Major Productions
Producing solo & collaborative shows, cultural events, and experiential happenings is a core element of my work.
Explore these productions below.
Producing solo & collaborative shows, cultural events, and experiential happenings is a core element of my work.
Explore these productions below.
upcoming Incomplete Archeologies Zidell Yards
upcoming Solo exhibition of experimental art instruments & concert series PLACE, Portland OR
upcoming Everything is Effed Up! with Lucas Marshall Smith
2024 Break to Build 2: After the Anthropocene with ProLab Dance
2024 The Burned Piano Project with the Oregon Jewish Museum and Center for Holocaust Education (OJMCHE)
2024 Ancient Futures with Patrick Brewer & Daniel Brugh
2024 When We Were Ocean with ProLab Dance
2023 BODY/LANGUAGE with Cascadia Composers
2023 Break to Build with ProLab Dance
2022 Flights of Imagination with Kathleen Supové
2021-23 Fierce, Fabulous, and Fully Coiffed! with Cascadia Composers
2021 The Phoenix Project: Art in the Time of Climate Emergency
2020 In This Together with Daniel Brugh/Cascadia Composers
2019 All Wired Up with Daniel Brugh/Cascadia Composers
2018 Caldera with Daniel Brugh/Cascadia Composers
2018 Music in the Time of Absinthe with Linda Woody
2018 (Dis)Connect with Burn After Listening
2017 Fire + Ice with Burn After Listening
2016 Crazy Jane in Technicolor with Crazy Jane Composers
2015 Skeleton Piano Dances with Agnieszka Laska Dancers
2014 Crazy Jane: Inner Nature with Crazy Jane Composers
2014 Piano Bizarro
2014 Composers at Play with Cascadia Composers
2012 Crazy Jane Collaborates! with Crazy Jane Composers
* = Graphic design by Jennifer Wright
|
The Burned Piano Project exhibition at the Oregon Jewish Museum and Center for Holocaust Education, Portland, OR Museum & shop hours Wed.-Sun. 11am-4pm | 724 NW Davis St., Portland, OR 97209 | 503.226.3600 Exhibition on view April 7 - June 30, 2024 Opening reception: Sunday, April 7, 2024 The Burned Piano Project: Creating Music Amidst the Noise of Hate began with one family’s experience of antisemitism and reminds us of the larger context of rising hate crimes today. In spring 2022, a Portland family’s home, which shares a Jewish organization’s mailing address, was destroyed by arson in the middle of the night. Composer and performance artist Jennifer Wright assembled an artistic team to create art from the remains of the family’s burned Steinway grand piano. Wright also created a fantastical new instrument from the Steinway’s working parts: The Glass Piano. Join us as Jennifer performs six concerts of the original music she has composed for this one-of-a-kind creation and learn how The Glass Piano came to life! Concert dates: 4/21, 5/5, 5/19, 5/29, 6/16 & 6/30 @ 2pm extra date added due to high demand: 6/23 @ 2pm! For more info, visit The Burned Piano Project page here. |
|
when we were Ocean * with ProLab Dance @ the Kendall Planetarium! OMSI (Oregon Museum of Science and Industry) Wednesday, February 14, 2024: 7:30 pm Thursday, February 15, 2024: 7:30 pm Saturday, February 18, 2024: 6:30 pm & 8:00 pm Following the smash success of "Break To Build" at Zidell Yards in July 2023, I co-produced an all-new show with the amazing artistic director of ProLab Dance, Laura Cannon. This multimedia extravaganza is a feast of live dance & music combined with VR elements, all enveloped in spectacular environments of immersive dome-formatted video. Original live music by yours truly, including new works for piano, voice, fixed media, found sound, and much more besides! Featuring the world premiere of The Cloud Gamelan: a combination portable percussion rig and Long Strings Instrument that I created from a terrific assortment of rusty industrial debris and high-tension steel cables! |
BODY / LANGUAGE festival of music & multicultural dance
Sunday, October 1, 2023
Toast Studios, 4232 NE Killingsworth St, Portland, OR 97218
I was awarded an Arts Build Communities grant from the Oregon Arts Commission to curate a free, family-friendly festival in NE PDX celebrating multicultural art, music and dance! Presented in association with Cascadia Composers.
