YinSho: Dangerous Animals

YinSho is Fay Kueen Wang and Brendon Randall-Myers, two composer/performers who create stark, sensual soundscapes, warped electronic rock, and surreal performance art. For this concert, they will present a set of original songs about dreams, nightmares, animals, objects, and aliens, bookended by a long-form improvisation and a piece by LA-based composer Ethan Braun.  More...

Latitudes: Arrington de Dionyso and DunkelpeK

Latitudes is a concert series run by Blaine Todd and Other Minds focusing on a contingent of composers, improvisers, and musicians working in underground forms of contemporary music. It was started in response to the dwindling number of venues in San Francisco presenting artists operating in the liminal space between serious avant-garde music and rock and roll. Precious few venues regularly present music that falls in between these cracks. That in mind, the hope for this series is to help fill a gap that’s glaringly obvious in San Francisco music scene—and do so with the input of the community of music makers and enthusiasts living in the Bay Area.

On the next installment of Latitudes, Arrington de Dionyso conjures utopic zones through ritual trance and the high spirits of electrified rock and roll. The iconoclastic duo DunkelpeK transmits an amalgamated soundworld through percussion and electric guitar, chopping their many influences to bits and reassembling them in a quest for new musical possibilities.

Arrington de Dionyso
An uncompromising voice in contemporary music, Arrington de Dionyso integrates ancient soundmaking techniques with trans-modernist inquiries into the nature of consciousness. His propulsive improvisations utilize voice and reeds (primarily bass clarinets and his invention the Bromiophone) as multiphonic tools in the navigation of liminal spaces between shamanic seance and rock and roll ecstasy.

While deeply rooted in the punk inclination to tear down musical standards in an effort for liberation, Arrington’s music weds no-wave iconoclasm with the spiritual searching of Albert Ayler era free jazz along with more indigenous approaches to improvisation, reaching for an unveiling of primordially potent universalities. His compositions embrace sounds as colors, placing emphasis on the complimentary spectrums- from circular overtones whispered through bamboo flutes to the penetrating deep and guttural howls of amplified throatsinging- all with the lungs of an athlete.

Over the last 25 years he has spearheaded groups such as Old Time Relijun, Malaikat dan Singa, and This Saxophone Kills Fascists. He has also performed alongside many great icons of contemporary music including the Violent Femmes, Master Musicians of Jajouka, Thee Oh Sees, Deerhoof, Senyawa, Keiji Haino and Maher Shalal Hash Baz.

Whether as a band leader, solo performer, or in collaborative settings, Arrington’s music evokes an “Ancient Future”, sometimes shocking and hallucinatory, always aiming to channel Spirit.

DunkelpeK
DunkelpeK is Japanese born percussionist Nava Dunkelman and Canadian American guitarist and pianist Jakob Pek. This iconoclastic duo creates an experimental improvised music that reimagines the possibilities of the duo. Visceral, organic, and spontaneous in nature, DunkelpeK’s sound transfigures and hybridizes many musics, offering listeners a holistic exploration into the very essence of musical experience.  More...

56×54: But Wait! There’s More!

E4TT performs a concert of 15 short works: 9 pieces by women composers (including Missy Mazzoli, Elena Ruehr, Sarah Kirkland Snider, Laura Schwendinger, Shulamit Ran, and Tamar Diesendruck), 5 more from E4TT's first Call for Scores, at which we received 275 works by 200 composers and chose 56 x 54, plus a piece by E4TT composer David Garner.  More...

Tracking Series #3, Women Composers and Gender Equity

C4NM hosts its third Tracking Series, with a roundtable discussion focusing on women composers and gender equity in contemporary music led by Emma Logan and Julie Barwick of Helia Music Collective with featured panelists Elinor Armer, Pamela Z, Sarah Cahill, Aubrey Bergauer, Daria Novo, Maggie Payne, and Mya Byrne. This discussion is free and open to all who are interested in discussing both the current artistic and economic conditions for women in music, and future paths to increasing equality.  More...

In her solo violin project “Meshes,” Leslee Smucker explores the strange and unnerving relationship between dream and reality by juxtaposing the music of Conor Abbott Brown, Lera Auerbach, Luc Brewaeys, Michel van der Aa, Locatelli, and film of Maya Deren. The film “Meshes of the Afternoon,” by Maya Deren is set neither in reality or dream, and it is the mesh and web of fugue-like sequences that is the impetus for the solo violin program entitled “Meshes.” Michel van der Aa’s “Memo” uses a live tape recorder, and Luc Brewaey’s work for violin and electronics (using pots and pans as ‘ghost bells’) are examples of works that connect everyday actions with the psyche–symbolizing small-meaning occurrences through an artistic realm. The program “Meshes” develops themes surrounding dream and reality, and sound and silence–compelling the audience to experience the subliminal relationship between dream and reality.  More...

Elevate Ensemble: Low Hanging Fruit

This program of virtuosic chamber works pushes the performer to the extreme! Featuring music by Michael Gilbertson, Gyorgy Ligeti, Bela Bartok, and Ana Sokolovic.  More...

