Ben Vida / Bird Show

Ben Vida (b. 1974) is a composer, improviser and sound artist. His works include pieces for analog/digital hybrid synthesizing systems, acoustic compositions written for his group Town and Country and multi-channel sound/video installations.

Ben has worked in collaboration with artists Siebren Versteeg, Deborah Johnson, Hisham Bharoocha, Nadia Hironaka and Mathew Suib and with filmmaker Tim Kinsella.  As an improviser he has performed with Milo Fine, Fred Lonberg-Holm, Taku Sugimoto, Kevin Drumm, Yamatsuka Eye, Jim O'Rourke, Michael Zerang, Josh Abrams, and Jeb Bishop among other as well as playing in ensembles led by Tony Conrad, Rhys Chattam, and Werner Dafeldecker.  Ben has released over twenty records on such labels as Thrill Jockey, Drag City, Amish, Bottrop-Boy, Hapna and Kranky.

Recent forays into electronic composition have seen the release of a series of automatic self-generating compositions utilizing a modular hybrid analog/digital synthesizer. In collaboration with Keith Fullerton Whitman and Greg Davis, Ben has begun to explore cross control voltage integrated improvisation and real time automatic group composition.

Awards include an Illinois Arts Council Grant for composition (2006), a travel grant from The Swedish Arts Grants Committee (2011) and an ISSUE Project Room Emerging Artists Commission (2011). This year he will be a Composer in Residence at Diapason Space in New York and at EMS Studios, Stockholm, Sweden. He was an artist in residence at the Electronic Television Center (Owega, NY) in 2008.

As both a solo artist and in collaboration Ben has presented his work in the United States, Canada, Europe, South Korea and Japan.

Notable performances include: ICA, London, England; Moonji Cultural Institute Seoul, South Korea; All Tomorrows Parties, Minehead, England; X-Initiative, New York, NY; Shinagawa Gloria Chapel, Tokyo, Japan; Festival Soy, Planètarium à Nantes, France; Gallery Ze Dos Bois, Lisbon, Portugal; The Renaissance Society, Chicago, IL; Podewil, Berlin, Germany;  Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, IL; Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY.

Selected Press