Zeena Parkins

Zeena Parkins is an American harpist active in rock music, free improvisation, and jazz. Parkins plays standard harps, as well as several custom electric harps; she also plays piano and accordion. She is currently a guest faculty member for composition courses at Mills College.^[1][2]

Born in 1956 in Detroit, Michigan, she studied at Bard College and moved to New York City in 1984.^[2]

Her work ranges from solo performance to large ensembles. Besides standard and electric harps, her work also incorporates Foley, field recordings, analog synthesizers, samplers, oscillators and homemade instruments.^[1]

She has done several solo recordings and has also recorded or performed with Björk, John Zorn (including in Cobra performances), Elliott Sharp, Ikue Mori, Butch Morris, Tin Hat Trio, Jim O'Rourke, Fred Frith, Chris Cutler, Lee Ranaldo, Nels Cline, Pauline Oliveros, Anthony Braxton, Matmos, Yoko Ono, Christian Marclay, Courtney Love's band Hole and others.^[1][2][3]

She has been a member of a number of experimental rock bands, including No Safety, News from Babel, Skeleton Crew and Fred Frith's review band, Keep the Dog.^[4] In March 2008 she joined Frith's Cosa Brava quintet comprising Frith, Parkins, Carla Kihlstedt, Matthias Bossi, and The Norman Conquest.

Parkins has often worked with dance companies and choreographers, including the John Jasperse Company, Jennifer Monson, Neil Greenberg, Emmanuelle Vo-Dinh, BodyCartography Project, ^[5] and Jennifer Lacey, and has won a Bessie Award for "sustained achievement in composing scores for dance."^[1] Parkins received a 1997 Foundation for Contemporary Arts Grants to Artists Award.

She has also worked with video artist Janene Higgins^[6][7] and visual artists Daria Martin, Cynthia Madansky and Mandy McIntosh.^[1]

Discography

• Something Out There (No Man's Land, 1987)
• Nightmare Alley (Table of the Elements, 1993)
• Isabelle (Disk Union, 1995)
• Mouth=Maul=Betrayer (Tzadik, 1996)
• No Way Back (Atavistic, 1998)
• Pan-Acousticon (Atavistic, 1999)
• Necklace (Tzadik, 2006)
• Between the Whiles (Table of the Elements, 2010) ^[4]
• Double Dupe Down (Tzadik, 2012)
• Three Harps, Tuning Forks & Electronics (Good Child Music, 2016)

With Björk

• Telegram (One Little Indian, 1996)
• Vespertine (One Little Indian, 2001)
• Drawing Restraint 9 (One Little Indian, 2005)
• Biophilia (One Little Indian, 2011)

With Alex Cline

• For People in Sorrow (Cryptogramophone, 2013)

With Nels Cline

• The Inkling (Cryptogramophone, 2000)
• Destroy All Nels Cline (Atavistic, 2001)
• Macroscope (Mack Avenue, 2014)
• Lovers (Blue Note, 2016)

With Fred Frith

• The Country of Blinds (Rift, 1986) as Skeleton Crew
• Step Across the Border (RecRec, 1990)
• That House We Lived In (Fred, 1991 [2003])
• Stone, Brick, Glass, Wood, Wire (I Dischi di Angelica, 1999)
• Traffic Continues (Winter & Winter, 2000) with Ensemble Modern
• Ragged Atlas (Intakt, 2010) as Cosa Brava
• The Letter (Intakt, 2012) as Cosa Brava

With News from Babel

• Work Resumed on the Tower (Recommended, 1984)
• Letters Home (Recommended, 1986)

With Marc Ribot

• Requiem for What's His Name (Les Disques du Crépuscule, 1992)

With John Zorn

• Cobra (Hat Hut, 1987)
• John Zorn's Cobra: Live at the Knitting Factory (Knitting Factory, 1997)
• The Bribe (Tzadik, 1998)

With Bobby Previte

• Terminals (Cantaloupe, 2014)

With Pauline Oliveros

• Presença Series #01 (Lucky Kitchen/Fundação de Serralves, 2014)

Video

• Roulette TV: Janene Higgins & Zeena Parkins. (2001) Roulette Intermedium Inc.
• April in New York – Bobby Previte (2007)

Notes

References

• John Jasperse Company, Misuse liable to prosecution, program for performance October 18 – 20, 2007 at On the Boards, Seattle, Washington, a co-production with the Brooklyn Academy of Music, commissioned in part by Symphony Space (NYC).

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Zeena Parkins.

• Official site
• Zeena Parkins discography