Arts and Letters

Throughout the year, artist and composer Raven Chacon invites musicians to perform in Arts and Letters’s North Gallery, where he has installed Aviary, a sonic environment of bird calls. For this June concert, isabel crespo pardo, Henry Fraser, and Ricardo Gallo will play improvisationally with select channels of Aviary. The concert includes Colombian wind instruments, clay double flute, voice, double bass, and small bells. The concert takes place from 4 to 5pm and is free and open to the public. Reservations can be made here.

Please note that the North Gallery will be closed between 3 and 3:45pm on the day of the concert while the musicians prepare to play. During this time, we invite you to visit the other exhibitions on view: Teresa Baker’s Twenty Minutes to Sunset, Elle Pérez’s The World Is Always Again Beginning, and Wadada Leo Smith’s Kosmic Music. Raven Chacon’s Aviary will resume at 5pm when the concert concludes.

isabel crespo pardo is a latinx improviser-composer. Their work actively entangles music, poetry, visual art, and performance to explore the realms of memory, transformation, and the ephemeral. crespo’s compositional voice is most present in their poemsong trio, sinonó, and their recent electroacoustic work under the moniker iiisa. They maintain myriad collaborations and have had the pleasure of performing works by Matthew Barney, Brent Michael Davidson, Sandra Mujinga, and Raven Chacon. crespo's work has been presented by Roulette Intermedium, Big Ears Festival, and MATA Festival.

Henry Fraser focuses heavily on solo music for the double bass. He has released three albums that have established him as a technical and creative force among his generation of bassists. Collaborating with such artists as John Zorn, Ka Baird, Uniform, Mary Halvorson, Lea Bertucci, and Ryan Power, he has toured throughout the US and abroad, playing venues including the Panama Jazz Festival, Moers Festival, Unsound Festival, New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival, and Lincoln Center. His latest album, Breath Line, was released in the fall of 2024. This year he has residencies at Pioneer Works and The Stone in New York.

Ricardo Gallo is a Colombian pianist and composer. He has written for acoustic and electroacoustic formats, for short films, videos, dance, installations, and multimedia stage productions, and has performed and written for jazz and improvisatory groups. He has published fourteen albums as a leader or co-leader. Gallo has received commissions from Colombia National Symphony Orchestra, Big Band Bogotá, and contemporary ensembles in New York and Bogotá. His current projects as performer/composer include his Bogotá-based quartet, NYC-based electric-tropical band Los Aliens, acoustic quartet Horse’s Mouth, and an ongoing collaboration with artist and poet Cecilia Vicuña.