<![CDATA[BENWILLIS; BASSIST, COMPOSER, ANIMATOR, FILMMAKER

<![CDATA[BENWILLIS; BASSIST, COMPOSER, ANIMATOR, FILMMAKER - blah\'g]]>Mon, 26 Jan 2026 16:42:56 -0800Weebly<![CDATA[into the next garden]]>Wed, 07 Sep 2016 05:52:20 GMThttp://www.benwillis.us/blahg/into-the-next-gardenI'm thrilled to currently be in Milwaukee for Wild Space Dance's production of Into the Garden, a site-specific performance at the Villa Terrace Museum of Decorative Arts. The company, led by Debra Loewen, has been doing important site-specific work for 30 years. The music for this piece is directed by the excellent saxophonist/composer, Nick Zoulek. For this piece, we are performing a combination of newly co-composed and improvised works, as well as music from Nick's solo saxophone project Rushing Past Willow, and my solo bass project Egret/Flatlander.

Roy Staab's sculpture at the Villa Terrace Garden. Photo: Wild Space Dance

]]><![CDATA[out of the garden]]>Sun, 04 Sep 2016 21:40:56 GMThttp://www.benwillis.us/blahg/out-of-the-gardenSummer of 2016 marked my first project with the Detroit-based Nerve, a boundary-crushing performing arts company led by the brilliantly demented writer Kathe Koja. The summer piece, held in the garden of Ann Arbor cultural ambassadors Stan and Robin Mendenhall, was a take on Bosch's Garden of Earthly Delights. For the piece, I broadcasted sounds out to radios (designed for me by the ever-talented Eric Sheffield) that were spaced throughout the audience space. The sounds of my bass were affected and combined with the sounds of bells and voices. I performed acoustically perched on a raised folly, nearly nude in an amazing bird mask made by Mary Perrin. (Basically the ideal performance setting.) Movement artists Marianne Brass and Rachael Ahn Harbert brought the garden to life and became the interface for the audience. The sculptures and designs of remarkable artist Rena Hopkins mutated the environment.

Currently working on a finalized recorded version of the piece, which will likely take me through the fall.

Also through the fall, I'm working on Nerve's next piece--one that will proved to be much darker. Night School, based on Marlowe's Faustus, will be staged on January 21st at the Jam Handy in Detroit.

]]><![CDATA[moved by ambition, but...]]>Wed, 06 Apr 2016 20:54:20 GMThttp://www.benwillis.us/blahg/moved-by-ambition-butLong overdue post! So many new happenings and goings on. I am extremely lucky to have such a varied artistic experience. Over the past several years, I have gradually transitioned in my art life from feeling mostly like a bass player to feeling more like an improviser/composer/performer. As life happens, I had the honor recently of having my first-ever 'world premiere' of a piece written for someone else--the marvelous percussionist Chris Sies. The concert was on February 14th at Trinosophes, Detroit, put on by Aepex Contemporary.

The piece, 'moved by ambition, but also by an obscure loyalty,' was written as an environment for Chris to perform within, and involved amplifying/affecting a snare drum and cymbal through three other snare drums. The title comes from Jorge Luis Borges' short story, 'The Dead Man.'

]]><![CDATA[sies/willis duo]]>Thu, 23 Jul 2015 16:01:42 GMThttp://www.benwillis.us/blahg/sieswillis-duoOver the past few years, I've had the great privilege of playing a great deal with percussionist Chris Sies, in formats varying from doom metal to Wuorinen to free improvisation. We've just recently began exploring the duo format, and this has been a nearly effortless endeavor. We've recorded several videos of improvisations, and here is the first one.

]]><![CDATA[album release!]]>Thu, 02 Jul 2015 20:58:04 GMThttp://www.benwillis.us/blahg/album-releaseToday I celebrate the release of my solo bass album, Egret/Flatlander, with a performance at Walker's Point Center for the Arts. It should prove to be a wonderful time, and I will be joined with the other marvelous acts of the PaVda duo (stellar improvisers Hal Rammel and Linda Binder) and the new-music/improvisation tour-de-force Tontine Ensemble.

Egret/Flatlander is now available through Bandcamp!

]]><![CDATA[worldly cats]]>Thu, 26 Feb 2015 21:40:53 GMThttp://www.benwillis.us/blahg/worldly-catsI recently put my amateur design skills and enthusiasm for libraries and cats to use, creating conjecturally updated logos for OCLC WorldCat. The commission came from the nascent Twitter snarkivists @RogueArchivists, who you can follow for more commentary on the state of things in that world (cat).

]]><![CDATA[gloom in the womb]]>Tue, 30 Sep 2014 06:14:38 GMThttp://www.benwillis.us/blahg/gloom-in-the-womb A very exciting project that has come to exist over the past year or so is Gloom in the Womb, my improvisational duo with bassist Betsy Soukup. This past June, we presented at the International Society of Improvised Music Conference in New York City, and this October, we will be performing in the 18th annual Edgefest in Ann Arbor. We finally have some video to show you, the waiting public, so I thought now would be as good a time as any to pen a post.

I also occasionally have the great privilege of side-manning it with Betsy to perform her songs, in a somewhat atypical band arrangement, but one that we find quite effective. Here are a few of her songs, performed with Chris Sies on the drums.

]]><![CDATA[updates! WI!]]>Mon, 11 Aug 2014 19:43:32 GMThttp://www.benwillis.us/blahg/updates-wiIt's been quite a while since I've posted anything! This spring I was caught up finishing my Master's degree at the University of Michigan. So now I'm a master, if anyone needs one.

I'm excited to announce that I will be doing a few things in Wisconsin at the end of the month:

I will be joining Dietrich Gosser, whose excellent record I was honored to play on, at the Rock County Folk Symposium on August 23rd. RCFS is a really unique music festival in rural Wisconsin, and I'm happy to be a part of it.

Lovely Socialite Mrs. Thomas W. Phipps will be making a triumphal return to performing at Mickey's Tavern in Madison, August 27th, joined by our friends CONTROL. It will be a great night!

Lovely Socialite will also be returning to the studio to continue working on our second album! We have a lot of new music to share with the world in recorded form! I am still really proud of our first album, by the way, which you can buy here.

Then I will play with Dietrich at the High Noon Saloon on August 28th!

More to come!]]><![CDATA[kong must dead]]>Sun, 26 Jan 2014 17:07:34 GMThttp://www.benwillis.us/blahg/kong-must-dead I'm in Chicago, playing in the premiere live performance of composer Ben Hjertmann's psychedelic pop project, Kong Must Dead. I'm really psyched to be a part of these pieces--we're in the process of recording the album, also.

Splitting the bill with composerElliot Cole!

Show is tonight at Constellation, which is also a venue I've been hearing about often recently, so I'm really excited to finally see it.

]]><![CDATA[split cassette! collaboratively hip]]>Thu, 14 Nov 2013 21:42:04 GMThttp://www.benwillis.us/blahg/split-cassette-collaboratively-hip This past weekend I made a whirlwind trip to Wisconsin to play two shows with Lovely Socialite Mrs. Thomas W. Phipps to release our split tape with Cincinnati group, Us, Today. The shows were a blast, and now the tape is available online through Mine All Mine Records!

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