Andrea Parkins is an American

composer A composer is a person who writes music. The term is especially used to indicate composers of Western classical music, or those who are composers by occupation. Many composers are, or were, also skilled performers of music. Etymology and def ...

sound artist Sound art is an artistic activity in which sound is utilized as a primary time-based medium or material. Like many genres of contemporary art, sound art may be interdisciplinary in nature, or be used in hybrid forms. According to Brandon LaBelle, ...

performer The performing arts are The arts, arts such as music, dance, and drama which are performed for an audience. They are different from the visual arts, which involve the use of paint, canvas or various materials to create physical or static art ob ...

and

improvisational Improvisation, often shortened to improv, is the activity of making or doing something not planned beforehand, using whatever can be found. The origin of the word itself is in the Latin "improvisus", which literally means un-foreseen. Improvis ...

musician A musician is someone who Composer, composes, Conducting, conducts, or Performing arts#Performers, performs music. According to the United States Employment Service, "musician" is a general Terminology, term used to designate a person who fol ...

based in

New York New York most commonly refers to: * New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States * New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York New York may also refer to: Places United Kingdom * ...

. She is known for her inventive explorations on the electric accordion, generative sound processing, and arrangements of objects and sound. Parkins received a BFA from

Tufts University Tufts University is a private research university in Medford and Somerville, Massachusetts, United States, with additional facilities in Boston and Grafton, as well as Talloires, France. Tufts also has several Doctor of Physical Therapy p ...

and MFA from

Mason Gross School of the Arts Mason Gross School of the Arts ("Mason Gross" or "MGSA") is the arts conservatory at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, New Jersey. Mason Gross offers undergraduate and graduate degrees in art, design, dance, filmmaking, music, and theater. Ma ...

Rutgers University Rutgers University ( ), officially Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, is a Public university, public land-grant research university consisting of three campuses in New Jersey. Chartered in 1766, Rutgers was originally called Queen's C ...

. Parkins's work is influenced by the compositional strategies of

John Cage John Milton Cage Jr. (September 5, 1912 – August 12, 1992) was an American composer and music theorist. A pioneer of indeterminacy in music, electroacoustic music, and Extended technique, non-standard use of musical instruments, Cage was one ...

and

Fluxus Fluxus was an international, interdisciplinary community of artists, composers, designers, and poets during the 1960s and 1970s who engaged in experimental performance art, art performances which emphasized the artistic process over the finishe ...

and pays homage to

musique concrète Musique concrète (; ): " problem for any translator of an academic work in French is that the language is relatively abstract and theoretical compared to English; one might even say that the mode of thinking itself tends to be more schematic ...

and 1970s analog synth. Parkins often incorporates electronically processed

accordion Accordions (from 19th-century German language, German ', from '—"musical chord, concord of sounds") are a family of box-shaped musical instruments of the bellows-driven free reed aerophone type (producing sound as air flows past a Reed (mou ...

, customized sound processing, live tape manipulation, analog effects boxes,

laptop A laptop computer or notebook computer, also known as a laptop or notebook, is a small, portable personal computer (PC). Laptops typically have a Clamshell design, clamshell form factor (design), form factor with a flat-panel computer scree ...

electronics,

acoustic piano A piano is a keyboard instrument that produces sound when its keys are depressed, activating an action mechanism where hammers strike strings. Modern pianos have a row of 88 black and white keys, tuned to a chromatic scale in equal tempe ...

, sampling, and amplified objects. Her method and sound were characterized by LA Weekly as: “The big, varied, confidently conceived abstractions Parkins yanks from her squeezebox, laptop, effects devices and maybe piano — cloudy and cranky one minute, surgically sharp the next.” With an unconventional approach to instruments, Parkins “fragments the instrument's traditional vocabulary and expands its capabilities with electronics and extended techniques.” Recently Andrea Parkins has been developing a series of interactive sound and image works inspired by the structures of

Rube Goldberg Reuben Garrett Lucius Goldberg (July 4, 1883 – December 7, 1970), better known as Rube Goldberg (), was an American cartoonist, sculptor, author, engineer, and inventor. Goldberg is best known for his popular cartoons depicting complicated ...

