Fred Moten & Brandon López | Research Day & Concert Jazz

Fred Moten is a cultural theorist and poet creating new conceptual spaces that accommodate emergent forms of Black cultural production, aesthetics, and social life. Moten's writing and wording are characterised by a refined opacity and a musicality that is inspired by jazz and goes to the limit of noise: “what it is I want to say is subordinate to the sound, subordinate to a kind of feeling, a content that only that sound can provide”. His books include In the Break: The Aesthetics of the Black Radical Tradition, the trilogy Consent Not To Be A Single Being , The Undercommons: Fugitive Planning & Black Study and All Incomplete, co-authored with Stefano Harney, as well as numerous poetry collections.

Learn more about Fred Moten.

Learn more about Brandon López.

Brandon López is a bassist, composer, and improviser working at the fringes of jazz, free improvisation, noise, and new music. His music has been praised as “brutal” (Chicago Reader) and “relentless” (The New York Times). His exploration of new sonic possibilities on the double bass has led him to work with the luminaries of the contemporary avant garde like John Zorn, Nate Wooley, Tyshawn Sorey, Leila Bordreuil and Cecilia López. He was a featured soloist with the New York Philharmonic and has been the recipient of numerous awards.