Spring 2023

The Fields Festival, formerly of Moscow and Saint Petersburg, had to move (for obvious reasons), and now they are in Belgrade.

I’ll be playing G3 there in June, this is an early announcement. I’ll update it soon with a link to their website.

Also in June, we’ll be mounting G3 at Art Basel 2023. We’ll be performing the piece with Robert Longo’s film, Pictures for Music, and Robert and I will be playing amoung the guitarists. We will be doing this within a huge outdoor Messeplatz installation by Latifa Echakhch. I’ll be posting more details on this and who the other players will be in the coming weeks.

In addition to G3, I have a new solo that I recently performed at the Centre Pompidou in Paris in the context of a No Wave show curated by Nicolas Ballet last February. I also did the solo concert in a more intimate setting at the Chair de Poule bar in Paris. Here is a short clip of the concert to give you an idea of its sound:

Rhys Chatham solo at Chair de Poule – 24 February 2023

I’m available this summer to play this solo or to mount G3. To contact me for booking write to me at rhyschathamnews@gmail.com

Summer 2021

At the end of June we in Paris were unconfined by order of our president.

I live in the 6th arrondissement, and on my way to the studio , which is also in the 6th, I must say that it was a pleasure to see everybody outdoors at the cafés on rue Bucci hanging out and enjoying themselves!

The only problem is that everybody was packed together like sardines, and of course no one was wearing masks because, hoorah hoorah, the confinement had been lifted!

rue Bucci, Paris 6

I wish people would exercise a little prudence, the pandemic isn’t over. It’s possible to carry COVID without showing symptoms and give it to other people, which is another good reason for continuing to wear masks.

While it is great that we musicians are starting to play again, I only hope it lasts. The choice today isn’t to get vaccinated or not get vaccinated, the choice is either everyone gets vaccinated or we go into confinement again, back and forth…endlessly!

Anyway, all that to say I finally have some concerts coming up in September! I only hope that they don’t get canceled due to COVID, but we’ll hope for the best…

The Farniente FestivalSaturday, 4 September 2021 – Saint Nazaire, France.

I’ve been working since early July at my studio in the south of France, in the foothills of the Pyrenees, near Céret. I have a solo performance coming up at the Farniente Festival on Saturday, 4th September in Saint Nazaire.

http://farniente-festival.org/programme/

Evidently, the festival will be on the beach! Here are some photos:

Over the last few years, my solo has consisted of me playing Pythagorean Dream, a piece I had been developing since 2007 that was released on Foom Records about five years ago.

Since last July, I’ve been working on a new solo for me on alto and C flute, voice and (of course) electric guitar.

Instead of continuing to work with my analog setup of loops and other devices, I’m doing this piece completely live in Ableton, working with the Push 2 interface. I’m excited about the new sounds I’ve been getting and plan to present an early version of the new piece at the Farniente Festival.

Fields Festival – Saint Petersburg, Russia:

I’m please to be returning to Russia, this time to play at the Fields Festival in Saint Petersburg on Saturday, 19 September 2021.

We’ll be playing G3 with guitarists from the region of Saint Petersburg.

I don’t have the website yet but in the meantime I’ll post a picture from their FB page announcing the concert. As soon as I have the names of the musicians and other details, I’ll post them.

Photo by Sue Rynski – who captured my “bluesman” look…