Download CV 2015 - Asa Horvitz

Asa Horvitz (b.1988)
780 St Marks Ave, Apt 4A Brooklyn, NY, 11213
(707) 843-6785
[email protected]
Current work:
– VALES – composer/music director for Brooklyn-based contemporary music ensemble. Released website of
films/songs in memory of longtime collaborator and friend Dominic Ziegler on Shatter Your Leaves Records
on March 14th 2015, debut concert at New Amsterdam Records. See: http://www.valesvalesvales.com/
– Societas Raffaello Sanzio/Romeo Castellucci – since early 2014 collaborator/assistant to composer Scott
Gibbons on the project “Go Down, Moses” – premiered at Theatre du Vidy, Lausanne, October 2014 and
Theatre de la Ville, Paris, as part of the Festival D’Autome, November 2014. Will tour worldwide 2014-2016,
in New York in 2016.
– “HOWL” – 2014 CEC Arts Link fellowship – with Lukasz Korczak at Teatr Nowy Warszawa, 2015
– “To Lay This Body Down…”– currently collaborating with Gedney Barclay on a project based on Sacred
Harp music.
Artistic and administrative director, Koans and Performance Project (2012-2013, full time position):
– Initiated and directed a major international performance project based in NYC and Northern California,
culminating in a two month residency in Sonoma County, CA, with 9 artists from Denmark, Poland, and the
US, a series of performances, and film documentation and print articles.
– Collaborated for two years one on one with John Tarrant Roshi of the Pacific Zen Institute, designing a way
for actors and musicians to create contemporary performance material based on engaging with Zen Koan
practice.
– Co-directed the critically acclaimed performance 'We Are Still Here' with Lukasz Korczak, a result of our
intensive research, shown at venues around the Bay Area, including CounterPULSE and Meridian Gallery.
– Raised $45,000+ and was responsible for housing, rehearsal space, meals, press, hiring, firing, and all
organizational details of a year-long project.
– http://www.koansandperformance.com/
Artistic and administrative director, Point Reyes (2010-2012, full time position):
– Artistic and administrative director of the Brooklyn-based contemporary music ensemble/rock band Point
Reyes.
– Organized three national tours, a residency in Poland and Germany, and a series of concerts in New York,
including performances at Living Arts Museum (Tulsa, OK), Glasslands Gallery, Silent Barn.
– Recorded three albums of new compositions, was main composer and a principal performer in the group.
– http://www.pointreyes.info/
Fulbright Scholar, Warsaw, Poland, Music – (2011, full time position):
– Composed music for theater, film, and collaborated with many Polish artists, including Michal Zadara (Teatr
Zydowski, National Opera in Warsaw on Iannis Xenakis' Oresteia, Milosz’s poems at National Theater
Institute in Warsaw), Lukasz Korczak (Teatr Polski in Wroclaw, independent film work), visual artist Wilhelm
Sasnal (Krakow), who painted the album cover art for the record I made in Warsaw, and numerous artists
surrounding Krystian Lupa in Wroclaw and Krakow.
– Performed with Point Reyes across Poland, including in villages where no Americans had performed before,
organized work exchanges with local groups.
– Residency at the Frederic Chopin Academy of Music (Warsaw), resulting in the album Warszawa and a
series of instrumental compositions.
Education (selected):
– Wesleyan University, BA (High Honors) Music, graduated 2010, Olin fellowship 2009, Summer experience
grant 2008, Chadbourne prize nomination 2007. Studied composition with Alvin Lucier and Ron Kuivila,
Ethnomusicology with Mark Slobin (thesis advisor), sang Early Music with Jane Alden, and performed with
Anthony Braxton. Co-founded No Face Theater, and was Resident Advisor and program director of the
Buddhist House.
– Workshops with Ang Gey Pin, 2007-2011, in Connecticut, Poland, and Italy. Additional workshops with
Maisternia Pisni and Maud Robart, 2007-2011. Invited American artist to World as a Place of Truth Theater
Festival, Wroclaw, Poland, 2009, along with Pig Iron Theater Company, Richard Schechner, etc.
Ethnomusicology research trips to Corsica and Ukraine, 2008, funded by a Wesleyan grant. Worked as an
intern for Vermont-based choir Village Harmony during this time.
– Senior student of John Tarrant Roshi, Pacific Zen Institute. Intensive Zazen and Koan study, 2004-present.
Intensive courses in Jungian psychoanalysis with Gary F. Brown, vice president of Jung Institute of New York,
2013-present.
Discography, Publish (selected):
Elephant Dreams – What Should We Do About that Moon? (2007, CD, Big Door Prize label, 2007)
Elephant Dreams – The Beat (2010, CD, Big Door Prize label)
Point Reyes EP (2011, CD, Pinecones in our Teeth label, critically acclaimed on the blogosphere)
Point Reyes – Warszawa (2012, Tape and digital release, Cakes & Tapes Records, Portugal, critically
acclaimed)
Point Reyes – Golden (2012, Vinyl and digital release, Big School Records, critically acclaimed and
recognized by luminaries such as John Zorn and avant/rock band Dirty Projectors)
“Singing The Body, Singing the Other, and Ensemble Organum’s Messe de Nostre Dame” Wesleyan Senior
Thesis 2010, on Marcel Pérès’ seminal recording of Machaut’s mass. Published on WesScholar. Mr. Pérès
considers it the best writing on his work in English and currently recommends it to his students – he
discovered it online and subsequently contacted me, which led to an ongoing correspondence between us.
"Interview with John Luther Adams", print article, interview with the Alaska-based composer, winner of 2014
Pulitzer Prize in music, RUCH MUZYCHNY (Poland's largest classical music magazine), July 2012
Lecture and teach (selected):
“Platonic Philosophy and the Image in Contemporary Theater” – Guest lecture/visiting artist at Swarthmore
College Theater Senior Seminar (invited by Prof. Allen Kuharski), September 2014
“Zen Koans, Images, and the Creative Vessel” – Pacific Zen Institute, Santa Rosa, CA, October 2014
“Zen Koans and Images – a workshop and exploration” – Oakland Zen Center, Oakland, CA, October 2014
I have been occasionally teaching Zen Meditation and Koans at the Pacific Zen Institute since 2013