Bent Duo
Bent Duo is an experimental NYC-based duo project investigating the limits of chamber music for piano and percussion and the exciting innovations that happen at the outer fringes of this repertoire. Founded in 2015, the duo is equally committed to works that exploit the performers’ virtuosic instrumental technique as to those that are developing new performance techniques entirely. They collaborate with artists from a variety of backgrounds and also create original works of their own that frequently transcend disciplinary boundaries, often with a focus on queerness.
Bent Duo members Bill Solomon and David Friend were long-time colleagues who played together for years in the NYC classical and new music scenes before co-founding Bent Duo. They continue to frequently perform in NYC, across the country, and abroad with groups including Ensemble Signal, Talea Ensemble, International Contemporary Ensemble, Grand Band, Talujon Percussion, Bang on a Can All-Stars, and the American Composers Orchestra, among others. They created Bent Duo as an outlet to collaborate with creative artists who are working on the cutting edge of new compositional and performance techniques, to bring to attention existing repertoire for this underserved instrumentation, to undertake the radical experiments in chamber music and performance that more conventional ensembles are unlikely to tackle, and to investigate the integration of queer theory and aesthetics into the creative process.
Bent Duo has performed at mainstream and underground venues including the Harvard Art Museums, Miller Theatre (NYC), Roulette Intermedium (NYC), Time:Spans Festival (NYC), the Center for New Music (San Francisco), Fresh Sounds (San Diego), Coaxial (LA), Inwood Artworks Gallery (NYC) and Betalevel (LA). Their recording of Sarah Hennies’s ‘Unsettle’ for New World Records received high praise, including being named one of The New Yorker’s top 10 albums of 2020; their self-released cassette project, ‘Ramble,’ also received critical acclaim from outlets like Harmonic Series, and their album of Casey Anderson’s ‘ghostses’ (a wave press) was selected as National Sawdust’s ‘Album of the Week.’ Their recordings have been heard on radio around the country and abroad, and their site-specific performance installation projects have been supported by Le Petit Versailles, Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, New York Artists Corps, and the Upper Manhattan Empowerment Zone’s Arts Engagement program.
Bent Duo has taught workshops or had artist residencies at institutions including Yale University, Bard College, Princeton University, Tulane University, University of New Orleans, Hartford School of Art/Hartt School of Music, ArtSpace PS109, and the Yarn/Wire Summer Institute, and was featured at the ‘Performing Indeterminacy’ international conference at the University of Leeds (UK). They continue to collaborate with innovative artists on new projects as well as developing their own creative work.