In Earshot Jazz’s annual Jazz: The Second Century series, six Seattle-area artists present original work in a concert setting. This line-up was selected and programmed by a peer panel of Seattle artists through a “blind jury” process. In response to a call for submissions, more than 30 ensembles submitted projects they felt question and expand the jazz form.

netcat, with Brandon Lucia, David Balatero, and Andrew Olmstead, explores the intersection of technology and free improvisation, combining computers, effects, and Chango (a synthesizer that uses light to convert video to audio in real time) with traditional instruments like drums and cello.

The Tim Volpicella – Michael Marcus Quartet features Grammy-nominated guitarist and recent NW transplant Tim Volpicella and Teatro ZinZanni bassist Michael Marcus leading a swooning, string-laden quartet rounded out by steel guitarist Lucien LaMotte and drummer Max Wood.

Substrata’s second night plays host to the evolving field of electro-acoustic composition in its intersection with fringe pop, folk, improvisation and non-rock forms. Dismantling both the synthesizer and the electric guitar’s central roles and showmanship in rock music for a larger lexicon of expressive frontiers, theirs is a more variegated and polychromatic realization of these electric instruments and their still undiscovered potential. This is a lissom flexing of the tools of rock, psychedelic and folk music into applications wholly mutagenic and hybrid, circuitous and serpentine in their paths away from tradition. A slow forced evolution of tools and form, meliorating the living core from it’s popular conception.

Will Call – 6:45 pm
Doors – 7:00 pm
Sanso Xtro – 7:45 pm
Koen Holtkamp – 8:30 pm **
Carl Hultgren – 9:15 pm

**WARNING: Please be aware strobe/flickering light video effects will be used during Koen Holtkamp’s performance. Patrons that may suffer from epilepsy & other visual light stimulation effects are advised to contact us via email or day of event (prior to entering the auditorium!).**

The inaugural evening of Substrata 1.4 presents a showcase of sound as intimated space. Encompassing the broadest spectrum of instrumentation, from acoustic strings to electric analog hardware to synthesis and pure software application. This spectrum of tools and technique representing a diapason of approaches to guide the listener into auditory perambulations of notional, phantasmal scapes. The composer as both the outrider and map-maker in their simultaneous manifestation and guidance through geographic, abstract, cosmic, oneiric non-place. The synergic act of performer and audience engaged in the Greek akouein taking on its most Platonic form.

Will Call – 6:45 pm
Doors – 7:00 pm
Gregg Kowalsky – 7:45 pm
Julia Kent – 8:30 pm
Markus Guentner – 9:15 pm

This is the debut performance of Sumi Tonooka’s West Coast trio featuring Max Wood on drums and Michael Glynn on bass. The evening will feature a historical perspective of Sumi’s original music from her earliest trio recordings through the present. The group has been meeting for the past few months and working to develop a cohesive sound and identity as a trio. In addition, they have been exploring and experimenting with freer forms and non traditional approaches within various musical settings.

verde, que te quiero verde! a butoh/sound improvisation at the Chapel

Verde que te quiero verde
verde viento verdes ramas
el barco sobre la mar
el caballo en la montaña.

Green how I want you green
Green wind green branches
the boat on the sea
the horse on the mountain

Federico Garcia Lorca

Celebration and requiem in every breath, in every flower.

Vanessa Skantze (butoh), Tom Swafford (violin), and noisepoetnobody (analog synthesis) collaborate frequently and are pleased to welcome Eveline Muller (percussion) into this evening’s creation. Special guest Stephen Fandrich opening the gate with solo piano

The early movement work of Vanessa Skantze was with a sound/movement ensemble, creating improvised performances through a method of deep listening between bodies and sound. This experience opened her to the capacity of the body to transform itself through intense focus and visceral imagery. Since her arrival in Seattle in late 2004 she has created many works for ensembles as well as solo performances. She has collaborated with Tom Swafford since 2005, noisepoetnobody since 2006.

