Owen Weaver. 14th December 2018.

Percussionist Owen Weaver's “intensely focused” (Gramophone) performances combine the forces of rhythm, noise and stillness to seek the musical potential in everyday life. He uses recycled objects, homemade instruments and electronic sounds to construct a kaleidoscopic sound world with a combination of original music, improvisation and collaboration with leading composers of his generation.


Owen has been featured in the NYC-based Wordless Music Series, Bergen, MATA Interval Series, Fast Forward Austin, two Nonclassical Records SXSW official showcases, National Public Radio's All Songs Considered, and Bergen, Norway's Festspillene. A diverse collaborator, he has performed in Europe, South America, Asia, and throughout the U.S. with Mantra Percussion, Glenn Branca Ensemble, NEWSPEAK, and others including performances with Conspirare: A Company of Voices for a PBS television special and Grammy-nominated album. Owen loves to teach students of all ages, and has taught at Yale, Cornell, CalArts, the University of California at Berkeley, Rikers Island Correctional Facility, and New York public schools.


He has received degrees from the University of Minnesota and the University of Texas at Austin, and graduated with a Doctor of Musical Arts degree from the Hartt School in May of 2018.


About the Audioglimt project:

I have worked as a dance collaborator an accompanist for many years, in all of the cities in which I have lived: Minneapolis, Austin and New York. These experiences taught me more about the relationship between sound and movement than I could have imagined. I originally planned this concert to be made up entirely of dance films, to honor these artists who had, in many ways, changed the way I think about music. After moving to Norway, I wanted this project to be a reflection of my past lives, and a bridge into a new life and community. However, as I looked for films I was reminded of the wealth of creativity of friends and acquantainces in many artistic disciplines, and of the porous boundaries between 'different' forms of art. As a result, this concert features films made by artists from several distinct places and chapters of my life, woven together into an evening's presentation for which I have been challenged and honored to create and perform music. Movement, theater and abstract imagery will all be housed under once roof, providing a kind of tour of the places I have lived and the artists and friends who have inspired me.


The film program consists (so far) of 8 films from the following 5 artists:


Amy Zhang (Rochester, NY)

Melissa Smith (Brooklyn, NY)

Sarah Choi

Alexis Robbins

Katherine Brennan


Amy Zhang is a classically trained pianist and filmmaker especially drawn to abstract imagery and its correlation to the interpretation of music. Releasing films under the moniker Xuan, she will be revisiting and expanding a recent work, titled Decay, expressely for Audioglimt.

Mélissa Smith is an actor and musician, with an emphasis on physical theater, including clowning and mime. Her short film series, An Exploration: Dreams will appear throughout this concert, providing a visual and sonic continuity within the different moods we might find in our dreams.