Wayne Horvitz/The Snowghost Sessions with special guest Sara Schoenbeck

Sara Schoenbeck joins Wayne and the Snowghost Trio for an evening of duets, trio music from the recently released "Snowghost Session," and finally a quartet.

Wayne Horvitz Trio & The Snowghost Sessions with special guest Sara Schoenbeck

Composer and pianist Wayne Horvitz continues touring in 2019 in support of his new CD, “The Snowghost Sessions,” with four dates Washington Oregon and California. Horvitz may be best known for his work with John Zorn, Reggie Watts, Bill Frisell, Butch Morris, William Parker, Robin Holcomb, Gus Van Sant and many others. In this project, Horvitz teams with two of his favorite Seattle musicians, drummer Eric Eagle and bassist Geoff Harper.

“The Snowghost Sessions” was recorded over a weeklong residency at Snowghost Studios in Whitefish Montana. In addition, these four dates will feature special guest bassoonist Sara Schoenbeck. Sara and Wayne will also be playing select duo concerts in and around these dates. For a full schedule please visit: http://www.waynehorvitz.com/calendar/

Recipient of the 2016 Doris Duke Performing Artist Award, composer Wayne Horvitz own ensembles include The Snowghost Trio, Sweeter Than the Day, and the Royal Room Collective Music Ensemble. Mr. Horvitz’s commissioners include The Kitchen, The Seattle Symphony, Kronos, BAM, New World Records, The Flynn Theater, and Vienna Jazz. He has received 3 MAP Fund awards, the NEA American Masterpiece Award, 3 Artist Trusts fellowships and more. As a collaborator or producer, he has worked with Bill Frisell, Robin Holcomb, Butch Morris, Bobby Previte, George Lewis, Reggie Watts, John Zorn (Naked City etc.), World Saxophone Quartet, Fontella Bass, John Adams, and Eddie Palmieri. Collaborators in theater, dance and film include Carey Perloff, Bill Irwin, Gus Van Sant, Paul Taylor and Paul Magid.

“there’s nobody else out there I hear even attempting to cover some kind of similar range, and do it so convincingly” — All About Jazz

Eric Eagle: Seattle’s first call drummer, Mr. Eagle has recorded with Jesse Sykes, Amy Ray, Wayne Horvitz, Mark Pickeral, Danny Newcomb, Dave Peck, and produced records with The Westerlies, Naomi Siegel, and The Seattle Symphony (featuring Bill Frisell) and others.

Geoff Harper has recorded and performed with, among others, Julian Priester, Evyind Kang, Timothy Young, Gary Bartz, Wayne Horvitz, BeBop and Destruction, Matt Cameron, Thomas Marriott and Stone Gossard.

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.. Sara performs regularly with Petr Kotek’s SEM ensemble, the composers group WetInk, Wordless Music Orchestra, Anthony Braxton’s Tri-Centric Orchestra, Wayne Horvitz Gravitas Quartet, 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 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, and The Angel City Jazz.  More...

Latitudes: William Fowler Collins & Geneva Skeen

On the latest installment of Latitudes, William Fowler Collins gives voice to a spectacular chroma of dread with a performance of works from his most recent full-length record Field Music—a seething, pulsing soundtrack in honor of the landscape in which the world’s first atomic bomb was assembled. “Geneva Skeen evokes Californian vistas and the corruption festering behind them with the same uneasiness as Lana Del Rey's West Coast or Thomas Pynchon's Inherent Vice. Her genuinely evocative music fully communicates its ideas and intentions even without accompanying data” (Wire Magazine).  More...

Composer-pianist Jared Redmond returns to his home in the Bay Area, performing a recital of contemporary piano works. Jared will premiere new pieces written for him by composers Carolyn Chen, Saman Samadi, and Kurt Rohde, and play modern masterpieces by Giacinto Scelsi, Salvatore Sciarrino, and more.  More...

Grammy winner Henry Kaiser is widely recognized as one of the most creative and innovative guitarists, improvisers, and producers in the fields of rock, jazz, world, and contemporary experimental musics. The California-based musician is one of the most extensively recorded as well, having appeared on more than 300 different albums and contributed to countless television and film soundtracks. Mr. Kaiser not only produces and contributes to a staggering number of recorded projects, he performs frequently throughout the USA, Canada, Europe and Japan, with several regular groupings as well as solo guitar concerts and concerts of freely improvised music with a host of diverse instrumentalists. He is also a longtime research diver in the US ANTARCTIC PROGRAM.

Evidence of his exceptional musical breadth and versatility can be found in just a few of the extraordinary artists with whom he has recorded and/or performed: Evan Parker, John Oswald, Ryuichi Sakamoto, Toshinori Kondo, Steve Lacy, John Stevens, Michael Stipe, D’Gary, Herbie Hancock, John Zorn, Wadada Leo Smith, Bill Laswell, John Stevens, Terry Riley, Michael Snow, Diamanda Galas, Thomas Mapfumo, Phil Lesh, Lukas Ligeti, Cecil Taylor, Negativland, and Michael McClure.

