Courtney Brown

Artist Statement

I am a composer and a performer. I view the act of listening and processing the meaning in art to be a creative act, and I compose music and art to invite an audience to engage in this act.

I often explore the the fragility of physical existence in my performances and works. I am interested in raising questions about the musician as a body, and the subjective experience of existing in a physical body with limitations. To this end, I design performances wherein it is inevitable that I fail, lose control, or experience physical difficulty or uncertainty of outcome. I also use the sounds that can imply failure: static that sounds like broken speakers, etc.

Additionally, I am interested things that fall apart, and liminality, the experience of being between states, on the verge. I have been exploring using rhythm to fall in and out of grooves and expected patterns. I often use rhythms layered on top of one another so that the music alludes to a style or genre only in brief moments. I am interested in the point at which the music is suggestive, before the moment of recognition of an idea or musical concept.

Stylistically, I have been very influenced by music inspired by dance, especially the tango. I frequently borrow rhythmic patterns from tango, flamenco, bhangra and other types of dance music. I am also influenced by early goth music, Weimar cabaret, late Romanticism, American 20th C. avant-garde (Cage, Cowell, etc.), Musique concrete, and French chanson. In terms of performance art, I have been inspired by the ideas and works of Artaud, Marina Abramovich, and Stelarc.