NYC composer/performer Charles Rudig and Aaron Michael Butler perform duos for no-input mixer and electric vibraphone with support from A. F. Jones and Noel Kennon.

Charles Rudig often composes for limited sonic and material resources, pairing new music ensembles with obsolete consumer technologies such as the Game Boy and the SK-1 sampler. He has written for new music powerhouses such as the Mivos Quartet, Hypercube, Contemporaneous, and the Jack Quartet. In the concert he will be joined by Aaron Michael Butler for a set of improvised duos for electric vibraphone and no-input mixer. 

A. F. Jones is a Dallas-born, Washington-based musician, composer, and sound designer. His live sets are fully improvised, emphasizing the use of guitar, lap steel, or pedal steel. Al is currently involved in several projects, including ‘what’ and Telescoping. Past projects include MANKINDA and Buck Young. As a sound designer and filmmaker, his most recent film is the acclaimed What Is Man and What Is Guitar?: Keith Rowe. He runs the Laminal mastering studio and curates the Marginal Frequency performance series and record label of the same name.

Noel Kennon is a composer and artist whose work often deals with the physical qualities of sound such as the mathematical (or theoretical) forms of pitch space in relation to the harmonic series, difference tones, and the sonority of volume or rather the sonority of space both enclosed and open (on any scale) as well as nominating the socio/environmental effects and phenomenon of sounding in space such as the purpose and politics in engaging strangers along with other unhelpful pursuits. All the while stumbling toward an expression of the sound of that which is not struck in the search of a way to reach compassion to address our collective unending suffering.

In celebration of the upcoming 90th birthday of my teacher, friend, collaborator, editor, provocateur, sometime landord, and closest among the virtual symposium of my senior colleagues, Benjamin Boretz, I will perform a generous selection of his works for solo piano, including (“…my chart shines high where the blue milks upset…”), the piece that grabbed hold of me at our first encounter back in about 1979, dragged me across the continent for two years of study, and which has permeated my thinking about music ever since. It promises to be an evening of deeply thoughtful intensity, nearly 50 years in preparation. I earnestly hope to see you there.

81:80 is a group that explores the passage of time through the use of microtonality and improvisation. The versatile group features Ha-Yang Kim (cello), Luke Fitzpatrick (violin/adapted viola) and Jeff Bowen (electric guitar). 81:80 seeks to create new timbres that evoke a sense of wonder. Their performance of Mothra is an extended microtonal set that traverses the far reaches of sonic possibilities.

(image: Andrew Kim)

Doors open at 7 PM.

Debut performances of two large-group ensembles:

The Northwest Experimental Guitar Orchestra is an eighteen-piece ensemble comprising musicians from Seattle, Tacoma, Bremerton, and surrounding areas. Its primary focus is exploring non-traditional means of scoring, conduction, and technology integration, with an emphasis on self-guiding scores that eschew the need for traditional conduction in a large-group setting.

In their debut performance, they will be performing two aurally-guided compositions by Blake DeGraw in which the performers’ parts are communicated to them through headphones:

Koiní Moíra is a minimalist composition heavily inspired by the works of Steve Reich and György Ligeti; it is an experiment in forming and maintaining decelerating phase patterns over an extended duration. The Ersatz is an impressionistic tragedy about a clash between birds and insects.

Cryptid Soup is a Seattle-based queer contemplative improvisation collective led by experimental guitarist and iOS-music pioneer Qid Love. The group explores improvised music as a pathway for spiritual growth, meaning making, and identity development for queer and marginalized folks. Qid Love (they/she) is an autistic, disabled, non-binary/transfemme artist, writer, filmmaker, and musician with over 130 albums.

The Last Milonga: contemporary sounds in guitar and composition from Argentina, Brazil, Mexico and Venezuela. Music of Ricardo Zohn Muldon, Quiqui Sinesi, Carlos Moscardini, Astor Piazzolla and more.

Mark Hilliard Wilson presents a short concert exploring contemporary composers from Latin America. The evening will feature both the familiar, even classic tangos and also experimental music from Venezuela, but all of it derived from folkloric influences.

Mark is known for his performances on the first Friday of the month at St. James Cathedral, as the founder and director of the Seattle Guitar Orchestra, for his recordings with Sarah Bassingthwaighte, and his collaborations with composers from around the world, most notably with Ukrainian composer Oleg Boyko, who has written two concertos for Mark and Nigerian composer Taiwo Adegoke as well as a number of pieces for Seattle Guitar orchestra.

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. 

Steven Arntson is a falsettist, concertina player, and writer from the Pacific Northwest. His is a planet that closely orbits no star. Melodies set against instrumental drones and varied textures conjure a hopeful spirit and thoughts of the forest and its creatures. Tonight he performs original compositions for concertina and falsetto, as well as arrangements of works by Béla Bartók and JS Bach.

Please join four of Seattle’s top improvisers – Tom Varner (French horn), Heather Bentley (viola/electronics), Greg Campbell (percussion/mixed brass), and Neil Welch (saxophone/electronics) as they celebrate the summer solstice in sound. In the second half of the program, special guest artists will be joining in.

Ricksplund is a Provo, Utah-based improvising duo consisting of Steven Ricks (trombone, electronics) and Christian Asplund (viola, piano/keyboards, electronics). Ricksplund has existed for almost 15 years.  The most recent manifestations of this duo involve one improvising on their particular acoustic instrument (trombone or viola, respectively), while the other improvises adding effects, samples, and loops created from the live instrument’s sound.

A Flawed Contraption is a duo consisting of Seattle virtuosos/luminaries Greg Campbell (vibraphone and percussion) and Jesse Canterbury (clarinets).

The two duos will team up to premiere a new stopwatch-based, comprovised quartet by Asplund from his Ghost Speech series.

Two American practitioners of the West African kora engage the shape-shifting landscape of the Mandinka sonic arts.

The kora is a 22 stringed harp, a creation of the great Mande civilization based in West Africa. It has migrated in somewhat recent years to be recognized as a music of global significance. Chet Corpt and Sean Gaskell are honored to be a small part of this development, initiated by the work of various kora masters, some of whom both have studied with.

Kora arises from a primarily oral culture, and one of the hallmarks of Mandinka sound arts is that it’s style and substance are remarkably fluid. There are no codified versions of songs, or even of the narratives behind them. There are, of course, traditional and ceremonial music performances in Mandinka culture, but in a concert setting each performance is intensely personal, and hopefully unfolds in new and unexpected ways.