Elegies at the Border
Elegies at the Border was constructed of work fragments from across the past decade. As with much of my work I am trying to acknowledge, to memorialize, to construct a temporal, sonic monument for some loss that is at once both specific and transcendent of its particularities. But in this work the catastrophes monumentalized are too numerous to name; they are total. The incidence of harm and hurt and ruin in our culture is not isolated but interlocked and mutually accelerating. Tragedy is everywhere, the cruelty abject, the outrage utter, the loss complete. The phrase “at the border” in the title refers to a specific border, and all borders, and the borderline between what in our culture is salvageable, redeemable, and all that is not.
- 21 Dec 2018
Keir Neuringer
Keir Neuringer is a saxophonist, composer, and writer whose work is underpinned by interdisciplinary approaches and socio-political contextualizations. He is best known for a personal and intensely physical saxophone technique, revealed through long form solo improvisations, and is a founding member of the critically-acclaimed group Irreversible Entanglements. He co-leads the improvisation trio Dromedaries, has a decades-spanning duo with bassist Rafal Mazur, and collaborations with turntablist Matt Wright and pianist Simone Weissenfels, among others. He has traveled extensively to present his work, appeared on numerous festival stages, and given workshops throughout Europe and North America. In addition to the saxophone, he performs on electric and electronic keyboard instruments, narrates text (most notably with Dutch new music group Ensemble Klang), and composes largely outside of conventional new music scenes. He trained as a composer and saxophonist in the US, spent two years on a Fulbright research grant in Krakow, and then moved to The Hague, where he lived for eight years, curating performative audiovisual art and earning a masters degree from the experimental ArtScience Institute. He lives in upstate New York.
“…with Neuringer’s music…mortal purpose is a given.”
(Bill Meyer, Wire Magazine)
Keir Neuringer, by Silviu Filip