Peni Candra Rini with Shahzad Ismaily & Andy McGraw

Name: Peni Candra Rini with Shahzad Ismaily & Andy McGraw
Start: 2026-04-26T19:30:00-04:00
End: 2026-04-26T22:00:00-04:00
Location: The Perch Music & Arts Community

Schedule

Sun Apr 26 2026 at 07:30 pm to 10:00 pm

UTC-04:00

Location

The Perch Music & Arts Community | Philadelphia, PA

Peni Candra Rini with Shahzad Ismaily & Andy McGraw:
Peni Candra Rini (b. 1983) is a renowned Javanese singer, educator, and composer fusing Javanese sufi poetry with contemporary composition for Indonesian and Western instruments. The Kronos Quartet has described her as “one of the world’s greatest singers.” She is a master of several traditional forms (primarily gamelan) and is regarded as one of Indonesia’s most daring young composers, one of only a handful of female composers in the country. She has performed extensively internationally, including several world tours as the featured singer for Robert Wilson’s I La Galigo. She is a recipient of grants from the Asian Cultural Council, is a two-time grantee of the US State Department’s One Beat and Fulbright programs, and in 2022 was named an Aga Khan Foundation laureate of the arts.
In 2023 she became the first woman to be commissioned to compose a work for the Mangkunegaran court of Central Java and in 2024 was bestowed the court name Raden Nganten Tumenggung, the highest honor offered by the Raja. In 2024 she completed a suite for string quartet commissioned by the Kronos Quartet and Carnegie Hall. Entitled Segara Gunung, the hour long work concerns the impacts of climate change on the Indonesian archipelago is currently being performed by Kronos on major stages throughout the US and Europe. She has published albums and Eps on the New Amsterdam and Out of Your Head labels, in collaboration with Shahzad Ismaily, Andy McGraw, and members of Deerhoof, featuring her improvisations, and experimental compositions for Javanese and Western ensembles.
In October 2026 Kronos will release an album of her string quartets on the Phenotypic label, some of which they have performed on NPR’s Tiny Desk series. She has received composition commissions from Carnegie Hall, the Asia Society, the Gaudeamus Foundation, and National Geographic, among other organizations. Most recently, her trio with Ismaily and McGraw has performed at the Edinburgh International Festival, Roulette, Big Ears, the Adelaide Festival, the Gaudeamus Festival, the Monheim Triennale, as well as numerous venues in the US and Europe.
Shahzad Ismaily:
Shahzad Ismaily is a Brooklyn-based musician, composer, engineer and founder of Figure 8 Recording. Born to Pakistani immigrant parents, he grew up in a wholly bicultural household. Exploring improvisation, tonal shifts and rhythmic movement, the Grammy nominated artist (Love In Exile, Best Alternative Jazz Album) often referred to as the “Musician’s favorite Musician” has worked with a number of avant-garde musicians and composers including Laurie Anderson, Anthony Coleman, Milford Graves, Eyvind Kang, Butch Morris and Marc Ribot. Over the last thirty years he has played electric bass, drums, percussion, guitar, synthesizers and all manner of sound-makers procured in life’s travels. Ismaily has done work for dance and theater pieces, such as the film Frozen River (Oscar-nominated and Sundance award-winning) and Inkboat (a butoh crew from California/Switzerland). He has recorded and performed with a diverse crew of artmakers: Yoko Ono “Plastic Ono Band”, Laurie Anderson, Lou Reed, Bob Dylan, Laura Veirs, Beth Orton, Bonnie “Prince” Billy, Marianne Faithfull, Feist, Bryce Dessner, Dustin O’Halloran, Elysian Fields, Shelley Hirsch, Nels Cline, Bill Frisell, Guillermo E. Brown, Graham Haynes, Keiji Haino, Colin Stetson, Ben Frost, Damien Rice, Ceramic Dog, Laleh Khorramian, Jolie Holland, JFDR, Secret Chiefs 3, Sam Amidon, Sam Smith, Arooj Aftab, Vijay Iyer and more.
Andy McGraw:
Andy McGraw is Professor and Chair of Music at the University of Richmond in Virginia. He is the author of Radical Traditions: Reimagining Culture in Balinese Experimental Music (Oxford 2013) and Music as Ethics (Oxford 2023). He has co-edited two volumes on Indonesian music: Performing Indonesia, with Sumarsam (Smithsonian 2014) and Sounding Out the State of Indonesian Music, with Chris Miller (Cornell 2022). He has published numerous articles on music and ethics as well as analytical pieces on rhythm in Balinese, Javanese, and Cuban musics. In Richmond he facilitates community gamelan and stringband ensembles and runs a music program in the Virginia prison system. His research, teaching, and creative work has been supported by multiple Fulbright grants, the Cornell University Society for the Humanities, the National Endowment for the Humanities, Arts International, the Smithsonian, and the Indonesian Department of Culture, among other organizations. Since 1996 he has spent years studying, teaching, and performing in Indonesia, collaborating with leading composers and performers in Bali and Java. His discography includes recordings on Sargasso, Porter, Tzadik, Out of Your Head, and New Amsterdam record labels.
This performance will be accompanied with a screening of Setan Jawa (2017 Garin Nugroho)
accessibility: street level entrance to venue but two steps to restroom.