Seattle Guitar Circle, a 9-piece acoustic guitar orchestra, brings “Simple Songs” to the Chapel (Monk, Coltrane, Corea, Satie, Coltrane, Brouwer, Monk, Fripp, Sakamoto & SGC).
Seattle Guitar Circle was founded in 1993 by Steve Ball, Bill Rieflin and Bill Van Buren. For 30 years, they have been playing eclectic, polyrhythmic prog chamber music arranged for large acoustic guitar ensemble all over the Seattle area. Seattle Guitar Circle has many related sub-groups such as Tuning the Air (7 years of weekly shows at Fremont Abby), Tiny Orchestral Moments (7+ years of workshops and live shows) and Argentina’s Electric Gauchos, recording and performing in Seattle since 1997.
This international community was initially born via Robert Fripp’s ‘Guitar Craft’ workshops that began in 1985. Each SGC performance is a combination of tightly-arranged chaos, layered guitars ‘circulations’ – where each guitarist plays one note at a time in evolving melodies.
SGC performs collaborative repertoire for layered guitars and voices including structured improvisation that sounds composed and composed collaboration that sounds improvised. This 2023 ‘Simple Songs’ performance brings to life new arrangements of pieces by Meredith Monk, Hanai Rani, John Coltrane, Jon Brion, Jonny Greenwood, Charles Ives, Chick Corea, Erik Satie, Leo Brouwer, Robert Fripp, Ryuichi Sakamoto – as well as new work from composers within the core SGC team.
Dear Persephone will open and collaborate with the SGC. Dear Persephone is Jessica Gallo and April Mitchell, dual harp & vocals playing Ethereal Folk: a blend of classical, improvisation and folk.