Rebecca Harris, baroque violin, Richard Stone, theorbo.

Join us for selections from the 17th century Mystery Sonatas and more. This series of 15 works that utilize alternative tunings for the open strings on the violin were influential on Tony Conrad’s approach to music. As he wrote in the liner notes to his Early Minimalism: Volume One, “Biber’s music transformed me; for the first time, my violin sounded truly wonderful. It rang, and sang, and spoke in a rich soulful voice—the timbre of the instrument, clad in Biber’s coat of many colorful tunings, catching and refracting every note differently—reinventing, thereby, the function of the key pitch, the fundamental of the chord.”

This performance is in conjunction with the exhibition Introducing Tony Conrad: A Retrospective, on view at ICA through August 11.

Programming at ICA has been made possible in part by the Emily and Jerry Spiegel Fund to Support Contemporary Culture and Visual Arts and the Lise Spiegel Wilks and Jeffrey Wilks Family Foundation, and by Hilarie L. & Mitchell Morgan.