Infinity Upright! is an ensemble that features the “Everything Music” of Evan Flory-Barnes. Evan’s music is influenced by equal parts Mingus, Ravel, Björk and Dilla. Infinity Upright! leaves no stone unturned, giving itself permission to use all tools of expression. From lush orchestrations to hard driving swing. From free improvisation to head-nodding boom-bap anthems. From original works to collaborations. This ensemble brings all music through the inclusive and open-hearted vision of Evan Flory-Barnes

Kate Olson-winds
Chris Credit-winds
Ahamefule J. Oluo- trumpet
Tom Varner-French Horn
Nathan Vetter-Trombone
Jon Hansen-Tuba
Dawn Clement-piano
Jeremy Jones-drums

Beth Fleenor, clarinet; Jenny Ziefel, bass clarinet; Paul Hoskin, contrabass clarinet; Carol Levin & Monica Schley, harp.

An initial meeting. It may be the first performance of a clarinet/harp quintet. Anywhere, anytime. One may imagine it as reeds meets strings, yet… “Most instruments produce harmonic sounds, but many instruments produce partials and inharmonic tones.” The tone colors that will be explored may be without reference to standard concepts of pitch…perhaps even without reference to what is thought of as “beautiful.” The five members of the quintet come from drastically different backgrounds. Classically trained, jazz schooled, refusal for any of… Yet, the common devotion is to one of spontaneously composed sonic creations. What we play on a given evening displays an understanding of music in all of its depths and surfaces. “Out of silence erupts melody, rhythm, noise in immediate permutations and configurations.”

ROCKS & DRONES is Concert Imaginaire‘s final concert of their 2013-14 season. Expect the to hear something old (I Hate Being White), something new (Falling, about the Fukushima disaster), something borrowed (a Beatles tune) and something blue (new blues).

…a drone, as we all may know, is a musical technique meaning a sustained pitch or interval providing an “environment” or tonal center for other instruments to play over. Although today, we are apt to first think of the pilot-less flying machines which are constantly in the news. Soon amazons will be using drones to deliver items to our homes. Imagine the cinder-block size Mark Twain biography being shot out of the sky through your bedroom window. I suppose a hell-fire missile will be available for those who do not pay their bills. There’s a boy who loves cloudy skies, not because he doesn’t like the sunshine, but when skies are clear is when drones attack. We have had war droning on all the time. Not too dark…piloting drones is the dream job for gaming geeks – they get to play and affect reality finally the world will know their power. Even those pimple-faced cognoscenti can go to virtual-real war and kill people they don’t know. Yes a bee can be a drone too – but only male ones and ironically those that cannot sting. They serve a useful purpose just like the musical drone, doing the same thing over and over. If it bores you for an hour, do it for two just as Cage suggests. OK…so what about rocks?

Trumpeter and composer Samantha Boshnack and her Quintet premier a new 4-movement narrative work inspired by the life of 19th century daredevil, feminist, investigative journalist & iconoclast Nellie Bly (1864 – 1922). Boshnack combines exploration of Bly’s life with propulsion from her words, incorporating quotes and segments from her books as spoken and sung elements within the suite. This concert is an opportunity to learn about the life of this impactful, yet mostly unknown, iconoclast.

Nellie Bly was a reporter at a time when women were not welcome into journalism, and was a fiery and persistent individual who worked within extreme confines to achieve great things for both the subjects she covered (including mental health and prison facilities), and for women in her field. Boshnack has created a work in four movements highlighting stages and elements of Bly’s personality and career: Early Years, establishing her voice, combining elements of punky irreverence, with a yearning to deeply understand the human experience and its unfairness; Asylum Expose, exploring her extreme efforts to write about the atrocities of a mental asylum;  Around the World, tackling her race around the globe to beat Jules Verne’s fictional record, while the world cheered her on; and Lasting Legacy, an homage to Bly and the impact she made to those who came after her.

Sam Boshnack Quintet exclusively performs Boshnack’s compositions, which fuse many musical styles in propulsive, dynamic compositions, and features Boshnack (trumpets), Beth Fleenor (clarinets/voice), Dawn Clement (piano/keyboards), Isaac Castillo (bass) and Max Wood (drums). This project is made possible with support from 4Culture and Sprout.

Cousins Andrea Parkins (accordion, electronics) and Zeena Parkins (harp, electronics) meet up on the west coast for an evening of improvised solos and duets. Presented by Nonsequitur.

Andrea Parkins is a composer, sound/installation artist and electroacoustic musician who engages with interactive electronics as a compositional/performative process, and explores strategies related to Fluxus’ ordered, yet ephemeral activities. An integral participant of the New York sound art and experimental music scene and worldwide, she is especially known for her pioneering gestural/textural approach to her electronically-processed accordion and customized live sound processing. Her laptop electronics and amplified accordion create sonic fields of lush harmonics, noisy concretized disruption, and sculpted/soaring electronic feedback.

Multi-instrumentalist/composer/improviser Zeena Parkins is a pioneer of contemporary harp practice and performance, reimagining the instrument as a “sound machine of limitless capacity.” She plays a one-of-a-kind electric harp and has extended the language of the acoustic harp with the inventive use of unusual techniques, preparations, and electronic processing. Blending and morphing of both real and imagined instruments with mangled, sliced, or possibly disengaged sounds, she remains in process with sound as material and music, engaged in translations of sonic states in the concert hall, the black box theater, the dance studio, the recording studio, the classroom, the cinema, the skyscraper, the ocean and the gallery.

Guitarist/vocalist Sue Ann Harkey performs songs for harp guitar and improvisations for prepared 12-string electric guitar, with guest artists Tari Nelson-Zagar (violin), Angelina Baldoz (bass, trumpet, vocals), and Steve Peters (field recordings).

Neijing Ensemble is a new saxophone quartet featuring Ivan Arteaga, Greg Sinibaldi, Neil Welch, and Levi Gillis. Their premier performance is the first iteration of Arteaga’s new work which uses collaborative improvisation for creating the form and content. This music is highly gestural, energetic, and uses extended saxophone technique to broaden the sonic palette of the saxophone quartet. They’ll also play Greg Sinibaldi’s sax quartet arrangement of Alban Berg’s string quartet Op. 3.

Says Ivan: “There were several intersecting ideas which prompted me to organize this group but the main one was a desire to collaborate with these specific saxophonists. They are wonderful musicians and I am thrilled to be improvising and workshopping pieces with them. They are each such deep artists in their own rights, and I’m truly honored to share the stage with them.”

Opening this evening will be Steve O’Brien’s Only Trio, featuring trumpeter O’Brien with trombonist Jacob Herring, saxophonist Kate Olson, and for this show adding drummer Joe Eck and vocalist/guitarist Phinehas M Nyang’Oro. The lyrics from these most recent compositions come from the wisdom of the great Desmond Tutu and Malcolm X.

Jay Hamilton and the Turtling Dithers (Maurice Colasurdo, Gordon Frazier, possibly other friends) perform a cycle of songs by Hamilton and Frazier concerning love and tales of love and the good the bad and the merely pleasant aspects of love. Instrumentation ranges from toys, jews harps, other miscellaneous mouth sound instruments, kalimbas, bass, guitar, electric instruments, and a thing that we play against in a piece called Rocky Mountain Oysters.

A collaboration with students from the Center for Digital Arts and Experimental Media as well as Composition Department at the UW. An evening of electronic music featuring a variety of new works for electronics, video, and interactive media. Included are new and recent works by Hector Bravo Benard, Marcin Pączkowski, Abe King, Josh Archibald-Seiffer, Jeff Bowen, and Gérard Pape.