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APRIL 2014Thursday, Apr 24 2014 6:00 PM Berkeley Arts
2133 University Avenue
Berkeley
Click for Venue page on bayimproviser Multimedia Orchestra
An evening of light, motion, music, technology, innovation, and dance. In addition to interactive installations, live performances, and a jam room, by the Multimedia Orchestra @Berkeley, the event will also feature original art made by students of the UC Berkeley Art & Science DeCal and the Synesthesia Association at Berkeley. All are welcome to join us in exploring the intersection of live performance, technology, science, and art. Bring your curiosity and creativity! Light refreshments will be served.
Live performances will include:
Hand-Built Instruments and Piano, with Derek Razo and Jaren Feeley
Touch-Sensitive Sound Screen, with Taurin Barrera
Laser Harp and Cello, with Eugene Lynch
Original Compositions, with the UC Berkeley Undergraduate Composers Club
Please print or bring an electronic copy of your ticket to show at the door.
Contact: ucbmultimedia@gmail.com | ADA Accessible | ASUC Sponsored
6pm to 10pm, 2133 University Avenue
Thursday, Apr 24 2014 6:00 PM Festival Pavilion at Fort Mason Center
Marina Boulevard at Buchanan Street
SF
Click for Venue page on bayimproviser See SFCMP's web site for details of the 4 days festival
The four-day event you've been waiting for!
SFCMP brings some of the nation’s leading interpreters of contemporary music to San Francisco. Alongside SFCMP, the Bay Area’s “premier new music ensemble,” guests include:
The International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE)
New York’s JACK Quartet
San Diego-based red fish blue fish
Distinguished composer Morton Subotnick
And heroes and heroines of the Bay Area taped music and electro-acoustic scene
Plus free events installations and much more!
www.sfcmp.org/sweet-thunder
Check out each individual Facebook Event:
Events are as follows:
Viva Voce (Free installation) - https://www.facebook.com/events/1398684527071775
Sweet Thunder Listening Room (Free installation) -https://www.facebook.com/events/652388351481726
VIP Kick off Event/Concert (for Subscribers and Donors) -https://www.facebook.com/events/877589072253074
JACK Quartet in Concert - (Ticketed Event) - https://www.facebook.com/events/1421843721406326
International Contemporary Ensemble/ICE (Ticketed Event) -https://www.facebook.com/events/609310619156709
Morton Subotnick in Concert (Ticketed Event) -https://www.facebook.com/events/289728247851179
Sweet Thunder Solos (Ticketed Event) - https://www.facebook.com/events/1402401423365284
SFCMP+Friends (Ticketed Event) - https://www.facebook.com/events/675008485890347
Compose Yourself Awards and Concert (Free event)https://www.facebook.com/events/303971076423870
redfish blue fish/George Lewis/Jaime Oliver (Ticketed Event) -https://www.facebook.com/events/237317049803383
Thursday, Apr 24 2014 8:00 PM Center for New Music
55 Taylor St
SF
Click for Venue page on bayimproviser World premieres for mezzosoprano and guitar/lute/theorbo by Nick Benavides, Danny Clay, Garrett Shatzer, Jon Yu, Justin Ralls, Kyle Hovatter, and Winton White.
The Guerrilla Composers Guild hosts listening parties, music forums, and performances where musicians and Guerrilla Groupies get together to make good stuff happen. Sometimes things might be in a performance space, and sometimes they might be in a garage. Their true love is their ongoing commissioning project. Often they work directly with performers to curate a concert by putting out a call and selecting composers that are the best fit for that ensemble. As a mutually beneficial project, the performers and composers get to workshop the new pieces so that the concert is polished beyond what would normally be available with dropped off scores and little to no contact.
Jarring Sounds was formed in 2011 out of the San Francisco Conservatory of Music as a result of mutual artistic interests. Comprised of mezzosoprano Danielle ReutterHarrah and Adam Cockerham, who plays guitar, lute, & theorbo, the duo is committed to the repertoire of early European songs of the 16th and 17th centuries, as well as contemporary classical works of the 20th and 21st centuries. The small ensemble setting of a single voice and instrument allows for flexible creative interpretation not possible in a larger setting. Cost : $15 General, $10 Members, $8 Members
Thursday, Apr 24 2014 8:00 PM Luggage Store New Music Series
Outsound co-Presents @ The Luggage Store Gallery
1007 Market St.
SF
Click for Venue page on bayimproviser 8:00 Crash & Burn
8:40 Bear Bones, Lay Low
Erensto Gonzales - synth electronics (Belgium)
9:20 Jooklo Duo Virginia Genta - alto and tenor sax, David Vanzan - drums (Itlay)
"[Jooklo Duo] haven’t forgotten the freedom that their improvisation is founded on and successfully avoid traps of convention and routine that can even exist for a “genre” designed to be rid of inherent traditions. Punk became a convention, noise did as well, and there is now a plethora of contrived improvisational jazz, but Nace and Jooklo subscribe to none of these molds and have proven that an improv record can still be fresh, cohesive, and just bad ass."
-The Esoterrorist
Bear Bones, Lay Low is the solo project of Ernesto González, a Venezuelan dude based in Belgium since 2003. He’s also been part of Silvester Anfang (Sylvester Anfang II) since 2006.
Breaking away from the more prominent style of saxophone led improv band, LIBERTAS, CRASH & BURN employ elements of early INDUSTRIAL MUSIC, ELECTRONIC, and JAZZ into their minimalist to frantic way of playing and living. One moment it can sound like EINSTURZENDE NEUBAUTEN, the next moment it's urgent FREE JAZZ. This is no dinner music!
  Cost : $6-10 sliding
Thursday, Apr 24 2014 9:30 PM Studio Grand
3234 Grand Ave,
Oakland
Click for Venue page on bayimproviser Lisa Mezzacappa'S INTERLOPERS
Murray Campbell, violin
Crystal Pascucci, cello
John Finkbeiner, acoustic guitar and banjo
Lisa Mezzacappa, acoustic bass
Tim Perkis, electronics
Bay Area bassist Lisa Mezzacappa's string band The Interlopers is inspired as much by the songs of Bob Wills and his Texas Playboys as the string quartets of Bartok and the free jazz epiphanies of Billy Bang. After so many years of playing with saxophones, trumpets and drum sets, Mezzacappa has recently found herself called back to the string family, where so much acoustic fun can be had with subtle textures, blending timbres and explosive rhythms. The group is composed of some of the Bay Area's finest improvisers, navigating Mezzacappa's squirley compositions and unusual arrangements of the Shaggs, Bartok and others.
GREENLIEF & WRIGHT Clarinet Duo -
Re-imagining Bartok
West Coast reed wizards Greenlief and Wright use Bela Bartok's 44 duos as a springboard for improvisation and an exploration of folksong material. Combining the earthy lyricism of the material with imaginative arrangements, the duo weaves in and out of these short works to link peasant themes with solo and duo improvisation to combine music of the past with in-the-moment musical commentary of today. Cost : $10
Audio samples on which musicians at this event appear:
Friday, Apr 25 2014 7:00 PM Mountain Yoga
2071 Antioch Court, Suite 100
Oakland, California 94611
Machine Shop: Gong Experience - Inspiration Series Concert
w/ Karen Stackpole and Drew Webster
Machine Shop is a collaboration between percussionist Karen Stackpole and engineer and electronic music artist Drew Webster. Stackpole coaxes otherworldly vibrations from her wall of gongs with an arsenal of implements while Webster amplifies and augments the complex harmonics coaxed from this amazing metal with a passel of microphones, a couple of mixers, a laptop, and a some choice analog effects pedals. This arrangement brings the listener up close to the wall of gongs and beyond, offering an intimate sonic experience like no other.
The idea for Machine Shop was born in 2003 when Webster recorded an album of Stackpole playing improvised gongs and percussion. While mixing the record, he took a small selection of the performance and created a piece from it by subtly processing, editing, and arranging it. That piece became the inspiration for a live amplified gong/electronics duo that took shape, quite literally, in a machine shop.
Their repertoire is primarily composed, though the pieces have flexibility to breathe with the moment. At once visceral, muscular, musical, droning, soothing and surprising, Machine Shop takes the incredible sounds of vibrating metal that Stackpole conjures and then amplifies them through vintage tube amplifiers and cabinets. Webster captures some of the gong sounds and processes them in real time with subtle effects to be blended in against the sound of the unprocessed gongs.
The results are truly unique, both sonically and visually. The live setup with Machine Shop ensures the audience is fully immersed in even the quietest of Stackpole’s gestures, revealing the tremendous sonic spectrum of gongs.
http://machineshopgongs.tumblr.com/
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Machine-Shop-Live-Amplified-Gong-Experience/137078913044811?ref=hl Audio samples on which musicians at this event appear:
Friday, Apr 25 2014 7:30 PM Berkeley Art Museum
2626 Bancroft Way
Berkeley
Click for Venue page on bayimproviser Programmed by David Wilson
The Something is a conglomeration of possibilities for exploration and observation. Participants might begin by tentatively plunking a string, picking up a fabric or holding a video camera. Eventually, the sounds gather, the visuals evolve, and the dynamics of our actions coalesce into moments of ordered harmony, dissolve back into chaos, and then re-emerge ordered once again. The spectator simultaneously becomes actor and observer. The project seeks to stimulate intersubjective creative production and emancipated collaboration.
Please note that there will be only limited seating at this season’s L@TE events.
Cost : $7 General Admission
Friday, Apr 25 2014 7:30 PM CNMAT
1750 Arch Street
Berkeley
Click for Venue page on bayimproviser Part of the "Bone Flute to Auto Tune" conference at CNMAT.
http://boneflutetoautotune.wordpress.com/conference-2014/
John Granzow and Christopher Jette (Stanford/CCRMA), “LasuDax” abstract
Edmund Campion (UC Berkeley/CNMAT), CORAIL for tenor saxophone and live electronics, with Steve Adams of the ROVA Saxophone Quartet
Amanda Chaudhary, CatSynth
Perry Cook, “Elaine and D’joan” for voice and electronics (world premiere)
Friday, Apr 25 2014 8:00 PM Center for New Music
55 Taylor St
SF
Click for Venue page on bayimproviser The dancer seeks balance, the musician seeks balance, and the observer seeks balance, all wanting to experience the comfortable stability of being on firm ground.
But once attained, balance is quickly lost. The momentum of seeking swiftly moves the seeker into states that tilt one way or another – groundless or weighted, loud or silent, contained or out of control.
Drawing on the stability of traditional Iranian melodies and American jazz, the musicians find and lose balance as they interact with one another through composed music and improvisation, as well as extended techniques that take them away from the stability of the instruments themselves.
To the musicians, the dancer plays both mirror and catalyst—reflecting the seeking, grasping and letting go of the musical elements while interjecting her own destabilizing movements, as all performers find ways to communicate and, ultimately, find their way back home.
Join performers Lynea Diaz-Hagan, Shahrzad Korsandi, Amirabbas Etemadzadeh, and Ramin Zoufonoun, for this shifting exploration of sound, movement, and states of mind.
Paradox of Balance is performed without intermission.
Performer Biographies
Lynea Diaz-Hagan (vocalist/lyricist) and Ramin Zoufonoun (pianist/composer) are the founders of Merkuri, a San Franciscobased performance ensemble formed in 2008. To learn more about Merkuri, please visit merkurimusic.com.
