The Seattle Composers’ Salon fosters the development, performance and appreciation of new music by regional composers and performers. At bi-monthly, informal presentations, the Salon features finished works, previews, and works in progress. Composers, performers, and audience members gather in a casual setting that allows for experimentation and discussion. Everyone is welcome!
Earshot‘s Jazz: The Second Century gives voice to the vision of Seattle’s fine jazz artists. What is the future of jazz? This concert series seeks to bring the discussion into creative motion where it matters most – on the stage, with an attentive audience.
Bassist Mat Muntz and vocalist Astrid Kuljanic seek to create a new kind of concert experience within the jazz idiom. Through their careful curation of standard repertoire and the implementation of live electronic performance, Muntz and Kuljanic transform conventional jazz sets into immersive soundscapes. Kuljanic’s command of musical software allows the duo to manipulate sounds made in the moment – with no prerecorded samples – into arrangements and improvisations. The band grew out of a solo electronic music project that Kuljanic had developed while studying at Manhattan School of Music. Kuntz approached Kuljanic after hearing her live electronic arrangements of Ornette Coleman songs and microtonal Croatian folk music and asked to form the band. Since then the two have collaborated on arrangements, selection of repertoire, and sound design, as well as finding unconventional spaces in which to perform.
The American classical music scene is so flush with young and exciting new composers that it is often a daunting task to know where to begin your listening: this evening of Living Music will present a sample from many of today’s brightest and best! Returning to the stage will be Seattle-based soprano Shelly Traverse, flutist Douglas DeVries, pianist Yvonne Chen, and Madeline DeVries from the Along Kine LINES Ballet. They will be joined by the fantastic brothers, violinist Nicholas Tavani and cellist Daniel Tavani. Drawn from this group’s mutual appreciation of the great number of new works available today, they will present diverse works by five composers: Seattle native and Rice University’s Shepherd School of Music alum Alexandra T. Bryant, a distinguished Rice University composition professor Pierre Jalbert, a French born composer and organist Guillaume Connesson, a prolific composer of 21st century art song Lori Laitman, and the great American dramatic opera and song sensation Carlisle Floyd.
This group of musicians have been great friends for nearly a decade and it has long been a dream of theirs to present a recital program like this specifically in Seattle, and they are pleased to be presenting this exciting program of new works on the Wayward Music Series.
“The question is not if we will be extremists, but what kind of extremists we will be. The nation and the world are in dire need of creative extremists.” ― MLK
Ukraine. Russia. Mexico. US.
War against occupation. Dictatorship. Corruption. Separation wall.
The world stands divided. But this evocative evening – in unison with prominent creative forces from countries in focus – we contemplate, imagine, witness and replenish faith in humanity at its best.
One of the most notable musicians of our time, LUBOMYR MELNYK has invented a continuous piano language which produces immersive sounds with an impossible flood of rapid notes. Inspired by Ukrainian folk songs and the minimalist movement of the 70s, Lubomyr plays at blazing speeds, crossing 19 keys per second per hand. Lubomyr’s virtuoso piano technique forms overtones that blend, collide and weave melodic tapestries in split moments. Inhabiting a distinct and mesmerizing space somewhere between Chopin and Philip Glass, with whiffs of New Age mysticism, Melnyk’s music has an uncanny power to sweep listeners away into a fast-flowing river of sound. Individual notes roll and liquefy, and the sustain pedal fills any minuscule gaps between them with lingering drones and overtones. The multitude of notes making up the whole – and the beauty of the whole itself – is hypnotic and transcendent.
BORIS INDRIKOV (Russia) is a renowned Moscow-based painter working in fantastic realism. Boris creates fascinatingly detailed, hauntingly majestic visionary artwork. Carrying subtle hints of Art Nouveau, Renaissance, Asian art, Surrealism and science fiction, his graceful, mystical beings spiral, engulf and transmute in and out of desolate, otherworldly vistas, forging old world energy with a new world vision. Select exhibits and collections: Netherlands, Japan, Spain, Sweden, Finland, Switzerland, Italy, Germany, France.
Artista Ambulante KABRIELE ROSAS (Mexico/US) weaves visual tales of places explored in color, texture and line on canvas. Her art brims with emotion, richness of indigenous cultures, majesty of natural world. Maputo, Salvador de Bahia, Marseille, Madrid – each destination sways her brush and palette in a new direction.
