Ben Vida / Bird Show

Ben Vida is a composer, improviser and sound artist who lives in Brooklyn, NY. His practice utilizes a wide range of sound processes and expanded sonic events. Ben uses this range of modalities to explore the social, historical and phenomenological functions of sound and music. Ben led the group Town and Country, produced three records of world musique concrete under the name Bird Show and in collaboration with Keith Fullerton Whitman and Greg Davis, created cross control voltage integrated improvisations and real time automatic group composition.

Ben has worked with artists Siebren Versteeg, Meredyth Sparks, Marina Rosenfeld, Hisham Bharoocha, Nadia Hironaka and Mathew Suib and has played in ensembles led by Tony Conrad, Rhys Chattam, and Werner Dafeldecker. As an improviser he has performed with Milo Fine, Fred Lonberg-Holm, Chad Taylor, Kevin Drumm, Yamatsuka Eye and C. Spencer Yeh among many others. He has released over twenty records on such labels as Thrill Jockey, Drag City, PAN, Amish, Bottrop-Boy, Hapna and Kranky.

In 2011 Ben was Composer in Residency at Diapason Space, NYC and at EMS Studios, Stockholm and was awarded a Swedish Arts Committee Travel Grant, ISSUE Project Room Emerging Artists Commission and Museu d'Art Contemporani de Barcelona "Composing with Process" Exclusive Works Commission. In 2012 he will premier a new composition for fixed electronics and small ensemble commissioned by the ACM/Palomar Ensemble in Chicago.

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

Notable shows include New Museum, NYC, Elizabeth Dee Gallery, NYC, 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, Planetarium a 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, Sydney Opera House, Australia.

Selected Press