Shahrzad Khorsandi, founder and director of Shahrzad Dance Company, is a contemporary dancer and choreographer living and working in the Bay Area. Among the first Persian dance practitioners to create a formalized vocabulary and structure for Persian dance, she has helped archive an art form that has been outlawed in Iran for the past three decades. To learn more, please visit dancepersian.org. Cost : $20 General, $15 Members/Students
Friday, Apr 25 2014 9:00 PM The Salt Lick
The Salt Lick.
411 2nd st.
oakland.
Bear Bones, Lay Low (Bruxelles, Belgium via San Antonio de los Altos, Venezuela)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h096tBmFaEI
Jooklo Duo (Rome, Italy)
http://jooklo.altervista.org/
Bonus Beast (Oakland, CA)
Mister Sister (Petaluma, CA):
Joshua Marshall - Saxophones
Brian Pedersen - Saxophones
Christina Stanley - Violin
http://vimeo.com/70292155
Friday, Apr 25 2014 10:00 PM Studio Grand
3234 Grand Ave,
Oakland
Click for Venue page on bayimproviser Set 1 (10pm): VINKELOE -- ROBINSON -- LASQO -- RANKIN-PARKER
German/Swedish saxophonist and flautist Biggi Vinkeloe plays Studio Grand as part of her Northern CA tour!
A sorceress of avant / jazz wind energy, and veteran of stellar collaborations with Roberto Bellatalla, Alberto Braida, Chris Brown, Lisle Ellis, Marco Eneidi, Ken Filiano, Gianni Gebbia, Vinny Golia, Giancarlo Locatelli, Miya Masaoka (正岡みや), Barre Phillips, Gino Robair, Cecil Taylor, PeeterUuskyla, and Marie Wärme, among many others, Biggi Vinkeloe will réprise her long-standing collaboration with Bay Area master drummer Don Robinson, whom Coda Magazine has described as a “percussion Dervish”, and among whose most notable collaborators are Alan Silva, Anthony Braxton, Oliver Lake, Glenn Spearman, Larry Ochs, Bobby Few, Raphé Malik, and Joe McPhee.
Joining will be Bay Area neogaku pianist / computer musician Joe Lasqo, whose recent local performances include: the Vexations [Re-vex'd] II 22-hour Satie-based improv marathon; w AaronBennett's Electro-Magnetic Transpersonal Orchestra at Duende; w Czech sound artist LucieVítková, UK laptopist Joe Snape, + local madman, Bob Marsh at BAF.
Adding the final touch to this post-jazz ensemble is Teddy Rankin-Parker, the sophisticated cellosuperfrique who's blown in from Chicago to shake up the Bay Area's ideas of what cello-playing can be. Master of extended cello technique and slave to no musical preconceptions or boundaries, Teddy makes the space move around the warp drive instead of moving the warp drive through the space.
Arbetslag och musikinstrument:
Biggi Vinkeloe: saxes & flute
Donald Robinson: drums
Joe Lasqo: piano/laptop/percussion
Teddy Rankin-Parker: cello
=================================
Set 2 (10:45pm): John Schott
John Schott is a composer, guitarist, arranger and musical spelunker. A collaborator of Ben Goldberg, Kenny Wollesen, Trevor Dunn, Charlie Hunter, Scott Amendola, and currently leader of a trio with Dan Seamans, and John Hanes, John has released records in various combinations on Knitting Factory, Tzadik, Songlines, Nuscope, and Victo.
John was also (with Charlie Hunter, Will Bernard, and Scott Amendola), a member of the jazz/funk band T.J. Kirk, whose second album If Four Was One (Warner Bros.) received a Grammy nomination. His unique and brilliant release Shuffle Play: Elegies for the Recording Angel (New World) features John’s 16-piece Ensemble Diglossia, including ROVA's Steve Adams & percussionist William Winant, in a composition intermixing contemporary composition with the earliest surviving recordings, of circa 1880-1900. Other releases include John Schott’s Typical Orchestra and Drunken Songs for Sober Times. John can also be heard on records by John Zorn, Tom Waits, The Baguette Quartette, Steven Bernstein — and, especially, the incredible What Comes Before with Ben Goldberg and Michael Sarin.
John may réprise his stunning and vibrantly emotional solo tour de force of “rembetiko banjo taksim” from March’s 40-musician Vexations [Re-vex'd] II improv marathon, a piece that bridges the worlds of avant-garde, Middle Eastern, and American roots music in an exploration of the tragic life of composer Erik Satie.
Listeners to the premier of this music struggled to pick themselves up off the floor after being hit with its emotional power…
Or… John may do something equally brilliant and evocative… you never know with a Junk Genius… Audio samples on which musicians at this event appear:
Saturday, Apr 26 2014 2:00 PM Fort Mason
San Francisco
SFCM Electronic Music Festival
Solo works by important composers of the electro-acoustic tradition, including Rand Steiger’s Concatenation performed by ICE bassoonist Rebekah Heller; Ken Ueno’s Talus (2007) performed by guest violist Wendy Richman; a 2011 work for clarinet by Matt Ingalls entitled CrusT, performed by the composer; Javier Alvarez’s 2001 Shekere performed by SFCMP percussionist Daniel Kennedy; and Roger Reynolds’s 1985 composition Transfigured Wind performed by flutist Stacey Pelinka. Audio samples on which musicians at this event appear:
Saturday, Apr 26 2014 7:30 PM Festival Pavilion at Fort Mason Center
2 Marina Boulevard at Buchanan Street
SF
Click for Venue page on bayimproviser San Francisco Contemporary Music Players (& Friends)
Pamela Z and Steve Schick
On Saturday April 26, SFCMP is joined by guest performers in a journey through the history of electro-acoustic music, with epic works by Edgard Varèse (Poème Electronique, 1958; and Déserts, from 1954), as well as Mario Davidovsky’s 1992 Synchronisms No.10 for solo guitar performed by David Tanenbaum; Kaija Saariaho’s 1986 work Io, partnered with a new commissioned work from composer Ashley Fure (Albatross), and a special performance by SFCMP Artistic Director Steven Schick with composer/performer Pamela Z in her new work, (v)erstählen for percussion, voice & electronics, and tape. Ms. Z will also perform a solo work for voice & electronics.
Fort Mason Center Festival Pavilion. Concert sponsored by the Clarence E. Heller Charitable Foundation.
Saturday, Apr 26 2014 8:00 PM Center for New Music
55 Taylor St
SF
Click for Venue page on bayimproviser The dancer seeks balance, the musician seeks balance, and the observer seeks balance, all wanting to experience the comfortable stability of being on firm ground.
But once attained, balance is quickly lost. The momentum of seeking swiftly moves the seeker into states that tilt one way or another – groundless or weighted, loud or silent, contained or out of control.
Drawing on the stability of traditional Iranian melodies and American jazz, the musicians find and lose balance as they interact with one another through composed music and improvisation, as well as extended techniques that take them away from the stability of the instruments themselves.
To the musicians, the dancer plays both mirror and catalyst—reflecting the seeking, grasping and letting go of the musical elements while interjecting her own destabilizing movements, as all performers find ways to communicate and, ultimately, find their way back home.
Join performers Lynea Diaz-Hagan, Shahrzad Korsandi, Amirabbas Etemadzadeh, and Ramin Zoufonoun, for this shifting exploration of sound, movement, and states of mind.
Paradox of Balance is performed without intermission.
Performer Biographies
Lynea Diaz-Hagan (vocalist/lyricist) and Ramin Zoufonoun (pianist/composer) are the founders of Merkuri, a San Franciscobased performance ensemble formed in 2008. To learn more about Merkuri, please visit merkurimusic.com.
Shahrzad Khorsandi, founder and director of Shahrzad Dance Company, is a contemporary dancer and choreographer living and working in the Bay Area. Among the first Persian dance practitioners to create a formalized vocabulary and structure for Persian dance, she has helped archive an art form that has been outlawed in Iran for the past three decades. To learn more, please visit dancepersian.org. Cost : $20 General, $15 Members/Students
Saturday, Apr 26 2014 9:30 PM Life Changing Ministry
Oakland
COMPOSERS DECOMPOSED #15: DUOS
BLACK SPIRITUALS
BEN BRACKEN & ASHLEY BELLOUIN
TIBERIUS
DJ: BOBBY GANUSH
EL SIAM // THE LODGE
Sunday, Apr 27 2014 7:00 PM Duende
468 19th Street
Oakland
Click for Venue page on bayimproviser Dominique Leone Big Band (Glenn, Hoopes, Novik, Brzytwa, Ingalls, Clifford, Lopez, Dunkelman, Ingle, Knudsen, Bruckman) + Denny Denny Breakfast (Bob LaDue prog-pop orchestra) + Headboggle (Derek Gedalicia post-classical improvisation) Audio samples on which musicians at this event appear:
Sunday, Apr 27 2014 7:30 PM SIMM Series
Outsound Presents @ Musicians Union Hall
116 9th St @ Mission
SF
Click for Venue page on bayimproviser Rent Romus' Lords of Outland 20th Anniversary Celebration Concert + CD Release of "The Proceedings of Dr. Ke"
Featuring Dave Mihaly, Bill Noertker, Philip Everett, Ray Scheaffer, Joshua Marshall, Collette McCaslin, Joshua Allen, Darren Johnston, and Jim Ryan
"Romus' fiery romp is a no-holds barred exposition. He slices through steel with accuracy and ease, equating to a jovial soundscape, scraped with intensifying solos and Everett's colorific cymbals hits. They galvanize your neural system from start to finish, while projecting a take no prisoners approach throughout." - Glenn Astarita, All About Jazz
Saxophonist, composer Rent Romus started the Lords of Outland in 1994 a collective of like-minded musicians focusing on exploring improvisation, melody, noise, and sound art while acknowledging their jazz, rock, and blues roots through active deconstruction. The group has developed original music ranging from unhinged free improvisation to thematic compositional suites inspired by abstract and sociology-political poetry, science fiction, horror, and abstract concepts.
 Cost : $10/$8
Audio samples on which musicians at this event appear:
Sunday, Apr 27 2014 8:00 PM Berkeley Arts
2133 University Avenue
Berkeley
Click for Venue page on bayimproviser Adams Hanes Iova-Koga 3; Golia Stackpole duo
John Hanes/ Steve Adams with special guest Shinichi Iova-Koga
Steve Adams - electronics
John Hanes - electronics
Shinchi iova-Koga - dance
Adams and Hanes welcome the remarkable improvised dance of Shinichi to their world of musical explorations. If you saw Shinichi's recent collaborations with Rova on the Eureka Ferry or with Steve at the CJM, you'll know this is an event not to be missed.
9 pm
Vinny Golia - woodwinds
Karen Stackpole - gongs, percussion
Vinny and Karen revive their memorable duo for the first time in many years. This is a rare opportunity to hear their unique and beautiful sonorities.
8pm to 10:30pm, Berkeley Arts - 2133 University Avenue, between Shattuck & Oxford Audio samples on which musicians at this event appear:
Monday, Apr 28 2014 12:00 PM Hertz Hall
UC Berkeley campus
near corner of College and Bancroft
Berkeley
Click for Venue page on bayimproviser Come join us for our spring semester concert at Hertz Hall on the UC Berkeley campus. We will be featuring works by Berkeley undergraduates performed largely by student ensembles.
