrado Canonnici. Gareth is currently exploring the potential of interactive visual media to expand the interpretation of existing twentieth century repertoire and open new theatrical possibilities for then performance of twenty-first century music.