ROT DIET (MITCH STAHLMANN + CHRIS FARSTAD)
Mark Clifford + JULIANA GAONA + Ben Goldberg + JUAN DAVID RUBIO

How can a shape sit inside something infinite? Doesn't something infinite need a body in order to hold? But the body moves away from living, from the flesh and bone of life, and becomes regions. Renouncing essences or absolutes ROT DIET (MITCH STAHLMANN and CHRIS FARSTAD) may brandish cracklebox and electronic wind instrument, but really nothing is needed other than infinity and nowhere.


For the second set, the WEST OAKLAND SOUND SERIES presents the first of hopefully many events grouping together talented local musicians from different circles within the wider contemporary music community. Mark Clifford (vibraphone), JULIANA GAONA (oboe), Ben Goldberg (clarinet), and JUAN DAVID RUBIO (drums) join series curator Matt Ingalls (clarinet) in a set of free improvisations. This performance marks the beginning of what we hope will be a continuous series of exciting collaborations, showcasing the diverse and vibrant Bay Area contemporary music scene.
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KRISTIN NORDERVAL + ANNE HEGE
LORIN BENEDICT + BRETT CARSON + JEFF HOBBS + RICHARD WORN

KRISTIN NORDERVAL’S career has been twofold: as a soloist working closely with composers such as Pauline Oliveros, Philip Glass, Annea Lockwood and Anne Le Baron, and as a composer and improviser working with technology. Kristin is inspired by hybridity, interactivity, and the idea that everything one does is site-specific. She blends acoustic and electronic sound, and is fascinated with home-made instruments, machines, and ambient sound. Between 2019 and 2023 Kristin was a PhD Research Fellow at the Oslo National Academy of Opera in Norway, where she developed her Expanded Vocal Improvising Instrument (EVII) for gestural vocal processing using wireless MIDI rings. Kristin has used the EVII in her latest opera, Crane Reflects on a Favor, and in collaborations with Limpe Fuchs, Peter van Bergen, Jill Sigman, and Miguel Frasconi. In tonight´s concert Kristin will perform with the EVII to explore themes of presence, place, and the distortion of time.

ANNE HEGE will perform works for her instrument, the Tape Machine, interwoven with excerpts from her latest project, "The Glance: A Laptopera," her second opera for laptop orchestra and live instruments, and works for Tether controller Becoming Within and Like Roots. The Tape Machine, first constructed in 2009, is a portable instrument created with three hacked cassette players––one recording tape head and two playback points running a handmade tape loop. In simple terms, it is an analog, live-looping instrument where the listener, by sound alone, can identify the transparent process and technology. There is no hidden processing, just the magic of a single blank tape loop. Through her instrument design, Hege explores the collaboration possible through instrument design, improvisation, and systems that invite risk and unknowns.


The WEST OAKLAND SOUND SERIES continues its new improv project on the second set grouping together talented local musicians from different circles within the wider contemporary music community. LORIN BENEDICT (voice), BRETT CARSON (piano), JEFF HOBBS (violin), and RICHARD WORN (bass) join series curator MATT INGALLS (clarinet) in a set of free improvisations. This performance is part of what we hope will be a continuous series of exciting collaborations, showcasing the diverse and vibrant Bay Area contemporary music scene.
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SADIE GREYDUCK
PETRA ZÉLIE
Myles Boisen + JOEL DAVEL + AMBER LAMPRECHT

PETRA ZÉLIE'S musical approach combines composition and improvisation, driven by emotional responses, the sonic environment, and queer temporality. She filters feelings and concepts through programming synths and granular modules. This method explores deconstruction and reconfiguration of sound, particularly through granular synthesis, which alters meaning by fragmenting and reassembling sound samples, aligning with ideas of recycling and challenging traditional notions of creation. Her work extends to public spaces as "micro-resistance," involving sonic interventions and field recordings, as she explores ideas of “being” and “becoming” through the unconventional mixing of queer, noise, and glitch aesthetics.


SADIE GREYDUCK - Col Reliquia: with the relic/with what has been left behind. The double bass is performed with a bison jaw, she wears a mask of shattered bottles and faceted gems. “Human misery would be intolerable if it were not diluted in time. We have to prevent it from being diluted in order that it should be intolerable.” “without the protection of space, or time, and of matter, we should be evaporated like water in the sun.” (Simone Weil) Time is diluted by a tape loop of dripping water. If misery becomes intolerable will we release, will we act? This performance is a cauldron, a weighted blanket, and an attempted evaporation.

Saide is a glass sculptor whose work blurs boundaries between static object and choreography. She works with performance ensembles The Sunshine Bores, Pure Filth Society and recently designed costumes and sound in Urban Birds: The Plasticene produced by Synchromy Music, directed by Ashton S. Phillips.


In the final installment of WEST OAKLAND SOUND SERIES improv project this month, another group of talented local musicians from different circles within the wider contemporary music community has been formed to perform a set of free improvisations. Myles Boisen (guitar), JOEL DAVEL (percussion), and AMBER LAMPRECHT (English horn) join series curator Matt Ingalls (clarinet). This performance is part of what we hope will be a continuous series of exciting collaborations, showcasing the diverse and vibrant Bay Area contemporary music scene.
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