Sarah Davachi + Robert Takahashi Novak: New Commissions
Overview
Join us for an evening of specially commissioned compositions by electroacoustic and minimalist organist Sarah Davachi and conceptual sound and contemporary electronic music artist Robert Takahashi Novak. Activating the unique physical characteristics of the museum’s lobby, which is at once cavernous and cathedral-like yet intimate, the two Los Angeles-based musicians will utilize a spatial sound system to realize their unique styles and methods, unlocking the potential for somatic experience of deep listening and self-awareness.
Presented in conjunction with the special exhibition, Robert Therrien: This is a Story, the world premiere of Novak’s and Davachi’s individual works investigates human scale in relation to physical surroundings, memory, and the individual’s response to experience, and how perception can shift upon close observation. These ideas can also be found in Therrien’s sculptures and installations, which evoke sly shifts in our perception of belonging in space and time and alter how we experience objects and their surrounding environments. These site-specific performances are being created to resonate with the unique sonic qualities of the architecture of The Broad’s lobby.
Photos courtesy of the artists
Tickets to this seated event include access to Robert Therrien: This is a Story from 7:30 to 8 pm, before the show begins.
Tickets to this event do not include access to Yayoi Kusama’s Infinity Mirror Room—The Souls of Millions of Light Years Away (2013), which must be booked separately. The museum’s third floor rotating collection galleries and The Shop at The Broad will be closed during this event.
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Bios
Sarah Davachi
Sarah Davachi (b. 1987, Canada) is a composer and performer whose work is concerned with the close intricacies of timbral and temporal space, utilizing extended durations and considered harmonic structures that emphasize gradual variations in texture, overtone complexity, psychoacoustic phenomena, and tuning and intonation. Her compositions span solo, chamber ensemble, and acousmatic formats, incorporating a wide range of acoustic and electronic instrumentation. Similarly informed by minimalist and longform tenets, early music concepts of form and affect, as well as experimental production practices of the studio environment, in her sound is an intimate and patient experience that lessens perceptions of the familiar and the distant.
In addition to her acclaimed recorded output, Davachi has toured and performed extensively; her work has been presented internationally by Southbank Centre (London UK), Barbican Centre (London UK), INA grm (Paris FR), Kontraklang (Berlin DE), Elbphilharmonie (Hamburg DE), Organ Reframed (London UK), The Museum of Modern Art (New York USA), The Getty Museum (Los Angeles USA), The Academy Museum (Los Angeles USA), Orgelpark (Amsterdam NL), Honen-in Temple (Kyoto JP), Open Frame (Sydney AU), Église Saint-Eustache (Paris FR), Église du Gesù (Montréal CA), Temppeliaukio Church (Helsinki FI), Grace Cathedral (San Francisco USA), Rockefeller Memorial Chapel (Chicago USA), and Museo Reina Sofia (Madrid ES), among others. Commissioned and ensemble projects include works for The London Contemporary Orchestra, Quatuor Bozzini, Harmonic Space Orchestra, Apartment House, Ghost Ensemble, Wild Up, Yarn/Wire, Chamber Choir Ireland, The BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, Radio France, Diapason, Contemporaneous Ensemble, Cello Octet Amsterdam, and the Canadian International Organ Competition. In 2020 she founded Late Music, an imprint within the partner labels division of Warp Records.
For over a decade, Davachi had the unique opportunity to work for the National Music Centre in Canada as an interpreter and content developer of their collection of acoustic and electronic keyboard instruments. She holds a master's degree in electronic music from Mills College and a doctoral degree in musicology from UCLA (with a dissertation on timbre, phenomenology, and critical organology), and is based in Los Angeles, California, USA.
Photo courtesy of the artist
Robert Takahashi Novak
Robert Takahashi Novak is an artist and curator whose practice spans sound, performance, and technology. His artistic work sits at the intersection of deep listening, sound art, and contemporary electronic music. At its core, his work explores the interplay between tonality, context, history, and subjectivity, forming an ongoing dialogue across mediums and modes of perception. As a curator, Novak similarly engages with the converging fields of sound, technology, movement, and performance.
He is published by Touch Music and has released work on labels including Dragon’s Eye Recordings, Line, Murmur, Room40, The Tapeworm, and Touch. His work has drawn critical acclaim for its emotionally resonant and immersive sonic landscapes. Foxy Digitalis praised his work as “some of the most engaging, emotionally dense music around.” Novak has performed widely, both nationally and internationally, in cities including Berlin, Brisbane, London, Los Angeles, Montreal, Oakland, Portland, San Francisco, Seattle, and Stockholm.
Novak currently serves as the Executive and Artistic Director of Fulcrum Arts. Over the course of his career, he has organized solo exhibitions and performances with a wide range of artists, including William Basinski, Frank Bretschneider, Richard Chartier, Cassils, Celer, Lawrence English, Tim Hecker, Isis, Karen Lofgren, Lucky Dragons, Mamiffer, Yann Marussich, Carsten Nicolai, Yann Novak, Gina Osterloh, taisha paggett, Steve Roden, Terre Thaemlitz, and Julie Tolentino. Most recently, he co-curated Energy Fields: Vibrations of the Pacific with Lawrence English for the 2025 Getty initiative PST ART: Art & Science Collide.
Photo courtesy of the artist
