Duo Probosci: Timba Harris + Gyan Riley
~an album release show~

June 29 at 8pm
Advance Tickets: https://probosci-pwnw.bpt.me/
Alembic Co-Production |PWNW Visiting Artists

Duo Probosci is a collaboration between New York guitarist Gyan Riley and violinist Timba Harris. Both composers, whose work is featured in John Zorn’s Tzadik Records Composers’ Series, contribute to the interplay between composition and improvisation, steeped with intricacy, subtlety, and shape-shifting energy. They adventurously explore the sonic landscape, from purely acoustic music to unfamiliar electroacoustic textures, dancing between delicacy and aggression. Able to mesmerize listeners in any given palette of silence – formal concert halls, outdoor festivals, wineries, museums, house concerts – Duo Probosci is the next evolution of these two musicians’ years-long musical partnership, which has taken them across the globe together in numerous ensembles.

How to describe the captivating creations of an occasionally humorous, cutting-edge violin-guitar duo whose music defies all genre pigeonholing? Surely the stinging name that guitarist Gyan Riley and violinist Timba Harris chose for their electroacoustic duo — Duo Probosci, in this case, derives from the bloodsucking appendage of the mosquito — offers no hint of their most assuredly benign, albeit intensely musical energized excursions that tend to bore into you and seize you with their beauty. —The Seattle Times

Gyan Riley won his first guitar in a raffle when he was 12 years old. His diverse work focuses on his own compositions, improvisation, and contemporary classical repertoire. Gyan has been commissioned by the Kronos Quartet, New Music USA, the Carnegie Hall Corporation, the American Composers Forum, and the New York Guitar Festival. He has performed with Zakir Hussain, Lou Reed, John Zorn, the Kronos Quartet, Lee Ranaldo (of Sonic Youth), Iva Bittova, Julian Lage, the Bang-On-A-Can All-Stars, Bryce Dessner, Nico Muhly, Secret Chiefs 3, the San Francisco Symphony, the Philadelphia Chamber Orchestra, and his father, the composer/pianist/vocalist Terry Riley. Various tours have taken him throughout Europe, Canada, Latin America, Asia, and the US, both as a soloist and in various ensembles. Gyan resides in New York City and frequently performs with Duo Probosci, the trio Eviyan, the electric guitar quartet Dither, guitarist Julian Lage, and his father Terry Riley. Terry and Gyan recently scored a new film by writer director François Girard (The Red Violin) entitled Hochelaga, Terre des Âmes, that premiered at the 2017 Toronto Film Festival and was recently selected as Canada’s pick for Best Foreign Language Film category at the 2018 Oscars. Gyan has four solo CD titles and many ensemble/collaborative recordings. His fifth solo album, Sprig, was released in March 2018 on the National Sawdust
Tracks label.

“Beautiful and enigmatic”…”an alluringly intimate vibe created from the first note.” —New York Times

“Gyan Riley is a one-man American-music machine, amicably ranging across the fields of jazz, world music, and post-minimalism.” —New Yorker

Timba Harris, violinist/violist, trumpet player, and composer, has performed at many of the world’s most renown symphony halls, theaters, rock clubs, and festivals in 45 countries, sharing the stage with many of today’s most envelope-pushing luminaries in numerous configurations. A core member of Secret Chiefs 3 for more than a decade and founding member of the genre-bending band Estradasphere, he has also regularly performed with Al-Madar (w/ Bassam Saba), the New York Arabic Orchestra, and the Gyan Riley Trio (w/ Gyan and Scott Amendola/Ches Smith). His playing and arrangements can be heard on recordings of composers’ work such as John Zorn and Eyvind Kang and bands including Cleric, Grails, Wolves in the Throne Room, MMoB, and Sunn O))). Recordings of his compositions for large and small ensembles can be found on Tzadik Record’s Composers Series and Trey Spruance’s Mimicry Records. His music has been choreographed by Nadia Horecna and performed by the acclaimed Dusseldorf Ballet (Germany) and featured on WNYC’s New Sounds with John Schafer.