“The sonic equivalent of microscopic life viewed on a slide.” - The New Yorker

“An astonishing demonstration of pure sound and human will.” - The Wire

John McCowen is a composer/clarinetist focused on extending the possibilities of the clarinet. John's multiphonic approach embraces drones, difference tones, and beating harmonics as a means to squeeze out the compositional potential within a single, acoustic sound source. Documents of this practice have been released by Edition Wandelweiser, International Anthem, Astral Spirits, SUPERPANG, Dinzu Artefacts, and others. John was a 2017 & 2019 artist-in-residence at Lijiang Studio in Yunnan, China, and also the 2020 artist-in-residence at ISSUE Project Room in Brooklyn. He received the Elizabeth Mills Crothers Award for excellence in music composition in 2016 from Mills College where he received an MA in Music Composition. He has collaborated with Roscoe Mitchell, Nate Wooley, Bergrún Snæbjörnsdóttir, Theresa Wong, Charmaine Lee, Sean Meehan, Randall Dunn,…