about the artist.
Honolulu, 2016
Born and raised in the wild state of Idaho, performer/composer Gretchen Jude has been heard across the globe, from Seoul to Helsinki. Improvisatory interaction with the immediate environment forms the core of Gretchen’s sonic practice. Ongoing collaborations include glou glou (voice & electronics) and Eat The Sun (koto). Gretchen also works actively with filmmakers and choreographers, such as Peiling Kao (in their duo, electroViolet). Gretchen's work has been released on Full Spectrum, Susu Ultrarock, and Edgetone Records.
Gretchen has studied a variety of performance practices, including: music improvisation with Fred Frith, Roscoe Mitchell & Zeena Parkins; voice technique with Giselle Wyers, Molly Holm, Jonathan Nadel & Etsuko Takezawa; Japanese musics (nagauta & hauta shamisen, jiuta koto) with Makoto Nishimura, Curtis Patterson & Shibahime; and audio technique with Ted Apel, John Bischoff, James Fei, Jeff Lubow & Nicolas Collins.
Gretchen holds an M.F.A. in Electronic Music & Recording Media from Mills College (2011) and a Ph.D. in Performance Studies from University of California, Davis (2018), along with certification from the Sawai Koto Institute (Tokyo) and the Deep Listening Institute (New York).
Gretchen's work explores the liminal spaces between natural and artificial, tradition and experimentation, self and other as s/he wanders various borderlands of contemporary experience. As a composer, s/he approaches music composition as 'a channel for the desire to sing' (to paraphrase sonologist Joel Ryan paraphrasing choreographer William Forsythe). Gretchen aims to synthesize and harmonize personal, embodied experience with the rapid changes in culture and machinery that both empower and impinge upon us.
Gretchen has studied a variety of performance practices, including: music improvisation with Fred Frith, Roscoe Mitchell & Zeena Parkins; voice technique with Giselle Wyers, Molly Holm, Jonathan Nadel & Etsuko Takezawa; Japanese musics (nagauta & hauta shamisen, jiuta koto) with Makoto Nishimura, Curtis Patterson & Shibahime; and audio technique with Ted Apel, John Bischoff, James Fei, Jeff Lubow & Nicolas Collins.
Gretchen holds an M.F.A. in Electronic Music & Recording Media from Mills College (2011) and a Ph.D. in Performance Studies from University of California, Davis (2018), along with certification from the Sawai Koto Institute (Tokyo) and the Deep Listening Institute (New York).
Gretchen's work explores the liminal spaces between natural and artificial, tradition and experimentation, self and other as s/he wanders various borderlands of contemporary experience. As a composer, s/he approaches music composition as 'a channel for the desire to sing' (to paraphrase sonologist Joel Ryan paraphrasing choreographer William Forsythe). Gretchen aims to synthesize and harmonize personal, embodied experience with the rapid changes in culture and machinery that both empower and impinge upon us.