Bang on a Can

(Porter, Delivery Boy) is a vocalist and composer performing in jazz, improvised and contemporary music. Theo Bleckmann was born and raised near Dortmund, Germany in a little village called Bork. He immigrated to the United States in 1989 after having received both 1st prizes at "Jugend Jazzt" and the "Deutscher Gesangswettbewerb" in 1988. Since then he has worked with some of the leading figures in jazz, new music and dance such as Anthony Braxton, Merce Cunningham Dance Company, Mark Dresser (CD: Force Green, Soul Note), John Hollenbeck, Gerry Hemingway, Sheila Jordan (CD: Jazz Child, High Note), Guy Klusevsek, Denman Maroney, Ben Monder (CD: No Boat, Songlines), Ikue Mori (CD: one hundred aspects of the moon, Tzadik), Mark Morris Dance Group and Kirk Nurock (CDs: Theo & Kirk and Looking-Glass River, Traumton Rec.). Commissioned by the Whitney Museum of American Art at Philip Morris, Theo Bleckmann composed and created the hour-long music performance Fidget piece out of Kenneth Goldsmith's text 'Fidget', which was also performed at the Maryland Institute of the Art in Baltimore. Since 1994 he has been a member of Meredith Monk's vocal ensemble performing numerous of her music-theater and concert works such as Facing North, Atlas (concert), American Archeology, Turtle Dreams Waltz, The Politics of Quiet and the most recent Magic Frequencies. He also performed and co-created the title role in Valeria Vasilevski's The True Last Words of Dutch Schulz which was composed for him by Eric Salzman. He is currently recording his second CD as a leader for Songlines Recordings entitled Origami.