Electro-acoustic composer/performer, multi-instrumentalist, improviser, and pioneer of contemporary harp performance, Zeena Parkins re-imagines both the acoustic harp and an evolution of her original electric ones, through the use of expanded playing techniques, preparations, and custom designed processing.
For Zeena Parkins, the harp is an infinite challenge and the specificity with which she can hear a new angle of inquiry or a new trajectory of sound has an unabashed creative license. In the Captiva Pieces, this is manifested within a closed system of simple rules, that finds unlimited access to exploration. Parkins’s approach is without dogma. It is not describing a system, determining one or representing a system outside of itself. It is generating a way of listening and sensing within new systems.
This concert celebrates the release of Parkins’s project for acoustic harp and electronics Captiva on Good Child Music. A duo improvisation with trombonist Jim Staley will follow the Captiva Pieces.
