The Red Pants Collective, a movement and sound project formed by father/daughter duo Giordana and James Falzone, are joined by very special guests from NYC and Seattle. The evening will weave improvised moments with Klezmer music and lefty political songs in Yiddish.  

Tariq Mitri: movement
Alyza DelPan-Monley: movement
Giordana Falzone: movement
Bonnie Whiting: percussion
Hanz Araki: shakuhachi
Andrew Drury: drums and percussion
Michael Winograd: clarinet
Ira Temple: accordion
James Falzone: clarinet and piano

MICHIKO O (Michiko Ogawa) (Tokyo/Berlin/San Diego) is a researcher-composer touring work from her just-released album, Pancake Moon (Futura Resistenza, Belgium). These compositions are for shō and pre-recorded materials, her shō-playing “like a device that warps and expands time and space”.

Andrew Drury returns to Seattle from Brooklyn, NY, here to join the Seattle/Tracyton spontaneous composition duo known as ‘what‘ (A.F. Jones, steel guitars/electronics; Dave Abramson, percussion). For this performance Drury will use his ever-expanding techniques on the chosen apparatus of prepared floor tom.

Sid Samberg, a composer-pianist originally from Chicago (based in Seattle since 2020) is honored to perform in the Wayward Music Series for a third time, sharing a warm evening of music in the cold final days of autumn. He will perform his original works for piano solo, which explore meditations on dreams, nature, close personal relationships, and the global climate crisis.

Sid Samberg (b. 1989) is a composer-pianist, multi-instrumentalist, writer, and educator. His music flows from an inner voice which connects the emotional content of sound with deeply felt aspects of human experience. He has been described as “uncommonly talented” (John Von Rhein – Chicago Tribune).

Samberg has been called an “eco-pianist” as a result of his musical engagement with climate change. Several of his works, such as Larsen B (2004) and Harvest (2011) are inspired by or dedicated to our relationship with nature.

His recent collaborations include Zero Tolerance, a collaborative project with C. Eule Dance Company about a mother and daughter separated by ICE at the US-Mexico border; the release of LUDO, an EP recording of a modular graphic score written for him by composer Drew Corey, and a performance on piano and keyboards with the NYC experimental black metal band Liturgy in their opera Origin of the Alimonies, at REDCAT in LA. Samberg has a degree in composition from California Institute of the Arts.

Stephen Fandrich is a piano soloist, composer, builder of instruments and creator of interactive sound installation. The piano and piano prepared with various sound altering additions to the strings, combined with a physically modeled Fender Rhodes, will showcase his piano playing, improvisational talents and gifts for instrument making and sound design. Fandrich’s Improvisations are long in form, erase time and expectation, are dramatic to delicate, quiet and transcendent.

Stephen Fandrich has been a resident performing artist of Seattle for 35 years, and is strongly influenced by the music of Asia, particularly Russia, Tyva (Tuva) and Indonesia. Classical piano, jazz piano, prepared piano, gamelan, throat singing, just-intonation, tuning, instrument building, sound-based installation, composition, and improvisation are all current passions.

Sh’ma is the project of musician Trevor Eulau, among collaborators, aimed at bringing together contemplative practice, meditation, and elements of Jewish mysticism together with various types of improvisation. Sh’ma is the Hebrew word for “listen”, and also the name of the central mantra and prayer in Jewish meditation. It is precisely what we seek to embody in this project, a state of deep listening, both to the spontaneity of music in the room, as well to the music waiting to be sung. The concert will include classical guitar, sitar, singing bowls, acoustic bass, and percussion. Collaborators with Trevor to be announced. 

Michele Khazak was so excited to perform for you on November 20th. Very sadly, Michele suddenly and unexpectedly passed away on October 17th. In the wake of this tragic loss, we are turning November 20th into a tribute concert for her. You will still get to hear Michele’s voice, as well as experience arrangements and improvisations from many members of her musical family. We hope you will join us to send her spirit off with song, and to celebrate the incredible human and incredible talent that she was.

Please join Erin McNally – voice, Heather Bentley – viola/cello, Kate Olson – saxes, Brian Bermudez – saxes, Jason Parker – trumpet, Michael Owcharuk – piano, Nate Omdal – bass, and Adam Kessler – drums in celebrating Michele and the profound impact she brought to our lives.

thee dialectic, a new piece by Gust Burns, explores dynamics engendered by the difference between the continuous and the discrete. Through compositional strategies of syncope and sustain, this most basic of dialectical relations is clarified, developed, and complexified across an open compositional framework for sextet (2 basses, 2 violins, 2 saxophones). Improvising trio Fidelities (Gust Burns, piano; Troy Schiefelbein, vocals; Mark Kaylor, drums) moves across the sextet’s sonic field, variously engaging, deferring, and catalyzing those dynamics farther. “Lyrics” for thee dialectic are borrowed from various sources, including but not limited to Funkadelic and Frantz Fanon.