Featuring works by:
-Masha Alekovsky
-Eric Delgado
-Jaren Feely
-Karen Lin
-Ian Lou
-Michaela Nachtigall
-Ivan Phillips
-Marissa Policzer
-Zhoushu Ziporyn Cost : Free
Monday, Apr 28 2014 7:00 PM Center for New Music
55 Taylor St
SF
Click for Venue page on bayimproviser Preeminent American guitarist David Tanenbaum presents SFCM's promising young artists playing contemporary music written for the world's most popular instrument. Tonight's program features new guitar solo and ensemble music from throughout the Americas. Guitar faculty member Sérgio Assad will be represented by his piece Aquarelle, the ensemble will perform a new work written for it by Montreal composer (and Conservatory alum) Renaud Côté-Giguère, and chair David Tanenbaum will perform Mario Davidovsky's Synchronisms No. 10 for guitar and tape.
The San Francisco Conservatory Guitar Department has nearly forty students and five teachers, and the Conservatory Guitar Ensemble has a storied history of promoting new music. The Ensemble frequently commissions and premieres new pieces; it helped open the Conservatory’s new Concert Hall with the world premiere of Measures of Turbulence by Steve Mackey. The Ensemble recorded that piece for Naxos, and it has been featured in Guitar Foundation of America festivals in San Francisco and South Carolina as well as the FENAM festival in Sacramento.
Performing frequently off campus, the ensemble went on a three city tour with composer Steve Reich in 2000, performing his Electric Counterpoint, and in 2001 it gave the U.S. premiere of Terry Riley’s Y Bolanzero. Cost : $15 General, $10 Members, $5 Students
Monday, Apr 28 2014 9:00 PM LeQuiVive
1525 Webster
Oakland
Click for Venue page on bayimproviser NEW MUSIC at LeQuiVive Gallery presents
BRISTLE
Randy McKean - reeds
Cory Wright - reeds
Murray Campbell - violin, oboes
Lisa Mezzacappa - double bass
plus
Shelton / Padouvas / Brown
An improvising trio with Aram Shelton, alto saxophone & bass clarinet; Theo Padouvas, cornet; Scott Brown, bass.
Doors open at 8pm
$10 suggested donation Cost : $10
Tuesday, Apr 29 2014 8:00 PM First Congregational Church - Berkeley
2345 Channing Way
Berkeley, CA 94704
For the final concert of its 30th anniversary season, Composers, Inc. presents !BAMM! 2014, an evening of eclectic and exciting new music. This is the MUST-SEE event of the season!
Featuring up-and-coming as well as established composers of the Bay Area, and new names as well as familiar ones among the performers--Sqwonk, Friction Quartet, Mobius Trio, The Living Earth Show, the Young Women's Chorus, Meerenai Shim, and Matthew Joseph Payne--!BAMM! 2014 will give the world premiere of Nick Vasallo's "Ozymandias" and performances of Dan Becker's "Better Late," Gabriela Lena Frank's "Las Sombras de los Apus," Frank La Rocca's "Ave Maris Stella," Brendon Randall-Myers' "Making Good Choices," Winton White's "Erratic Tale," and Matthew Payne's "Flight of the Bleeper Bird."
Get ready for a night of amplified Gameboy sounds, electric guitar wizardry, women's choir, amplified string quartet, flute flurries, chanting cellos, battling bass clarinet duos, and groovy guitar trios!
Program:
Dan Becker, Better Late for bass clarinet duo
Gabriela Lena Frank, Las Sombras de los Apus for four celli
Frank La Rocca, Ave Maris Stella for choir
Nick Vasallo, Ozymandias for string quartet, guitar, percussion and electronics
Brendon Randall-Meyers, Making Good Choices for three guitars
Matthew Joseph Payne, Flight of the Bleeper Bird
Winton Yuichiro White, Erratic Tale for solo flute
Performers:
Sqwonk
Bass Clarinet Duo - Better Late - Dan Becker
Young Women's Choral Projects of San Francisco
Choir - Ave Maris Stella - Frank La Rocca
Friction Quartet & The Living Earth Show
Strinq quartet, guitar, percussion and electronics - Ozymandias - Nick Vasallo
Mobius Trio
Three Guitars - Making Good Choices - Brendon Randall-Meyers
Meerenai Shim
Flute - Flight of the Bleeper Bird - Matthew Joseph Payne; Solo Flute - Erratic Tale - Winton Yuichiro White
Gianna Abbondolo, Thalia Moore, Monica Scott, Kathryn Bates Williams
Four Celli - Las Sombras de los Apus - Gabriela Lena Frank
Matthew Joseph Payne
Amplified Gameboy - Flight of the Bleeper Bird - Matthew Joseph Payne
Tickets can be purchased through our website or at the door 30 minutes before the performance. If you are a music teacher, send a list of your students to mail@ComposersInc.org and your students can attend with one guest for $5 each.
TICKETS
RSVP to !BAMM! on Facebook
Cost : General $20 Student/Senior/Disabled $15
Wednesday, Apr 30 2014 8:00 PM Berkeley Arts
2133 University Avenue
Berkeley
Click for Venue page on bayimproviser Chris Broderick Farewell Concert
Chris Broderick - reeds
Ralph Carney - reeds
Josh Pollack - guitar, ukelele
Moe! Staiano - percussion
As a way of saying farewell to the Bay Area after living here his whole life, horn player Chris Broderick has gathered together a set of diversely talented musicians who have been both friends and inspirations throughout his musical career. Horn player Ralph Carney, percussionist Moe Staiano, and string player Josh Pollock will join Chris for an evening of solos, duos, and ensembles that will celebrate the adventurousness and multiplicity of the local music community, as these musicians have, individually and in collaboration, made pop, rock, prog, jazz, noise, and music for theater.
8pm to 10:30pm, 2133 University Ave. Audio samples on which musicians at this event appear:
Wednesday, Apr 30 2014 9:30 PM Studio Grand
3234 Grand Ave,
Oakland
Click for Venue page on bayimproviser WIENER KIDS + Teddy Rankin-Parker
WIENER KIDS || Jordan Glenn - CORY WRIGHT-Aram Shelton
BRAiN CHiLD OF DRUMMER/COMPOSER Jordan Glenn,WiENER KiDS BEGAN AS A DUO WiTH GUiTARiST, COMPOSER, MUSiCAL THiNKER STEiNi GUNNARSSON iN 2007. AFTER STEiNi MOVED BACK TO HiS NATiVE iCELAND, JORDAN PiCKED THE PROJECT UP AGAiN A YEAR LATER, THiS TiME WiTH HELP OF REED MASTERS Aram Shelton AND CORY WRiGHT.
AS THE YEARS HAVE GONE BY THE PALLET OF THE BAND HAS EXPANDED TO iNCORPORATE PERCUSSiVE SOUNDS FROM NEAR AND FAR. OBJECTS/iNSTRUMENTS iNCLUDE GONGS, TiN CANS, TiBETAN BOWLS, BUNT PANS, CHROMATiC COWBELLS, ANGKLUNG (bamboo rattles), TRiANGLES, CAR SPRiNGS, SUiTCASE-ViBRAPHONE, GLOCKENSPiELS, AND VARiOUS WHiSTLES, DRUMS AND BELLS.
THE MUSIC iS iNSPiRED BY SMALL DOGS, OLD BiKES, MUPPETS, CHEAP HALLOWEEN DECORATiONS, BABiES WiTH GLASSES AND OTHER WiENER KiDS. iT’S FAST AND iT’S SLOW. iT’S LOUD AND iT’S SOFT. iT WiLL MAKE YOU LAUGH, iT WiLL MAKE YOU CRY, iT WiLL MAKE YOU SCRATCH YOUR HEAD. iT’S MUSiC MADE BY EX/CURRENT WEAKLiNGS FOR EVERYONE!
TEDDY RANKIN- PARKER || SOLO CELLO
Teddy Rankin-Parker is an American cello player based in Oakland, CA, who specializes in New Music, Improvisation, and Interdisciplinary Collaboration. He performs extensively throughout the U.S. and Europe with various solo and ensemble projects.
Rankin-Parker most recently completed a national tour as a member of 2013 Berlin Prize-winning composer Gene Coleman’s Ensemble N-JP, premiering a new octet for an ensemble of Japanese and traditional western instruments, commissioned by Chamber Music America and the Graham Foundation (October 2013). Since 2010, he has performed as a member of the International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE), most recently in a concert at Columbia University’s Miller Theatre featuring the life work of composer Pauline Oliveros. In 2010 he performed with ICE in a new interdisciplinary work by choreographer John Jasperse entitled, Truth, Revised Histories, Wishful Thinking & Flat Out Lies, which played at Redcat (Roy and Edna Disney/CalArts Theater) in Los Angeles and at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago. In 2008, Rankin-Parker performed Steve Reich’s Cello Counterpoint for Eight Cellos with Grammy Award-winning ensemble Eighth Blackbird at the Kitchen in New York City. He toured Lewis Nielson’s “Axis” with the Oberlin Contemporary Music Ensemble in 2007 under the direction of renowned percussionist and conductor, Stephen Schick.
MAY 2014Thursday, May 1 2014 6:00 PM Center for New Music
55 Taylor St
SF
Click for Venue page on bayimproviser Join composer and sound artist Brenda Hutchinson for a special reception as we welcome her works into the window gallery of C4NM. Hutchinson will share her thoughts with interviewer Bart Hopkin, and demonstrate selected instruments from her exhibit.
Brenda Hutchinson was born in Trenton, New Jersey in 1954. She is a composer and sound artist whose work is based on the cultivation and encouragement of openness in her own life and in those she works with. Hutchinson encourages participants to experiment with sound, share stories, and make music. She has spent the past 2 decades singing into a 9 1/2 foot tube and has designed a gestural interface for the Long Tube and MAX/MSP. Recently, Brenda has been developing a sound initiated drawing interface and assistive device to work with memory and cognitive impairment. She is also Groucho Parx, a member of the Avatar Orchestra Metaverse in Second Life.
Brenda’s exhibit in the window gallery of C4NM will feature her Giant Music Box Long Tube:
Originally made for the Exploratorium, the Giant Music Box is an instrument/interactive exhibit that anyone can use to make music. It was my response to the challenge of creating an instrument and situation where people could play alone or with others and create something that “sounded good”. I have always loved the sound of those little music boxes and thought it would be wonderful to extend that private experience to a shared opportunity for music making.
While the Giant Music box is obviously an object created expressly for making music, the Long Tube became an instrument in the same way that a bucket or pair of sticks or any found object is transformed by the way it is played. The particular beauty of the Long Tube as a found object instrument is that it is interactive. The Long Tube is bionic and if you sing into it, something interesting will happen.
Part of the reason I perform with the Long Tube is to inspire other people to try because it is so simple and immediately rewarding as a musical instrument. Eventually my curiosity with expanding the sonic and interactive possibilities of the Long Tube overpowered my desire to demonstrate its egalitarian nature, and I developed a gestural interface to work with the computer and live performance.
Photo by Liz Keim
Hutchinson has presented her work at international festivals in New Zealand, Europe, Latin America and Canada. Venues in the United States include the Lincoln Center, Merkin Concert Hall and The Kitchen in New York and New Langton Arts, The Lab and The Exploratorium in San Francisco. She has produced work for National Public Radio’s Soundprint and is the recipient of: Gracie Allen Award from American Women in Radio and Television, Ucross Residency Award and Montalvo Artist Residency. She has received commissions from the Mary Flagler Cary Charitable Trust, Meet the Composer/Reader’s Digest, National Endowment for the Arts, and McKnight Foundation, among others. Brenda has been an artist in residence at San Quentin Prison, Headlands Center for the Arts, Harvestworks, The Exploratorium and Djerassi Resident Artists Program.
