Chris Becker bio (continued):

Becker has composed music for choreographers Tze Chun (Parlour games, The Tank, 2009), Sasha Soreff (The Other Shoe, Ailey Citigroup Theater, 2009), Adrian Jevicki (La Spectra, The Tank, 2009), and Rachel Cohen. Music for Cohen includes Like Dirt (2008) - a collaborative work with choreographer Rachel Cohen and clay artist Patty Rosenblatt. Funded in part by the American Music Center's Live Music For Dance program, Like Dirt featured a live score (inspired equally by indigenous music as well as Neil Young-like noise and feedback) performed by Becker on laptop, trumpeter Lewis 'Flip' Barnes, vocalist Helga Davis and guitarist Lynn Wright.

Other collaborations with Rachel Cohen include composing and recording sixteen individual pieces for her highly praised evening length dance/theater work If The Shoe Fits (2005). If The Shoe Fits ran for ten performances at the Walkerspace in New York City. New York Times dance critic John Rockwell called the work "…lavish and fully realized…" Rockwell also included If The Shoe Fits in his end of the year list of the best dance performances of 2005.

In 2006 Becker released his CD Saints & Devils - a suite of ten tracks inspired by Southern music (rural blues, gospel, Cajun) and iconography. Composed, recorded, and mixed by Becker, the CD includes performances by musicians from New York City and New Orleans, including guitarists Lynn Wright and Eyal Maoz, the Reverend Vince Anderson, and long-time music director for Dr. John trumpeter Charlie Miller. Saints & Devils also utilizes samples from recordings made by Alan Lomax (used by permission of the publishers and the Lomax archives) as an integral part of the overall mix.

Becker's collaborative work with visual artists includes 200 Birds (1999) - a CD of music for Brazilian and African percussion, electric guitar, and Mezzo Soprano voice alongside sounds of traffic, birds, and thunder created to accompany showings of New Orleans artist Jacqueline Bishop's mixed media installation Terra. The installation consists of two to four hundred small oil on wood portraits of endangered and extinct birds arranged in a grid like pattern to create a wall in memoriam of the jungles of South America and Africa. Terra has shown in several galleries and museums across the US between 1999 and 2002.

His mixing and production work include Silver Threads - a collaboration with singer slide guitarist Peg Simone. Becker and singer bassist Jeremiah Hosea have coproduced several of Hosea's songs and are currently tracking an ambient dub project slated for future release.

Becker also works as a guest arranger for various ensembles, including the New York City quartet The Four Bags who recorded his arrangement of Kurt Weill's Alabama Song with guest vocalist Lainie Diamond for their CD debut.

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