For Manifestos 6: Ben Patterson, artist Charles Gaines newly interprets Fluxus artist Benjamin Patterson’s Variations for Double-Bass (c. 1962), a score for performance that uses words rather than traditional musical notation. Gaines converts Patterson’s letters into music following a system Gaines devised in 2004. The composition, to be performed by an ensemble consisting of a string quartet, double bass, trumpet, trombone, tuba, and percussion, pays homage to Patterson’s legacy while showcasing Gaines’s unique artistic engagement with systems of language, text, notation, and sound.
A pivotal figure in the field of Conceptual art, Charles Gaines engages formulas and systems that interrogate relationships between the objective and the subjective realms. Using a generative approach to create a series of works in a variety of mediums, he has built a bridge between the early Conceptual artists of the 1960s and 1970s and subsequent generations of artists pushing the limits of Conceptualism today.
John Eagle is a composer, performer, instrument builder, and installation artist. His work explores relationships within ecological frameworks and environments. He has performed and exhibited work in England, Sweden, Thailand, and across the US, collaborating with artists including Emily Call, Charles Gaines, Janie Geiser, Piyawat Louilarpprasert, Michael Pisaro-Liu, and Cassia Streb.
Mads Falcone is a performer, producer, and curator who seeks to build an artistic community that challenges conventions. They are codirector of the Los Angeles–based Isaura String Quartet and Boss Witch Productions, and have performed and produced on stages from Carnegie Hall to Coachella to Times Square, including Charles Gaines’s 2022 premiere of Manifestos 4.
Yaz Lancaster is a Black transdisciplinary artist whose work as a performer, composer, and writer is grounded in queer, DIY, and liberatory frameworks. Lancaster’s work utilizes collage, relational aesthetics, improvisatory forms, and genre-fluid electroacoustic composition. They co-manage people | places | records, and they enjoy powerlifting, anime, and walking their little dog Nori.
Connie Li is an artist and writer, currently based in Baltimore and New York City, whose work across a variety of mediums concerns our dynamic relationships to place, memory and embodied knowledge, and the formation of kinship. Her favorite river is the Chattahoochee.
Originally from Uniondale, New York, the New York City–based, first-generation Filipino American musician Jay Julio serves as assistant principal viola of the Opera Philadelphia Orchestra. They have appeared on radio and TV across the US, on the cover of British GQ, and within the pages of Vogue magazine as a musician and an abolitionist.
Cellist Wayne Smith plays in the orchestra for Sweeney Todd on Broadway and is a core member of the Harlem Chamber Players. Before his recent return to New York he served on the faculties of Amherst College and the Deerfield Academy in Massachusetts, and was a member of the Portland Piano Trio in Maine.
Marguerite Cox is a double bassist from Northeast Ohio. She is currently a fellow in Carnegie Hall’s renowned Ensemble Connect program. In 2023 Marguerite earned her master’s degree in double bass performance from the Curtis Institute of Music. Prior to that, she graduated from Rice University’s Shepherd School of Music, where she studied under Paul Ellison and worked closely with Tim Pitts.
Wayne du Maine is a trumpeter and educator based in the New York area. He has performed, toured, and recorded with the New York Philharmonic, the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, the Orchestra of St. Luke’s, Manhattan Brass, the Metropolitan Opera, and the artist Prince. He has also performed on multiple Broadway productions. He currently serves as director of the brass program at NYU Steinhardt.
Sterling Davis is a trombonist based in New York City. He is currently studying orchestral trombone performance at the Manhattan School of Music with Colin Williams of the New York Philharmonic. Originally from Columbus, Ohio, Sterling holds a bachelor’s degree in music education from Stephen F. Austin State University, where he studied trombone with Debra Scott.
Brooklyn-based tubist and composer Jono Hill has showcased his talents with the Seattle Symphony, the New York City Ballet, the Malaysian Philharmonic, and the Radio City Music Hall Orchestra. He has also performed and recorded with Macklemore, Odesza, and K.Flay. Jono crafts compositions for indie films, off-Broadway productions, and brands including Microsoft, Amazon, and Expedia. He attended the Juilliard School and Yale University.
Originally from Buenos Aires and currently based in New York City, Pauline Roberts is a percussionist, vocalist, and composer. She is the recipient of a grant from the National Arts Foundation (AR). Once interviewed by Frank Zappa’s archivist, she has performed at the Parsons Benefit Gala and PASIC 2023, and contributed to a Netflix soundtrack by Billy Martin. She is currently crafting her debut solo album, Nuevas Músicas Para Vibráfono y Electrónica.
Composer: Charles Gaines
Conductor and music director: John Eagle
Producer: Mads Falcone
Violin: Yaz Lancaster
Violin: Connie Li
Viola: Jay Julio
Cello: Wayne Smith
Bass: Marguerite Cox
Percussion and xylophone: Pauline Roberts
Trumpet: Wayne du Maine
Trombone: Sterling Davis
Tuba: Jono HillOrganized by Grace Wales Bonner with Michelle Kuo, The Marlene Hess Curator, and Dana Liljegren, Curatorial Assistant, Department of Painting and Sculpture, MoMA, with the collaboration of Nick Murphy, Curatorial Partner, Pantograph, Paris. Produced by Lizzie Gorfaine, Associate Director and Producer, Performance and Live Programs, with Aminah Ibrahim, Assistant Performance Coordinator, Performance and Live Programs, MoMA.
Thanks to Liam Sangmuah and Jessica Hamenyimana, Research Associates, Wales Bonner.