The Japanese shakuhachi – an end-blown flute made from the root-end of a mature bamboo stalk – has been a notable part of the musical and cultural landscape in Japan since the 9th century AD. Following in the footsteps of his forebears, Araki Kodō VI (Hanzaburo) carries the distinction of being the last in the longest, unbroken connection to the origins of this music. He recently unearthed a lost composition of his grandfather’s and has recorded it alongside a piece from his father, great-great grandfather, and his own debut suite of original compositions in a new collection titled Kotetsu, which means “The Old Way.” Joining Hanz will be accomplished shakuhachi player Adam Robinson who makes his home in New York City and teaches the tradition at Columbia University.

Sarah Belle Reid‘s work centers on experimental electroacoustic performance, improvisation, and human-machine interaction. Performing with trumpet, voice, modular synthesizer, and custom electronic instruments of her own design, she creates interactive performance systems in which performers, technologies, environments, and listeners continuously shape one another. Often praised for her ability to transport audiences through vivid sonic worlds, her musical language has been described as ranging from “graceful” and “danceable” to “silk-falling-through-space” and “pit-full-of-centipedes” (San Francisco Classical Voice).

Notes on tonight’s performance: Over the past year, my performance practice has taken a new direction, shaped by growth, new life, and the kinds of loss that accompany transformation. During this time, I found myself listening differently: drawn toward unfamiliar sounds, moments of harshness and unexpected beauty, textures that evoke childhood memories, and fragile melodic fragments that seem to appear out of nowhere. It has also required a different kind of patience, making space for uncertainty, for healing, and for things that reveal themselves gradually. Presented in quadraphonic sound, these ideas unfold through improvisation as feedback, breath, pops, clicks, noise, and melody collide—moving between fragility and intensity, density and stillness.

Marcin Pączkowski (pronounced marr-cheen pawnch-koav-skee) is a composer, conductor, digital artist, and performer, working with both traditional and electronic media. As a composer, he is focused on developing new ways of creating and performing computer music, and his pieces involving real-time gestural control using accelerometers have been performed in the United States, Poland, Canada, and South Korea.

For this performance, he’ll be using a custom motion-sensing system to manipulate both live and pre-recorded audio in real time. Continuing his exploration of the space between movement, improvisation, and live electronics, the performance brings together a variety of instruments with recently captured found sounds. The set centers on the concept of place – whether geographical, cultural, or musical – distilling the sonic signatures of the spaces he’s inhabited into an immersive soundscape.

Curated by Haley Freedlund for Nonsequitur’s NonSeq series.

(photo: Etta Gerdes)

An evening of slow and mellow electronic music, come and relax for as long as you wish.

Ben Kaya is an American composer, producer and performer based in Belgium. His work primarily is concerned with simplicity, limitation and repetition, using long durations, repetitive motifs and a focus on texture in sound and visuals to bring a natural life to his vision. He will use hardware synthesizers in the trio to create a blanket and base layer of sound.

Last Train West is a Seattle-based producer and sound artist. His work blends sampling with generative melody. Using synthesizers and samplers he will provide melodic reinforcement throughout the performance.

Aetheres is a Seattle-based composer and sound designer whose work blends ambient textures with dramatic, melodic expression. In this performance he will use various electronic devices to add texture to the ever-present cloud.

An evening of improvised trios: Strings, Percussion, Brass and Objects.

Improvised farmhouse string minimalism:

Hanna Broback (violin)
Noel Kennon (viola)
Kole Galbraith (bass)

A first-time improvised trio:

Casey Adams (percussion, objects)
Silas Morrow (banjo, objects) 
Rebecca Novak (piano, cornet, objects)

Social time: 7 – 8 PM
Performance: 8 – 9:30 PM

P.I.L.L. Interactive Liminal Laboratories presents TAP 4.0: The Nyxology Sessions, high-level experiments in the art and craft of designing and presenting simultaneous, multi-participant and multi-discipline live performances (or “art-theater”) that inhabit a venue’s on and off-stage spaces and feature the instrumental live-scores of Christopher Hydinger‘s The Antenna Project as the core audience experience. Installment 8 is titled ‘A Journey Into Calm in Six Movements’ and will feature six astrophotography videoworks projections by Milky Way Matt, six movement art pieces by Christian Swenson and six instrumental live-scores by The Antenna Project.

Tad Doyle, best known for the bands TAD band, BROTHERS OF THE SONIC CLOTH, HOG MOLLY H-HOUR, and others will be performing solo with some of his most recent film score works, like CARA the film. This will be his second live performance since 2006. Expect the unexpected.

Also on the bill is Anemochore (aka Dan Blossom). The guitarist for bands Luna Moss and Future Spells, he also goes by the moniker Anemochore which he has used since the early 90’s for his electronic projects. Everything from abstract ambient to beats in many genres. 

