pianist and radio maker
Radio Show produced by Guy Livingston: In Search of Henry Cowell for Australian Broadcasting Corporation (Into the Music)two episodes about this maverick American composer and inventor who, despite many personal challenges (including 4 years in San Quentin prison) managed to create a fascinating and powerful body of work, ranging from magisterial American symphonies to quirky avant-garde piano works.
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“the comic talent of a Buster Keaton” —Het Parool, Netherlands
/read more.../media art/installations in his new series, “listen (to) the untitled 6.3”, multimedia artist Guy Livingston explores the cityscape via sound. In New York, nearly everyone is walking down the street, lost in their own sonic world – listening to their own soundtrack on their own headphones; or talking to their own family or friends. But what if you listened to someone else’s life or music? This is the challenge Livingston takes on with his listen to the untitled series. Random residents stop on their way to work or play, and
/read more.../Influenced by the work of artist Joseph Cornell, writer Vladimir Nabokov, and philosopher Walter Benjamin; Guy Livingston has been building self-contained boxes for several decades, but very slowly. Most of these are evanescent, and only exist long enough to be filmed and then recycled. One was sent to Paris and did not come back. And one is going to the moon. Frequently these boxes use a multimedia approach, as with his one-minute videos. The music for each of these miniature films is by a different composer. The videos were designed
/read more.../the acme of demented modernism!—The New York Herald Ballet mécanique SOLO is an extraordinary work by composer George Antheil, arranged for solo piano and electronics by Guy Livingston and Paul Lehrman. It was commissioned by the SinusTon Festival in Magdeburg, Germany, and premièred in 2016. Further performances have been in Montréal, and at Tufts University and Brown University. Minimum technical requirements: 8 channels of sound with 8 loudspeakers; amplified grand piano; projector/beamer; screen; stage lights; mixing board. We bring laptops, MOTUs, and the newly restored film, which is 4K digital.
/read more.../I sit in one of the dives on 52nd Street… (WH Auden) Love. Lust. Longing. Loss. Libido. These are some of the themes that run through this evening of songs by Pulitzer and Grammy award-winning composer William Bolcom (1938-). In his desire to break the barrier between “serious” and popular music, Bolcom blurs the lines between cabaret, classical, music theatre and even country music in his setting of texts by Auden, e.e. cummings, Shakespeare and his long-time collaborator Arnold Weinstein. The result is a body of work which reveals a darkly
/read more.../“a feast for the eye and for the ear” — Radio 4, Holland Sixty Videos, Sixty Composers, Sixty World Premieres by and for Guy Livingston “What if 60 composers from 18 countries each wrote 60 seconds for solo piano?” Don’t Panic! Livingston handles the show with an expert vison and masterful storytelling skills. Anecdotes of composers and mishaps are mixed with insight into the very nature of time. Featured on the front page of the New York Times, in Le Monde, and on National Public Radio’s Weekend Edition. “A great performance,
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