Recordings of her work are available through TELLUS, DEEP LISTENING, THE AERIAL, O.O. DISCS, FROG PEAK MUSIC and Leonardo Music Magazine. Cost : Free!
Thursday, May 1 2014 8:00 PM Luggage Store New Music Series
Outsound co-Presents @ The Luggage Store Gallery
1007 Market St.
SF
Click for Venue page on bayimproviser 8pm: Jim Ryan/Mark Pino Duo
9pm: Chekere
Mark Pino and Jim Ryan have been spending afternoons shedding in El Cerrito and are bringing their stuff to the Store for May Day. Mark has been on the scene with all kinds of bands and drums lately and it seems Jim has been hanging around the bay area scene since the beginning of time. Both of these musicians have achieved vast, unrecognized accomplishment on their drums and horns.
Chekeré is an ensemble of percussionists led by Bob LaDue, who all play differently-pitched chekerés (dried gourds with nets of beads around them). http://music.dennydennybreakfast.com/album/cheker-part-i
 Cost : $6-10 sliding scale
Audio samples on which musicians at this event appear:
Friday, May 2 2014 7:30 PM Berkeley Art Museum
2626 Bancroft Way
Berkeley
Click for Venue page on bayimproviser Programmed by Sarah Cahill
Doors 5:00
Opera in Gallery B! Versatile all-star ensemble Magik*Magik Orchestra joins contemporary music luminaries the Friction Quartet under the direction of conductor Dustin Soiseth to perform a chamber opera based on the life of Vincent Van Gogh. Composer Michael Gordon’s score for Van Gogh, written in 1991, addresses the pain and paranoia of the artist, with text drawn from his letters, to create a compelling narrative set to brilliant, colorful music.
Please note that there will be only limited seating at this season’s L@TE events. Cost : $7 General Admission
Friday, May 2 2014 10:00 PM Studio Grand
3234 Grand Ave,
Oakland
Click for Venue page on bayimproviser HOSTILE TAKEOVER
Wallace Enterprises VS. Marshall Incorporated
Eli Wallace, piano and keyboard Joshua Marshall, saxophone
Lisa Mezzacappa, bass Jason Hoopes, bass
Jordan Glenn, percussion Mark Clifford, percussion
This evening of music pits two improvising trios against one another, each acting as its own unit able to develop “intra” and “inter-” dimensional relationships within each group and between the two trios. A sui generis occasion showcasing the debut of two enticing enterprises, waves of sonorous contention will be waged, perhaps without resolving, resulting in a tempestuous and spontaneous musical narrative. Collectively, these musicians draw upon a wide range of influences from indie rock, to free jazz, to noise rock, to avant-garde classical music, as they each contribute their own formidable voice to the proceedings.
Saturday, May 3 2014 8:00 PM Berkeley Arts
2133 University Avenue
Berkeley
Click for Venue page on bayimproviser Santomieri-Farhadian Duo and The Atchleys.
The Santomieri-Farhadian Duo will present their fierce brand of almost
completely and unapologetically analog (we are amplified), structured
improvisatory avant-garde chamber music (violin & guitar) in this
double-duo+one concert with The Atchleys, performing with video artist
Bill Thibault.
S-F Duo: http://about.me/theafarhadian/#
The atchleys & bill thibault celebrate 2014 spring clean with lean,
minimal electronic sound and dazzling, procedurally-driven, computer
generated video. The atchleys' sound: stripped-down beats, electronics, vocals, field recs,
noise; a melange of whatever we're dreaming about listening to and
inspired by in the 30hz-10Khz range: melody when necessary, harmony if
forced.
bill thibault's sight: abstract, algorithmic, thoroughly entrancing live
video: vivid color image formations pulse modulate evoke razor edge
psychic crossbeams and girders of vast architectural and swirling
nano-alliance washes
mission statement: keeping it as digital as possible, if only robots would
carry our gear.
8PM The Atchleys + Bill Thibault
9PM Santomieri-Farhadian Duo
8pm to 10pm, 2133 University
Saturday, May 3 2014 9:30 PM Duende
468 19th Street
Oakland
Click for Venue page on bayimproviser Jon Raskin Trio + The Lost Trio
Jon Raskin - Alto Sax www.jonraskin.com www.rova.org
Lisa Mezzacappa - bass http://www.lisamezzacappa.com/
Vijay Anderson - drums http://vijayanderson.com/
The Lost Trio
Phillip Greenlief - tenor saxophone
Dan Seamans - bass
Tom Hassett - drums
The Jon Raskin Trio performs original compositions by Jon Raskin and a side range of interests that include works by Roscoe Mitchell, Irish Traditional tunes, Charles Mingus and John Tchicai.
Jon Raskin is a founding member of the Rova Saxophone Quartet and is an active composer, improviser, curator and plays saxophone, electronics, concertina and jaw harps.
Lisa Mezzacappa is a San Francisco Bay Area-based bassist, composer, and musical instigator. An active collaborator and curator in the Bay Area music community, she leads her own groups Bait & Switch, Nightshade, the Lisa Mezzacappa Trio and the Tangle Trio, and co-leads the ensembles duo B., Cylinder, the Mezzacappa-Phillips Duo, and the Caribbean folk band Les Gwan Jupons. Lisa has released her music on the Clean Feed, NoBusiness, Leo, NotTwo, Evander, Odd Shaped Case and Edgetone record labels, and has recorded as a sideperson for the Tzadik, Kadima and Porto Franco labels. She collaborates frequently on cross-disciplinary projects in sound installation, film/video, sculpture and public music/art.
Vijay Anderson is a freelance drummer, bandleader, composer, and teacher who lives and works in Oakland, California. He has been performing professionally in the Bay Area since 1997. He holds a MFA in music performance from Mills College, where he studied with Roscoe Mitchell, William Winant, David Bernstein, and Fred Frith. He earned his BA in music performance from S.F. State, studying under Eddie Marshall, Francis Wong, Hafez Modirzadeh, and Wayne Wallace.
Anderson has performed and recorded with such diverse, outstanding musicians as Los Angeles-based multi-instrumentalists Lynn Johnston and Vinny Golia, Bay Area composers/performers Ben Goldberg, Sheldon Brown, John Schott, Graham Connah, Darren Johnston, Smith Dobson V, Lisa Mezzacappa, Aaron Bennett and Ava Mendoza, and Austria-based saxophonist/composer Marco Eneidi. He also has worked extensively with Brooklyn based bass player/composer Adam Lane as part of Lane’s Full Throttle Orchestra, the Adam Lane Trio featuring Vinny Golia, and Adam Lane’s Blue Spirit Band featuring Avram Fefer and Roy Campbell.
The Lost Trio is currently celebrating 20 years of music making with the new release of their upcoming CD, KNOWMONK - an idiosyncratic reading of of the America's greatest 20th century composers. Unlike any other Monk tribute recording to date, the trio has surprises for their long-term fans and new audiences alike. For this performance, they will present a few gems from the new record, balanced out with their nearly-surreal repertoire that veers from Italian film music and Pop to original compositions and compositions by jazz masters typically overlooked by most groups. Come check out a trio whose recordings have topped several "best of the year" lists for multiple releases and bask in their "loose-limbed soaring lyricism" (Andrew Gilbert, SF Chronicle). Audio samples on which musicians at this event appear:
Sunday, May 4 2014 5:00 PM Actual Cafe
6334 San Pablo Avenue
Oakland
Click for Venue page on bayimproviser Guitarist Schott (T.J. Kirk, Ben Goldberg) with drummer John Hanes and bassist Dan Seamans. Original, brainy Jazz that grooves deep and sings. Cost : Free
Sunday, May 4 2014 7:30 PM SIMM Series
Outsound Presents @ Musicians Union Hall
116 9th St @ Mission
SF
Click for Venue page on bayimproviser 7:30pm Beast Nest
Sharmi Basu - solo electronics
8pm Botanical Garden
Sharmi Basu - electronics/Stephan Haluska - harp
8:30pm Noertker's Moxie
Annelise Zamula - tenor sax, flute/Amber Lamprecht - oboe, flute/Brett Carson - piano/Bill Noertker - contrabass
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Sharmi Basu is an MFA student in the Music Department at Mills College. She suffers from an internalization of ancestral trauma and colonization, and plays music to achieve temperance between her paranoia and teetering depression.
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Stephan Haluska is a harpist, improviser, and composer. He loves the harp for its resonant beauty, for the myriad of sound possibilities, the idiomatic harmonies that the pedals can derive, and the tactile nature of the instrument. Stephan’s aim is to push the harp into new territories by extending the harp’s vocabulary through extended effects, amplification, and electronics, and to provide new roles for the instrument. Stephan is currently attending Mills College in their MFA program in Performance and Literature with a concentration in Improvisation where he studies with Zeena Parkins, Fred Frith, and Roscoe Mitchell.
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Bassist/composer Bill Noertker has been active in the Bay Area jazz and avant-garde scene since the late 1980s. Since 2001, he has lead his own ensemble, Noertker's Moxie, as a forum for his compositions inspired by visual artists such as Paul Klee, Wassily Kandinsky, Franz Marc, Salvador Dalí, and Joan Miró, architect Antoni Gaudí, poet Rainer Maria Rilke, sculptor David Beck, and others. Noertker has composed over 150 pieces of music for this group and has released eight CDs, including three CDs of his extended suite Sketches of Catalonia, and two volumes of his extended Blue Rider Suite.
He has also composed music for three films that showcase the intimately-scaled sculptures of David Beck, and composed the score for a Nikos Koumoundouros film, The Commandments or the Nostril of Ektor Kaknavatos, that was selected for the Short Film Corner at the prestigious Festival de Cannes 2010. He is now at work scoring the upcoming Olympia Stone film “Curious Worlds: the Art and Imagination of David Beck.”
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Annelise Zamula started on flute at age 11 and picked up sax at 14 after falling in love with jazz. She studied classical flute with the late Wallace Mann of the National Symphony while in her teens. After moving to Boston to attend Berklee College of Music, she studied flute with Matt Marvuglio.
Annelise has performed with numerous groups in the Bay Area, including the Riffrats, Moodswing Orchestra, Montclair Women’s Big Band, Connie Champagne and Her Tiny Bubbles, Carwash, The Strayhorns, Golden Gate Park Band, and more.
In 1996 she joined the Billy Tipton Memorial Saxophone Quartet (BTMSQ) and toured the U.S. and Europe with the group, as well as recording a CD, Sunshine Bundtcake, which was released in March 2000. She has played live radio shows with BTMSQ and the After the End of the World Coretet, both in Europe and at the Bay Area’s own KPFA, KUSF, KALX, and KPOO. With BTMSQ, Ms. Zamula performed with the Indigo Girls on their West Coast tour of 1997, including a performance at the Lilith Fair in Vancouver; at the Bumbershoot Festival in Seattle, and with the Pat Graney Dance Company.
She co-founded the After the End of the World Coretet and composed some of the songs released on the group’s two CDs, Quaternity and 13.
Annelise currently performs with Big Lou's Dance Party, Noertker's Moxie, and the Berkeley Saxophone Quartet.
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Brett Carson's work draws from a wide variety of musical traditions, reflecting the influence of Anthony Braxton, Tim Berne, John Zorn, Olivier Messiaen, Philip Glass, Claude Vivier, Sun Ra, and others. The composition-improvisation continuum is explored through traditionally notated structures, graphic scores, and improv game concepts. He is originally from Georgia and spent some time working in the Atlanta experimental music scene before moving to California to pursue his MA in Composition. He is currently based in Oakland, and studies at Mills College with Roscoe Mitchell, Zeena Parkins, Fred Frith, Chris Brown, and Les Stuck.
