Thursday, February 16, 2017
7:30 – 9 pm
Scheuer Auditorium

Accompanying the Jewish Museum’s exhibition, Pierre Chareau: Modern Architecture and Design, the concert will feature Bonjour, bringing together top musicians and Bang on a Can regulars, founded in 2012 by bassist and composer Florent Ghys. Chareau, originally from Bordeaux, rose to become one of Paris’s most fashionable designers of the early 20th Century. Ghys, also originally from Bordeaux, is one of New York’s most creative composer-performers of the early 21st Century. 

Combining basses, cello, guitars, percussion, and voices, Ghys creates an unusual sound world that’s equal parts groove, melody and meditation. In Ghys's words, Bonjour is comprised of musical snapshots. Performed in no particular order, each one represents a day of the week and its associated mood - with some, like "Friday 3PM," conjuring multiple emotions in a gradually building mosaic of rhythm and sound. The players' voices are alternately treated as additional melodic instruments or as dictaphones spewing nonsensical parallel quotes from a variety of literary, news, and other sources (as in "Monday Morning"). From the jazz-laced, indie-pop lilt of "Thursday Afternoon" to the woozy, off-kilter mood of "Tuesday Noon Around 12:21," the album shimmers with influences that push it beyond the safety net of "new classical" music to something altogether edgy, adventurous, and even slightly art-damaged.

Tickets: $18 General; $15 Students and Seniors; $12 Jewish Museum and Bang on a Can List Members