Stuart Bogie & Buck McDaniel-Piano & Clarinet
Bowerbird is pleased to present composer-clarinetist Stuart Bogie and composer-keyboardist Buck McDaniel performing two concerts in one day, continuing their acclaimed collaboration that began with the 2024 project November Variations.
At University Lutheran, they turn to clarinet and piano. This pairing invites rhythmic nuance and spontaneous turns showcasing both composed works and improvisations highlighting each composer’s individual voice and another view of their shared improvisational language.
First conceived in 2024, November Variations began as a series of five improvised 9 a.m. concerts at New York’s Church of Our Saviour, recorded live to capture each composition as it unfolded. The resulting five-part album is being released in parts leading up to the 2025 five-concert residency in Manhattan, November 17 – 21.
The November 14 performances in Philadelphia offer an opportunity to experience the duo’s ethos of stillness, connection, and sonic exploration in two distinct instrumental settings.
ABOUT THE ARTISTS
Composer and multi-instrumentalist Stuart Bogie was born in Evanston, Illinois. He studied for 6 Years with Gary Onstad and at the Music Center of the North Shore before attending Interlochen Art Academy and the University of Michigan where he studied with Debra Chodacki. He is the recipient of a Meet the Composer grant and he composed the score for the Oscar nominated documentary How To Survive a Plague, featuring performances by the Kronos Quartet. He has written for film, television, commercials, and the stage. He has released 9 albums as a leader.
During the pandemic lock-down, Bogie performed a daily series of improvised solo clarinet pieces using the accompaniment drone tracks sent to him by over 50 different collaborators including Arcade Fire, Richard Reed Parry, Colin Stetson, Sam Cohen, Josh Kaufman, Peter Murray, E Dan, Craig Finn, Ryan Sawyer, Dave Harrington, Yuka Honda, and James Murphy. Began in the second week of lock-down, the series ran for over 150 days consecutively and has been collected into four volumes, with more volumes in the works. An LP, Morningside, presenting 2 of the pieces made with James Murphy was released on October 27 on DFA records. This music is featured in a worldwide exhibition of photographs by Gregory Crewsden, and can be heard in the documentary accompanying the exhibit. In July of 2023 Bogie premiered Morningside at Les Recontres d’Arles, live scoring the documentary by Harper Glantz. His latest release is Patient Music, a collaboration with longtime friends Josh Kaufman & Sam Cohen available now from Historical Fiction Records.
Buck McDaniel is a composer, conductor, keyboardist, and improviser based in New York City. His music blends the American Minimalist tradition with a personal storytelling practice. McDaniel’s work often explores site, text, and memory, engaging both concert, sacred, and non-traditional spaces with equal depth and curiosity.
His compositions have been performed and broadcast internationally, including on NBC’s Saturday Night Live, BBC Radio 3, WQXR, and NPR’s The Moth Radio Hour. His work appears in Oliver Hermanus’s film The History of Sound, starring Paul Mescal and Josh O’Connor, which premiered at the 2025 Cannes Film Festival. A frequent collaborator, McDaniel has worked with artists including Sam Smith, Nico Muhly, Sam Amidon, and Stuart Bogie.
McDaniel is a former Kulas Composer Fellow at Cleveland Public Theatre, and his projects have been supported by institutions such as the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art (MASS MoCA), the Mississippi Museum of Art, and the Lauren Rogers Museum of Art. His work has been presented by the Boston University Tanglewood Institute, the Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn, and the Cleveland Chamber Symphony, among others.
His music and interdisciplinary projects have been covered by The New York Times, Time Out New York, and Relix. Recordings of his work are available on Etymology, Gold Bolus, and Telarc labels. He serves as Artist-in-Residence at The General Theological Seminary and Director of Music at the Church of Our Saviour, Murray Hill and Chapel of the Sacred Hearts, Kips Bay.