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Amber Lamprecht is from San Luis Obispo, CA but now lives in San Francisco, CA. As a teenager she competed and won several solo concerto competitions in California on the oboe. She was given a full scholarship to The University of Colorado at Boulder School of Music where she completed a Bachelors Degree of Music Performance on the oboe. Amber has expanded her knowledge of music into other musical genres. She has performed and recorded with almost every type of music by performing as a session player and improvisatory instrumentalist in the San Francisco area on both oboe and flute.
Cost : $10/$8
Sunday, May 4 2014 8:00 PM Berkeley Arts
2133 University Avenue
Berkeley
Click for Venue page on bayimproviser homler, vlatkovich, walton 3 - brown, shelton, glenn 3
8 pm
Anna Homler - voice, objects, electronics
Michael Vlatkovich - trombone
Scott Walton - bass
9 pm
Chris Brown - piano, electronics
Aram Shelton - saxophone
Jordan Glenn - drums
8pm to 10:30pm, 2133 University Audio samples on which musicians at this event appear:
Sunday, May 4 2014 8:00 PM Temescal Arts Center
511 48th Street
Oakland
Click for Venue page on bayimproviser 8:00 PM: ZE BIB! - Shanna Sordahl (cello/eletronics), Robert Lopez (vibraphone/percussion)
8:50 PM: Teddy Rankin-Parker (cello), Daniel Pearce (drums)
ZE BIB! is a collaborative effort between cellist/electronic musician Shanna Sordahl and percussionist Robert Lopez. Debuted in the warm Oakland summer of 2013, Ze Bib!'s music grapples with the spastic intensity arising from explorations into sound worlds developed both collectively and independently. As active musicians for a variety of projects in the Bay Area, Lopez and Sordahl's extreme musical interests converge with explosive force. A desire to continuously expand and reinterpret their relationship with their instruments leads to an ever exciting dynamic that will intrigue and entrance. Their music is tinged with influences ranging between noise, free improvisation, art rock, and heavy drone. They cultivate interpretations of material and psychological structures grown out of improvisations as well as the deconstruction of composed melodic and rhythmic material.
Contact: zebib.biz [at] gmail.com
https://soundcloud.com/ze-bib
Teddy Rankin-Parker and Daniel Pearce is an improvising duet of cello and drums. A cello player and graduate of the Oberlin Conservatory of Music, Rankin-Parker has performed, toured, and/or recorded with dozens of artists, including the International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE), Iron & Wine, Glen Hansard, Birthmark, OosImaginary Art Collective, the Kirtan Choir, the Chicago Sinfonietta, Joffrey Ballet, AACM, Chicago Folks Operetta, Opera Cabal, Renee’ Bakers Mantra Blue Free Orchestra, Henry Grimes, Chicago Modern Orchestra Project, and Nicole Mitchell’s Black Earth Ensemble. Pearce is a drummer and writer based in San Francisco who has performed, toured, and recorded with numerous groups in both New York and the Bay Area.
http://trpadp.bandcamp.com/ Cost : $8-15
Monday, May 5 2014 8:00 PM Make-Out Room
3225 22nd St
SF
Click for Venue page on bayimproviser The Monday Makeout-
FREE/No Cover
-The cutting edge of Bay Area jazz and creative music--in three acts-
8:30pm - Ross Hammond/Alex Jenkins Duo
http://www.rosshammond.com
(powerhouse modern guitar hysterics)
9:30pm - Reconnaissance Fly
http://www.reconnaissancefly.com
Amanda Chaudhary-keyboard, electronics
Larry the O-drums, percussion
Polly Moller-voice, flutes
Richard Lesnik-reeds
Tim Walters-bass, computer
(angular, whimsical avant pop/RIO)
10:30pm - The Lords of Outland
http://lordsofoutland.wordpress.com
CJ Borosque-no input pedals, trumpet
Philip Everett-drums, eletronics
Ray Schaeffer-electric basses
Rent Romus-reeds, voice electronics
(classic Bay Area free music) Cost : FREE
Audio samples on which musicians at this event appear:
Wednesday, May 7 2014 8:00 PM Berkeley Arts
2133 University Avenue
Berkeley
Click for Venue page on bayimproviser 8 pm
base 10: walton/liebig duo
steuart liebig - electric bass
scott walton - double bass
contrabassist scott walton, who lived in socal and now lives in norcal, is no stranger at berkeley arts festival. steuart liebig, who lives in socal, is a less frequent visitor to the art festival environs. after much mutual admiration and discussion of playing a duo gig together, here it is. different orders of bass frequencies will be explored.
9 pm
andrea parkins - electronics
zeena parkins - harp, effects
Phillip Greenlief - alto & tenor saxophone
Gino Robair - analog electronics, percussion
misters greenlief and robair are excited to spend the evening in exploratory bliss with two highly acclaimed poets of electro-acoustic improvisation. andrea and zeena parkins, two mainstays of the new york improvised music scene (with a catalog of works that range far beyond the borders of free improvisation) meet two stalwarts of the san francisco bay area creative music camp (who have, similarly, spent decades demolishing genre boundaries). yes, we are recording this show. who knows, you might just be able to listen to it in the comforts of your own home someday on CD. until then, we invite you to experience in person the magic of four creative minds let loose in uncharted sonic landscapes. Cost : $10 - $20, sliding scale
Audio samples on which musicians at this event appear:
Thursday, May 8 2014 8:00 PM Luggage Store New Music Series
Outsound co-Presents @ The Luggage Store Gallery
1007 Market St.
SF
Click for Venue page on bayimproviser 8:00 pm Galactic Pot-Healer
Brian Lucas - bass, Andrew Joron - theremin
9:00 pm cleaninglady - saxophone and Modular Synthesizer
Robert Lopez - percussion/drums, Shanna Sordahl - cello
Galactic Pot-Healer is a space-drone duo named after the Philip K. Dick novel. Following Dick's hero into the depths of an alien ocean, their music taps into the overtones of the underworld. Joron and Lucas also play together in the quartet Cloud Shepherd.
 cleaninglady's musical performances are varied depending on venues and personnel. Mains instruments used are Hand Made Modular Synthesizer and Alto Sax but rarely together. On Modular Synth : Performances follow a restricted discipline of using only a single voice panel of Modular Synth with no keyboard and outboard effects. The point here is not to rely on effects to flesh out the performance but to have to actually play the instrument using knowledge of signal path only as a guide. The actual sounds can be quite harsh to intense sub bass and everything in between. This is generally dictated by the venue or collaborators on the night.On Saxophone : The approach is conversational , sometimes intense ; always coming out of an improvised exchange with collaborators or the playing environment.It could be seen as free jazz ; the intent is an honest expression of the moment.
  Cost : $6-10 sliding
Friday, May 9 2014 7:30 AM Berkeley Art Museum
2626 Bancroft Way
Berkeley
Click for Venue page on bayimproviser Programmed by David Wilson
In preparing the musicians for this performance, Payne will teach the principles, structures, and techniques of humpback whale song though several group sound experiments, including, but not limited to, deep listening exercises with audio recordings (garnered from her groundbreaking collection of field recordings with ex-husband Roger Payne, Songs of the Humpback Whale) and analyzing spectrograms of whalesong through a musical, rather than research-oriented, lens. Along with these musical building blocks, she will also expand on the various functions that whale song serves in whale culture. Gesundheit will aid in translating Payne’s concepts and instructions into performance strategies.
The kora is the central instrument in the Griot tradition of using song to transmit news and stories, and to mark ceremonial occasions.
Please note that there will be only limited seating at this season’s L@TE events. Cost : $7 General Admission
Friday, May 9 2014 7:30 PM Center for New Music
55 Taylor St
SF
Click for Venue page on bayimproviser Chicago saxophonist Dave Rempis makes a rare appearance in San Francisco, and presents two bands. He teams up with Larry Ochs and Darren Johnston for a set celebrating the release of this collective’s new CD Spectral, which will be available at the show.
Then he presents his Chicago trio called WHEELHOUSE: Dave Rempis – saxophones / Nate McBride – bass / Jason Adasiewicz – vibes. You really do not want to miss this unique band. Their CD Boss of the Plains (Aerophonic) was named one of the best CDs of 2013. Beautiful music; great players. This should be a very special night.
Dave Rempis was born in Wellesley, Massachusetts on March 24th, 1975. He began his musical studies at the age of 8, inspired by a family friend who played clarinet in local Greek bands, and by Zoot, of the Muppets Band, to pick up saxophone. During high school he performed in his town, district, and all-state bands and wind ensembles, as well as in a jazz combo at a local music school. In 1993, Rempis began a degree in classical saxophone at Northwestern University with Frederick Hemke. Finding this environment stifling, Rempis quickly ditched the music degree to pursue studies in anthropology and ethnomusicology. As part of these studies, he spent a year at the International Centre for African Music and Dance at the University of Ghana, Legon, studying African music and ethnomusicology. He also continued to perform with many different types of groups, ranging from highlife and reggae bands while in Ghana, to jazz, free jazz, funk, and contemporary music ensembles at home. He graduated from Northwestern in 1997.
Upon graduating, Rempis decided to focus on performing, and in March of 1998 was asked to replace saxophonist Mars Williams in the well-known Chicago jazz outfit The Vandermark Five. This opportunity catapulted him to notoriety as he began to tour regularly throughout the US and Europe playing clubs, concert halls, and festivals on both continents. During his tenure with The Vandermark Five, Rempis also began to develop the many Chicago-based groups for which he is currently known. These include The Rempis Percussion Quartet, The Engines, The Rempis/Rosaly Duo, The Outskirts, Ballister, The Rempis/Daisy Duo, Bishop/Rempis/Kessler/Zerang, and Wheelhouse. Past working groups include Triage, and the Dave Rempis Quartet. Many of these groups have been documented on the Okkadisk, 482 Music, Not Two, MultiKulti, Solitaire, and Utech record labels. Rempis also performs and tours with Ken Vandermark’s Territory Band and Resonance Project, and The Ingebrigt Haker-Flaten Quintet. Past collaborations have included performances with Paul /Nate McBride – bass /Jason Adasiewicz – vibes. You really do not want to Lytton, Axel Dörner, Peter Brötzmann, Hamid Drake, Steve Swell, John Tchicai, Roscoe Mitchell, Fred Anderson, Kevin Drumm, Paal Nilssen-Love, Nels Cline, Tony Buck, and Joe McPhee. Rempis has been named three times in the annual Downbeat Critics’s Poll as a rising star in both the alto and baritone saxophone categories. Cost : $15 General, $10 Members
Friday, May 9 2014 9:00 PM The Chapel
777 Valencia Street
San Francisco
Nels Cline Singers
Doors: 8:00 pm / Show: 9:00 pm
The Nels Cline Singers are a trio of avant-assassins led by guitarist Nels Cline. Formed in 2001, The Singers have released 4 albums on Cryptogramophone that combine wide-ranging compositions with group improvisations, and run the gamut between delicate lyricism, and skull-crunching flights of fancy. Since joining the critically acclaimed rock group Wilco in 2004, Nels Cline has emerged as one of the most respected and unclassifiable musicians active today – memorably described by Jazz Times as “the world’s most dangerous guitarist” and by New York Times writer/bestselling author David Carr (Night of the Gun) as “one of the best guitarists in any genre.”