One of the last advisory board members of GUITAR PLAYER MAGAZINE still standing, Henry has a longtime habit of musically collaborating with his many guitar heroes; such as: Jerry Garcia, Derek Bailey, Richard Thompson, David Lindley, Bill Frisell, Nels Cline, D’Gary, Sonny Sharrock, Mike Keneally, David Torn, Fred Frith, Eugene Chadbourne, John Abercrombie, Amos Garrett, Bob Weir, Steve Kimock, Jody Stecher, Jim O’Rourke, Martin Simpson, and Harvey Mandel.
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Álvaro Domene is a Madrid-born, New York based guitarist and composer operating at the convergence of various styles of spontaneous and composed music. Recent collaborators include Briggan Krauss, Jim Black, Joe McPhee, Karl Berger, Michaël Attias, Mike Pride, Peter Apfelbaum, Ches Smith, Michael Bisio, and Fred Lonberg-Holm. Domene attended the jazz program at Middlesex University in London, and studied under Chris Batchelor, Elliott Sharp, and John Stowell. He is currently composing a new piece for string quartet, also writing for his newly formed trio “Leaving The Sky in Splinters” (with drummer Kate Gentile and bassist Kim Cass), and promoting the release of his first solo guitar album, “The Compass”. He is an active performer in New York City’s jazz and creative music scene, leading various groups in addition to working with numerous artists. His work has been positively reviewed by Jazzwise, New York City Jazz Record, All About Jazz, El Intruso, Tomajazz, and many other specialized media outlets like Avant Music News, on which a recent release, “Synaptic Self” by the trio dMu, was included in the list of “Best Albums of 2016”. His latest and first solo record, “The Compass”, was featured “Record of the Week” also on Avant Music News, along with John Coltrane’s “Lost Album”.  More...

Modeled after Cher’s decades long Farewell Tours, violist and composer Kurt Rohde continues his multi-year commissioning project, Kurt Rohde’s FAREWELL TOUR—Parts 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6, with PART 2 taking place on March 1, 2019. The commissioned new works feature some of the most gifted composers that Rohde feels are underrepresented and deserve a wider audience, while also broadening the repertoire for viola. The project’s anticipated year of completion is 2028, at which time Mr. Rohde will retirefrom playing in performance and donate his instrument to “some talented whipper-snapper who wants to play viola.” Tonight’s event focuses on new works for viola and electronics.

Richard Chowenhill crush for Amplified Viola WORLD PREMIERE

Peter Van Zandt Lane Décalcomanie 2 for Viola and Electronics WORLD PREMIERE

Elainie Lillios Liquid | Crystal | Vapor for Viola and Live, Interactive Electronics WORLD PREMIERE

Sam Nichols Imaginary Units for Viola and Interactive Electronics WORLD PREMIERE

Tina Tallon excision no. 2: they didn’t know we were seeds for Viola and Live Electronics WORLD PREMIERE*
*Tina Tallon’s new work is Commissioned by the Barlow Endowment for Music Composition at Brigham Young University.

Rebecca Clarke Sonata for Viola and Piano (1919)  More...

GUIDED BY VOICES

New Music for Baroque cello
Elinor Frey, Baroque cello & 5-string Baroque cello
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Guided by Voices is the commissioning project of cellist Elinor Frey who uses two Baroque instruments that each have a very different sound than the modern cello. Here the Baroque cello and five-string cello are each instruments of sound in the present day, capable of inspiring some of today’s outstanding composers who wish to explore their unique qualities. Begun in 2014 with a work for the five-string Baroque cello by Scott Edward Godin, the project also features Canadian composers Linda Catlin Smith, and Isaiah Ceccarelli, and Maxime McKinley whose work calls for cello and harpsichord. Solo works by the Japanese-American composer Ken Ueno and Swedish-German composer Lisa Streich complete the program. In a sense, this music acts as a kind of update of the instrument; when composers write a new piece for “Baroque” cello it becomes an instrument of today, not only past eras, helping to expand the sound worlds of both the cello and new music audiences. Each work reveals the cello’s incredible versatility and remarkable colours. An article about the six-work commissioning project can be found in the journal of contemporary music, Circuit, published in September 2018. The CD recording will be released in March 2019 on the Analekta label.

Program:
Linda Catlin Smith (b. 1956)
Ricercar (11.5 min) 4-string cello (2015)
Isaiah Ceccarelli (b. 1978)
With concord of sweet sounds (11.5 min) 5-string cello (2015)
Scott Edward Godin (b. 1970)
Guided By Voices (11:30) 5-string cello (2014-15)
Lisa Streich (b. 1985)
Minerva (8 min) 4-string cello (2018)
Ken Ueno (b. 1970)
Chimera (20-25 min) 5-string cello (2017)
“Night opening its black flower”
“in the shadow of my sorrow”
“we are resurrected”
“the sky will be lavender”
“an ocean bell sounding”  More...