Tuesday, April 12
Tue 4/12 7:30 PM Dresher Ensemble Studio [W Grand Ave and Poplar St
Oakland, CA 94607]Bats from Namibia! That’s one sound you’ll hear at the first Bay Area performance of music by renowned Irish composer and sound artist Karen Power. Karen will be traveling all the way from Cork, Ireland for the latest edition of The Nature of Music, Other Minds’ series featuring composers working with natural sounds. Power is one of the foremost environmental artists working in Ireland and she will be presenting works featuring her extensive field recordings from around the world.
More... Tue 4/12 8:00 PM The Laundry SF [3359 26th St
SF]Streaming only:
Click for stream Resident is a monthly electronic audiovisual open mic event started in 2017. It is held on the 2nd Tuesday of the month at The Laundry. Resident is casual and cool, and the community you'll find is like no other for aspiring electronic musicians in the Bay. No judgments, no bullshit, just positive support and openness to new ideas.
Due to restrictions, this show will only be streamed online, do not come to the Laundry More... Friday, April 15
Fri 4/15 6:30 PM Gray Area Art And Technology [2665 Mission St.
SF]The portal is a gateway to another world; but when you cross the threshold everything changes, it becomes refracted. This special event, featuring mixed-reality and sound performances, offers a look at the looking glass itself.
More... Fri 4/15 7:00 PM Temescal Arts Center [511 48th Street
Oakland]A night of experimental sounds and noise at Temescal Arts Center
Computer (NYC)
Kim Nucci
Blood of Chhinnamastika
Tom DjllThe Flesh Void
Please show proof of vaccination at the door and mask up
$5-$20 suggested donation
More... Fri 4/15 8:00 PM Mosswood Sound Series [3630 Telegraph Ave
enter 2nd door on 37th St
Oakland]CHRISTINA BRAUN (dance) and
Tom Nunn (original invented instruments "Skatch Box" and "Crustacean") have performed together in Bay Area festivals for over a decade. For this concert, they present two new duo pieces.
Dean Santomieri performs original stories for voice with live looping and effects and joins Christina to close the concert with a short improvisational piece for dance and guitar.
More... Thursday, April 21
Thu 4/21 4:00 PM Holland Theater, Lisser Hall - Mills College [5000 MacArthur Blvd.
Oakland, California 94613]Streaming and in-personIn person and streaming.
The opening afternoon concert in Lisser Hall begins with PAULINE DREAMS, Ione’s (author, playwright/director, poet, and sound-artist) sonic and visual evocation of Pauline Oliveros’s creative spirit. Oliveros (1932–2016) was the first director of the Mills Tape Music Center (1966–67, later renamed the Center for Contemporary Music) and Darius Milhaud Professor of Music at Mills (1996–2001). Saariselka, a sonic collaboration between composers Marielle Jakobsons (MFA, 2006) and Chuck Johnson (MFA, 2009), captures the evocative and inclusive spirit of Oliveros’s Deep Listening. Gamelan Encinal will perform works by John Cage and Daniel Schmidt. And LAS SUCIAS, the feminist noise reggaeton duo (Danishta Rivero, BA, 2010 and Alexandra Buschman-Román, MA, 2012), will conclude the concert.
More... Thu 4/21 7:30 PM CCRMA [660 Lomita Dr, Stanford, CA 94305]Streaming and in-person:
Click for stream CCRMAlite Spring Concerts #1
CCRMA presents two concerts of recent works by students, staff, faculty, and alums. Each night will feature a different program.
Free and Open to the Public | In Person and Streaming
More... Thu 4/21 8:00 PM Mills College Littlefield Concert Hall [5000 MacArthur Blvd
Oakland]Streaming and in-personIn person and streaming.
The evening concert features orchestral music by Darius Milhaud and Milhaud Professor Roscoe Mitchell conducted by Nicole Paiement and Steed Cowart. Milhaud was a member of the Mills faculty from 1940 to 1971. His compositions during early 20th century included experiments with “noise,” polytonality, and appropriations from cross-cultural sources such as American jazz. L’Homme et son desir (1917–18) and La Création du monde, Op. 81 (1923) are among his most “radical” works. The second half of the concert features music by composer/multi-instrumentalist Roscoe Mitchell (Milhaud Professor of Music, 2007–18), who was among the founders of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM). Mitchell’s music eliminates the traditional separation of “composer” and “performer” by integrating improvisation and composition, a hybrid creative practice illustrated by two orchestral works and a duo for violin and piano.
