Jessica Pavone

Artist Statement

As an instrumentalist and composer, I explore music's tactile and sensory experience as a vibration-based medium. Inspired by processes that center intuition and instinct, my music channels all these ideas into compositions by focusing on how music feels when played and heard and exploring how sonic vibrations affect the body, weaving my experiences as an instrumentalist into works that transcend time. I borrow from and elaborate upon traditional notation and improvisatory techniques, alternating between metered and clock-time approaches and improvised and notated instructions. I use a digital clock as a conductor to mark sections, duration, and cues. The indicated time frames on the score direct musicians to move freely between sections, creating an overlap of sonic textures. These principles are applied to my work for music ensembles by utilizing a collective improvisational vision that prioritizes an intentionally fluid style. The performers navigate indeterminacy during the compositions via time-based scores. I balance these principles with metered notation to shape the overall form of the pieces. Through the spaces left open within the structures, the musicians re-create the compositions together each time they perform. In this way, my music intersects the New Music, Jazz, and Classical genres, creating experimental work while establishing a collaborative relationship between the individual musician and larger group performance. When we perform collectively, we continue to develop the skill of responding to a score and each other, building our ability to perform a model of connectivity rather than isolation.

This is an image from the livestream premiere of Lull for string octet and soloists from 2020.

Bio

As both an instrumentalist and composer, Jessica Pavone explores the tactile and sensorial experience of music as a vibration-based medium. Pavone has been a composer in residence at the Loghaven, Stove Works, the Ragdale Foundation, Ucross Foundation, and Soaring Gardens. She has received grants and commissions from the NYFA NYC Womens Fund (2023), MATA Festival (2023), Foundation for Contemporary Arts (2021), Queens Council on the Arts (2022, 2020), New Music USA (2015), the Tri-Centric Foundation (2015), Experiments in Opera (2013), and the Jerome Foundation (2011). Her works have premiered in NYC venues, including; Roulette, the Noguchi Museum, Pioneer Works, ISSUE Project Room, Abrons Art Center, the Museum of Art and Design, the Soctrates Sculpture Park, and The Kitchen. Her albums have been produced by Tzadik, Taiga Records, Thirsty Ear, Astral Spirits, Out of Your Head, and Relative Pitch Records, and she has released four collaborative duo recordings with guitarist Mary Halvorson. From 2005 to 2012, Pavone toured regularly with Anthony Braxton’s Sextet and 12+1tet, and she appears on his discography from that time.


https://jessicapavone.com/