Zak Argabrite is a saxophonist, clarinetist, electronic artist, improvisor, composer, and researcher originally from Louisville, Kentucky now based in Te Whanganui-a-Tara (Wellington New Zealand) after 8 years living in Lenapehoking (NYC). Zak's artistic practice is varied and ever-evolving, exploring art making as a fluid and personal process that often involves learning new skills and stretching between established disciplines. Of the nature of his work Zak says this:
"I have come to realise that I'm interested in forming close relationships with the instruments or physical things involved in my art making, and not as things I just 'use' or 'control'. For me, whether it's a cello or a discarded circuit board, I'm collaborating with it – like another person – not controlling it. It's not about figuring out what it can or can't do. Like a person, I'm trying to get to know it, who it is, where it comes from and where it might be likely to go in the future. The music or art comes from nourishing that relationship."
As an instrumental performer, Zak specializes in saxophones (baritone and tenor) and clarinets (soprano and bass), with 17 years experience as a single-reed player. In additional to study of traditional playing, Zak's approach to these instruments includes advanced, unique or less common modes of playing, such as split tones, homemade mouthpieces, reed and instrument preparations and alterations, as well as an interest in antique and so-called "obsolete" forms of these instruments (such as metal clarinets).
As an electronic artist, Zak's long-standing specialty is circuit-bending – the practice of creatively rewiring (often discarded) electronic circuitry for sound and moving-image based pieces and performances. From the age of 13, Zak began applying this practice by modifying discarded toy musical keyboards and other sound-making electronics into unique instruments. Over the years, Zak has expanded his circuit-bending to include moving image works created with circuit-bent video mixers and interconnected circuit-bent video and audio equipment; live performances with a hands-on approach to exposed circuits; circuit-based sculptures; and software-, web-, and musical instrument-controlled circuit-bent devices for collaborative performance. Circuit-bending has also been a key focus of Zak's PhD thesis Revealing the Lifecycles of Electronics: Creatively imagining the land-based histories and futures of electronic materials in electronic art.
Zak has composed for a wide variety of instrumentations, from small-large jazz ensembles, solo, chamber, orchestral, electroacoustic and theatrical settings. Through these diverse musical contexts, a throughline in Zak's compositions has been a focus on enabling agency – whether through improvisational aspects in works, notated choices and decisions, or even elements of the work that are determined by instruments themselves.