More... Friday, April 22
Fri 4/22 4:00 PM Holland Theater, Lisser Hall - Mills College [5000 MacArthur Blvd.
Oakland, CA 94613]Streaming and in-personIn person and streaming.
The afternoon concert opens with the U.S premiere of a new version by Paul DeMarinis (Mills MFA, 1973) of Robert Ashley's legendary work for voice and electronics In Sara, Mencken, Christ, and Beethoven There Were Men and Women. The performance will include live electronic music by an extraordinary ensemble including Chris Brown, John Bischoff, James Fei, Maggi Payne, and Laetitita Sonami. Zachary Watkins’ (MFA, 2006) music explores “pure” tuning, live electronics, resonant spaces, and the spatial diffusion of sound. Former Mills faculty member, composer, guitarist, and mandolinist, Larry Polansky will perform a solo work.
More... Fri 4/22 7:30 PM Audium Theater [1616 Bush Street]An Immersive-Audio installation through 176 Speakers; Audium’s pitch-black sound space immerses audiences in sonic scenes that jump off the walls. Spring from the loud clatter of the Tenderloin to a remote Baker Beach cave. A familiar afternoon in the Sunset District gives way to an ecstatic celebration in the Mission. Audiences will hear birds flitter above, while children laugh and play below. Electronic melodies bump up against each other and burst.
More... Fri 4/22 7:30 PM CCRMA [660 Lomita Dr, Stanford, CA 94305]Streaming and in-person:
Click for stream CCRMAlite Spring Concerts #2
CCRMA presents two concerts of recent works by students, staff, faculty, and alums. Each night will feature a different program.
Free and Open to the Public
More... Fri 4/22 8:00 PM Mosswood Sound Series [3630 Telegraph Ave
enter 2nd door on 37th St
Oakland]Cheryl E. Leonard performs new compositions and improvisations from "Unstable Material," a project rooted in sonic explorations of Marin Headlands and inspired by the area's geologic, ecologic, and human histories. Sounds played live on found natural objects intertwine with recordings captured in and around Headland's transforming landscapes. Works reflect on borderlands, timescales, and the intersection of human-made worlds and the wild.
Improvised music by KEVIN CK LO (violin/flute/piano/electronics),
Kevin Corcoran (percussion/electronics), and
Danishta Rivero CASTRO (voice/electronics).
More... Fri 4/22 8:00 PM Mills College Littlefield Concert Hall [5000 MacArthur Blvd
Oakland]Streaming and in-personIn person and streaming.
The evening concert features a duo with Fred Frith (Luther B. Marchant Professor of Composition, 1999–2008) and Zeena Parkins (currently Milhaud Professor of Music), former members of Skeleton Crew the legendary experimental rock band and now internationally acclaimed composers/master improvisers. Alvin Curran served as the Milhaud Professor of Composition at Mills from 1991 to 2006. His music “embraces all the contradictions (composed/improvised, tonal/atonal, maximal/minimal...) in a serene dialectical encounter,” a musical diversity, which he calls the “new common practice.” John Bischoff, a master musical alchemist in the tradition initiated by David Tudor, will perform two solo works: Visibility Study posits analog circuit actions in open dialog with laptop synthesis responses. Calliope casts Henry Cowell’s visionary idea of a Rhythmicon in the imperfect form of a digital instrument whose tones lose energy and disassemble as each phrase develops. James Fei, David Rosenboom, and William Winant will play a trio by the legendary composer/multi instrumentalist Anthony Braxton, who served on the Mills faculty from 1985 to 1990 and held the Milhaud Chair from 1985 to 1987.
More... Saturday, April 23
Sat 4/23 4:00 PM Holland Theater, Lisser Hall - Mills College [5000 MacArthur Blvd Oakland]Streaming and in-personIn person and streaming.
The afternoon concert presents a stellar multi-generational lineup of women composers and performing artists. New Zealand-born composer Annea Lockwood’s evocative music focuses on environmental sounds and life-narratives. IMA, an electro-percussion duo featuring two extraordinary Mills alumnae, Amma Ateria (aka Jeanie Aprille Tang, BA, 2013, and Nava Dunkleman, BA, 2013), perform expressionistic noise music influenced by Japanese poetry that is both industrial and serene. Acclaimed sound artist, performer, and instrument builder Laetitia Sonami will join composer, harpist, and master improviser Zeena Parkins in a duo that will surely “bring down the house.” And the superb all-women Eclipse Quartet will perform “Good Medicine” from Salomé Dances for Peace by former Mills faculty member Terry Riley.
