Stuart Bogie

_DSC0445.jpg
 

Composer and performer 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, livescoring the documentary by Harper Glantz.

In 2022 Bogie released The Prophets in the City, an album of  music composed for Brass and Percussion between 2019 and 2021, featuring the drumming of friend and collaborator Joe Russo. Relix wrote “The music is a study in contrasts: at once aggressive and patient, instrumental yet lyrical. It is also simultaneously structured and free-wheeling, equally jubilant and foreboding.” The 10 piece ensemble debuted live at the Winter Jazzfest, NYC, in January of 2020 then re-emerged post-lockdown for a rousing performance at The Newport Jazz Festival (2021) which Jazztimes called “Mesmerizing waves of harmony and rhythm overlapped each other, like a mashup of Fela Kuti, Sun Ra, and King Crimson—with (more) tuba! And (sometimes) multiple flutes! An energized frontman, Bogie went from conducting the band to conducting its listeners…”.

Bogie led the collaborative group Superhuman Happiness (2008-2018) through 5 original albums of music over 10 years. The group became known for their extended improvisations of dance music, and the various musical games they would employ to develop their collective creativity and mine for fresh collaborative compositional ideas. 

As a member of the group Antibalas (2001-2012), Bogie wrote the piece “Indictment,” which The Village Voice called “…a fantastic Bush-era protest song, lithe and lethal” as well as the piece “Beaten Metal” which Pitchfork named a top 100 song of 2007 and noted “quick splashes of colorful sound and some slowly building drama, ‘Beaten Metal’ sounds brazen, rhythmic, and powerful - like Edgar Varese coming of age after hip-hop.”