Eddie Breitweiser

Biography

“[Breitweiser's] initial meditation of a buzzing, transformer-like hum spikes into caterwauling waves, as if the listener is moving through a caged dreamscape of electrical transmission substations.” – Tone Madison

Edward Breitweiser is an Illinois-based artist, musician, electronic instrument builder, and writer. Incorporating models from various intellectual traditions and bodies of knowledge, Breitweiser organizes particulars (modular synthesizers, custom software, handmade electronics, audio/visual signals, text, networked distribution channels, improvisational music, performative activities) into arrangements whose products are the macro-result of the emergent interactions of all components at once. Breitweiser’s projects embrace the contrasts between ecology and technology, solo and collective, clarity and density, stasis and surprise, simplicity and complexity.

In 2021, Breitweiser received a commission from NON:op Open Opera Works (Chicago) to create Six Words, a concert-length collaborative composition that engaged directly with Central Illinois residents to reflect on our collective experience of the COVID-19 pandemic through archival research, community dialogue, and collaborative music-making. Six Words will be released as a limited edition album from No Below Records in 2024.

His works have been presented at Festival MusicAlp (Courchevel, France); Network Music Festival (Birmingham, UK); the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (Chicago); Illinois State University Galleries (Normal, IL); MobileHCI (Stockholm); Salle Cortot (Paris); threewalls (Chicago); the Giorgio Cini Foundation (Venice); Illinois Wesleyan University (Bloomington, IL); the Fuse Factory (Columbus); the McLean County Arts Center (Bloomington, IL); NON:op Open Opera Works (Chicago); Experimental Sound Studio (Chicago); and Sixty Inches From Center (online). Breitweiser founded and serves as Director of pt.fwd (Facebook, Instagram), a contemporary music and sonic arts performance series featuring new work by local and regional artists in Bloomington-Normal, Illinois. Breitweiser studied at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (MFA ‘12), l’École Normale de Musique de Paris, and Elmhurst College (BFA ‘09).

Photo by Matthew Shrier (2023).