Nightsongs, Daysongs: New York, night two
Nightsongs, Daysongs: New York, night two
Photo by Kali Malone.
Greene Naftali, 8th floor gallery
Access via freight elevator at:
516 West 26th St
New York, NY 10001
Nightsongs, Daysongs is a sonic portrait of composer and musician Ellen Arkbro, who will perform selections from her recent albums and present the US premieres of new compositions commissioned for her collaborators.
Night two features Arkbro’s compositions Blues for bassoon, performed by Dafne Vicente-Sandoval; Nightsongs (for three bass viols), performed by Hydrus Consort (Adam Grauman, Nicole Hogstrand, and Samuel Runsteen); and Daysongs, performed by Judith Hamann.
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Ellen Arkbro (b. 1990) is a composer, musician, and sound artist working with precision-tuned intervallic harmony. Arkbro composes for acoustic instruments, synthetic sounds, and combinations of the two. Through her concise musical vocabulary and formal architecture, Arkbro evokes a sense of emotional ambivalence, guiding the listener through a spectrum of feeling with a cool and distant beauty. Despite her works’ scale and precision, the result is rarely a dry exercise in process; Arkbro draws from a vivid array of musical vocabularies—namely, her studies with La Monte Young, Marian Zazeela, Jung Hee Choi, and Marc Sabat; jazz and blues scales and pop modalities; electroacoustic music and sound synthesis; and her time in Catherine Christer Hennix’s Kamigaku Ensemble. In all aspects of her practice, Arkbro focuses on the qualities of harmonic sound that reveal listening as an active process of creative participation, inviting the listener to gradually transform into the sound itself. Her recent solo release for Blank Forms Editions and La Becque Editions, Nightclouds, stands as a profound statement in Arkbro’s evolving body of work, at once introspective and expansive. The album reaffirms her singular ability to transform harmonic simplicity into deeply affecting sonic landscapes, inviting listeners into a space of contemplation and emotional depth.
Dafne Vicente-Sandoval, a native Parisian, explores sound through contemporary music performance, improvisation, and sound installations. After training at the Paris Conservatory, Vicente-Sandoval studied under the bassoonist Sergio Azzolini, who motivated her inquiries into tuning systems, timbral shades, and instrumental instability. Over the last decade, Vicente-Sandoval has dedicated herself to an in-depth instrumental practice, emerging from an intuitive experimentation into the complexities of the bassoon’s acoustical properties. Vicente-Sandoval also presents solo performances of microphone feedback generated through the resonant spaces of the bassoon itself. She and Arkbro share a compositional interest in seeking how the intonation of instruments coincides with the timbre of the room in which they are played.
Hydrus Consort are Nicole Hogstrand, Adam Grauman, and Samuel Runsteen, all playing viola da gamba, an instrument primarily used in Renaissance music. The trio will present Nightsongs (for three bass viols), a new composition by Arkbro for three bass viola da gambas, commissioned by and premiered at Biennale Musica 2025 in Venice.
Judith Hamann is a cellist, composer, and performer who, in their process-driven and embodied practice, considers the ways sound operates as a subject, object, and actant. Trained in contemporary classical performance, they frequently challenge the boundaries of their instruments, whether the cello, voice, or body, considering how sonic thresholds offer generative sites of instability and movement. Their practice frequently crosses disciplines, incorporating improvisation, field recording, electro-acoustics, performance, and site-specific response, and is often collaborative in nature. In their recent research, Hamann examines the acts of shaking and humming as formal and intimate encounters; interrogates “collapse” as a generative imaginary surface; and considers the “de-mastering” of bodies, both human and non-human, in settler-colonial heritage instrumental practice and pedagogy.
Please note that RSVP does not guarantee entry. Free Blank Forms events are first come, first served.
Greene Naftali is located on the 8th floor of 508 West 26th Street, between 10th and 11th Avenues. The 8th floor gallery can be accessed via a freight elevator located at 516 West 26th Street. To enter the building, there is a ramp for wheelchair access. Wheelchair-accessible, gender-neutral restrooms are available.
Nightsongs, Daysongs is made possible by generous support from Art Music Denmark, the Consulate General of Sweden in New York, the Howard Gilman Foundation, mediaThe foundation inc., Music Norway, the Royal Norwegian Consulate General in New York, and the Swedish Arts Grants Committee. This program is additionally supported by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council, and New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature.
Blues for bassoon and Daysongs were co-commissioned by Blank Forms, La Becque, and the Bourse de Commerce—Pinault Collection, and were completed while Arkbro, Hamann, and Vicente-Sandoval were in residency at La Becque in September 2025.