Stephen Fandrich is an eclectic American composer and native of Seattle Washington who graduated from Cornish College of the Arts. A 15-year member of the Monktail Creative Music Concern, Fandrich is a composer, pianist, vocalist, improvisor, and avid gamelan composer and player with Gamelan Pacifica. For ten years he directed the Seattle Harmonic Voices, a choir devoted exclusively to diphonic singing. He has collaborated with internationally acclaimed choreographers such as Khambatta Dance, Katsura Kan, Joan Laage, Amy O’Neal, and Douglas Ridings, and with international artist/musicians such as, Peni Chandra Rini, Pauline Oliveros, Stuart Dempster, Bill Horist, Jarrad Powell, Seattle Jazz Composers Ensemble, Willow Fox, David “skip” Milford, Oren Ambarchi, Jessika Kenney and Eyvind Kang.

In Earshot Jazz’s annual Jazz: The Second Century series, six Seattle-area artists present original work in a concert setting. In response to a call for submissions, more than 30 ensembles submitted projects they felt question and expand the jazz form. This line-up was selected and programmed by a peer panel of Seattle artists through a “blind jury” process.

Bad Luck is a duo of drummer Chris Icasiano and saxophonist Neil Welch, performing original compositions in an array of sounds with live loops and effects. Founding members of the Racer Sessions at Café Racer, Icasiano and Welch have been at the forefront of Seattle’s avant-garde movement in recent years.

Sequoia Ensemble was formed in 2011 by tenor saxophonist Levi Gillis, and includes Evan Smith on clarinet, Nick Rogstad on trombone, Brennan Carter on trumpet, Andrew Olmstead on keyboard, Carmen Rothwell on bass, and Evan Woodle on drums. The septet, with influences from Bon Iver and Sigur Ros to Keith Jarrett and Bill Frisell, draws inspiration from natural landscapes to produce earthy, lush, and colorful sounds.

Pulling together works from every corner of their repertoire, the new music ensemble will perform a fusion of their Dead Language does Dead Language and Dead Language: Animal Enthusiasts concerts. The program will feature original compositions from each ensemble member, in addition to George Crumb’s seminal Vox Balaenae, works by Seattle-based composer Gust Burns, and animal-themed improvisation.

About Dead Language
Dead Language is: Jodie Rottle (flutes), Meaghan Burke (cello/voice), and Tristan McKay (piano/harpsichord/toy piano).

Whether shredding the works of George Crumb and Elliott Carter, exploring different approaches to structured and free improvisation, or jamming on miniature frog objects at a toy music festival, Dead Language seeks out music that has something to say, and says it. Formerly based in New York City, Dead Language now appears around the globe for pop-up concerts.

On June 24, 1984, Keith Eisenbrey, Aaron Keyt, and Neal Meyer gathered together to make a tape, improvising on instruments we didn’t know how to play. Thinking we might do this 3 or 4 times and because it seemed right to think of our project as a band – and because none of us could resist the pun – we called ourselves and the project Banned Rehearsal. Our personnel has changed somewhat over time, surviving several lengthy geographic separations, but the project has continued and as of this writing we have recorded 860 numbered sessions. For our eighth public event, we invite you to celebrate with us 30 years of noise, 30 years of exploration, 30 years of trying to figure out what we’re doing, 30 years of argument in creative musical expression.

Banned Rehearsal is: Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Steve Kennedy, Aaron Keyt, and Neal Kosály-Meyer.

Old-Fashioned Love Songs features music composed and arranged by Aaron Grad, as well as a unique instrument he designed and built—an electric theorbo—which crosses a modern electric guitar with a fourteen-string bass lute from the sixteenth century. The performance mixes original compositions with arrangements of love songs spanning six centuries, from John Dowland and Henry Purcell to George Gershwin and Norah Jones. Countertenor Augustine Mercante (praised as “glowing” by The New York Times) brings a new sheen to a voice type associated with centuries past, reinforcing the message of Old-Fashioned Love Songs: that love, and the music that celebrates it, is timeless.