Gretchen Jude
Born and raised in the wild state of Idaho (USA), performer and 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 musical practice. Ongoing collaborations include glou glou (voice & electronics), Eat The Sun (koto) and Candy Acid (electronics). Gretchen also works actively with choreographers such as Nina Haft, Christine Germain and Peiling Kao (in their duo, electroViolet). Gretchen’s work has been released on cassette and CD by Full Spectrum, Susu Ultrarock, and Edgetone.
Gretchen holds an M.F.A. in Electronic Music & Recording Media from Mills College and has studied a variety of performance practices, including: music improvisation with Fred Frith, Roscoe Mitchell & Zeena Parkins; voice technique with Molly Holm, Giselle Wyers & Jonathan Nadel; Japanese musics (nagauta, hauta & jiuta shamisen, voice & koto); and electronic/computer music and sound art with Ted Apel, John Bischoff, James Fei & Nic Collins.
Gretchen’s work explores the liminal spaces between natural & artificial, tradition & experimentation, self & other, as she wanders the borderlands of contemporary experience. As a composer, she approaches music composition as ‘a channel for the desire to sing’ (to paraphrase Joel Ryan paraphrasing William Forsythe). Her work aims to synthesize and harmonize personal, embodied experience with the rapid changes in culture and machinery that both empower and impinge upon us.