Marguerite Brown + Electric Guitar Ensemble

Sat., Jan. 31, 2026
Doors at 8pm | Show at 8:30pm
Indexical
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$16 General / FREE or discounted for Members
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Indexical presents an evening of music for electric guitar. Composer/performer Marguerite Brown performs "tuning to", a piece exploring the electric guitar as a celestial body utilyzing planetary tuning forks, hardware, and unconventional performance techniques. Electric Guitar Ensemble opens the evening with works by Catherine Lamb, Zoe Pupo, Eliot Burk, and Rodrigo Barriga.

Marguerite Brown

Marguerite Brown is a composer/performer who explores new mediums, forms, and performance practices with an emphasis on unorthodox approaches to tuning and temperament. She has been making music since the age of 9 and intends to follow its thread for a lifetime. Marguerite’s work has been performed at KM28 (Berlin), The Composers Conference (New Hampshire), Underscore Festival (Atlanta), Espacios Sonoros Electroacoustic Festival (Argentina), ClarinetFest (Denver), La Chapelle Theater (Canada), Center for New Music (San Francisco), REDCAT Theater (Los Angeles), Indexical (Santa Cruz), Best Practice (San Diego), Wayward Music Series (Seattle), among others. Marguerite has a BM in music composition from Cornish College of the Arts, MA from the University of California Santa Cruz, and is currently a PhD candidate in music composition at the University of California San Diego.

Electric Guitar Ensemble

Electric Guitar Ensemble will perform music for various combinations of electric guitar and bass. Featuring works by Catherine Lamb, Zoe Pupo, Eliot Burk, and Rodrigo Barriga. Performed by Rodrigo Barriga, Chris Everingham, Sean Keenan, Nathan Clevenger, and James Mariani.

Marguerite Brown (b.1990) is an American composer and multi-instrumentalist who explores new mediums, forms, and performance practices with an emphasis on unorthodox approaches to tuning and temperament. In her compositions, algorithms often provide a framework for indeterminate parameters to unfold, where performer control and composer control play an equal role in realizing the vision.

Marguerite received first place in the 6th International Microtonal Guitar Competition (composition category) with her piece “Solo (Daisy)” which she performed on a guitar refretted in an original 11-limit just intonation tuning system.

Her other work for refretted guitars was recently published in the microtonal journal Edition Zalzal, as well as presented at the 2021 21st Century Guitar Conference and the 2021 Pacific Pythagorean Music Festival. Marguerite was also recently awarded the Mivos/Kanter String Quartet Prize for her string quartet in just intonation titled “chroai: tetrachords”, which will be performed in New York City during Mivos Quartet’s 2022-23 season.

Marguerite holds a BM in music composition from Cornish College of the Arts (2013), a MA from the University of California, Santa Cruz (2019), and is currently a PhD student in music composition at the University of California, San Diego.

Catherine Lamb

Catherine Lamb (b. 1982, Olympia, Wa, U.S.), is a composer exploring the interaction of elemental tonal material and the variations in presence between shades and beings in a room. She has been studying and composing music since a young age. In 2003 she turned away from the conservatory in an attempt to understand the structures and intonations within Hindustani Classical Music, later finding Mani Kaul in 2006 who was directly connected to Zia Mohiuddin Dagar and whose philosophical approach to sound became important to her. She studied (experimental) composition at the California Institute of the Arts (2004-2006) under James Tenney and Michael Pisaro, who were both integral influences. It was there also that she began her work into the area of Just Intonation, which became a clear way to investigate the interaction of tones and ever-fluctuating shades, where these interactions in and of them-selves became structural elements in her work. Since then she has written various ensemble pieces (at times with liminal electronic portions) and continues to go further into elemental territories, through various kinds of research, collaboration, and practice (herself as a violist). She received her MFA from the Milton Avery School of Fine Arts at Bard College in 2012 and is currently residing in Berlin, Germany.

Marguerite Brown + Electric Guitar Ensemble

Sat., Jan. 31, 2026
Doors at 8pm | Show at 8:30pm
Indexical
Add to Calendar
$16 General / FREE or discounted for Members
Get Tickets

Program

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