'Unity Song' by composer Samuel Clay Birmaher: A sonic encounter with Tamiko Kawata's Together II (Waterfall)
Join us for a special listening event featuring Unity Song, a multi-hour composition by Samuel Clay Birmaher written to accompany Tamiko Kawata’s Together II (Waterfall). Echoing Kawata’s use of safety pins, the music is built from a simple musical unit that can connect with itself in different ways, forming communities of notes that coalesce and disperse as the music breathes. In tandem with the artwork, at a pace far below that of daily life, the music invites the listeners into a shared space of unfractured attention.
The listening event will unfold over the course of one week in the gallery. Seating will be available throughout the space, and visitors are invited to sign up for one-hour listening slots, allowing time to settle in and experience the music in relation to the artwork. Guests may come and go during their reserved hour, encouraging focused, unhurried listening within the gallery setting.
Free to attend, with limited registration. Please RSVP via the form linked below:
Please contact claire@alisonbradleyprojects.com with any further questions.
PROGRAM NOTE
Unity Song is a three-hour composition for keyboard written in dialogue with Tamiko Kawata’s Together II (Waterfall). In this realization, a pre-recorded live performance is played ambiently within the space.
This autumn, when I joined other volunteers in creating the strands that make up this installation, I witnessed how the bonds of safety pins we made with our hands became the human bonds we began forming naturally with each other. My focus on this was strengthened by my conversations with Kawata in preparation for writing the music. Like the artwork, the music is fundamentally about connection.
Echoing Kawata’s use of safety pins, Unity Song is built entirely from a simple musical unit that can connect with versions of itself in different ways.
As the music slowly breathes, the units coalesce into communities of notes, then disperse again into emptiness. This ebb and flow develops in cycles, each time transformed into something new, but always formed out of the same musical atom. And as with everything else in this music, the ending connects back to the beginning in an unbroken flow.
Unity Song’s transparency—its sounds, its silences, its arc and its flow—is in service to acting as a focusing lens for the space it exists in. Together with the artwork, unfolding at a pace beyond the rhythms of daily life, the music invites listeners to enter a shared space of unfractured attention.
COMPOSER BIOGRAPHY
Samuel Clay Birmaher (rhymes with “here and there”) is a composer living and working in New York City, writing primarily notated music for acoustic instruments. His music tells stories about internal and external worlds, using familiar musical elements to create undefined symbols.
Recent projects include a collaboration with Terry Riley on his open-ended work The Holy Liftoff for flutist Claire Chase, premiered by her with the JACK Quartet and featured in the 2025 Ojai Music Festival, and How to Become an Idea, a concert-length diptych of perceptual solos for violinist Christopher Otto. In 2026, Mode Records will release his first album, Bleeding Heart Transformation, a long meditation for solo guitar performed by David Nadal.
