Percussionist Bonnie Whiting (Seattle), pianist Lisa Cay Miller (Vancouver B.C.), and clarinetist James Falzone (Seattle), celebrate the release of Six Artifacts, a new recording on Falzone’s Allos Documents label. Recorded by Steve Peters at the Chapel in Seattle, Six Artifacts documents a series of raw, unedited improvisations between 3 distinct instrumentalists.
Lisa Cay Miller (she/her) lives and makes music on the unceded traditional territories of the Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh nations. She has performed with many great musicians all over the world, including Ken Vandermark, Nicole Mitchell, Butch Morris, Ingrid Laubrock, John Dikeman, Ig Henneman, Michael Moore, Wilbert de Joode, Jasper Stadhouders, Vicky Mettler, Kenton Loewen, Dylan van der Schyff, Peggy Lee, Joshua Zubot, NOW Orchestra, NOW Ensemble and many more (Vancouver). Miller is the Artistic Director of the New Orchestra Workshop Society (NOW), proudly presenting Vancouver improvisers in regular concerts and workshops. She has released recordings on the greenideas (Sleep Furiously, Q, waterwall) and Trytone (682/281) record labels. Miller’s compositions have been premiered internationally by mmm…(Tokyo), L’Ensemble SuperMusique, le GGRIL, Quatuor Bozzini (Montreal), Vancouver New Music, Standing Wave, Turning Point Ensemble, Rachel Iwaasa, and Hard Rubber Orchestra, among others.
Bonnie Whiting (she/her) performs, improvises, and composes new music for percussion. Exploring intersections of storytelling and experimental music, her work is often cross-disciplinary, integrating text, music, movement, and technology. Her debut album, featuring a solo-simultaneous realization of John Cage’s “45′ for a speaker” and “27’10.554″ for a percussionist” was released by Mode Records in 2017, and her second album, Perishable Structures, launched on the New Focus Recordings label in 2020. Whiting is a core member of the Seattle Modern Orchestra and she has performed with the country’s leading new music groups: Ensemble Dal Niente, International Contemporary Ensemble, Talea Ensemble, and red fish blue fish percussion group. Bonnie uses Innovative Percussion sticks and mallets, and she is Chair of Percussion Studies and the Ruth Sutton Waters Associate Professor of Music at the University of Washington.
Clarinetist, penny whistle player, composer, and improviser James Falzone is an acclaimed member of the international jazz and creative music scenes, a veteran contemporary music lecturer and clinician, and an award-winning composer who has been commissioned by chamber ensembles, dance companies, choirs, and symphony orchestras around the globe. He leads his own ensembles Allos Musica, Elaía Ensemble, Renga Ensemble, and the duo Wayfaring with Chicago bassist/vocalist Katie Ernst, and has released a series of critically acclaimed recordings on Allos Documents, the label he founded in 2000. James performs throughout North America and Europe, appears regularly on Downbeat magazine’s Critics’ and Readers’ Polls, and was nominated as the Clarinetist of the Year by the Jazz Journalist Association. He has been profiled in the New York Times, The Chicago Tribune, New Music Box, and Point of Departure, among many other publications. Also a respected educator and scholar, James is the Dean of Cornish College of the Arts in Seattle, Washington. He is a Backun clarinet artist and plays penny whistles made by Chris Abell.