Performance | Live Improvised Score to Adkins's video Synapse by Burnt Sugar the Arkestra Chamber

On February 8, 2018, Lévy Gorvy hosted a special concert to coincide with the exhibition, Terry Adkins: The Smooth, The Cut, and The Assembled. Greg Tate conducted Burnt Sugar the Arkestra Chamber in a live, improvised score to Adkins’ video Synapse. The video presents a Faustian portrait of Beethoven that transforms into a young black man and back, pondering the rumors of Beethoven’s Moorish ancestry, as well as his triumph over deafness.

Burnt Sugar was originally conceived as a forum for New York area improvisational musicians to compose, record and perform material which reflects the breadth and depth of American diasporan music in the 21st century. The intent of the Arkestra Chamber, through the deployment of Butch Morris’s conduction system, is to make every performance a fresh interpretation of its constituent parts. Greg Tate, a culture critic, icon of the Village Voice and one of the founders of the Black Rock Coalition, met both Morris and Adkins in the early 1980’s. Tate was inspired by his work with Morris to start practicing Conduction himself, notably as the leader of the groundbreaking Burnt Sugar Arkestra Chamber.

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