Ironically, Cline formed the Singers at the urging of versatile drummer Scott Amendola, a New Jersey-born Black Sabbath and Ornette Coleman acolyte who had gained prominence in San Francisco’s’ heady, dot-com era music scene of the early 90s though his collaborations with guitarist Charlie Hunter and saxophonist Philip Greenlief. It was Greenlief who introduced Cline to Amendola, who then brought in Colorado native Devin Hoff, a young contrabassist equally at ease with Norwegian Black Metal as he was with jazz standards and improvised music.
What emerged was a impeccably pedigreed and potently eclectic band of three successive generations of vanguard virtuosos whose buzz has only grown with each subsequent release Instrumentals (2002), The Giant Pin (2004), Draw Breath (2007) and their most recent double-album Initiate (2010). Cost : $18
Audio samples on which musicians at this event appear:
Saturday, May 10 2014 8:00 PM Center for New Music
55 Taylor St
SF
Click for Venue page on bayimproviser zBug, lead by David Leikam, will present a custom structured improvisational concert based on architectural and music compositional themes centered around the Center for New Music in San Francisco, California. zBug compositions will explore the sonic atmospheres of being and range from 7 to 10 minutes each.
“diG your music. Eclectic ain’t the word. Film noir multiverse ethnic blade runner desert world. Love it!” – Nivek Ogre, ohGr/Skinny Puppy
• David Leikam – moog rogue, electric bass-cello, piano
• Fred Malouf – electric guitar, electronics
• Rent Romus – saxophones
• Moe! Staiano – drums, percussion
zBug is based in San Francisco, California and presents structured improvisational music sets, based on the performance venue architecture and music compositional themes, featuring select geographical guest members on concert engagements worldwide. They have been associated with Wadada Leo Smith, Hawkwind, Pink Floyd, and Lou Reed’s Metal Machine Trio (MM3). Cost : $15 General, $10 Members
Audio samples on which musicians at this event appear:
Sunday, May 11 2014 8:00 PM Berkeley Arts
2133 University Avenue, between Shattuck & Oxford - walking distance from downtown Berkeley BART
Click for Venue page on bayimproviser sunday may 11th, 2014
8 pm
Stevie Richards
stevie richards - alto saxophone, modular synthesizer
shanna sordahl - cello
Robert Lopez - percussion
Stevie Richards is a saxophonist and modular synth builder from Melbourne, Australia. A 30 year veteran of the improvised music scene in Australia, his career has spanned Free Jazz, Ska, Noise, Rock, Electronic and Ambient genres on both instruments. He is an improviser but not necessarily a jazz musician, and will perform an conversational improvised set featuring Shanna Sordahl and Robert Lopez.
9 pm
Lewis Jordan/Karl Evangelista Duo
Lewis Jordan-saxophone, poetry
Karl Evangelista-guitar
The Jordan-Evangelista duo operates in liminal spaces--between music and spoken word, improvisation and composition, jazz and chamber music. Cultivated by several years at the core of Jordan's mercurial Music at Large Project, Jordan and Evangelista draw on a vast repertoire of original compositions and improvisational strategies to both explore the mythology of contemporary jazz and construct dynamic musings on modern life.
Cost : $10 - $20, sliding scale
Tuesday, May 13 2014 9:00 PM Uptown Nightclub
1928 Telegraph Ave
Oakland
Click for Venue page on bayimproviser Active Music Series presents WIld Hen + Sharmi Basu+ The Lightbulb Ensemble
Wild Hen is a group of four musicians who are deeply invested in the exploration, investigation and practice of free improvisation. The group performs scores written by Crystal Pascucci (cellist), which utilize a variety of notational styles including standard, graphic and text that frame and focus the improvisations for each piece. They will be performing from a suite of five pieces for clarinet, cello, vibraphone and drums.
Sharmi Basu attempts to catalyze a political, yet ethereal aesthetic through combining her strict anti-colonial and anti-imperialist politics with a commitment to spirituality within the arts. Beast Nest, Sharmi's primary performing project, uses her unwavering depression & restrained horror to channel left-eyed spirits that still walk the earth. While simultaneously clearing and entering, the sewage pipes of the body and the patriarchy congeal into watery soundscapes as a vehicle for achieving liberation through the darkest of fears. Based in Oakland, she is an MFA student at Mills College in the Electronic Music and Recording Arts department.
The Lightbulb Ensemble is a newly formed composers collective who champions experimental music, instrument building, and contemporary gamelan. The group is based in Oakland, CA., and emerged out of the culture of new music surrounding Mills College, as well as the longstanding Bay Area Gamelan Sekar Jaya. The Lightbulb Ensemble performs on steel metallophones built and designed by Brian Baumbusch, and heralds a new genre of American Gamelan rooted in the tradition of American experimentalism. Performing only new repertoire, the group presents in-house compositions and collaborates with active members of the American new music community, including The Paul Dresher Ensemble, The Jack Quartet, The Center for Contemporary Music, among others. Members of the group include: Brian Baumbusch, Wayne Vitale, Jon Myers, Keenan Pepper, Peter Sloan, Tim Black, Lydia Martin, Nava Dunkelman, Scott Siler, Ryan Jobes.
Active Music Series - Second Tuesdays at the Uptown
Music at 9 No cover, donations accepted.
activemusic.wordpress.com Cost : Donations
Thursday, May 15 2014 6:30 PM Center for New Music
55 Taylor St
SF
Click for Venue page on bayimproviser An in depth look at Max for Live, a virtually limitless creative tool and library of devices to extend the capabilities of Ableton Live. Using devices from a community of developers to break down creative walls and inspire the artist.
This workshop will approach both creating and transforming audio content, to utilize high quality and unique sounds in any genre of music. Fit for anyone interested in or using Ableton Live, looking to expand their creative process. All experience levels are welcome. Participants should come with their personal laptops.
Alec Ness is a music producer and educator from San Francisco, CA. As an artist, Alec is predominantly an electronic musician. A classically trained percussionist and former student of composition at McNally Smith College of Music, he began producing with Ableton Live in 2005. Subsequently he became an Ableton Certified Trainer in 2013. As an educator Alec specializes in the instruction of music composition and music software, primarily Ableton Live.
This event is presented in partnership with NEXMAP. Cost : Free! (registration required)
Thursday, May 15 2014 8:00 PM Luggage Store New Music Series
Outsound co-Presents @ The Luggage Store Gallery
1007 Market St.
SF
Click for Venue page on bayimproviser An evening with Marco Eneidi *Only Bay Area Appearance*
Musician/composer/alto saxophonist Marco Eneidi and Swiss/Mexican drummer Cosmic Brujo play in a series of solos and duos breathtaking in its originality and visceral energy. Their improvisational approach is so personal, so explosive and so devastating that it makes jazz (and most other music) sound like the archaic language of an ancient people. There's also a gentle side that makes even simple melodies seem radiantly beautiful. Colors circulate, falling high in the order of justice, introducing the metal poetry of what they are saying. Brujo drummer reaches down into the boom boom de-la bam
from the red chili in what is essentially the expression of an attitude, or a collection of attitudes, about the world, and only secondarily an attitude about the way music is made.
Along with saxophonist Marco Eneidi, the overarching focus of the musicians is to play a wholly improvised, spontaneously created series of works, demonstrating the fertility and expressiveness of free and collective creativity. They use a color palate that transcends the normal order of things, causing the listener to be jolted from their relative comfort, urging them to ruminate on justice and planetary zeitgeist.
Hearing them together, blending improvisation and counterpoint harmony, is like monitering an active volcano.
Cost : $10
Audio samples on which musicians at this event appear:
Friday, May 16 2014 7:30 PM Center for New Music
55 Taylor St
SF
Click for Venue page on bayimproviser Switchboard expands beyond its yearly festival with the addition of Switchboard Presents. On the third Friday of every month, the Switchboard Presents concert series features split bills drawn from a roster of Switchboard alumni, 2014 Festival artists, and other acts who fall between musical lines. Cost : $15 General, $10 Members
Saturday, May 17 2014 2:00 PM Center for New Music
55 Taylor St
SF
Click for Venue page on bayimproviser Guitarist Henry Kaiser has worked as a film and tv director even longer than he has played guitar. His many intense musical passions have prodded him to amass a large collection of interesting videos dealing with music from all over the world: new music, roots music, improvised music, instructional videos… all sorts of odd and crazy things.
Kaiser will share surprising and exquisite material that nobody in the audience will likely have seen – or even heard of – before. Cost : $10 General, $ 7 Members
Audio samples on which musicians at this event appear:
Saturday, May 17 2014 8:00 PM Oakland Metro
630 3rd Street
Oakland, CA.
Free Salamander Exhibit and Surplus 1980!
Surplus 1980 joins Free Salamander Exhibit in Oakland for some unique music with some Sleepytime Gorilla Museum provenance. Free Salamander Exhibit includes several former members of Sleepytime Gorilla Museum, and of course, Surplus 1980 includes one as well! It should be a night of unique and interesting music.
Advance tickets are $12 and available at this URL: http://www.oaklandmetro.org/event/168916
Facebook event page: https://www.facebook.com/events/655236001192962/
May 17th is the birthday of composer Erik Satie. Éric Alfred Leslie Satie (French: [eʁik sati]; 17 May 1866 – 1 July 1925) — he signed his name Erik Satie after 1884 — was a French composer and pianist. Satie was a colourful figure in the early 20th century Parisian avant-garde. His work was a precursor to later artistic movements such as minimalism, repetitive music, and the Theatre of the Absurd.
Currently based in Oakland, CA, Free Salamander Exhibit continues to shed its dead skin cells, casting off an accumulated detritus of metal, prog-rock, and art-rock influences. Nils, Dan, Michael, David, and Drew (at least these are the names they claim) meet regularly in an underground concrete shelter. Here they sit at an oval-shaped table in a spirit of constructive argumentation, poring over the nature of memory and the illusory promise of free will. Eventually they emerge, ready again to absorb the environmental stimuli that nourish their world-view. Through this circular process of absorption and molting, Free Salamander Exhibit hopes to augment the mass of your own pillow as well.
Surplus 1980 is a post-punk rock band, the second coming of the instrumental punk band Mute Socialite. Formed by former Sleepytime Gorilla Museum percussionist, Moe! Staiano, Surplus 1980 is a thicker brew of an out-jazz touch on the punk ferocity. Surplus 1980 have a well-chosen name. As long as you pick up on the right 1980 musical references: the skewed-punk and post-punk and spiky New Wave ones: Essential Logic, Pere Ubu, the Fall, the Slits, the Ex, first-album Gang of Four: Surplus 1980 is a louder and faster band than any of those, but draw from the same well of shouty discordant rock’n'roll clamor, the same joy in complaining. Chord progressions are less friendly than on a Chuck Berry record, but have the same elemental drive, and the drums — plus Staiano’s various re-purposed metals and tools — are clattered up front to make sure we don’t miss them.
Though this show will celebrate the birth of Satie, none of us are quite sure which members of both the Free Salamander Exhibit, or Surplus 1980, are even keen fans of Erik Satie.
Cost : $12
Audio samples on which musicians at this event appear:
Saturday, May 17 2014 8:00 PM Berkeley Arts
2133 University Avenue
Berkeley
Click for Venue page on bayimproviser 2 sets/2 genres = The Jim Ryan Trio & Green Alembic
Triangle & Green Alembic
Triangle is Jim Ryan sax & flute, Jason Hoopes bass, & Mark Pino drums.
