Brava Theater
2781 24th Street San Francisco

Switchboard Music announces the lineup for their ninth annual Festival, which closes their 2015-2016 season on June 18, 2016 at the Brava Theater in San Francisco. The eight-hour festival features headliner Tyondai Braxton, the San Francisco Girls Chorus, the Del Sol String Quartet with composer Daniel Wohl, Aaron Novik’s O+O+, JacobTV’s GRAB IT!, violinist Alisa Rose, Religious Girls, Tonal Masher, Dominique Leone’s San Francisco, ZOFO piano duo, a new project from Majel Connery & Ken Ueno with The Living Earth Show, and Julius Eastman’s Stay On It.

The Switchboard Music Festival is the flagship event of San Francisco’s Switchboard Music, which exists to support the creation and performance of new music in the Bay Area by engaging artists and audiences from a wide variety of musical communities. On June 18 from 1-9pm, the Switchboard Music Festival will present twelve sets by over fifty performers, ranging from raucous rock to a capella chorus to amplified mouthpiece-less saxophone to bona fide pop music:

1:00 Stay On It Julius Eastman’s 1973 piece is one of the first minimalist works to show the influence of pop music. For an indeterminate ensemble, Stay On It will be performed by Festival artists, co-directors, and Switchboard alumni.

1:45 Majel Connery & Ken Ueno with The Living Earth Show Hailing from the outsider worlds of avant-garde opera, Tuvan throat-singing, and performance art, Majel Connery, Ken Ueno and The Living Earth Show (Andy Meyerson and Travis Andrews) partner up to produce something truly novel: bona fide pop music.

2:30 ZOFO Keisuke Nakagoshi and Eva-Maria Zimmermann’s Grammy-nominated piano four hands duo perform new music by Ryan Brown and others.

3:00 Dominique Leone’s San Francisco Dominique Leone returns from New York with an all-star band of Switchboard alumni (Jordan Glenn, Matt Ingalls, MaryClare Brzytwa, Kyle Bruckmann, Aaron Novik, and more) to perform his album of songs inspired by San Francisco.

3:45 Tonal Masher Aram Shelton’s solo project for saxophone and electronics re-arranges and re-uses the sounds of his 1937 Conn alto saxophone to create layered sound works using samples of the sounds his mouthpiece-less horn makes.

4:15 Religious Girls Three multi-instrumentalists with backgrounds from metal to noise to math punk to pop layer rhythms and harmony in experimental song structures, woven together into a seamless set.

5:00 Alisa Rose Bluegrass fiddler Alisa Rose, of the Real Vocal String Quartet, performs her original Solo Caprices and Pizzicato Pieces.

5:30 Del Sol String Quartet The Del Sol String Quartet will perform music for quartet and electronics by Mason Bates, and will be joined by Daniel Wohl for selections from his new work Holographic, which NPR says “quietly erases the line between electronic and acoustic music, while potentially appealing to many curious ears, from fans of Aphex Twin to followers of new chamber music.”

6:15 GRAB IT! JacobTV’s GRAB IT! is an exploration of the gap between language and music. GRAB IT! uses voice samples from prisoners serving life sentences. At Switchboard, the piece will be performed by The Living Earth Show and Ryan Brown.

6:45 O+O+ Visiting from New York, Switchboard regular Aaron Novik will perform a new set of music inspired by the question “Does all music that swings need to be jazz?” Using an austere compositional approach, the effects owe a nod to minimalism, but the use of fiercely independent and conflicting lines creates an atmosphere more reminiscent of Dixieland.

7:30 San Francisco Girls Chorus Winner of five Grammy awards, the San Francisco Girls Chorus is led by Artistic Director Lisa Bielawa and Music Director and Principal Conductor Valérie Sainte-Agathe. The chorus will perform music by Lisa Bielawa, Philip Glass, and Timo Andres, a program they are also performing at the New York Philharmonic Biennial.

8:15 Tyondai Braxton Headliner Tyondai Braxton, former front man of experimental rock band Battles, has been commissioned to write pieces for ensembles such as The Bang on a Can All Stars, Kronos Quartet, Alarm Will Sound, and Brooklyn Rider. In 2012, Braxton collaborated with legendary composer Philip Glass – performing as a duo for the festival series All Tomorrow’s Parties, as well as remixing Glass’ work for the REWORK remix album. At the 2016 Switchboard Music Festival, Braxton will perform HIVE, a multimedia piece that is part sound installation/part live performance. HIVE was premiered at the Guggenheim Museum in New York City and also performed at Sacrum Profanum Festival in Krakow, as part of the Nonesuch Records’ 50th Anniversary celebration at The Barbican in London, and at Sydney Opera House.

Switchboard Music was founded in 2008 by Ryan Brown, Jeff Anderle, and Jonathan Russell. In 2014, Annie Phillips joined Brown and Anderle as co-director, and Switchboard expanded to year-round programming with the addition of Switchboard Presents. In 2015, Switchboard was the only organization on the West Coast to win an ASCAP award for Adventurous Programming. To date, Switchboard has presented 150+ sets featuring over 700 musicians; 44 premieres, and emerging, established, large, and small ensembles.

Tickets: $20 advance at switchboardmusic.com; $20 students/$25 general at the door

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