A host of special live performances made this an afternoon to remember! The audience enjoyed delicious tamales, sno-cones and cotton candy from the La Oaxaquena pop-up and browsed art, goods, and jewelry made by Native artisans from NAYA's Native Made Marketplace. There was a "Paint Your Own Art Feather" table for the artistically inspired!
Performance lineup: BAKSANA ENSEMBLE presented live music & dance inspired by Egyptian Raqs Sharqi, Turkish Oryental, and Balkan line-dance; GABE COLHOFF of 1876 presented a solo set of sounds of the Blackfeet and Northern Cheyenne cultures mixed with contemporary punk rock; JENNIFER WRIGHT brought an eclectic set of modern art mood music for Ukrainian hand pan drum, destroyed piano, and more, joined by vocalist Bevin Victoria; BALLET PAPALOTL brought the talents of their vibrant Mexican folkloric youth dance troupe in full costume; and jazz duo TED CLIFFORD & PAUL SAFAR presented a sweet set of classic jazz standards with signature style.
Host venue/makerspace/creative hub Toast invited guests into their "Stairwell Gallery" to see large-scale sculptures in wood and stone by James Florschutz, whimsical floating aluminum 'clouds' by Melita Westerlund, two freeform fiber artworks by Bonnie Meltzer and three vibrant paintings by Alex Hirsch (both artists were on hand to talk about their work).
|
Break to Build (2023) *
After a yearlong artistic residency at Zidell Shipyards on the South Waterfront in Portland, Oregon, I co-presented the wildly multidimensional, interactive, site-specific extravaganza Break to Build with ProLab Dance founder Laura Cannon and a team of 25 dancers, aerialists, musicians, live-coding and VR film specialists, and puppeteers. This huge undertaking enjoyed a sold-out, seven night run of live shows in July 2023 that brought this iconic Portland landmark to life with color, movement and creativity! This project gave me endless opportunities to expand my creativity as a composer, instrument creator and performer. I created the majority of the music and soundscapes for the show, including my new modern aria "Luminous, like Phosphorus", a new destroyed piano rendition of my piece "Whalefall", "Rock The Boat" for fixed media and multiple digeridoos, "Fluid" for solo piano, "Long Strings" for 5 tuned high tension steel cables, and a lot of amazing live sound art created with a host of sound-capable installations created using on-site industrial debris: massive chains, plasma-cut steel ship parts, and found objects of all sizes and descriptions from buckets of nuts and bolts to massive gantry cranes! Produced with major support from Zidell Shipyards. |
Performing "Long Strings" (in blue tie-dye jumpsuit, back to audience) in Break to Build with members of the ProLab Dance cast.
Mega-projections by Nanda D'Agostino.
|
FLIGHTS OF IMAGINATION (2022) * August 2022, Michelle's Pianos, Portland, OR New music legend Kathleen Supové (of "The Exploding Piano" fame) & piano adventurer Jennifer Wright (of "The Skeleton Piano" fame) collaborate in concert for the first time: you KNOW that keys are GOING TO FLY! Special guest SNUBB brought his incredible krump artistry, fusing street dance with modern classical music on my piece for amplified harpsichord and two eBows entitled You Cannot Liberate Me: Only I Can Do That For Myself. Also featuring All Imaginable Actions Must Be Taken for my "Chimaera" (a deconstructed instrument/sound apparatus) and the world premiere of This is My Matrix Sweater for piano duo...and a surprise pile of squeaky toys so the entire audience could squeak along! Other highlights included works by Kathleen Supové, Will Healy, Randall Woolf, and Mari Kimura. |
The Phoenix Project: Art in the Time of Climate Emergency (2021) *
For more info, see the Skeleton Piano page in the Performances menu.
