Photos of The Festival of Things in Bushwick, New York, 2026

Please enjoy these beautiful photos by Andreas Troeger from Assemblage (My Mother's Eyes and My Grandfather's Nose), my most recent collaboration with Rachel Cohen and Racoco Productions. The performances featured Lucia Stavaros on harp, Samuel Gray on viola, with dancers Masumi Kishimoto (also Racoco's assistant director), Meghan Schardt-Gensberg, Fina, and Toby Billowitz. 

Anderas writes: 

"Racoco Productions' Assemblage is a piece in motion, constantly shifting throughout its presentation. This version of the performance, with flawless live music (composed by Chris Becker), was among the most poetic works I’ve seen in New York City in a long time.

"The dancers' excavation of Rachel Cohen’s choreography was executed with humor and precision, moving effortlessly between chaos, ritual, and absurdity. Nothing felt forced. The piece unfolded like a living organism — raw, intelligent, and fully alive."

 

Music for artist David McGee's 2026 exhibit, "The Griot and The Nightingale"

The work of Houston-based artist David McGee inspired this brand-new composition. It was commissioned by the Bechtler Museum of Modern Art for McGee’s first major museum survey, The Griot and the Nightingale, on view from March 14 to August 23, 2026.

There are two parts to this soundscape. The first is a dreamlike assemblage of urban ambience, including traffic, unidentifiable machinery, sirens, and children playing. It alludes to McGee’s stark, black-and-white, oil-on-burlap Urban Dreads paintings. Part two resonates with the spirit of McGee’s Oracles, a series of collages paying homage to tap dancer and activist Howard “Stretch” Johnson. Emerging out of the gentle wash of an inverted C major chord are Tibetan bells, local and exotic birds (who populate McGee’s recent watercolor portraits), vinyl record pops and scratches, and fragments of conversation with McGee.

Throughout this soundscape, distortion, the superimposition of rhythms, and the rough edges of my edits (all done digitally) are an aural response to the physical textures of McGee’s paintings and collages.

Much like a painter who tests out ideas with studies (something David doesn’t do!), over the course of several months, I shared several “sketches” with David before creating this final work. And now, each time I listen to it, I hear something new, which is not something one, as a composer, can plan for. You have a concept, your technique, and technology, but the actual process of creation is alchemic, and the result transcendental. 

credits

released February 6, 2026

Composed, Recorded, and Mixed by Chris Becker

Becker - Field Recordings, Bells, Soft Synths

Patrick Moore - Cello

David McGee - Voice

Mastered by Douglas Henderson

Artwork photography by Thomas R. DuBrock

Special thanks to The Bechtler Museum of Modern Art and Inman Gallery.

Rococo Productions presents a Festival of Things - May 2, 3, 9, and 10, 2026

 

Beginning April 26, Racoco Productions will be experimenting in a Festival of Things. We will present our research results (and some choreography!) to live music for harp and viola, composed by Chris Becker, on May 2, 3, 9, and 10.

We hope you will join us in our research, as an audience member or as a participant. And Bring your Things! We will be hosting a series of Thing-Related Events at our new Laboratelier out in Bushwick, Brooklyn, including: the Antiques Racocoshow, more Inanimated Speed Dating, and Make-Your-Own Object Video, along with open rehearsals and workshops.

Sunday, April 26,

1:30pm - 6pm Action Theater & Objects workshop

6:30pm: Opening reception

Monday, April 27 - May 1:

Laboratelier open by appointment

Saturday, May 2

10am - 7pm: Laboratelier open

7pm: open rehearsal: My Grandfather’s Nose

Sunday, May 3

10am - 7pm: Laboratelier open

11am - 1pm: Relinquish workshop

4pm performance: My Grandfather’s Nose

Monday-Friday, May 4 - May 8

10am - 7pm: Laboratelier open by appointment

Saturday, May 9 5pm Performance: My Mother’s Eyes 7pm Performance: My Grandfather’s Nose

Sunday, May 10 1pm: Performance: My Mother’s Eyes 2:30pm: A Special Antiques Racocoshow, Mother’s Day Edition 4pm: Performance: My Grandfather’s Nose 5:30pm: Performance: My Mother’s Eyes 6:30pm: Closing reception and raffle/auction

RSVP: info@racoco.org

For more information or to RSVP, send us an email - we'll tell you everything!

Blackstar (Re-imagined for String Quartet)

This is my arrangement of David Bowie's song "Blackstar" re-imagined for string quartet.

