Turquoise Yantra Grotto
32 Turquoise Way SF
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PIANO CIRCUS
Tom Djill, Tania Chen, Eli Wallace
@ Turquoise Yantra Grotto
Friday April 20, 8-10 pm
32 turquoise way sf ca 94131
$10-15

3 Pianists : 7 Acoustic Keyboard Instruments;
New compositions and Contemporary Canonical Works
for invented, extended, prepared, and retuned “pianos”
in exotic, historical and standard tunings


Tom Djll was a poor farm boy when he was first taught by a pig that sound is a life-or-death matter. He went on to Art & Racial Sensitivity High School in Taos and was 86’d from Boston Jazzbo School because he didn’t Dig Bill Evans. He saw his first synthesizer filling a room with a view of Pike’s Uncompressed Peak. Later, he assembled his own Serge system and used it throughout the 80s and 90s, mostly in front of assorted deceased constituencies. After another bout with the academic world – Mills College CCM, two rounds to a draw – he successfully leveraged his Orange Threat Level to a career in the Porcine Diplomatic Corps, and has been searching for the perfect pig sound ever since.

Tania Chen is a pianist, experimental musician, free improviser and sound artist, working with pianos, keyboards, found objects, toys and vintage and lo-fi electronics. She has one foot in experimental music in the British free improvisation scene and the one foot in American experimental music of John Cage, Morton Feldman and Earle Brown.

Eli Wallace, pianist/composer/improviser, is an active player in the San Francisco Bay Area music community, playing in groups ranging from straight-ahead jazz, to indie-rock, to free improvisation, to classical music. In addition to Cabbages, Captain, & King he also leads his concept ensemble Platform Series, and his solo piano project. Other groups in which he’s involved include: Karl Evangelista’s Ai-Ai, Bill Noertker’s Moxie, Virtual Assembly, Inner Ear Brigade, Images: the music of Sun Ra, Avant Red, Omua, Low Standards, Denny Denny Breakfast, TFPP, Herman Roque latin jazz project, and many others. As a composer he’s written pieces for chamber groups, jazz groups, full studio orchestra, jazz big band, and solo piano. Recently he performed a commissioned work at Jazz at Lincoln Center, New York, NY and Oberlin Dance Conservatory, San Francisco, CA with dancer/choreographer Randee Paufve. He was also awarded Honorable Mention after submitting his piece “Influx Rebellion” to the EarShot Jazz Composers Orchestra Institute Readings. His musical education was granted by Lawrence University, Appleton WI, and New England Conservatory, Boston, MA, where he completed a Bachelor’s of Music, and a Master’s of Music, respectively.

For this concert he will play selections of his original compositions and/or pieces by Thelonious Monk and Andrew Hill.


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The Turquoise Yantra Grotto is a house concert series for avant improvisers and invented instrumentalists with a focus on ethno-modernism and extended techniques. We hold a monthly event which is part concert, and part social club, near glen canyon in San Francisco. The Yantra Grotto is home to many unique invented instruments including the Zen Industrial Gamelan (or grand metalliphone), the Gamelon Piano, and several sonic paintings, as well as works by Bart Hopkin and Tom Nunn; this in addition to the just tuned tac piano and the Baldwin baby grand.

Audio samples in which musicians at this event play:

Videos featuring musicians playing at this event