For more info, see the Skeleton Piano page in the Performances menu.
|
Fierce, Fabulous, and Fully Coiffed! (2021-23) * A dragtastic new music extravaganza celebrating LGBTQ+ fabulousness, diversity and glory! Dec. 2021: the Clinton Street Theater, Portland OR May 2023: First Christian Church, Eugene, OR June 2023: New Music Gathering festival, Lincoln Hall, Portland OR Drag queens! Opera! Disco balls! Jazz! Confetti! Tragedy! Comedy! Double entendres! More wigs and sequins than you'd ever thought could be gathered into one place! Featuring the unforgettable world premieres of Rant & (Do Ya Like My) Unicorn Trapper Keeper (Extra-Extended Dance Remix), with Jennifer appearing as drag personality Tartie FaLouze as an homage to all the Queer artists who have made countless contributions to world culture through the ages! Generously supported by the Oregon Arts Commission & Cascadia Composers |
Having a solid rant about constructs of femininity as drag personality Tartie FaLouze
|
|
|
IN THIS TOGETHER *
October 25th, 2020 @ Keller Fountain Park, Portland OR This socially-distanced concert honors renewal and connection in a time of uncertainty and turbulence. "IN THIS TOGETHER" celebrates the 50th birthday of the world-renowned Keller Fountain, a groundbreaking urban landmark that opened in a time of revolution and sees its half-century pass in another. Narratives of movement and music speak to the power of environment in the self-definition of a city and its people. The program features The Whispered Counsel of Past Lives for toy piano and music boxes (featuring the aerial movement artistry of Jordie Campbell), Never Have I Wished So Hard For Rain: Elegy for Eagle Creek/Resigning Prayers (featuring poetry and dance by Akela Jaffi), Wild and Varied Empires Have Inhabited This Place for solo hand pan drum, and One Hot Mess for piano, fixed media, and infantile percussion (featuring the world premiere of the pandemic-inspired, audience-interactive, therapeutic, totally-trash instruments: the "SHAKE IT OUTs"). This project was generously supported by The Halprin Landscape Conservancy & Cascadia Composers. |
"The Whispered Counsel of Past Lives" for toy piano and music boxes with Jordie Campbell, aerial artist
|
"Never Have I Wished So Hard For Rain" with Akela Jaffi, poetry and dance
|
"Wild and Varied Empires Have inhabited This Place" for handpan drum
Amazing fan art live-painted oil painting by Simran Narmis!
|
Shaking out accumulated aggro over the pandemic and politics in "One Hot Mess"
|
Full program
|
ReFuse: The Phoenix Project *
A matter of life and death: the art of climate emergency World premiere: live-streamed online as part of the international New Music Gathering festival June 17, 2020, 1:00 pm PST This hour-long live-streamed video presentation combines five solo Skeleton Piano videos with a brand-new short documentary film "ReFuse: Art in the Time of Climate Emergency." The documentary follows my piano students for several months in 2019-2020 as they learned about catastrophic global warming and developed their own forms of climate artistry in preparation for a huge live show at the New Music Gathering - only to be hobbled by the COVID-19 pandemic. The documentary shows how students of all ages and levels designed and built their own large-scale, playable art sculpture made entirely out of trash and recycling. These wildly imaginative "Transmogrified Instruments" express the students' individual responses to climate change and represent their visions for a post-carbon future. |
|
ALL WIRED UP *
A micro-festival of new electronic music April 20, 2019 @ The Old Church, Portland, OR Co-produced with Daniel Brugh, this indoor/outdoor multi-hour micro-festival offered three brand-new JW experiences! 1: The world premiere of Welcome to the Future, Citizen #2406 for futuristic/dystopian fixed media, projections, and an incredible, eye-popping duet featuring the incomparable Conrad "Icon" Kaczor dancing with..........a live-operated AERIAL DRONE! Operated by me!! I can guarantee that you've never experienced anything quite like this before! 2: the USA premiere of my video collaboration with synth wizard Daniel Brugh Listen to the Earth. Inspired by the sounds of insects, animals, humans, and machines, this piece is a trippy adventure through the natural & unnatural sonic environment, and I created a visual feast to match! 3: Outside the venue entrance, the audience played with my "Surface" sound installation, a glowing, watery, interactive sound exhibit. A delicate waterscape of repeated, reflective, round forms, "Surface" is a literal “sound bath” that invites thoughtful play and listening exploration. |
|
The 'Borg (Conrad Kaczor) and his new friend Lil' Bug the aerial drone (operated by Jennifer Wright) turn a dystopian future into one heck of a fun place in "Welcome to the Future, Citizen #2406"
|
THE REVIEWS ARE IN!
