Chris O’Connor is one of the most wide ranging creative musicians currently working in Aotearoa. For 30+ years Chris has lived and breathed music. As a drummer, he is a prolific and vital contributor to many music scenes within this country.
Chris has played drums in bands since his teenage years, and has made a living as a professional musician performing, recording, composing and teaching in a dizzying array of settings. Collaborating with people in music has always been Chris' passion, and this has led him to working in a diverse range of musical contexts. In any given week, you could see him playing contemporary classical music with the Auckland Chamber Orchestra, iconic kiwi pop with Don McGlashan, free improvisation with Jeff Henderson, or indie rock with The Phoenix Foundation.
He has travelled the country and the globe with Don McGlashan, Neil Finn, Nadia Reid, Tim Finn, Grada, Jonathon Crayford, The Phoenix Foundation, SJD, Trinity Roots, Tami Neilson and many more. As a recording artist, Chris appears on over 50 albums, as well as documentary and film soundtracks. As a composer, Chris has collaborated with film-makers, choreographers and theatre directors. And as a sound artist he’s exhibited gallery works including this recent work with Gabriel White.
Chris is a passionate educator, maintaining a private practice as well as having held artist-tutor positions at Auckland University, Unitec, Massey University, and Victoria University of Wellington. Over the past few years Chris has trained in music therapy and is now a registered music therapist working in a practice in Tāmaki Makaurau.
His home base has always been improvisation, and for his two days and nights at Pyramid Club he’ll be coming home to his roots. Chris started his journey into deep improvisation when he founded the People’s Improvisation Front, a group that regularly met in his basement in Newtown, Wellington, to explore free improvisation and approaches to large scale forms. From these initial experiments he has continued to grow an increasing repertoire of strategies towards music and ritual making.
At Pyramid Club he’ll be performing over two nights, in solo, duo, trio and quartet settings, in collaboration with many of Pōneke’s most talented creative musicians. He’ll also be taking a workshop on Saturday afternoon, a deep dive into Steve Reich’s ‘Clapping Music’.
Presale tickets for each gig $20
Presales for a two-night ticket $30
Friday 20 Oct
8pm presales $20
solo
duo w/David Long
trio w/Isaac Smith, Erika Grant
quartet w/Bridget Kelly, Patrick Bleakley, Tom Callwood
Saturday 21 Oct
2pm koha
Workshop - Clapping Music Deep Dive
Saturday 21 Oct
8pm presales $20
solo
duo w/Al Fraser
trio w/Nell Thomas, Jonny Marks
quartet w/Riki Gooch, Daniel Beban, Anthony Donaldson
Special thanks to Creative NZ for supporting Pyramid Club's programme.