More... Sat 4/23 8:00 PM Mills College Littlefield Concert Hall [5000 MacArthur Blvd
Oakland]Streaming and in-personIn person and streaming.
James Fei’s installation in the lobby will welcome audience members attending the evening concert with a voicemail greeting from Alvin Lucier, slowed down by a factor of a thousand, rendering his voice inaudible but visible as a speaker cone slowly traces the compression and decompression of air from his speech. The evening concert will begin with a work created on the Moog synthesizer by Maggi Payne whose diffusion of her music in the Concert Hall will take listeners on a sonic exploration in space and time. James Fei will perform a series of works for live electronics: the first created on the original Buchla Box, the second focused on direct and electro-acoustic feedback, the third exploring scale in sound projection, shifting gradually from the PA system to small, local transducers and the fourth a quiet piece using only small speakers and transducers. The concert will conclude with a duo improvisation featuring two master improvisers—former Milhaud Professor (2002, 2004, 2006) Joëlle Léandre on the double bass and Mills faculty member, percussion virtuoso William Winant (MFA, 1982). Léandre and Winant are among the world’s most gifted improvisers and interpreters of new music. The list of performers and composers they have worked with is literally a Who’s Who in the history of contemporary music from the beginning of the second half of the twentieth-century to the present day.
More... Sunday, April 24
Sun 4/24 4:00 PM Dresher Ensemble Studio [W Grand Ave and Poplar St
Oakland]House of Faern at the West Oakland Sessions: Creative Music Series. House of Faern is Beth Schenck (saxophone) Jenny Scheinman (violin), Matt Wrobel (guitar), and John Wood (piano).
Buy tickets
here to receive the exact address of the venue.
More... Sun 4/24 4:00 PM Holland Theater, Lisser Hall - Mills College [5000 MacArthur Blvd.
Oakland, CA 94612]Streaming and in-personIn person and streaming.
Henry Cowell appeared in a solo piano recital of his own music in Lisser Hall on April 4, 1923. Nearly one hundred years later, Mills faculty members Paul Flight (voice) and Nalini Ghuman (piano) will present a set of Cowell songs in the recently renovated historic building. Sally Decker (MFA, 2019) and Brendan Glasson (MFA, 2018, technical director of the Mills Center for Contemporary Music) explore relationships of sounds in their music, searching for shape and balance between oppositional musical forces. They will perform live electronic music with feedback, oscillators, and electric organ. The concert will conclude with a “Company Improvisation” with an extraordinary ensemble of Mills alumnae/i led by former and present Mills faculty Fred Frith and Zeena Parkins.
More... Sun 4/24 7:00 PM SIMM Series @ The Musicians Union Hall [116 9th St @ Mission
SF]Click to make donation Fire Music for Freedom, a benefit for children in war zonesOutsound Presents the rebirth of SIMM Series with a benefit for children in war zones (including but not limited to Ukraine, Yemen, Afghanistan, Syria). All proceeds will be donated to UNICEF.
Lords of OutlandRent Romus - saxophones, Ray Scheaffer - elec bass,
Philip Everett - electronics/perc, Anthony Flores - drums
Tom Weeks QuartetTim Duff -Bass,
Aaron Levin - drums, Jose Fernando Solares - woodwinds, Tom Weeks - saxophones
More... Sun 4/24 8:00 PM Mills College Littlefield Concert Hall [5000 MacArthur Blvd
Oakland]Streaming and in-personIn person and streaming.
The evening concert concluding the Festival will begin with a work by David Behrman performed by Zeena Parkins (harp) and William Winant (percussion). Behrman, who with Robert Ashley served as the director of the Center for Contemporary Music in the 1970s, was among the first composers to write music in which performers play conventional instruments that interact with computers in real time. David Rosenboom also served as the director of CCM. In a performance featuring piano, e-vioviola, electronics, and computer algorithms, and video he will construct complimentary and contrasting sound worlds that challenge presumed meanings of “natural and artificial.” With a tip of the hat to Henry Cowell and Leon Theremin’s Rhythmicon, Chris Brown’s UrhythmichrOme for virtual piano and interactive computer navigates through four just-intoned modes. The festival will conclude with a performance by the William Winant Percussion Ensemble of music by John Cage, Lou Harrison, and Steed Cowart.