Join us for an evening of experimental fusion, where sound and movement transcend cultures and time, resonating as one.

An ambient soundscape created by instruments whose voices have traveled across oceans and continents, carrying their sounds through the years. Instruments from many different corners of the world come together as one. They meet the movements of a dance tradition that has been passed down for more than 300 years, originating on islands in the Pacific.

Greg, a versatile musician and multi-instrumentalist, performs on an extraordinary range of percussion instruments, as well as the French horn and cornet. His musical career spans an impressive variety of styles, from mainstream jazz and free improvisation to Western classical music and traditional West African drumming. 

Mako is an Okinawan musician based in the Seattle area, sharing the rich traditions of Ryukyuan music—an art form rarely heard in the Pacific Northwest, she sings and plays the sanshin, three-stringed instrument, bringing heartfelt songs to audiences of all kinds. 

Takako is a skilled practitioner of classical Ryukyuan dance, a tradition that dates back to the 15th century. Drawing on years of training, she brings grace and elegance to the stage through captivating performances that evoke the timeless beauty of Okinawan culture.

This unique concert will bring together five of Seattle’s finest improvisors, as the trio The Hegramatics and duo Lotus Lungs, in a tribute to the late Carol J Levin.

Amy Denio, Heather Bentley and Greg Campbell are multi-talented musicians, each with a range that defies logic. Amy improvises freely using her voice, saxophone, clarinet and accordion. Heather is fluid on cello and viola. Greg plays every percussion instrument imaginable, as well as French horn and cornet. Their works span jazz, classical, world and experimental music. Together, they are The Hegramatics, which combines all of those elements in a freely improvised mélange. The trio recorded a studio album as a tribute to beloved Seattle harpist Carol J Levin (who actually appears posthumously on the record). The album releases on June 4^th. This event will mark that release.

Guitarists Bill Horist and Matt Benham will open the evening with a set of experimental guitar improvisation. Bill and Matt are world-class guitarists, employing wide-ranging techniques to create mind-bending soundscapes. As Lotus Lungs they released an album that set a new standard for their trade.

Presented by Seattle-based Right Brain Records.

Three overlapping sets of improvised music made with loopers from Alex Anthony Faide, Crystal Beth, and Passenger Pigeon.

Originally from Buenos Aires, Argentina, guitarist/composer Alex Anthony Faide has a decades-long international reputation for being the secret weapon in rock recordings, arrangements, and stage productions in Europe and Latin America. Now based in Seattle, Faide released his long-awaited solo record, Particles of the Infinite, a display of guitar pyrotechnics in nine parts, on Trey Gunn’s label 7d Media in 2022. About his improvising in concert, he says: “This will present itself as a set of continuous sound, of and through solo electric guitar, but it is a container for something else entirely. There won’t be any acrobatics nor stage theatrics, or any visual enhancement. Probably a good idea to just sit back and enjoy the ride. Still, if you feel compelled to dance, do! if you feel compelled to nap, please do!”

Whether performing solo with amplified clarinet, voice & electronics, leading rock bands and blindfolded chamber ensembles, or conducting a full theater house as a beat-boxing choir, American improviser Crystal Beth (aka: Beth Fleenor) has a penchant for surprising audiences into fully embracing that magic is real. From 100,000 seat rock festivals, and maximum-security prisons, to some of the world’s most prestigious concert halls, Crystal Beth sings in her own invented language, and uses sound to open the channels of communication between and within individuals and environments. She is an electric, adrenaline inducing performer described as “…a supremely versatile and virtuosic maverick” (The Stranger) and “an undeniable, unstoppable musical force…that channels strange, disturbing, and beautiful sounds into existence from beyond most of our imaginings” (Ball of Wax).

Over the past twenty-plus years, multi-instrumentalist/songwriter/organizer Levi Fuller has quietly pursued an improvisational solo project called Passenger Pigeon. The primary elements are simple – baritone guitar and a looping pedal or two – but the rhythmic, sonic, and melodic possibilities and variations are endless. Another New Low, released April 2026 on Right Brain Records, is the first full-length Passenger Pigeon album. 

Join composer-songwriter Kaley Lane Eaton for a celebration of twelve years of music-making in Seattle before she embarks upon her next adventure in California. Featuring final Seattle performances from her two beloved Seattle ensembles, Kin of the Moon (Eaton, Heather Bentley, Leanna Keith) and the Plectrum Five (Eaton, Rian Souleles, Lady Zade, Tom Baker, and Jon Butler) alongside guests James Falzone, Neil Welch, and Chris Icasiano, Eaton will present songs from her records cedar and Lookout alongside group improvisations, experimental repertoire, and a special final set from the Plectrum Five. Featuring an opening set from Greek bouzouki player and songwriter Rian Souleles.