ReVOLUTION, UKRAINE: DEFENDING LIBERTY & DIGNITY
Images of Dissent: a provocative collection of visceral photographs of a Ukrainian popular uprising for democracy and independence curated and presented by Esse Quam Videri, captured by acclaimed international photojournalists: Iv Bogdan, Ingwar Dovgoteles, Ratushnyak Oleksandr, Mikhail Palinchak, Alexandr Piliugin, Nadia Romanova, Anastasia Vlasova
GAREK Jon DRUSS is a Seattle-based sound and visual artist who creates work that explores the balance between the physical being and the incorporeal or non-being. His aural works create active and engaged listening environments that allow for heightened states of self-reflection and phenomenological awareness.
“Operatic Iconoclast” ROXANNA WALITZKI is an innovative performance-artist with a keen eye for beauty and unique, ethereal aesthetic. Walitzki integrates experimental elements from electronic music, art-video and fashion into her arrangements of classical songs, producing a delicate, spellbinding and edgy world of imagined-sound-visions that stretch the bounds of traditional performance-practice.
Soprano SARAH FLETCHER (SF) has a voice ‘like coffee with a dollop of cream”. She performed with Seattle Opera and co-runs Opera on Tap – San Francisco, putting on acclaimed productions that encourage the magical presence of opera, creative collaboration, and the arts in our everyday lives.
Seattle composer Marguerite Brown presents new works for guitars (chamber / solo / extended / collaborative) with the goal of crossing disciplinary lines and sparking new connections between the new music, dance, student, and professional communities. Joining her in presenting these sounds and sights are guitarists Michael Nicolella and Satchel Henneman, choreographer Allison Burke, and dancers Sierra Hendrix, Khadijah Lindo, Fenja Abrams, and Maeve Haselton. The program includes:
Long Journey to the Middle, for electric guitar trio and movement quartet (choreography by Allison Burke)
Jonah Parzen-Johnson (Brooklyn, NY) writes music for solo saxophone and analog synthesizer. Imagine the raw energy of an Appalachian Folk choir, tempered by a lo-fi, minimal aesthetic. His carefully assembled analog synthesizer breathes with his saxophone, building independent melodic layers to support his sound, or soaring above his extended technique-driven baritone saxophone playing. All performed live, without any looping or recorded samples. A Chicago native, Jonah’s circular breathing, multi-phonics and inclusively experimental style owe a debt to the Chicago saxophone legacy, but his devotion to a quirky almost vocal approach places him in new territory for the solo saxophone. He has meticulously constructed a world of warm memories remembered in a cold present, as he melds the evocative nature of folk music with the chilling power of experimentalism. Since, 2012 Jonah has toured over 30 thousand miles across the US and back, playing in venues like The Stone, Zebulon, & Trans-Pecos in NYC, Constellation in Chicago, and The CMG Improvisors Summit in Portland OR. Along with playing solo, Jonah is a co-leader of Brooklyn Afrobeat outfit, Zongo Junction, and an active part of Brooklyn NY’s independent and experimental music communities.
Seattle drummer Chris Icasiano (Bad Luck) and cellist Lori Goldston unite for duo improvisations.
Composer and guitarist Ronan Delisle introduces his most recent project. Cosmic Punishment is Delisle’s attempt to marry extremes: the acoustic integrity and organic nature of instruments like the arch-top guitar and double bass with the synthetic, infinite nuance of the synthesizer; through-composed and specific roles with indeterminate and flexible improvised textures. While being guitar-centric in its roots, Delisle’s group also features the fluidity of drummer Mike Gebhart and the versatile Abbey Blackwell as the group’s backbone, providing the foundation of the band’s sound. Delisle originally drew influence for Cosmic Punishment from the “Harmolodic” approach of Ornette Coleman and the group dynamic of the Bad Plus, with which he has infused with his own love of American roots music and the symmetry of past masters J.S. Bach and Frederic Chopin.
He will be followed by guitarist and UW professor Ryan Ferreira, performing immersive solo guitar works.
God and Vanilla, the ethereal dark ambient project of solo guitarist Richard O’Leary, creates lush tapestries and hauntingly inviting dreamscapes that draw the listener to an otherworldly place where warm colors run together to create beautiful portraits.
Goldenrod is Noisegasm guitarist Greg Weber’s solo project. His solo music is heavily influenced by Brian Eno’s ambient work with nods to avant-rockers Henry Cow and Pere Ubu and the electronic works of Charles Wuorinen. Harmonica processed with filter sweeps and bleeps and bit-crushed drones and loops float and morph with only the occasional hint of a melody betraying the original sound source.
Sacred Signs is a revolving cast of angels, demons, gods, ghosts, apparitions, possessed voodoo warriors, and psychedelic piano duelers revolving around Winter Parkin.
