as yet untitled

FourOneOne, in collaboration with The Kitchen and Judson Memorial Church, presents British percussionist Bex Burch’s as yet untitled. This composition-in-collaboration will feature Legendary Staten Island trombonist and Arthur Russell collaborator Peter Zummo; Chicago connections drummer Mikel Patrick Avery and cellist Lia Kohl; and New York-based bassist Carmen Quill and saxophonist Gabriel Birnbaum.

The performance weaves together threads from the major movements of Burch’s life, from her formative study of the Dagaare gyil (a type of xylophone central to the music of the Dagaare people of northwest Ghana and southern Burkina Faso) to communing with musicians and audiences in London, Chicago, New York and Berlin, where she now lives and works.

A deeply embodied performer with a palpable, physical presence on her homemade xylophone, drums, bells, shakers, voice and various other instruments, Burch balances a disarming openness with focused intention. In as yet untitled, the melodic, rhythmic and energetic materials of the score provide the framework and trust for the improvisational, emotional structures that emerge from each group’s unique combination of members, all of whom sing in addition to playing their instruments.

Originally from Yorkshire, Burch’s early passions included groove-based music: rock, punk and later minimalism, especially Steve Reich’s Music for 18 Musicians. “This in turn led me to the Ghanaian roots of his rhythmic patterns,” she has said, and in 2008 she moved to Ghana and commenced three years of study with the acclaimed player, teacher, and instrument maker Thomas Sekgura. “In [his] playing and the Dagaare tradition, I found one music I could never understand fully, but one I could surrender to and be part of.”

Since then, Burch has synthesized the lessons learned during her apprenticeship, first through the irrepressible grooves and post-punk reframings of Dagaare music in her band, Vula Viel, and gradually finding a voice less specifically tied to the tradition, as heard on her much lauded first solo album, There Is Only Love and Fear (International Anthem, 2023). Burch has often referred to her music as “messy minimalism,” an intuitive, rhythm-forward approach that could be read as a step towards restoring the communal, improvisational spirit that the first generation of American minimalist composers frequently disregarded from their African and Asian sources of inspiration. Meanwhile her collaborative working methods and statements like “The music is already there, and I have to let go and allow myself to be in it,” challenge the assumptions of authorship embedded in Western composition.

Lyrical multi-instrumentalist and composer Tomin will open the evening with a solo set for flute and sampler.