JACK LANGDON



is a musician, filmmaker, and writer with concentrations in experimental music, minimalist documentary, cultural criticism, and political economy.

born in 1994, enrolled in sault ste. marie tribe of chippewa indians

nindaa gichi-neyaashiing

[archive and documentation of past performances can be found here]

UPCOMING EVENTS

8.7.25
Jeff Kimmel (clarinets), Jack Langdon (bibigwan),
Stephan Haluska (harp), & Adam Shead (percussion)
Comfort Station
Chicago, IL


8.8.25
Jack Langdon (bibigwan)
Marmalade
Chicago, IL


8.21.25
Premiere of “Cheap Dream” for harpsichord by Justin Wallace
Britton Recital Hall, University of Michigan
Ann Arbor, MI


10.12.25
Jack Langdon (bibigwan)
The Whistler
Chicago, IL





The Generous Law
Anthony Vine, electric guitar & Jack Langdon, organ

released May 31, 2024
IMPREC/Cassauna Tapes

recorded, mixed, mastered by Jack Langdon

recording The Generous Law was recorded over the course of three days where Anthony Vine and I were in residence at Houghton Memorial Chapel at Wellesley University. We set out with an iterative process to develop a series of compositions, where more intuitive, unplanned takes would yield a kernal of compelling musical material, which we would then replay and refine through several variations. We sought out Houghton Chapel as it houses a unique organ in the United States built by Charles Breton Fisk featuring a tonal design inspired by 17th century Danish organs and tuned in quarter-comma meantone with added sub-semitone keys on various accidentals. We took the title from a term utilized by Philip Guston in a correspondance with Ross Feld:

“I think you are writing about the generous law that exists in art. A law which can never be given but only found anew each time in the making of the work. It is a law, too, which allows your forms (characters) to spin away, take off, as if they have their own lives to lead—unexpected too—as if you cannot completely control it all. I wonder why we seek this generous law as I call it. For we do not not know how it governs—and under what special conditions it comes into being. I don’t think we are permitted to know other than temporarily. A disappearance act. The only problem is how to keep away from the minds that close in and itch (God knows why) to define it.”

Gratitude to Prof. Erica Johnson and Yolanda Tong of Wellesley College and Carl Klein of C.B. Fisk.

Category
Composition, Performance

Langdon & Vine, Wellesley, MA
© 2025 Jack Langdon