The attentive listener will hear elements of Bowie's original composition throughout, along with a couple of quotes from Greig's Peer Gynt Suite. (The first quote appeared unintentionally, which led me to consider a connection between Henrik Ibsen's dramatic poem and where I took Bowie's music.)

I composed this over the course of several sessions, pretty much from beginning to end, and always in a trance. It was completed on January 1, 2026, and I decided to share it today, on Bowie's birthday.

If you are interested in seeing and performing the score, or using this music for dance or film, please message me. 

Thank you for listening.

Created in Sibelius with NotePerformer sound library.

Bright Center Star Cluster photo by NASA

"Heroes" with choreography by Blakeley White-McGuire at the Festival of the Arts BOCA, March 1, 2026

Woo-hoo! Coming up March 1, 2026, at the Festival of the Arts BOCA, my dramatically reimagined (and newly rerecorded) version of David Bowie's iconic song "Heroes" will accompany a new duet created by the magnificent Blakeley White-McGuire and performed by Blakeley and Daniel Fetecua Soto. The program is titled "From Swan Lake to the Stones."

The performance takes place at Mizner Park Amphitheater.

From the Festival of the Arts BOCA website: 

"Dance icons Melanie Hamrick, Joanna DeFelice, and Christine Shevchenko bring their exhilarating dance production back for its Festival Boca Three-pete. Featuring principal dancers from New York City Ballet, American Ballet Theatre, and special guest artists Blakeley White-McGuire and Daniel Fetecua, the production includes excerpts from some of the most loved classical ballets, including Giselle, Swan Lake, Le Corsaire, and features world premieres set to the music of David Bowie and The Rolling Stones."

Live Arts Global is a nonprofit formed by three female artists who work to spread art and dance to a wider audience:

Joanna DeFelice: choreographer, contemporary artist, and producer.

Melanie Hamrick: choreographer and former dancer with American Ballet Theatre.

Christine Shevchenko: principal dancer with American Ballet Theatre.

Together these women have performed, created and produced events around the world.

Current and Upcoming Composing Projects

 

(Jil Guyon in Threshold, 2025)

It's been a minute since I updated this blog. After the March 16-17, 2025 run of Assemblage, I returned to work on a score for Threshold -- a gorgeous new video by my friend and frequent collaborator, award-winning multidisciplinary visual and performing artist Jil Guyon. Created with the support of the Foundation Obras, and shot on location at the Castle of Evoramonte in Estremoz, Portugal, Threshold is a noir-like montage, in sumptuous black and white, that simmers with underlying violence and ritualistic calm. The music I've created is similar in its extremes and features multiple overdubbed performances by Houston cellist Patrick Moore. (Recorded in my home studio in the middle of summer, without A/C. Whew!) Jil and I are in the final stages of the project. I am sure the final cut, like every film by Jil I've scored, will screen widely. 

Two other projects are in the works, but it's too early to share details; suffice it to say that one is a collaboration with an amazing choreographer, the other, with a fantastic painter. 

I continue to write about music and visual art for a few online platforms and print publications, including Houstonia, Glasstire, and Arts & Culture, Texas. I also have my still relatively new Substack, Night and Day, which I invite you to check out and consider subscribing to. 

Photos of Assemblage in Houston, TX, 2025

Please enjoy these beautiful images from Assemblage, my collaboration with Rachel Cohen and Racoco Productions. Huge thank you to everyone who came out to experience this unique blend of live music, dance, video, and collage-making, May 16 and 17, 2025 at The Jung Center of Houston. 

Was it improvised? Nope. The movement was set; the live score was notated. But the process from point A to B unfurled like the line from a pencil tracing random objects on a map. Kudos to Masumi Kishimoto (who traveled from Brooklyn to Houston to be a part of this), and Houston-based dancers Tobaric Atkins-Montana and Persi Mey, and musicians Luke Hubley, Naomi Hoffmeyer, Molly Wise, and Patrick Moore for embracing the messiness of creativity and community.

All photos by Andrew and Stephanie Lienhard.

Assemblage is funded in part by the City of Houston through the Houston Arts Alliance.

Chris Becker

Persi Mey

Persi Mey and Tobaric Atkins-Montana

Tobaric Atkins-Montana and Persi Mey 

Masumi Kishimoto

Rachel Cohen

Luke Hubley

Naomi Hoffmeyer

Molly Wise

Patrick Moore