Music for Two Pianos: Bob + Blue, A Tribute to Robert Ashley and “Blue” Gene Tyranny, at Roulette (Site)

This performance is part of Roulette’s four-night series, Music for Two Pianos, which features new, historic, and reimagined compositions by some of the great composers of our time: Anthony Braxton; Robert Ashley and “Blue” Gene Tyranny; Henry Threadgill; and Julius Eastman.

Pianists Sarah Cahill and Joseph Kubera present a two-piano celebration of the music of “Blue” Gene Tyranny (1945–2020) and Robert Ashley (1930–2014). Robert Ashley and “Blue” Gene Tyranny were opposites in many ways, but when they met in the early 1960s working with the legendary ONCE Group, while Tyranny was still a teenager, they forged a fifty-year collaboration and lifelong friendship.

This concert celebrates these two composers’ work with Tyranny’s two-piano gems Decertified Highway of Dreams and Letters from Home and Ashley’s Viva’s Boy and Details (2b), along with solo compositions by both composers. Kubera and Cahill worked on these scores with both composers, and will perform pieces that Tyranny dedicated to each of them, including The Drifter and Spirit.

A livestream will be available free of charge at 8pm on the day of the performance and archived for future viewing.