Driftwood Orchestra is not concerned with perfection or standards of artistic success, but is interested in creating a way to communicate with the forest with the intent to somehow, someday apologize. The point is not to create music, or to showcase instrument playing skills. More so it is a way to give a voice to the trees. All that they have survived to grow and exist and everything that has happened to a piece of wood before it became an object in Driftwood Orchestra. Ever increasing demands of civilization unconcerned with the survival of the forest always pushing. Until now the trees had no voice after death to tell the stores or share knowledge from a life of silent suffering. Not that the trees would use a language any of us could ever understand or perhaps care if we understand in the direct way we perceive language. However if given the chance and under situations where people are open to receiving messages from the forest via a dead tree it could be that the forest may send a message of sorts. As one listens to Driftwood Orchestra players struggle to find solutions to creating sound in a live improvised setting imagine that the message could be simply “we all live and thrive together or we all suffer and die together”.
Greg Kelley has performed throughout North America, Europe, Japan, Argentina & Mexico at numerous festivals, in clubs, outdoors, in living rooms, in a bank, and at least once on a vibrating floor. He has collaborated with a number of musicians across the globe performing experimental music, free jazz and noise, appearing on over 90 recordings in the process. He constantly seeks to push the boundaries of the trumpet and of “music.”
Eveline Müller is a saw blade and airplane washer collector. Together with her metal contraption she likes to take her audience on a journey through beautiful, ugly, loud, quiet, tense and sparse sonic landscapes.
Patrick Neill Gundran has been performing live as a guitarist in the Pacific Northwest under the name Uneasy Chairs for the past 4 years, focusing entirely on free improvising and experimenting with sound. As well as performing solo, he has also been an active live collaborator with a diverse community of musicians and artists with backgrounds ranging from jazz, classical, rock and roll, electronic, noise as well as Butoh dance. An interest in various approaches to meditation and Buddhist philosophy informs his playing, listening and approach.
Prolific Chicago-based saxophonist, improviser, and composer Dave Rempis undertakes a sprawling solo journey around the US this spring (working title: Lattice), developing repertoire for his first solo release scheduled on Aerophonic Records this fall, while also working to strengthen the informal networks that connect, inform, and sustain the improvised music scene throughout the country. Each concert includes a solo set, and a collaboration with one or more locally-based musicians in every city he visits. Tonight’s second set will feature mixed groupings with James Falzone (clarinet), Arrington de Dionyso (reeds), Kate Olson (reeds), Lori Goldston (cello), and John Niekrasz (drums).
Rempis has been an integral part of the thriving Chicago jazz and improvised music scene since 1997, when he joined the well-known Chicago jazz outfit The Vandermark Five at age 22. At the same time, Rempis began to develop the many Chicago-based groups for which he’s currently known, including the Rempis Percussion Quartet, The Engines, Ballister, Rempis/Abrams/Ra, Wheelhouse, Triage, The Rempis/Rosaly Duo, and The Rempis/Daisy Duo. Other collaborations have included work with Paul Lytton, Axel Dörner, Fred Anderson, Peter Brötzmann, C. Spencer Yeh, Hamid Drake, Steve Swell, John Tchicai, Roscoe Mitchell, Kevin Drumm, Paal Nilssen-Love, Nels Cline, and Joe McPhee.
His musical expression draws on a number of touchstones. While heavily improvisational in nature, his Greek ethnicity, studies in jazz and ethnomusicology, an appreciation for the philosophical underpinnings of contempory composition, and a love for unforgivingly strident yelps, screeches, and squeals that can encompass the ever-evolving state of human depravity all inform his work.
Aside from his work as a musician and composer, Rempis has worked tirelessly as a presenter. Since 2002, he’s organized and produced a weekly series of improvised music at Chicago’s Elastic Arts Foundation. He was a founding member of Umbrella Music, and one of the lead producers and curators of its annual festival from 2006-2014, and served as the business manager of the Pitchfork Music Festival from 2005-2016.
Each month, Nonsequitur and a community of like-minded organizations and artists present ten concerts of adventurous and experimental music in the gorgeous Chapel Performance Space at the Good Shepherd Center (which sits on the traditional homelands of the Duwamish people): contemporary/post-classical composition, free improvisation and the outer limits of jazz, electronic/electroacoustic music, new instruments, phonography, sound art, and other innovative musics. Watch a video clip about us on the Seattle Channel.
Location & Contact
In the Chapel Performance Space on the fourth floor of the Good Shepherd Center.
4649 Sunnyside Ave. N.
Seattle WA, 98103
(SW corner of 50th & Sunnyside in Wallingford. Nearest Metro bus stops: 62, 44, 26)