's circuitous machines. Describing this organizational approach Stephen Bezan remarked: “the individual sounds manipulated by Parkins seem to interact and influence the outcome of the other, crafting a goal-oriented structure based on timbre, not harmony or rhythm. This approach transcends the inherent cacophony of the material and reveals a genuinely organic, even playful quality to her work.” Parkins has described her Rube Goldberg approach as a means for examining slippages between object and meaning. She observed: “An important conceptual thread running through these pieces is the discovery and expression of metaphors for the slippage and tension between object and meaning that occurs through the passage of time.” Describing her intentions, Parkins noted: “As both a sonic and visual artist, I try to build and layer idiosyncratic systems and structures that point to these shifts in meaning.” Andrea Parkins has toured and exhibited internationally and has been presented at the

Whitney Museum of American Art The Whitney Museum of American Art, known informally as "The Whitney", is a Modern art, modern and Contemporary art, contemporary American art museum located in the Meatpacking District, Manhattan, Meatpacking District and West Village neighbor ...

, The Kitchen, Experimental Intermedia, and Diapason Gallery for Sound and Intermedia. She has collaborated with musicians such as

Nels Cline Nels Courtney Cline (born January 4, 1956) is an American guitarist and composer. He has been a guitarist for the band Wilco since 2004. In the 1980s he played jazz, often in collaboration with his twin brother Alex, a percussionist. He has wor ...

Jim Black Jim Black is an American jazz drummer who has performed with Tim Berne and Dave Douglas. He attended Berklee College of Music. Career His band AlasNoAxis includes Hilmar Jensson on electric guitar, Chris Speed on tenor saxophone and clari ...

Ellery Eskelin Ellery Eskelin (born August 16, 1959) is an American tenor saxophonist raised in Baltimore, Maryland and residing in New York City. His parents, Rodd Keith and Bobbie Lee, were both professional musicians. Rodd Keith died in 1974 in Los Angeles, ...

, David Watson,

David Fenech David Fenech (born 19 July 1969) is a French composer, guitarist and singer. His style has been described as 'a kind of punk musique concrète'. He uses the studio as an instrument, using a large panel of recording techniques. He has played an ...

Fred Frith Jeremy Webster "Fred" Frith (born 17 February 1949) is an English multi-instrumentalist, composer, and improviser. Probably best known for his guitar work, Frith first came to attention as a founding member of the English avant-rock group Henry ...

Thomas Lehn Thomas Lehn (born 1958 in Fröndenberg) is a German piano and synthesizer player active in free improvisation and contemporary music. Lehn has recorded with Marcus Schmickler, Keith Rowe, John Butcher, Phil Minton, Phil Durrant, Radu Malf ...

Günter Müller Günter Müller (born October 20, 1954) is a German sound artist who originally performed as a percussionist and drummer, active primarily in free improvisation. He was born in Munich, West Germany, but has lived in Switzerland since 1966. Ba ...

, and

Otomo Yoshihide is a Japanese composer and multi-instrumentalist. He mainly plays guitar, turntables and electronics. He first came to international prominence in the 1990s as the leader of the experimental rock group Ground Zero, and has since worked in a ...

and choreographers Olive Bieringa and Otto Ramstad from the BodyCartography Project. Parkins has been the recipient of various grants, awards, and residencies including

Meet the Composer New Music USA is a new music organization formed by the merging of the American Music Center with Meet The Composer on November 8, 2011. The new organization retains the granting programs of the two former organizations as well as two media progr ...

New York State Council for the Arts The New York State Council on the Arts (NYSCA) serves to foster and advance the arts, culture, and creativity throughout New York State, according to its website. The goal of the council is to allow all New Yorkers to benefit from the contribution ...

Harvestworks Harvestworks is a not-for-profit arts organization located in New York City New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's ...

Media Art Center, in New York City, Frei und Hanseastadt Hamburg Kulturbehoerde, in

Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its sixteen States of Germany, constituent states have a total popu ...

, and CESTA in the

Czech Republic The Czech Republic, also known as Czechia, and historically known as Bohemia, is a landlocked country in Central Europe. The country is bordered by Austria to the south, Germany to the west, Poland to the northeast, and Slovakia to the south ...

Partial discography

* One Great Day... (1996) * Cast Iron Fact (1996) * Slippage (1999) * Downpour (2007) * Cities and Eyes: The Skein (2008) * Faulty (Broken Orbit) (2009) With Joe Morris *'' Many Rings'' (Knitting Factory, 1999) With

*'' New Monastery'' (Cryptogramophone, 2006)

References

External links

Official website

MySpace Page of the musician

Soundcloud.com
{{DEFAULTSORT:Parkins, Andrea Year of birth missing (living people) Living people 21st-century American composers 21st-century American women composers