C4NM Benefit Concert, Thumbscrew: Mary Halvorson – Michael Formanek – Tomas Fujiwara

“Thumbscrew is a very exciting group that highlights intricate and emotionally-driven compositions focused on intense interactions between instruments. [Currently] one of the most exciting bands playing.” — Cisco Bradley, jazzrightnow.com

Join us for this unique and intimate chance to see Thumbscrew Trio, comprised of contemporary jazz heavyweights Mary Halvorson on guitar, Michael Formanek on double bass, and Tomas Fujiwara on drums. Their appearance at C4NM marks their return to the US after a successful recent South American tour. All proceeds from this event benefit C4NM, supporting our efforts to create a space for new music to thrive in the Bay Area and beyond. We invite you to join us before the concert for a reception hosted by our Board of Directors including libations and light bites. Connect with our new music community, then experience a special opportunity to see Thumbscrew perform up close at C4NM.

Reception: 7 PM, hosted by the C4NM Board of Directors

Concert: 8 PM, Thumbscrew

An exceptional and ascending voice in the contemporary jazz world, Thumbscrew is a co-operative in the truest sense, a collaboration between Mary Halvorson, Tomas Fujiwara, and Michael Formanek. They play originals by all hands, compositions whose rhythms may surge or lag or veer sideways according to their own internal logic. Bass and drums solo within the ensemble, not in quarantine. No one needs to be loudest. The blend is tight: one string (or metal) sound may bleed into another. It’s something to hear—something twisty and turny and always on the move.

Their program at C4NM will include music from recent releases Ours and Theirs, two albums which include original compositions by Fujiwara, Formanek and Halvorson, or covers penned by venerable composers respectively. With Ours, each musician contributed three works apiece to create a highly collaborative, ambitiously delicate web of ensemble work. For Theirs, Thumbscrew covers considerable ground in bringing their unique arrangements and ensemble sensibility to this transfixing set of other composers’ music. “The difference is that with the covers we’re aware of trying to honor the composer’s vision, and in many cases, classic versions of the song which serve as inspirations… [However] the approach to presenting a unique and personal take on a composition is the same whether it’s one of Ours or one of Theirs.” -Mary Halvorson  More...

Chaotic Pathways: Dirt and Copper with Hunter Long and Julie Herndon

An evening of original compositions exploring the boundaries between composer and performer, structure and decomposition, agency and performance practice. The concert will feature works by Julie Herndon, Hunter Long, John Ivers, Golnaz Shariatzadeh, Michelle Lee, Tony Gennaro, and Matt Robidoux.  More...

Live Cinema: Thingamajigs Performance Group + viDEO sAVant/duo B.

A two-part evening of visual and sonic experiments and environments, featuring Thingamajigs Performance Group, and viDEO sAVant (Charles Woodman + duo B.). Both ensembles explore the intersection of improvised music with live video performance, and will transform the Center for New Music into an immersive sensory environment.

Video:
https://vimeo.com/126879859
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S_ImSynsWu0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xMRr0x5upWQ


Thingamajigs Performance Group 
Dylan Bolles, flutes, strings, vox 
Keith Evans, performative projection
Suki O’Kane, percussion, strings, electronics
Edward Schocker, reeds, strings, glass
Thingamajigs Performance Group blurs the boundaries between performance and installation, working a subtle harmonic seam, and holding song in a patient gaze. The ensemble was recently commissioned to score “Stations,” a monumental piece of movement theater conceived by Jubilith Moore.
www.thingamajigs.org

Charles Woodman, a recent addition to the Bay Area film community, is a visual artist working in expanded media and the integration of video with live performance. A pioneer in the development of live cinema (real time video editing as live performance), he has performed throughout the US and abroad as viDEO sAVant, an evolving live video performance project with musician and dancer collaborators. Recent performances include Spazio Contemporanea in Brescia, Italy; ISEA, Dubai, United Arab Emirates; Villa Douce, Reims, France; and San Francisco Cinematheque.
http://www.videosavant.org

duo B., the San Francisco Bay Area improvising and composing ensemble of percussionist Jason Levis and bassist Lisa Mezzacappa, is a musical think tank of grand schemes and impossible scenarios. For more than a dozen years, the ensemble has developed and refined its singular approach to improvisation and composition, through cross-disciplinary projects with film, collaborations with improvising instrumentalists at home and abroad, study of repertoire by like-minded composer-improvisers, and immersion in the improvised-composed musical worlds of masters Wadada Leo Smith, Anthony Braxton, Cecil Taylor, Henry Threadgill, and others. 
www.duoBmusic.com  More...

Pianist Jihye Chang: Co-Ko (Contemporary Korea)

Exploring the exciting scene of Korean contemporary music through works by composers living and composing on three different continents.  More...

Curium: Women Through the Ages

Curium presents an all-female program of music for piano trio through the ages, including music by Kaija Saariaho, Jennifer Higdon, and Clara Schumann. Curium is a piano trio based in San Francisco that highlights the works of female composers along with traditional repertoire.  More...