Green Alembic is a six to eight piece improvisational chamber group consisting of accomplished musicians who perform to projected images and spoken word. The instrumentalists are: Cristina Stanley violin, Doug Carroll cello, Jason Hoopes contra bass, Joe Lasqo piano, Michael Cooke bassoon & sheng (Chinese free reed instrument), Jim Ryan flute, amplified kalimba, spoken word, & original graphic art, Jeff Hobbs violin, alto clarinet & cornet, Ron Heglin trombone & voice. The art and spoken word pieces are original works. The music is inspired by the images which are projected throughout the performance and by the spontaneous interactions amongst the musicians. The group's aesthetic is focused on the immediate creation of musical ideas, clear articulation, and sensitivity to the unfolding sonic and visual environment.
8pm to 10pm, 2133 University Audio samples on which musicians at this event appear:
Sunday, May 18 2014 2:00 PM The Nunnery
3016 25th. St
SF
Click for Venue page on bayimproviser 2:00
David Samas will perform Lost at Sea on a chamber orchestra of
invented nautical instruments including a 16 foot contramast, a two
string bass built from a ships mast and a pirate chest.
David Samas is an instrument inventor and composer who works with natural and found materials to create authentic inter-genre ethno-modernist soundscapes populated by unusual extended vocal techniques.
3:00
Peter Whitehead will be playing a fiddle, a radio, a psaltery, a loop pedal, a fipple flute, a jar of marbles and a music box.
Peter Whitehead is an instrument builder, performer, and composer. His singular instruments, often based on folk instruments from around the world, feature unusual found materials. Among his many instruments are the Heart Banjo, made from a baking tin; the Lawn Lyre, made from an old lawnmower and a metal oil pan; and the Spoonharp. Cost : $10.
Sunday, May 18 2014 7:30 PM SIMM Series
Outsound Presents @ Musicians Union Hall
116 9th St @ Mission
SF
Click for Venue page on bayimproviser 7:30pm Revenant Quartet
Karl Evangelista - electric guitar, Michael Coleman- keys/electronics, Tom Djll - trumpet/electronics, Nava Dunkleman - percussion
8:30pm The Equity and Social Justice Quartet
Plays music from the new CD out on Edgetone
Markus Hunt - double bass, Robert Lopez - drums, Darren Johnston - trumpet, Rent Romus - alto saxophone
With its genesis in a semi-apocalyptic duo performance between Evangelista and Coleman, an edited version of which provided the soundtrack to SNEAL’s similarly foreboding short film “The Last Days of the San Diego Zoo”, the Revenant Quartet is a unique mixture of free improvisation, intense noise, and moody electronic textures–music that is both chilling and beautiful.
The Equity and Social Justice Quartet, a new jazz group formed by Bay Area bassist and educator Markus Hunt. In April 2014 Hunt released The Whisper of Flowers on Edgetone Records. This is Hunt's first recording as a leader. The title of the album was taken from a quote from bassist William Parker: "It is not about jazz, it is about sound as revealed through the mysteries of life. About those who have said yes to the whisper of a flower and the shout of a blue hurricane."
His recent debut performance of the ESJQ was held Grace Cathedral to benefit the Homeless Children's Network of San Francisco.
Cost : $10/$8
Audio samples on which musicians at this event appear:
Sunday, May 18 2014 8:00 PM Berkeley Arts
2133 University Avenue
Berkeley
Click for Venue page on bayimproviser 1st set: Donald Robinson solo drums
2nd set: Phillip Greenlief - saxophones, Marco Eneidi - piano, Swiss/Mex Cosmic Brujo Drummer Cost : $10 - 20 sliding scale
Audio samples on which musicians at this event appear:
Tuesday, May 20 2014 8:00 PM Center for New Music
55 Taylor St
SF
Click for Venue page on bayimproviser JED DISTLER: “The Downtown Keyboard Magus” – The New Yorker
LARA DOWNES: “Addicting – Downes plays with an open, honest heart” – The Huffington Post
Lara Downes and Jed Distler: taste-makers, game-changers, rule-breakers. Join The Artist Sessions for music and conversation with these two acclaimed artists who have, independently and together, developed solo piano projects in tribute to two giants of American music: Billie Holiday and Thelonious Monk. Cost : $20 General, $10 Members/Students
Wednesday, May 21 2014 8:00 PM Berkeley Arts
2133 University Avenue
Berkeley
Click for Venue page on bayimproviser 8pm
Tom Djll solo - piano
Tom Djll, infamous for his trumpet hacking, returns to his first instrument, the piano, introducing a suite of hacked MIDI pieces for digital piano and electronics. The physical means are a circuit-bent Yamaha Keyar imposing its MIDI will on an otherwise harmless Yamaha Digital Piano. Djll will conjure up some of these bent compositions in real time, along with some other metasonic surprises.
9 pm
Eric Glick Rieman, Piano and Chamber Music
In my brain I'm a pianist, first and foremost. Although I often perform on prepared Rhodes electric piano, I spend a good amount of my time scheming about how to compose piano music and playing the piano. So I wanted to put together a performance that would feature some of this composed work. "Knitting" (2012 - 2013) is a notated work, a work loosely based on the process of knitting - echoing its repetition and complexity of patterns. It revolves around the piano, and in this chamber rendition of the piece that pianist is the indefatigable Brett Carson (http://brettcarson.weebly.com), surrounded by a chamber ensemble of willing knitters.
Portions of my piano suite "Thy Devil's Waistcoat" (2013-14) will also be performed at this show by the vibrant pianist Julie Moon, notably, "The Questioning Resolve of Those Who Need To Move Forward Proves Successful."
The Knitting Ensemble is comprised of:
Brett Carson: piano
Masha Albrecht: violin
Joshua Marshall: saxophones
Jakob Pek: electric guitar and percussion
Scott Siler: vibraphone and percussion
Peter Sloan: trombone Cost : $10 - $20, sliding scale
Audio samples on which musicians at this event appear:
Thursday, May 22 2014 6:30 PM The Red Poppy Art House
2698 Folsom St
@23rd St
SF
Click for Venue page on bayimproviser Scott Amendola & Charlie Hunter
May 22 @ 6:30 pm - 10:00 pm
The supremely funky duo presents:
A Double Show!
Originally from New Jersey and Berkeley respectively, Scott Amendola and Charlie Hunter played together for the first time 20 years ago. In October 2013 they released their newest album Pucker, a lean and sinewy compilation marked by fierce grooves, caressing melodies, and startlingly intuitive interplay. In this two-show special expect funky, bright and creative tunes that get you moving, bouncing, and dancing along.
The schedule for the night is as follows:
6:30 PM Doors open for first show
7:00PM First show begins, 70 min no intermission
8:20PM First show ends, crowd’s change!
8:45 Second show begins, 70 min no intermission Audio samples on which musicians at this event appear:
Thursday, May 22 2014 8:00 PM Berkeley Arts
2133 University Avenue
Berkeley
Click for Venue page on bayimproviser duo B. (Levis/Mezzacappa)
and
Cory Wright’s Green Mitchell Trio
duo B.
Lisa Mezzacappa, acoustic bass
Jason Levis, drums
duo B., the improvising and composing ensemble of Berlin-based percussionist Jason Levis and Bay Area bassist Lisa Mezzacappa, has been experimenting with the gloriously vulnerable duo format for ten years. Levis and Mezzacappa play graphic scores, music for experimental films, and original compositions and structured improvisations that explore gesture, texture, tunefulness and propulsive momentum.
Listen here:
http://www.edgetonerecords.com/catalog/4118.html
"...mysterious, complexly textured improvisations that sometimes take shape as the aural equivalent of abstract expressionist paintings, whether the ethereal, mystical canvasses of Mark Rothko or the jittery, splatter techniques of Jackson Pollock.” — Derk Richardson, KPFA radio host and music critic
Green Mitchell Trio
Cory Wright, tenor sax and clarinet
Lisa Mezzacappa, acoustic bass
Jason Levis, drums
Reeds player Cory Wright assembled the bay area based Green Mitchell Trio with bassist Lisa Mezzacappa and drummer Jason Levis in order to realize a growing collection of music he has been writing for this instrumental configuration. The group is a kinetic, versatile unit that can climb through compositional complexities, swing from the outer limbs of jazz, and plummet into the groundlessness of spontaneous soundspace... and the possibility of hopping on a passing groove is never out of the question.
Listen Here:
http://www.edgetonerecords.com/catalog/4123.html Cost : $10-20 sliding scale
Thursday, May 22 2014 8:00 PM Luggage Store New Music Series
Outsound co-Presents @ The Luggage Store Gallery
1007 Market St.
SF
Click for Venue page on bayimproviser 8:15 Pauchi Sasaki
8:45 Bill Baird
9:30 Beast Nest
Bill Baird writes:
"My works explore alternative controllers for musicians -- graphic scores, timers, text, conduction, body movement -- usually within a theatrical context. I like when form and content are indivisible and reinforce one another. The instruments in my ensemble change for each show but have been known to include: cello, saxophones, trombone, violins, vibraphone, typewriter, amplified household objects, computer robot voice generator, tape echo, and musical desk of my own construction. I am currently an MFA candidate at Mills College and am composing multiple works for theatre, small ensemble, and film scores, as well as more traditional song-type music with the context shifted into the unfamiliar." http://www.billbillbillbillbill.com
Beast Nest/Sharmi Basu is currently an MFA student at Mills College in the Electronic Music and Recording Arts department. Based in Oakland, she attempts to catalyze a political, yet ethereal aesthetic through combining her strict anti-colonial and anti-imperialist politics with a commitment to spirituality within the arts. Beast Nest, Sharmi's primary performing project, uses her unwavering depression & restrained horror to channel left-eyed spirits. While simultaneously clearing and entering, the sewage pipes of the body and the patriarchy congeal into watery soundscapes as a vehicle for achieving liberation through the darkest of fears.https://soundcloud.com/olgadagod Cost : $6-10 sliding scale
Friday, May 23 2014 8:00 PM Center for New Music
55 Taylor St
SF
Click for Venue page on bayimproviser Hoods is a chamber opera based on Euripides’ Hekabe and Little Red Riding Hood, parallel stories of women in extremis.
Setting myth and fairytale in the context of late empire and perpetual war, the opera explores themes of violence, gender, and metamorphosis. Three singers each play three roles from two alternating stories about women and wolves transforming into one another. Helicopters, ocean, and animal recordings subtly modulate and harmonize with chamber music reminiscent of Monteverdi and shape note songs. People are swallowed as shadows against a screen. Projected video projected enacts a shoreline, streaming war footage complicated by the unevenness of surface.
Hoods Ensemble Biographies
Singers
Soprano Jessica Aszodi specializes in adventurous repertoire. Her performances have garnered praise for their “…virtuosic whimsy” (New York Times) and “…upmost security and power…” (Chicago Tribune). The Los Angeles Times has called her singing “thrilling…” and ‘The Australian’ has described her as “…one of our greatest emerging talents.” Jessica has performed with ensembles as diverse as ICE (International Contemporary Ensemble), Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, the Royal Melbourne Philharmonic Orchestra, Bang on a Can, Victorian Opera (where she was a young artist) and Eighth Blackbird. She has been a soloist on recording for Chandos and Cajid.She has sung in festivals around the world including the Aldeburgh Festival (UK), Tanglewood Festival (USA) the Macau International Music Festival (China), the Melbourne International Arts Festival and the Vivid Sydney Festival (Australia). Passionate about new and innovative work, Jessica has premiered more than 50 pieces. For her efforts commissioning and producing new work Jessica has received grants from the Australia Council for the Arts, the City of Melbourne and Arts Victoria. Her awards include two Greenroom award nominations for ‘best female operatic performer’ in both the leading and supporting role categories. Jessica holds a Masters of music performance from the University of California and a Bachelor from the Victorian College of the Arts (Melbourne, Australia).
