Tyondai Braxton

Tyondai Braxton

Tyondai Braxton performing at the Brooklyn Academy of Music in May 2012
Background information
Birth name Tyondai Adaien Braxton
Born (1978-10-26) October 26, 1978
New York City, New York, United States
Genres New music, experimental rock
Occupation(s) Musician
Years active 1998–present
Labels Warp, Nonesuch
Associated acts Battles
Website www.tyondai.net
Tyondai Braxton & the Wordless Music Orchestra perform Central Market at Alice Tully Hall 2011
Tyondai Braxton with Battles, Moers Festival 2008

Tyondai Adaien Braxton (born October 26, 1978) is an American composer and musician. He has been writing and performing music under his own name and collaboratively under various group titles and collectives since the mid-1990s, including in the art rock group Battles from its formation to 2010. Raised in Connecticut and Northern California, Braxton is the son of avant-garde multi-instrumentalist, composer, and improviser Anthony Braxton. He studied composition at the Hartt School of the University of Hartford in West Hartford, Connecticut with Robert Carl, Ingram Marshall, and Ken Steen.

Career overview

In late 2002, Braxton co-founded Battles, in which, until 2010, he performed as guitarist, keyboardist and singer. The group received worldwide acclaim for their debut album Mirrored (2007), which, among other honors and awards, was hailed by Time and Pitchfork Media as one of the ten best records of the year. The 16-month tour for the record brought the band to such venues as The Cartier Foundation Museum in Paris, The Fuji Rock Festival in Northern Japan, and the Sydney Opera House in Australia for Brian Enoʼs Luminous Festival.

Braxton's Central Market was released worldwide by Warp Records in September 2009. The album, Braxton's second full length as a solo artist, features a large-scale orchestral score with performances by The Wordless Music Orchestra. The album's name is both a nod at Stravinsky's Petrushka (the fairytale-like bazaar that opens that ballet), as well as the worldwide market crash of 2008.

Central Market was premiered by Braxton and The Wordless Music Orchestra in the U.S at Lincoln Center, followed by performances at the Library of Congress and The Walker Arts Museum. It premiered in the U.K at Steve Reich's Reverberation Festival, Barbican Centre, in 2011 with the BBC Symphony Orchestra performing and was adapted for ballet by Baryshnikov Art Center resident choreographer John Heginbotham.

In 2011, Braxton expanded his focus on an array of other commissions and performances, including a return to Alice Tully Hall to premiere of TREMS, a new 2 movement work for Bang on a Can All Stars, the Barbican premiere of Uffe’s Woodshop for string quartet performed by the Kronos Quartet, and a duo with seminal composer Philip Glass for the New York edition of the All Tomorrow’s Parties festival in 2012. Central Market was then performed by the London Sinfonietta and Wordless Music Group at Queen Elizabeth Hall at the Southbank Centre in London.

In 2013, Alarm Will Sound premiered Braxton’s piece for chamber orchestra and electronics, Fly by Wire, commissioned by and performed at Carnegie Hall. Central Market was performed by the Los Angeles Philharmonic at Disney Hall and the world premiere of HIVE the multimedia composition for 2 modular synthesizers players and 3 percussionists on 5 large wooden pods, premiered at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in NYC and commissioned by Works & Process at The Guggenheim. HIVE was then premiered in Europe in Kraków, Poland at the Sacrum Profanum festival.

In early 2014, Braxton collaborated with the electronic music pioneers Mouse on Mars, performing a new version of In C by the American composer Terry Riley as a part of the Stargaze festival in Berlin, Germany at the Volksbühne. HIVE premiered in Australia at MONA FOMA in Hobart, Tasmania and at The Sydney Opera House in Sydney Australia, as apart of Sydney Festival.

In the summer of 2014, Drum Corps International's Bluecoats Drum and Bugle Corps included Braxton's compositions Uffe's Woodshop and Platinum Rows in their second place musical program, TILT.

In 2015, Braxton released HIVE1, his first solo album in six years and his first on Nonesuch Records. Written and recorded throughout 2013 and 2014, the recording comprises eight pieces that were originally conceived for a performance work called HIVE that debuted at New York’s Guggenheim Museum in 2013.

Recorded work

Solo

With Battles

Main article: Battles (band)

Remixes

Commissions

Kronos Quartet

Premiered in the US at the The MusicNOW Festival on March 11, 2009 in Cincinnati, Ohio and in the UK at The Barbican Centre on January 24, 2012 as part of "Awakenings: A Kronos Quartet Residency."

Bang on a Can

Written for the Bang on a Can All Stars. First half of TREMS had its World Premiere at The Barbican Centre in London on March 20, 2012 and its US Premiere at Lincoln Center in New York on April 28, 2012 as part of "Bang on a Can: 25 Years" alongside new pieces by Mira Calix, Nick Zammuto, Christian Marclay and others. The full work was premiered in New York at Merkin Concert Hall as a part of the Ecstatic Music Festival, commissioned by Chamber Music America

Alarm Will Sound

HIVE

Premiered in the US in the rotunda of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum on March 21, 2013, commissioned by Works & Process at the Guggenheim.

Notable live performances

HIVE

Solo shows

Orchestral shows

Collaborations

References

  1. ↑ "Death Slug 2000 | Tyondai Braxton and Jonathan Matis". Braxtonmatis.bandcamp.com. Retrieved 2015-06-11.
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