Dafna Naphtali has been awarded 2023 Guggenheim Fellowship!
John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation announced the 2023 Fellowships, and has awarded 171 artists, researchers, writers and others this prestigious award.
This is an outstanding opportunity and it is humbling to be included in this cohort of brilliant scholars and artists.
Dafna has been featured in Composers Now IMPACT video series in May.
Composers Now empowers all living composers, celebrates the diversity of their voices and honors the significance of their artistic contributions to the cultural fabric of society. https://www.composersnow.org/
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In Oct/Nov I had the privilege to be a Fellow at MacDowell Artist Residency in Peterborough New Hampshire. I used the time to work on several different projects, including my 2023 Guggenheim Fellowship project, DUOS++OCTET which gathers all of my duo partners into a larger ensemble (the work was begun in my show at Roulette April 24th and is continuing)
I worked and created for 4 weeks, surrounded by beautiful trees in a peaceful (and quiet) environment, and in the company of, and inspired by the brilliant writers, filmmakers, choreographer and visual artists, I began composing and practicing and working toward what will be ultimately a primarily a solo guitar and voice album (to be named) inviting collaborators to join me on some tracks.
I also wrote poetry and took many many photos of trees some will become scores for future pieces, As seen below ;) Gratitude for the privilege, and the community and new friends and MacDowell.
June saw the release of “Wake Me When It’s Green” – a new music and video composition and collaboration between Dafna Naphtali and violinist Gwen Laster. The piece, features Naphtali on voice, electric guitar and electronics, and Laster’s violin and voice, is homage to the duo’s recently departed fathers and a celebration of a sky full of ancestors.
The piece was commissioned by M3 Mutual Mentorship for Musicians as part of the work of the Fall 2022 Equinox cohort. The piece premiered on June 13th at the National Jazz Museum of Harlem, along with 5 other commissions of duo pieces created by the cohort’s 12 members. A Lifetime Achievement award was also presented that evening to pianist Michele Rosewoman. More information about M3 and the Fall 2022 cohort can be found here:https://dafna.info/wp-admin/post.php?post=4473&action=edit
Below is the piece as it was broadcast on June 13th. To see all of the commissioned pieces by the cohort, watch from the beginning!
At her residency at APO-33 in Nantes, France, June/July 2023, Dafna created a multichannel audio/video piece with 10-channels of audio and 4-channel video for APO-33’s space at Platforme Intermédia.
“Audio Chandelier: Passeri”, reflects on changing patterns of bird migration, climate change and bird song. She gave a concert at the opening July 8th, which overlapped with Nantes Maker Campus.
DUOS++OCTET is an upcoming performance at Roulette Intermedium in Brooklyn, NY
bringing together Dafna Naphtali’s long-time duo partners, her live-sound-processing of her voice and their instruments, plus Dafna’s 8-channel Audio Chandelier in live performance.
April 24th, 8pm @Roulette Intermedium
tickets and info: https://roulette.org/event/dafna-naphtali-duosoctet/
Dafna Naphtali – live electroacoustics, voice
Jen Baker – trombone / multiphonics (Clip Mouth Unit)
Gordon Beeferman – organ/piano/toy piano (Pulsing Dot)
Chuck Bettis – electronics / throat
Ras Moshe Burnett – saxophones, flute
Hans Tammen – electronics, guitar
Edith Lettner – saxophones, duduk
Andrew Drury – percussion/drums
Constellations is a new installation/performance exploring Feng Shui concepts via interactive-aleatoric activation of recorded sounds, voice, found objects and spoken word phrases corresponding to each of the 9 quadrant-spaces (Bagua+Center) in Feng-Shui in the Chinese practice of spatial arrangement of a space for positive energy flow.
Begun as an invited collaboration between artists on Gold Bolus label for their Super Bolus V Compliation 2022, Constellations is continuing beyond the first track they made together, and an initial work-in-progress showing at Chez Bushwick in 2022. What started as a track for Super Bolus V has serendipitously turned into a larger concept for installation and performance.
Thea and Dafna decided to explore Feng Shui concepts through Aleatoric activation of Vocals, Words, Singing and Field Recordings.
Each of the quadrants differs conceptually (e.g., Career & Life path, Fame & Reputation, Love & relationships). Each Bagua quadrant has related elements (Wood, Fire, Metal, etc), related verbs, adjectives and other associated words which we recorded. Thea is training in Feng Shui practice and has brought her expertise to the project.
Dafna is inspired by methods behind Beckett’s novel “Lessness”, and its randomized order of sentences. She uses similar concepts to create spoken phrases, assembled from our pre-recorded Bagua words, with a software she’s writing (Max/MSP), each generated sentence relating to a quadrant. The words and vocal sounds play from multiple audio speakers, as sounds will be activated via proximity sensors as visitors are near or touch curated found objects placed in each quadrant of the installation. We’ll incorporate video within some quadrants (either projected or on small video screens) . All to be underscored by nine 6-channel vocal compositions (Dafna singing), changing over time in response to visitors’ location.
