FREMAKAJO
SOCIAL STUTTER

Fred Frith (bass/viola) has been a dauntless explorer, improviser, and collaborator in the half-century since he made that breakthrough. From leaving Henry Cow to start Art Bears, from leaving England to enlist in a hyperactive New York improvisational circuit that led him to join Naked City and launch his own Massacre, Frith has situated his extended techniques and handmade instruments in dozens of different contexts. A longtime teacher at California’s Mills College, he brings another new band, FREMAKAJO. He has tapped intertwining Bay Area circles to build this quartet, with curious and playful drummer Jordan Glenn joining exploratory saxophonist Kasey Knudsen and stylistically globetrotting accordionist MARIÉ ABE.

SOCIAL STUTTER, a saxophone quartet led by composer/altoist BETH SCHENCK, blurs the line between strictly written chamber music and soaring free jazz. Solos emerge from the natural order of intricately written lines that, although begin simply in structure, twist and distort themselves into surprisingly complex shapes and forms. Unlike traditional saxophone quartets, most compositions call for two altos, tenor, and bari, which leads itself to denser harmonic territory and a uniquely homogenous sound. Masters of texture and nuance, the quartet has a keen awareness of how to support and push one another's creative boundaries. Social Stutter is comprised of some of the Bay Area's most unique voices: Kasey Knudsen, Raffi Garabedian, Cory Wright and BETH SCHENCK.
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LEVITATOR TRIO (CLIFFORD+SHOKRAI+NORDESON)
"TWO SISTERS" BY MAX ABNER

LEVITATOR is a Bay Area–based trio featuring Kjell Nordeson (drums), SAFA SHOKRAI (bass), and MARK PASCUCCI-CLIFFORD (vibraphone). Performing original compositions and improvisations, the group has been developing its sound together since 2021. Rooted in the jazz tradition while drawing from free improvisation and contemporary creative music, Levitator’s music balances structure, spontaneity, and collective interplay.


Two Sisters is the next installment in MAX ABNER'S series of operas that combine set librettos with improvised music. Set in the rural enclave known as Rough River, two sets of sisters (one set unremarkable, one set former child stars) live in adjacent riverhouses overlooking the water. Each set—guarded by deeply attentive mothers—suffers from various forms of emotional arrested development. When one of the former child stars drowns in a flood, one of the more pedestrian sisters becomes convinced that she is the drowned sister, still very much alive. Two Sisters plumbs the ensuing blurriness, as mourning, care, delusion, and placation mingle in a case of mistaken and troubled identification.

Two Sisters
a work-in-progress staged reading

Creative Team:
Libretto/Score by MAX ABNER
Directed by MICHAEL ROGERSON
Musical Direction by SADIE GREYDUCK

Cast:
Max: Max Abner
Joseph: Joseph Dee Bradshaw
Sister (S): Captainmcsweeney (Kaitlin McSweeney)
Her Sister (H): Truce Hansen
Mom and Mommy: Celeste Winant
Famous Sister (F): Victoria Glavin
Other Sister (O): Guilia Chiappetta

Ensemble:
Sadie Greyduck: upright bass
Travis Snyder: pedal steel
Joseph Dee Bradshaw: acoustic guitar
Max Abner: cassettes
Tim DeCillis: drums
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DEPARTURE DUO
Cheryl E. Leonard + Wobbly

Boston-based DEPARTURE DUO (Nina Guo, soprano and Edward Kass, double bass) returns to the Bay Area presenting a program of high-low works:

For Charles North’s 15 Poems and Liner Notes 2 by Christian Wolff
Mouthpiece 43 by Erin Gee
Garden Clocks by Njabulo Phungula
Linear B by Andrew Watts


CHERYL LEONARD makes field recordings of natural soundscapes, and builds and plays electroacoustic instruments made out of natural materials such as bones, driftwood, shells, seaweed, feathers, and stones. Wobbly sees the long histories of feedback and generative music as attempts to better understand what all those animals are singing about. Recently they've been driving to the Marin Headlands to make hydrophone recordings of the Newt Pond that was once an anti-aircraft gun turret, you know the one, but if you haven't stuck your head underwater to hear the sound of photosynthesizing pond weed, don't -- those newts are poisonous.
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