Eugene Chadbourne
Catalogue of Birds and Selected Works
September 15 – November 14, 2021
Read “Joel Peterson in Conversation with Eugene Chadbourne” in our literary journal, Three Fold
Off the road for the first time in decades because of the pandemic, musician, improviser and human-repository-of song Eugene Chadbourne has been filling his free time with assorted creative projects, one of which is a unique and vibrant adaptation of twentieth century French composer Oliver Messiaen’s Catalogue d’oiseaux. Messiaen was a serious amateur ornithologist. Written between 1956 and 1958, his Catalogue d’oiseaux features thirteen sections of piano music, each focused on a single species, with sixty-four of their closest neighbors in supporting roles. In Catalogue, birdsongs are used in a variety of ways—from subliminally imbedded impressioni
stic abstractions in harmonies to fairly literal imitations as melodic motif. For nearly two years now, Chadbourne has been painting the birds featured within the Catalogue. The painterly quality will surprise those familiar with the collages and drawings that often figure into the cover art of Chadbourne’s records. He has also embarked on transcribing the dense piano music of Catalogue d’oiseaux for solo banjo, and has now amassed several volumes of music in Catalogue of Birds for Banjos, which will be a highlight of this exhibition.