More... Friday, April 29
Fri 4/29 8:00 PM Mosswood Sound Series [3630 Telegraph Ave
enter 2nd door on 37th St
Oakland]One of the world's leaning singers of contemporary music, NICHOLAS ISHERWOOD performs a diverse program of contemporary vocal music, including 3 premieres by graduate composers from UC Berkeley and a rare performance of "Followe Thy Faire Sunne" (1962) for voice and tubular bells by Morton Feldman.
More... Saturday, April 30
Sat 4/30 4:00 PM Temescal Arts Center [511 48th Street
Oakland]Streaming and in-person:
Click for stream Click to make donation UNLOCKED FESTIVAL (Lockdown Festival VII)
Emerging from the fog of the pandemic, a host of experimentalists join for an action-packed evening of noise, sights, and sound. (In-person and streaming online.)
PROGRAM:
4pm Positive Knowledge (
Oluyemi Thomas and
Ijeoma Thomas)
4:30pm duo B. (Jason Levis and
Lisa Mezzacappa)
5pm Tongo Eisen-Martin
5:30pm Lenora Lee and
Francis Wong6pm Evicshen
6:30pm Grex (
Karl Evangelista and Rei Scampavia)
7pm Tom Weeks / Kazuto Sato / Gerald Cleaver
7:45pm
Rova Saxophone QuartetThe Unlocked Festival celebrates the spirit of creativity and resilience demonstrated over the course of the past two years and six previous Lockdown Festivals. As live music returns, this event offers an opportunity for the Bay Area music community to convene, gather strength, and forge ahead. (All proceeds directed to support Bay Area community spaces and relief efforts for the people of Ukraine.)
More... Sat 4/30 5:00 PM Center for New Music [55 Taylor St
SF]Lenny Gonzalez, Rich Graff, and Robert Nance present a cross-fading concert collaboration. Utilizing the Center for New Music’s state of the art Meyer Sound system, the artists will engage in a concert-length dialogue; alternating pieces one at a time until culminating in a mutual sharing of the sonic expanse. Long time colleagues and collaborators Gonzalez, Graff, and Nance hope to stamp a new mark on the concert-going public by presenting a concert of continuous sound in the structure of an open dialogue between the three performers at the Center for New Music
More... Sat 4/30 8:00 PM CNMAT [1750 Arch Street
Berkeley]Rage Thormbones will complete their residency at CNMAT this month and present a concert of works by UC Berkeley composers.
More... Sunday, May 1
Sun 5/01 4:00 PM All Saints' Episcopal Church [555 Waverley Street
Palo Alto, CA 94301]A sonic exploration of the unique relationship between urban and natural landscapes found in the Bay Area.
Throughout the concert, the PWC explores our relationship to nature and the incredible natural beauty of the San Francisco Bay Area.
Join us for an appreciation for the open spaces, coastal hills, natural creek systems, bay marshes, and expansive ocean that make the Bay Area such a rich and wonderful place.
More... Sun 5/01 7:30 PM Temescal Arts Center [511 48th Street
Oakland]Doors That Only Open in Silence (open participation, non-hierarchical workshop in free improvisation)
The monthly series of improvisation research at Temescal Arts Center continues. Bring your instrument or come to listen. No advance notice needed — just show up. Small groups will be randomly assembled from submitted names immediately before each group plays. We try to keep transition time between groups at a minimum. Over by 10pm. Donations for the venue rental are encouraged.
In line with Oakland's emergency ordinance, please bring proof of vaccination.
Masks required! Musicians may unmask while playing. Please stay home if you are sick or believe you may have been exposed.
More... Sun 5/01 7:30 PM CCRMA [660 Lomita Dr, Stanford, CA 94305]Streaming and in-personClick to make donation Earplay, directed and conducted by Mary Chun, will perform six works — including two world premieres — from four Stanford composers: Patricia Alessandrini, Constantin Basica, Chris Chafe, and Erik Ulman.
Free and Open to the Public
Registration is required for in-person attendance in the CCRMA Stage: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/earplay-at-stanford-ii-tickets-318657171177
More... Friday, May 6
Fri 5/06 8:00 PM Mosswood Sound Series [3630 Telegraph Ave
enter 2nd door on 37th St
Oakland]MATTHEW WELCH(bagpipes), DIANE GRUBBE(flutes) and
Josh Allen(sax) perform a concert of solo improvisations and compositions (Braxton, García, Glass, Lavista, and Welch).