“A black leathered cyborg with a boxer’s physique muraled in tattoos stop-motion-steps from somewhere in the audience toward the stage. Jennifer Wright’s recorded funk bass intro accompanies him [dancer Conrad Kaczor] in her dystopian Welcome to the Future, Citizen #2406...
Wright’s score sounds like Trent Reznor’s electronic beat driven 1990s palette — funky interior rhythms, harsh, propelling. A genre I love. From the front row, Wright, a gifted actor, manipulates a drone, imbues it with stray-kittenish longings for friendship and a home. The opening dystopian implications dissolve as the tiny stray bops for attention around the swatting cyborg. Kaczor’s face softens, mouth curves, limbs round and his rigid metered movement stretches elastic, sentient.
Along with its timeless boy-meets-drone love story, what made this scene magic was Wright’s choice to work with a popper (street dancer) and new technology. Kaczor’s dancing, acting, costuming combined with Wright’s music and ability to bring a vulnerable little drone to life elicited long, loud appreciative AWWWW’s and applause.”
- Maria Choban, Oregon Arts Watch 2019
|
Caldera * Sept. 15, 2018 @ Mt. Tabor Park amphitheater, Portland, OR Co-produced with Daniel Brugh, this outdoor extravaganza set in the caldera of a dormant volcano kicked off Cascadia Composer's 10th Anniversary season! The show featured world premieres of two of my new works - one of them almost surely a once-in-a-lifetime event: Side Hustle for fixed media, two toy pianos, and dance No Disrespect for piano, fixed media, two dancers, and....... several cans of really bright spray paint! Showcasing the incredible choreography and singular moves of the amazing portland movement artists and frequent partners-in-art Conrad Kaczor and Kiel Moton. |
Side Hustle
|
|
Music in the Time of Absinthe: The Bohemian Mind of the Young Debussy *
March 4, 2018 @ The Community Music Center, Portland, OR Part of the March Music Moderne festival, this event (co-produced with composer Linda Woody) celebrated the 100-year anniversary of the death of Claude Debussy. World premieres of two of my compositions (Debussy-inspired, yet not-so-classic!) joined a fabulously eclectic program. In Relatively Minor Infractions, dual amplified harpsichords meet one ferocious baritone saxophone to make some sassy ruckus - with the talented Dr. Evan C. Paul joining me on second harpsichord and the fearless Patrick McCulley on bari (and a bit of sassy shouting)! The Venerable Showers of Beauty Gamelan Orchestra under the direction of Mindy Johnston joined me to premiere Flora, Fauna, Humans, Gods, wherein East meets West in a unique way: via the world's first-ever toy piano that has been physically altered to play in the Indonesian "slendro" tuning! This project was generously supported by a grant from The Regional Arts and Culture Council (RACC). Videos available on my Composition page. |
|
|
Burn After Listening: (DIS)CONNECT *
3.3,2018 @ Disjecta Art Space, Portland, OR This concert/art happening (co-produced with Lisa Marsh and Stacey Philipps) premiered two feisty new works on a program endeavoring to untangle our expressions and identities in challenging times: seeking common ground, understanding and connection in a pixellated and fragmented world. Featuring the world premiere of Incognita - a work for Skeleton Piano, poetry, video, live electronics and body armor that explores the divisions between our physical and digital selves (best viewed with a QR code scanner phone app) and the world premiere of my controversial piece One Hot Mess for string quartet, percussion and fixed media - a shocking electro-acoustic remix that grapples with my reactions to the things that come out of the mouth of The Donald. Featuring the amazing Delgani String Quartet and the impeccable Taylor Long on absurdist percussion! |
The Delgani String Quartet performs "One Hot Mess" in safety goggles for a very special reason. Taylor Long joins on infantile percussion instruments.
