Walker Art Center Presents Lonnie Holley with Nelson Patton and Shahzad Ismaily
“Every era has its prophets, and Lonnie Holley…speaks to the anguish and tumult of modern life with extraordinary fury and perception.” —Pitchfork
Alabama-born Lonnie Holley lives with a remarkable backstory marked by hardship, poverty, and pain but also self-evolution and transcendence. Through his sculptural assemblages and his Sun Ra–meets–Sam Cooke sound, he’s emerged as a singular American visionary devoted to glorious improvisation and shamanistic transformation. In his first Minnesota performance, featuring multi-instrumentalist Shahzad Ismaily and the experimental electronics, percussion, and trombone duo Nelson Patton, Holley unleashes his unflinching insights on race in America with sonic soul, mystical spirit, and authentic generosity.
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The concert takes place Saturday, October 5 in the McGuire Theater at 8pm. Tickets for the show are $26 ($20.80 Walker members).
ABOUT LONNIE HOLLEY
Lonnie Holley was born on February 10, 1950 in Birmingham, Alabama. From the age of five, Holley worked various jobs: picking up trash at a drive-in movie theatre, washing dishes, and cooking. He lived in a whiskey house, on the state fairgrounds, and in several foster homes. His early life was chaotic and Holley was never afforded the pleasure of a real childhood.
Since 1979, Holley has devoted his life to the practice of improvisational creativity. His art and music, born out of struggle, hardship, but perhaps more importantly, out of furious curiosity and biological necessity, has manifested itself in drawing, painting, sculpture, photography, performance, and sound. Holley’s sculptures are constructed from found materials in the oldest tradition of African American sculpture. Objects, already imbued with cultural and artistic metaphor, are combined into narrative sculptures that commemorate places, people, and events. His work is now in collections of major museums throughout the country, on permanent display in the United Nations, and been displayed in the White House Rose Garden. In January of 2014, Holley completed a one-month artist-in-residence with the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation in Captiva Island, Florida, site of the acclaimed artist’s studio.
Artist website
Read the New Yorker on Lonnie Holley
Read The Guardian on Lonnie Holley
Read Afropunk on Lonnie Holley
ABOUT NELSON PATTON
Nelson Patton is a NYC and Atlanta-based instrumental duo of Dave Nelson and Marlon Patton. Inspired by ambient minimalism, polyrhythmic composition, and orchestral sonorities, the duo layers trombone, drums, and electronics to create a rich palette of improvised textures that evolve over time, creating a transportive experience that often swells to dramatic crescendos of orchestral fanfare. The pair met at the University of Georgia where they played in jazz groups together in the Athens music scene. Dave went on to study classical music, leading him to New York City where he developed a dynamic career in its contemporary classical and indie rock scenes. Marlon moved to Atlanta, becoming one of the top jazz drummers in the southeast.
ABOUT SHAHZAD ISMAILY
Shahzad Ismaily was born to Pakistani immigrant parents and grew up in a bicultural household. While he holds a master’s degree in biochemistry from Arizona State University, he is a largely self-taught composer and musician, having mastered the electric and double bass, guitar, banjo, accordion, flute, drums, various percussion instruments and various analog synthesizers and drum machines.
Ismaily has recorded or performed with an incredibly diverse assemblage of musicians, including Laurie Anderson and Lou Reed, Tom Waits, Niobe, Will Oldham, Nels Cline, and more. He has also composed regularly for dance and theater, including for Min Tanaka, the Frankfurt Ballet and the East River Commedia. Recently he composed the score for the critically acclaimed movie Frozen River, which won the Grand Jury Prize at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival. He was also an Artist in Residence at the Headlands Center for the Arts in San Francisco, CA in 2008. Currently based in New York, Ismaily has studied music extensively in Pakistan, India, Turkey, Mexico, Santiago, Japan, Indonesia, Morocco and Iceland.