Webb Crawford: Spiriting Off

Friday, July 10th at 8pm, ISSUE Project Room presents Spiriting Off, a new solo work by 2026 Artist-In-Residence and luthier Webb Crawford for electric guitar, tenor banjo, and five-string banjo. Within the chordophone family of instruments—as defined by the Hornbostel–Sachs system—disparate forms are defined by the characteristic of having strings. Driven by unbalanced force, strings displace air or create disturbance in an electromagnetic field. Transducers render changes in air pressure as signal. Mass and acceleration work against restoring force, and vibration passes in opposing waves along the length of a string until inertia drives it back to stillness. 

In Spiriting Off, these physical principles become a framework for Crawford’s performance as they move fluidly between instruments. Crawford notes, “Playing multiple instruments, or ‘doubling’, is a crucial aspect of musicianship: the transplantation of gestures and phrasing onto new intervals, shapes, timbres, and tonalities.”