Kelly Moran, Brìghde Chaimbeul, Cleek Schrey

False Harmonics #23: Kelly Moran, Brìghde Chaimbeul, Cleek Schrey

For the 23rd iteration, False Harmonics welcomes Scottish piper Brìghde Chaimbeul to the Pioneer Works North Hall, along with special performances by NYC-based pianist Kelly Moran and fiddle player Cleek Schrey.

Over the past decade, New York-based composer and producer Kelly Moran has challenged the piano's traditional, classically-imposed school of thought with a more contemporary, experimental approach. An accomplished and highly sought-after composer, Moran has collaborated with artists the likes of Oneohtrix Point Never as part of his touring ensemble for 2018 album Age Of, as well as singer and composer FKA Twigs' live ensemble. Moran has also composed for classical musician Margaret Leng Tan and worked with other visionary contemporaries like Kelsey Lu, Yves Tumor, The Avalanches, Helado Negro, Bibio, and more. As a solo artist, Moran's critically acclaimed albums, Bloodroot and Ultraviolet, have explored a variety of extended piano techniques like John Cage-inspired prepared piano and exercises in improvisation. Her unique strand of experimental piano compositions, which conjure hypnotizing textures and dramatic compositional arcs, have been included on year-end lists across classical, avant-garde, and metal genres. Moran’s most recent album, Moves in the Field, was praised by the New York Times for being “a softhearted but steel-skinned set of 10 piano pieces that are as rapturous as a waterfall or as delicate as vapor. Her first album in six years, it is the redemptive conclusion in an extended span of personal tragedy and professional doubt, all ingrained in its sweeping songs.”

Brìghde Chaimbeul is a leading purveyor of celtic experimentalism and a master of the

Scottish smallpipes—the mellower and more emotive cousin to the famous Highland bagpipes—and she’s taken them to the global stage. A native Gaelic speaker from the Isle of Skye, Brìghde roots her music in her language and culture. She rose to prominence as a prodigy of traditional music, but has since begun a journey to take the smallpipes into uncharted territory. She has devised a completely unique way of arranging for pipe music that emphasises the rich textural drones of the instrument; the constancy of sound that creates a trance-like atmosphere, played with enticing virtuosic liquidity. She draws inspiration from the world of interconnected piping traditions, and her most recent album takes influence from ambient, avant garde and electronic music. One can talk about Brìghde’s awards (BBC Young Folk Award; BBC Horizons Award; SAY Award nominee) and her wide array of collaborators (Caroline Polachek; Colin Stetson; Gruff Rhys; Aidan O'Rourke...) but after it all, her music speaks for itself.

Haunting, entrancing, breathtaking, beautiful – this open-eared, understatedly virtuosic performer is transforming and creating new definitions for Scottish folk in the 21st century.

Described by the Irish Times as “a musician at one with his instrument and his music,” Cleek Schrey is a fiddler and improviser from Bath County, Virginia. Active in experimental and traditional music communities, he has collaborated with a diverse array of artists including the electronic music pioneer David Behrman, Fluxus composer Yasunao Tone, and viola da gamba virtuoso Liam Byrne. Particularly interested in the alternate tunings of repertoire from the American South, Cleek has brought his mixture of old fiddle music and austere experimentalism to places like Big Ears (TN), the Kilkenny Arts Festival (IE), Issue Project Room (NYC), and London’s Cafe Oto. The journal Sound Post has noted that Schrey “possesses a rare combination of traits: deep respect for traditional music and the people who make it, and an unbounded curiosity about new directions for sound."

Host or Publisher Pioneer Works