Radical 2 (Levy Lorenzo // Dennis Sullivan) is an irrational, classification-defying duo that explores the intersection of theatric, percussive and electronic mediums.
This concert features new works with electronics by Andrew Blanton, David Coll, Sarah Grace Graves and Andrew Harlan.
--------------------------------------------------------
Born in Akron, Ohio, Dennis K. Sullivan II is a percussionist, composer, electronicist and educator based in Queens NY.
As a percussionist focusing on new and contemporary music, Dennis is a founding member of the performance duo, Radical 2 with percussionist/electronics engineer, Levy Lorenzo. A classification-defying duo that explores the use of theatric, vocal, percussive and prototype electronic mediums, Radical 2 has been bringing this unique blend to contemporary audiences for over seven years. Radical 2 has been featured on the 2019 and 2017 OpenICE series at the Abrons Arts Center, 2016 Omaha Under the Radar festival and also has been heard in New York, Chicago, San Francisco, Berlin, London, Hamburg and elsewhere. They have held residencies at Stanford University and Adelphi University and will be in residence at UC Berkeley in 2019.
He is also one half of Popebama, a high octane experimental percussion/saxophone duo with composer/saxophonist Erin Rogers who apply text, electronics, and high-energy instrumental writing to non-traditional sounds.Specializing in works conceived by Rogers and Sullivan, Popebama has championed composers such as Paul Pinto, Matthew Shlomowitz, Rick Burkhardt, Jenna Lyle, and Daniel Silliman, and collaborated with performers such as yarn/wire (NYC), Tøyen Fil Og Klafferi (Oslo), Brandon Lopez (Brooklyn), Anne Le Berge (Amsterdam), and DECODER (Hamburg). Popebama has been featured on NYmusikk Bergen (Norway), Edmonton Fringe Festival (Canada), Splendor (Amsterdam), Diabolical Records (Salt Lake City), Bodies-As-Technology (Brooklyn), and Cleveland’s inaugural ReSound Festival, with lauded performances at the 2017 New Music Gathering, NASA 2018 Biennial (Cincinnati), SPLICE Festival (Kalamazoo) and The Stone (NYC). Educational engagements include student workshops, masterclasses, and performances at Hochschule fur Musik (Freiburg), UMass Amherst, and The Walden School (New Hampshire). Popebama will headline the 49th Annual Festival of New Music at Ball State University, which includes five evening performances and an international call-for-scores. The high demand of the ensemble has garnered attention from presenters and new music advocates alike, resulting in a growing number of performances in the US and abroad. Popebama completed its first European tour in 2018 and will return in spring 2020.
Dennis is as well very active as a solo artist in the US and Europe, commissioning new works for his unique hybrid of percussion, theater, and electronics as well as actively performing his own compositions. As a composer, Dennis’s work has been heard in the US, Canada, Germany, and the Netherlands. He has been awarded a composition residency at the STEIM center for electro acoustic music in Amsterdam. His compositions have recently been performed by Yarn/Wire, Decoder, flutist Kenneth J. Cox, New Thread Saxophone Quartet, Hypercube, N/A Ensemble and others while being featured on the International Contemporary Ensemble's OpenICE series, nymusikk Bergen, SPLICE Festival, Ball State Festival of New Music, Omaha Under the Radar, Cleveland's reSound Festival and the Edmonton Fringe Festival. Upcoming projects include new works for Unheard-of// ensemble, guitarist Jay Sorce, flutist Kennith J. Cox, and "Fight. Songs," an evening of music curated with Popebama bandmate Erin Rogers written for and performed with Decoder to be premiered at Hamburg's Elbphilharmonie in March 2020.
Dennis was been awarded the grand prize at the Van Rooy Competition for Musical Excellence, and has received the Stipiendienpreise at the Darmstadt International Ferienkurse fur Neue Musik (Darmstadt, Germany). His festival appearances have included Darmstadt, NIME 2014 at Goldsmith’s University (featured soloist), OpenICE, Look + Listen Festival, Cleveland's ReSound Festival, The Moving Sounds Festival, The Edmonton Fringe Festival, The Ecstatic Music Festival,The Klangspuren Festival (Ensemble Modern Academy), Omaha Under the Radar, ACA Festival of American Music, Make Music New York, and the Woodstock Fringe Festival. He has recorded for the New Amsterdam, Mode and Original Abstraction labels. He has shared the stage with leading contemporary music ensembles such as The Argento New Music Project, Either/Or, The International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE), ECCE Ensemble, Ensemble Court Circuit, Ensemble Pamplemousse, Wavefield Ensemble, Newband, Iktus Percussion, Mivos, The Darmstadt Preistrager Forum, Ensemble Modern Academy, and many more. He has performed in leading NYC venues such as BAM, Roulette, Merkin Hall, Miller Theater, Symphony Space, The Stone, The Cell, The Tank, The Firehouse Space, Saint Peter's Church and JACK where he has successfully curated a yearly series of theatrically driven new music, bringing together classical music, theater, rock, heavy metal, and film all under the umbrella of "theatrically driven art."
Dennis holds a Bachelor of Music (BM) from the Hartt School of Music as well as Master of Music (MM) and Doctorate of Musical Arts (DMA) from SUNY Stony Brook University. Dennis currently serves as adjunct professor of percussion as well as the director of the wind ensemble at Adelphi University. He is also and adjunct lecturer for the Sound Studies program at Manhattan College and in on faculty at the Walden School's Young Musicians’ program.
--------------------------------------------------------
Born in Bucharest, Filipino-American Levy Marcel Ingles Lorenzo, Jr. works at the intersection of music, art, and technology. On an international scale, his body of work spans custom electronics design, sound engineering, instrument building, installation art, free improvisation, and classical percussion. With a primary focus on inventing new instruments, he prototypes, composes, and performs new electronic music. As an electronic art consultant, Levy designs interactive electronics ranging from small sculptures to large-scale public art installations with artists such as Alvin Lucier, Christine Sun Kim, Ligorano-Reese, and Leo Villareal. As a percussionist, he co-founded the experimental theater/electronics duo Radical 2 with Dennis Sullivan and is a member of the Peter Evans Septet. As a sound engineer, he specializes in the realization and performance of complete electro-acoustic concerts with non-traditional configurations. One of his main engagements is Claire Chase's Density 2036 project. A core member of the acclaimed International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE), he fulfills multiple roles as live sound engineer, electronicist, and percussionist.
Filling a unique niche, Levy is in demand as a freelance designer and artist. His work has been featured at STEIM, Harvestworks, MIT Media Lab, Ensemble Moderne, Darmstadt, Yellow Barn, Pitchfork.com, Slashdot.org, G4TV, Grey Group, Bose, The New York Times, BBC, and Burning Man. An advocate for interdisciplinary arts, he has collaborated with dancers, video artists, public artists, mathematicians, sculptors, architects, and dramaturgs. Bridging the gap between the electronics design cycle and the performance practice of cutting-edge contemporary music, Levy is as equally comfortable wielding a soldering iron as drumsticks and four-mallets. He has fluency navigating hardware schematics and coding in various software environments, as well as interpreting complex musical scores and playing chamber music.
Levy earned degrees as Master of Electrical & Computer Engineering from Cornell University, and Doctor of Musical Arts in Percussion Performance from Stony Brook University. He has given numerous guest workshops and lectures on electronic musical instrument design and performance practice. Dr. Lorenzo holds a position as Professor of Creative Technologies at The New School, College of Performing Arts.