Noted for her rich vocal color and range, Malesha Jessie is a versatile artist of both the operatic and concert stages. Her engagements include solo performances with the Boston Pops Orchestra, American Symphony Orchestra, Hollywood Bowl Orchestra, Pacific Symphony Orchestra, and Bakersfield Symphony Orchestra. Venues include: Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, Disney Concert Hall, War Memorial Opera House, Avery Fisher Hall- Lincoln Center, Hollywood Bowl, Orange County Performing Arts Center, and the Cerritos Performing Arts Center. Ms. Jessie began with Los Angeles Opera covering Tebaldo in Don Carlo and Javotte in Manon. She made her debut with the company as Annie in Porgy and Bess and followed as Cercatrice in William Freidkin’s production of Suor Angelica. She also played the role of Annie in Porgy and Bess with the San Francisco Opera. Ms. Jessie has worked with notable conductors: John Mauceri, Steven Mercurio, Dean Williamson, John DeMain, John Alexander, Keith Lockhart and Placido Domingo and also captivated audiences throughout Europe as Bess in Porgy and Bess. Ms. Jessie received her Master of Music degree in Vocal Arts from the University of Southern California, Los Angeles. She received a Bachelor of Music degree in Vocal Performance from California State University, Fullerton.
Stephanie Aston is a committed performer of contemporary music. She has participated in several American and world premiers, including Luigi Nono’s Guai ai Gelidi Mostri, Michael Gordon’s What to Wear, and George Aperghis’ Sextuor: L’Origine des espèces. She has appeared on the L.A. Philharmonic Green Umbrella Series, CalArts Creative Music Festival, Et Cetera Festival of New Music, (Re)Sounds at Stanford University, and at REDCAT. Ms. Aston is an original member of the vocal ensemble Kallisti, and a founding member of the ROMP Ensemble. She has also performed with Riverside Lyric Opera, Red Fish Blue Fish, the La Jolla Symphony and Chorus, the CalArts Orchestra, the New Century Players, 18-squared, and ad-hoc ensembles at the Norfolk Contemporary Music Festival, UC San Diego, Stanford University, and in Los Angeles. Stephanie is currently an affiliated artist with San Diego New Music. Noteworthy Performances include John Zorn’s Rituals, Phillipe Manoury’s Cruel Spirals, Jason Eckardt’s Tongues, John Adams’s A Flowering Tree (Kumudha), Edgard Varese’s Offrandes, Pascal Dusapin’s To Be Sung, Igor Stravinsky’s Les Noces, Alberto Ginastera’s Cantata Para America Magica, and Kueiju Lin’s Snow in June. Ms. Aston holds a D.M.A. from University of California San Diego, an M.F.A. from California Institute of the Arts, and a B.M. from University of North Texas.
Instrumentalists
Michael Matsuno is an emerging flutist, dedicated to performing contemporary repertoire and the music of our time. He is a member of the Los Angeles-based What’s Next? Ensemble, through which he has helped champion the voices of many talented West Coast composers. Michael actively performs as a soloist and chamber musician throughout the Los Angeles area, and was the flute fellow for two summers with the ‘Aspen Contemporary Ensemble.’ Equally at home as an orchestral performer, he has held the Principal Flute and Piccolo positions with the Young Musicians Foundation Debut Orchestra, and has attended the Round Top Festival Institute, and the Aspen Music Festival and School for orchestral studies. Michael holds a B.M. from the University of Southern California, where he studied with Jim Walker, and is currently pursuing an M.A. in performance at UC San Diego, studying contemporary music with John Fonville.
Born and raised in Melbourne, Australia, Samuel Dunscombe’s artistic practice draws on a wide variety of influences. Originally trained as a contemporary classical clarinetist and an avid free improviser, he is also proficient in several programming environments for live audio digital signal processing, and has spent many hours taking field recordings in a wide range of locations – from the Amazon rainforest, the Mojave desert, Tasmanian old growth forests, to German train stations, US Air Force Bases, and English psychiatric hospitals, to name but a few. Samuel has worked with a diverse range of artists, including performances with Jaap Blonk, Marco Fusinato, David Shea, and Satoko Fuji, coding for performances by Anthony Pateras, and premiering works by composers including Klaus Lang, Anthony Pateras, Olga Neuwirth, and Ana-Maria Avram. He has undertaken residencies at WORM (Netherlands), and with Francisco López (Mamori, Brazil), and presented work at STEIM (Amsterdam), Cave 12 (Geneva), NK (Berlin), The Melbourne International Biennale of Exploratory Music (MIBEM), the Liquid Architecture Festival (Melbourne), and the Melbourne International Arts Festival. Samuel is currently studying for his DMA in music performance at the University of California, San Diego. This has been made possible by generous support from the Australia Council for the Arts, the Ian Potter Cultural Trust, the Keith and Elizabeth Murdoch Travelling Scholarship, and the Victorian College of the Arts.
Committed to artistic innovation, percussionist Ryan Nestor (1985) is actively pursuing new musical directions. Currently working on a Doctorate in Contemporary Music Performance at the University of California, San Diego, Nestor is a student of Steven Schick and a member of the percussion group, red fish blue fish. Recently, Nestor was an adjunct lecturer in music at Queensborough Community College (NYC) where he taught World Music and Percussion Ensemble. Earlier, Ryan held the percussion fellowship with the Aspen Contemporary Ensemble (ACE) at the Aspen Summer Music Festival and was performing guest-artist faculty at the nief-norf Summer Festival at Furman University. Nestor earned his Master’s degree in Percussion Performance at Stony Brook University and his Bachelor’s degree in Music Education from the University of Kentucky.
Batya MacAdam-Somer (b. 1983) grew up within the vibrant music community of Houston, Texas, where she studied violin with Judy Offman and Fredell Lack. As a young musician she performed often both locally as well as nationally, appearing on the Disney Channel as a member of Disney’s Young Musician Symphony Orchestra and playing concerts nationwide as the junior division winner of the Interlochen Summer Arts Camp Concerto Competition. At sixteen, she began her college studies at the Moores School of Music, University of Houston. Batya went on to earn a BA from the Manhattan School of Music in 2005 in the studio of Sylvia Rosenberg and completed her MA at the University of California, San Diego in 2009. She has participated in the Lucerne Festival Academy, Aspen Summer Music Festival, International Festival Institute at Round Top and the Bach Festival of Leipzig, Germany playing under conductors Pierre Boulez, Kurt Masur, Charles Dutoit, and David Robertson. Her involvement with composers and contemporary music has led to work across the country with organizations Art of Elan, Red Light, Foundation for Modern Music, TACTUS, and the New Music Collective. She can be heard playing Michael Roth’s soundtrack on the documentary Jews and Baseball: An American Love Story, and recently collaborated with her sister Adaiha to perform Double Concerto “States of Fantasy” by Mohammed Fairouz. Batya is currently pursuing a DMA at UCSD, studying under Janos Negyesy.
Judith Hamann is a Melbourne-based musician whose main instrument is violoncello. Her performance practice stretches across various genres encompassing elements of improvised, art, experimental and popular music with a particular focus on the presentation of new or rarely performed works. Judith has undertaken lessons with cellists at the forefront of new music including Christian Wojtowicz, Charles Curtis, Severine Ballon and Kevin McFarland. She has performed as either a soloist or a chamber musician for the Melbourne International Arts Festival (2005, 2006, 2007, 2011), Melbourne International Jazz Festival (2010. 2011), the Crossbows Festival (2012), the Adelaide Arts Festival (2012) Liquid Architecture Festival (2010) and The NOW Now Festival (2011, 2012). Judith has also toured new Australian music internationally with performance highlights including Soopa (Portugal), Logos Foundation (Belguim), Data (Marseilles), Café Oto (London), Ausland (Berlin), Cruce (Madrid), Steim (Amsterdam), Worm (Rotterdam), Cave 12 (Geneva) and Amann (Vienna) and the United States premiere of Natasha Anderson’s solo cello work written specifically for Judith at the Conrad Prebys Music Centre in California. Judith has performed Australian premieres of works by Sofia Gudbaidulina, Liza Lim, Thomas Meadowcroft, Jaap Blonk, Robert Ashley, Morton Feldman, Jani Christou, Olga Neuwirth and Klaus Lang, as well as the world premieres of commissioned works by Anthony Pateras, David Chisholm, Natasha Anderson, Rohan Drape, Marco Fusinato, James Rushford, Kate Neal, Sean Baxter, Robert Dahm and Cat Hope. Judith has worked on projects with artists including Jon Rose, Oren Ambarchi, Anthea Caddy, Carolyn Connors, BOLT ensemble, Arcko Symphonic Project and ELISION. She is also a member of Golden Fur, Atticus, Grand Salvo and Francis Plagne band.
Stephen Lewis (b. 1983) is a composer, pianist, and conductor originally from Western Massachusetts. Stephen has performed contemporary and classical music in solo and ensemble concerts at Miller Theater in New York, Severance Hall in Cleveland, the Walt Disney and Zipper Halls in Los Angeles, as well as at smaller venues throughout the United States. He has been commissioned by or written works for UC-San Diego’s Palimpsest, the Diagenesis Duo, ensemble et cetera, Downbeat Means Attack, Trio Kobayashi, and a number of individuals. An outstanding collaborative pianist, Stephen is in demand as a professional accompanist and vocal coach. Stephen is currently a PhD candidate in Composition at UC-San Diego, where he studies with Rand Steiger. He also plans on earning his DMA in Contemporary Piano Performance, studying with Aleck Karis. Stephen is a graduate of the Oberlin Conservatory of Music, where he majored in both Composition and Piano Performance.
Yvette Janine Jackson has worked with Aurora Theatre Company, Magic Theatre, Intersection for the Arts, Campo Santo, Oakland Public Theater, Crowded Fire, Asian American Theater Company, Cultural Odyssey, Golden Thread Productions, A Traveling Jewish Theatre, Joe Goode Performance Group and more. She is a recipient of the Dean Goodman Choice Award for Sound Design and Theatre Bay Area’s Eric Landisman Fellowship and recently staged her composition Invisible People (A Radio Opera) at San Diego’s Space4Art.
Carolyn Chen uses sound, text, light, video, and movement to reconfigure habits of listening. Her music combines traditional instruments with found objects that recontextualize tradition: tops and couscous roll across a timpani head (What we swallow turns around, 2011); the ensemble of Luigi Nono’s Woe to Cold Monsters reassembles a dissected scream from Kanye West’s Monster (Monsters, cold and warm, 2013); an ASL interpreter translates an audio recording of a story about the tangling of language and memory, hands strung to windchimes at a distance (Threads, 2012). The work has been awarded and commissioned by the Fulbright Foundation, Paul and Daisy Soros Fellowships for New Americans, American Composers Forum, ASCAP, MATA, Stanford University, and the Hammer Museum, and performed by ensembles such as Surplus, Talea, Red Light, red fish blue fish, and orkest de ereprijs, at festivals in Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Israel, Norway, Iceland, Sweden, Denmark, the Netherlands, the U.K., Germany, Switzerland, China, and the U.S. Allan Kozinn of The New York Times called Wilder Shores of Love, a chamber orchestra piece commissioned by S.E.M. and Ostravska Banda for a 2011 Zankel Hall premiere, “the evening’s most consistently alluring piece… a quiet but lush meditation.” Cost : $15 General, $10 Members
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