Tom's Place
3111 Deakin Street Berkeley
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Sult explores the hidden sounds of acoustic instruments (guitar, contrabass, percussion), magnifying them with microphones so the audience can join them inside their silent cacophony. Subtle harmonics become saws cutting through metal, and creaking wooden bodies become sinking ships. Their expression is primitive and raw, but while their playing embraces chaos, it is matched with discipline and the history of a decade-long mind-meld. The group sounds as one, with the gestalt of simultaneous layers taking primacy over any solo expression. The equality of the voices, however, invites the listener to focus on threads of their own choosing and make their own discoveries.

Jacob Felix Heule - percusion
Guro Skumsnes Moe - contrabass
TBA - acoustic guitar

Their latest album is Harpoon, a collaboration with sound artist Lasse Marhaug. Members of the group have also worked with musicians such as Bill Orcutt, Fred Frith, Maja Ratkje, and Okkyung Lee.

"They combine to create a scrap-heap collage of dry, brittle, abstract sounds, which they control with exquisite patience in slowly developing cycles of tension and release." -- Peter Margasak, Chicago Reader

videos: https://youtu.be/cuVInFjC5I8?list=PL_HPASqyjYfJazu56yOyc0rP7FfLptFLJ
albums: https://sult.bandcamp.com/


BRUCKMANN / SCHOENBECK / PHILLIPS
On the occasion of bassoonist Sara Schoenbeck’s visit from New York, an improvised trio first meeting comprising three long-term dyads.

Oboist Kyle Bruckmann tramples genre boundaries in widely ranging work as a composer/performer, educator, classical freelancer and new music specialist. His creative output – extending from conservatory-trained foundations into gray areas encompassing electro-acoustics, free jazz, post-punk rock, and the noise underground – can be heard on more than 80 recordings from labels including New World, Hat Art, Entr’acte, Not Two, Clean Feed, Another Timbre, 482Music and Sick Room. His ensemble affiliations include Splinter Reeds, sfSound, San Francisco Contemporary Music Players, Eco Ensemble, the Stockton Symphony, and Quinteto Latino.

Since moving to the Bay Area in 2003, he has performed as a substitute with the San Francisco Symphony and most of the area’s regional orchestras while remaining active within an international community of improvisers and sound artists. From 1996 until his Western relocation, he was a fixture in Chicago’s thriving experimental music scene. The most significant projects he has led or collaboratively founded include Degradient, EKG, Lozenge, and Wrack. He currently teaches at UC Santa Cruz and UC Davis as well as Berkeley.

Noah Phillips' (guitar) music is the result of listening to and emulating the works of many innovative guitar players, composers, and rock bands of the 21st century. After completing music studies at the University of Southern California Phillips along with reed player and composer Cory Wright formed the Grasshopper Quartet with with drummer Olysis Naranjo and bass player Aaron Kohen. It was around this time that Phillips also became very interested in the music coming out of the "New and Improvised" music community of Los Angeles wherein he met and began to perform with enigmatic woodwind player Lynn Johnston. Through Johnston Phillips along with close friend and colleague Jeremy Drake connected with multi-instrumentalist Chris Heenan , bassoonist Sara Schoenbeck, and drummer Harris Eisenstadt who remain close friends. He has had the good fortune of also playing and/or recording with Nels and Alex Cline, Vinny Golia , G.E. Stinson , Steuart Leibig , Rich West, Dan Clucas , Phillip Greenlief, Fred Frith, Tim Perkis, Nathan Hubbard, Kris Tiner, Jason Meyers, Ava Mendoza, Aram Shelton, David Rothbaum, Jason Hoopes, and Stephen Flynn just to name a few.

Sara Schoenbeck is a bassoonist who dedicates herself to expanding the sound and role of the bassoon in the worlds of classical, contemporary notated and improvised music. The Wire magazine places her in the "tiny club of bassoon pioneers" at work in contemporary music today and the New York Times has called her performances "galvanizing" and "riveting, mixing textural experiments with a big, confident sound.”

Originally from California, Sara spent her time on the west coast freelancing in various orchestral bassoon sections such as Santa Barbara Symphony, California Symphony, Redlands, Mancini Orchestra, the Dakah Hip Hop Orchestra and touring as a member of creative music ensembles Gravitas Quartet with Wayne Horvitz, Ron Miles and Peggy Lee, Anthony Braxton’s 12+1(tet) and Vinny Golia’s Large Ensemble. Sara also recorded for various sound and film projects including the Matrix 2 and 3, Dahmer and Spanglish.

Sara now calls Brooklyn home and performs regularly with Petr Kotek’s SEM ensemble, the composers group WetInk, Wordless Music Orchestra, Anthony Braxton’s Tri-Centric Orchestra, Gravitas, Harris Eisenstadt’s Golden State Quartet, Eve Risser's White Desert Orchestra, Nels Cline Lovers Ensemble, Adam Rudoplph's Go Organic Orchestra and the Michael Leonhart Band as well as performing with many creative and inspiring musicians in the New York scene and beyond including Roscoe Mitchell, the legendary musicians Butch Morris and Yusef Lateef, Wadada Leo Smith, Robin Holcomb, Matt Mittchell, Pamela Z, Taylor Ho Bynum, Joe Morris, Miya Masaoke, Ingrid Laubrock, Marty Ehrlich, Ben Goldberg, Stew and Mark Dresser to name a few. She has performed at major venues and festivals throughout North America and Europe, including Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center Out of Doors, the Kitchen, Iridium, Disney Hall, the Kennedy Center, SXSW, New Orleans Jazz Festival, Newport Jazz Festival, Berlin Jazz Festival, Free Music Festival in Antwerp Belgium, Biennale Musica in Venice Italy, Montreal Jazz Festival, Ottawa Jazz Festival, the Vancouver International Jazz Festival, The Angel City Jazz Festival in Los Angeles and the San Francisco Jazz Festival.

​ Sara received her BFA from the San Francisco Conservatory of Music and MFA from the California Institute of the Arts where she has given master classes on improvisation for bassoonists and classically trained musicians. Sara has been adjunct faculty at California Institute of the Arts, Citrus College and Pasadena Conservatory and given master classes at Cornish College, University of Denver and Western Washington University. She is currently on faculty at Brooklyn Conservatory of Music and Packer Collegiate Institute.

Cost: Free, donations accepted

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