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Mark Southerland has used the saxophone as a medium for exploring sound and performance for 25 years. By reinterpreting the assumed stage presence of a jazz musician, Southerland’s work has run the gamut of pop culture and Rahsaan Roland Kirk tributaries, to costuming burlesque reviews and formal choreography. His reinvention of brass and woodwind instruments, circuit-bent electronic children’s toys, and eight track ‘scratching’ turn his stage work into an Alexander Caulder-esque circus of visual and sound possibilities. His ‘bastardized’ horns and costumes have been displayed as free-standing sculptures at the Dolphin Gallery and Urban Culture Projects in Kansas City, the OSP in Boston, and the Stray Show in Chicago. Functional and beautiful, the instruments are named by their sound as well as their composite parts (Parasite Horn, Heart Horn, Graffitti Horn, Oboenaphone, Flutaphone).
A Kansas City native, Mark Southerland has played locally, nationally, and throughout Europe with Malachy Papers for over ten years. His ongoing side project, Snuff Jazz involves a constantly changing trio. A natural host and collaborator of other musicians (Eugene Chadbourne, Mike Dillon), artists (David Ford, Peregrine Honig), and dancers (Rita Brinkerhoff, Laurel Birdsong), Southerland continuously extends his possibilities, pushing the improvisatory envelope of visual and auditory standards.
’As a crossover artist, performer and musician, Mark Southerland’s work pushes the notion of traditional music, pivoting sound into a fluid, experimental context of theatrical, surprising and sophisticated art.’ -Heather Lustfeldt Urban Culture Projects/ H&R Block Artspace
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