|
Burn After Listening: Fire + Ice * April 28 & 29, 2017 @ PLACE Studio, Portland, OR BAL's debut concert/art happening (co-produced with Lisa Marsh & Stacey Philipps) featured the world premiere of my piece Whalefall for prepared piano, fixed media and aerial dance, with aerial choreography created & performed by Jordie Campbell, and the world premiere of Firebrand for piano 4-hands! This project was generously supported by PLACE & Stewart Brecher Architects. |
Named
*** One of The Top 5 Classical Concerts at Non-Traditional Venues of 2017 ***
by The Willamette Week!
*** One of The Top 5 Classical Concerts at Non-Traditional Venues of 2017 ***
by The Willamette Week!
Crazy Jane in Technicolor *
11.4.2016 @ Lincoln Hall, Portland State University, Portland, OR
A co-produced production with the Crazy Janes, a group of female Pacific NW composers. Featuring You Cannot Liberate Me: Only I Can Do That For Myself for amplified harpsichord and two Ebows (2016) performed with live-cam projected cymatics display.
11.4.2016 @ Lincoln Hall, Portland State University, Portland, OR
A co-produced production with the Crazy Janes, a group of female Pacific NW composers. Featuring You Cannot Liberate Me: Only I Can Do That For Myself for amplified harpsichord and two Ebows (2016) performed with live-cam projected cymatics display.
|
|
“That was the best performance I have ever heard in my life!”
– Alida Halsey, 9 year old audience member
Piano Bizarro *
Michelle's Piano Company, 2014 (part of the March Music Moderne IV Festival)
Riffing on the concept of Planet Bizarro from the Superman comics - a place where everything is exactly like on earth, but in opposite form - Piano Bizarro presented a fully alternative parade of keyboard instruments and performance techniques: the weird, wacky, brand new, and seldom seen. Featuring my piece Looper for piano 8 hands & the world premiere of the Skeleton Piano!
Michelle's Piano Company, 2014 (part of the March Music Moderne IV Festival)
Riffing on the concept of Planet Bizarro from the Superman comics - a place where everything is exactly like on earth, but in opposite form - Piano Bizarro presented a fully alternative parade of keyboard instruments and performance techniques: the weird, wacky, brand new, and seldom seen. Featuring my piece Looper for piano 8 hands & the world premiere of the Skeleton Piano!
"That was the best concert I’ve ever been to. The variety, the quality – outstanding.”
- Susan Alexjander, composer/sound designer
“[Piano] Bizarro kicked major butt!” - Bob Priest, creator & producer of March Music Moderne Festival (on Piano Bizarro)
"You have an amazing brain!" - Liz Nedela, composer (on Piano Bizarro)
- Susan Alexjander, composer/sound designer
“[Piano] Bizarro kicked major butt!” - Bob Priest, creator & producer of March Music Moderne Festival (on Piano Bizarro)
"You have an amazing brain!" - Liz Nedela, composer (on Piano Bizarro)
|
The very first Skeleton Piano performance ever!
Movements 1 & 2 of "Obscure Terrain"
|
The comic-book-format Piano Bizarro Program booklet:
A variety of other concerts I have produced/co-produced
(all graphics by Jennifer Wright)
|
|
|
|
Give me a shout!
jenniferawright (at) yahoo.com | 503-475-2406 | 3656 SE Morrison Street, Portland, OR 97214
Check out skeletonpiano.com to see what I've been up to with my Skeleton Piano!
jenniferawright (at) yahoo.com | 503-475-2406 | 3656 SE Morrison Street, Portland, OR 97214
Check out skeletonpiano.com to see what I've been up to with my Skeleton Piano!