Eli Keszler

An evening of sound and design. Eli Keszler performs solo percussion in tandem with a gallery installation. Come early and stay late to view Reading Lampo, an exhibition of Lampo posters, design ephemera, and other selections from our 15-year archive of printed matter—organized with our friends at the Post Family.

In Keszler’s performance-installation, multiple tuned and extended piano wires stretch across the space, overlapping in geometric formations and tuned to a tightly knit harmonic pattern. These wires are struck, scraped, and vibrated by microprocessor-controlled mechanical arms, producing harmonically complex tones that are both percussive and resonant. Keszler plays drums alongside the sounds generated by the installation.

Eli Keszler (b.1983, Brookline, Mass.) is a composer, artist and multi-instrumentalist. He began playing drums at eight, and composing at twelve. Before finding an interest in experimental music and improvisation, he played in rock and hardcore bands; his work retains an intense physicality and churning, often ferocious energy. He is a graduate of the New England Conservatory, where he studied composition with Anthony Coleman and Ran Blake. He has collaborated with Phill Niblock, Roscoe Mitchell, Tony Conrad, Joe McPhee, Christian Wolff, Loren Connors, Jandek and many others, and has recorded more than a dozen CDs and LPs for ESP-DISK, REL and PAN. His installations have appeared at Eyebeam (N.Y.C.), Boston Center for the Arts, Nuit Blanche N.Y.C. and the Shreveport MSPC New Music Festival. Additional recent projects include work at the Tectonic festival in Reykjavik with the Icelandic Symphony Orchestra, an installation for the Gaudeamus Festival at the Centraal Museum in Utrecht, and a performance at the Barbican in London. His visual work often features dense, fine detailed drawing and painting. In 2013 he released NEUM, a book of drawings, prints and diagrams made in conjunction with his installation at the South London Gallery. Keszler lives in New York City.

Reading Lampo opens November 16 from 7-10pm at the Post Family Gallery, with the opportunity to view the show by appointment through January 17.