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Biography

Michael Gordon’s music merges subtle rhythmic invention with incredible power embodying, in the words of  The New Yorker‘s Alex Ross, “the fury of punk rock, the nervous brilliance of free jazz and the intransigence of classical modernism.”

Over the past 30 years, Gordon has produced a strikingly diverse body of work, ranging from large-scale pieces for high-energy ensembles to major orchestral commissions to works conceived specifically for the recording studio…

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gfedcba “interlude 1”

Michael Gordon’s gfedcba “interlude 1” performed by Kronos Quartet; July 29, 2023 at Mass MoCA in North Adams, Mass.

A modular suite of short movements and interludes, gfedcba takes delight in irrational rhythms and dense woven tunes. gfedcba travels through a kaleidoscopic world of humor, wit, and pulse.

The complete suite will be given its world premiere by Kronos Quartet on March 2, 2024 at Cal Performances in Berkeley, California

This is the fifth work Gordon has written for Kronos Quartet; Clouded Yellow, Potassium, The Sad Park, and Exalted can all be heard on the 2018 Cantaloupe Music release, Clouded Yellow:

[AUDIO] Michael Gordon Clouded Yellow | Kronos Quartet

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Decasia 20th Anniversary

20 years ago, just a few months after the world-changing events of 9/11, Michael Gordon traveled to Switzerland to see the Basel Sinfonietta and conductor Kasper de Roo premiere his concert-length work for orchestra, Decasia, which accompanied a film by Bill Morrison — now itself a cult classic that is studied in film schools around the world.

View the score, watch film excerpt, and listen to complete work, click here

“The music’s purely visceral power [is] hard to resist.” — The New York Times

“…its incessant pulses – by turns buoyant and threatening – support a sound world in which the amplified instruments, carefully tuned microtones apart, create layers of fiercely dissonant harmony, punctuated by beats and difference tones…

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Manchester Collective’s video premiere: Weather

Michael Gordon’s 1997 string orchestra work, Weather, is brought to life in a musical tour-de-force — a brand new collaboration between the UK’s Manchester Collective, award-winning BBC documentary sound artist Chris Watson and Spanish filmmaker Carlos Casas.

On Thursday October 13 the Manchester Collective premieres a video of their collaboration. Combining live performance, field recordings and film, the collaborators transport the audience from an East Asian rainforest to the world’s oldest desert; from an Icelandic glacier to the sunken medieval town of Dunwich off the English coast…

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Travel Guide to Nicaragua is premiered by The Crossing and cellist Maya Beiser

[IMAGE] Travel Guide to Nicaragua

On November 16 in Philadelphia at Congregation Rudolph Shalom and November 17 at Carnegie’s Zankel Hall, The Crossing and cellist Maya Beiser (Donald Nally, conductor) premiere Michael Gordon’s new work Travel Guide to Nicaragua. Commissioned by Carnegie Hall and the Annenberg Center in Philadelphia, Travel Guide to Nicaragua is written for The Crossing and cellist Maya Beiser, with projections by Laurie Olinder and lighting by Eric Southern…

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