More... Fri 5/06 8:00 PM St. Mark's Episcopal Church [600 Colorado Ave, Palo Alto, CA 94306, USA]A sonic exploration of the unique relationship between urban and natural landscapes found in the Bay Area.
Throughout the concert, the PWC explores our relationship to nature and the incredible natural beauty of the San Francisco Bay Area.
Join us for an appreciation for the open spaces, coastal hills, natural creek systems, bay marshes, and expansive ocean that make the Bay Area such a rich and wonderful place.
More... Sunday, May 8
Sun 5/08 4:30 PM Center for New Music [55 Taylor St
SF]SSSS is a series of informal shows at CNM in which electronic music composers present their fixed media and/or live electronic music through the 8-channel surround system, generously provided by Meyer Sound. The composers mix their sounds from the center of the space, and the audience is free to choose their own listening location, and to move within the space to hear the music from different vantage points.
SSSS#5 features music by the following Bay Area composers: Sam Genovese, Will Gluck, Kim Nucci, and Kristian Dahlbom.
More... Thursday, May 12
Thu 5/12 6:30 PM Gray Area Art And Technology [2665 Mission St.
SF]Gone, Gone Beyond is an immersive audio-visual spatial cinema work by People Like Us (aka Vicki Bennett), which breaks the rectangle, smashing the thin screen into tiny fragments, looking beyond the frame, climbing through to see what's behind.
More... Thu 5/12 7:30 PM CCRMA [660 Lomita Dr, Stanford, CA 94305]Streaming and in-person:
Click for stream CCRMA presents a live performance by TanukiSpiderCat.
Free and Open to the Public
Registration is required for in-person attendance in the CCRMA Stage: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/tanukispidercat-tickets-318635165357
Live streaming at CCRMA LIVE: https://ccrma.stanford.edu/live
More... Thu 5/12 8:00 PM Peacock Lounge [552 Haight St
SF]Blectum from Blechdom, Anti-Ear, Zebra Secrets, Ven Voisey
Thur May 12, 8pm-11pm $5-$15 sliding scale (notaflof!)
Peacock Lounge, 552 Haight, SF
ADA accessible, all ages welcome
https://www.facebook.com/events/263054872632959
More... Friday, May 13
Fri 5/13 7:30 PM CCRMA [660 Lomita Dr, Stanford, CA 94305]Streaming and in-person:
Click for stream CCRMA presents a live performance by Sholeh Asgary.
Free and Open to the Public
Registration is required for in-person attendance in the CCRMA Stage: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/sholeh-asgary-tickets-321985175327
Live streaming at CCRMA LIVE: https://ccrma.stanford.edu/live
More... Tuesday, May 17
Tue 5/17 6:00 PM Make-Out Room [3225 22nd St
SF]Jazz at the Make-Out Room (formerly the Monday Make-Out) continues! A wily evening of cutting-edge jazz, free improvisation, and creative music.
Doors: 6pm / Show: 7pm
No Cover/Donations Accepted
Proof of vaccination + masks required
Featuring:
7pm Black Edgar: David Boyce - Solo
7:45pm, Duo:
Beth Schenck - alto saxophone,
Motoko Honda - keyboard
8:30pm, Citta di Vitti:
Phillip Greenlief - alto saxophone,
Lisa Mezzacappa - bass, Jason Levis - drums
More... Friday, May 20
Fri 5/20 8:00 PM Center for New Music [55 Taylor St
SF]Ensemble in Process makes its Northern California debut with a second performance from our successful concert at Spectrum NYC on the 14th of September, 2019. Light of Strings is a special concert that will take the audience on an intimate journey of faith, spirituality, catharsis, grief, redemption, and light. Brian Mark (piano) and Allyson Clare (violin) will perform a combination of solo and duet works for piano and violin, viola. Light of Strings will include works by Ryan Brown, Meredith Monk, Anuj Bhutani, Erik Satie, Missy Mazzoli, Michael Gordon, Ted Hearne, and Brian Mark, including guest performers James Jaffe (cello), Charith Premawardhana (viola), and Center for New Music's curator Jennifer Ellis (harp).
More... Fri 5/20 8:30 PM The Lab [2948 16th St
SF]Gravity Spells II: program 2
Artists: Bill Basquin + Paul DeMarinis • Lynn Marie Kirby + Zach Iannazzi • Headboggle + Greta Snider
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