Basses: John Seman, John Teske
Violins:  Hanna Broback, Noel Kennon
Saxophones: Neil Welch, Jacob Zimmerman

Jacob Zimmerman‘s The (in)complete Charlie Parker comprises 54 compositions by Charlie Parker performed in succession on alto saxophone.

Day three of the What’s Going On festival, with two conduction events, one with strings plus guests and one with all percussion plus guests, with an incredible line up of phenomenal Seattle improvisers and stellar out of town guests.

What’s Going On: Conduction, Improvisation, and the Culture of Structure honors the work and lives of Lawrence “Butch” Morris, Sun Ra, and Henry Threadgill. The festival celebrates the innovations and musical philosophies of these three mid-century African American musical conceptualists, all of whom created highly personal approaches to structural integrity in music. They all borrowed concepts from a wide range of traditions, eschewing European conventions while looking for new ways to expand beyond the traditional assumptions inherent in the music commonly known as jazz.

November 14^th at the Chapel features two large ensembles, Kin of the Moon Orchestra and Manual de Ritmo de Percussion con Senas, each performing a set of conductions based on themes by Morris, Threadgill, Sun Ra, Roscoe Mitchell, Carla Bley, Wayne Horvitz, and Julius Hemphill. The first ensemble is a string chamber orchestra and the second is an ensemble of nine percussionists. Featured soloists include Leanna Keith, Brandon Ross, Ingrid Laubrock and Robin Holcomb.

“Conduction” is a technique in which the artist uses hand symbols to orchestrate the music of an ensemble of improvisers. Elements of written music are sometimes used, often not. This technique has roots in various music traditions but was formalized and came into common practice largely due to the efforts of Lawrence “Butch” Morris. Mr. Morris passed a decade ago, and the festival began as an homage to his legacy, and the spirit of re-­imagining notions of structure in music.

Co-presented South Hudson Music Project and Nonsequitur.

Composers Nat Evans and John Teske present an evening of music, joined by acclaimed cellist Lori Goldston.

Landscape and a sense of place are recurring themes in the composers’ work, including scores that resemble maps and field recordings that echo a forest in transition. Warm Buchla‑synth tones, long bass drones, and Goldston’s singular cello voice invite listeners to access the landscape within, an embodied sound experience.

The program unfolds as a single, continuous piece — a series of movements by Teske and Evans woven together. Long‑time collaborators, this evening of work reflects more than a decade of ideas and a close friendship shared in music.

Nat Evans is a composer and artist whose interdisciplinary works range from site-specific events and installations to chamber music, scores for dance and film, conceptual works based in ecology and social practice, to meditations on everyday life. His work is regularly presented across the United States, and has also been presented in Europe, South America, Australia and China. Evans has received numerous commissions including The Henry, Odeon Quartet, San Francisco MOMA, Seattle Art Museum, The City of Tomorrow, Portland Cello Project, ALL RISE, The Box Is Empty, and Newfields Museum, among others. Works and events by Evans have been featured on WNYC’s New Sounds and BBC3, as well as in LA Weekly, WIRED, The New York Times, VICE, Tiny Mix Tapes, The Believer and numerous other publications. His work has appeared at galleries such as Tiger Strikes Asteroid NY, Interstitial, SOIL, The Frye Art Museum, Greg Kucera, as well as Mediate Art Soundwave Biennial, Aqua Art Miami, Dog Star Orchestra, NEPO 5k, and other festivals. He studied music at Butler University with Michael Schelle, Craig Hetrick and Frank Felice.

John Teske is a Seattle-based composer writing contemporary concert music and presenting site-specific performances. He has written works for soloists, chamber ensembles, and chamber orchestras, which have been performed across the Americas and Europe. Teske’s compositional approach balances intentional composition with spontaneous expression. He uses algorithmic techniques to generate scores and musical systems that incorporate chance, variation, and improvisation. He experiments with distilling musical concepts to their essence and aims to write music that can be performed by any ensemble of instruments. Teske’s work has been supported by organizations such as the Seattle Office of Arts & Cultural Affairs, the Jack Straw Foundation, and the City of Seattle.

Hosted by Debacle Records. Doors open at 7:30.

Two of the Pacific Northwest’s most lovely experimental artists have recently put out work that deserves celebrating. Spiritual Exit (Aaron Davis) has released Fragment, a record built from pieces of his own history spanning back to 1999, reconstructed into something that honors nostalgia without surrendering to it. His moving drones, layering guitars and reprocessed sources create these emotional arcs that feel like loss and hope stacked recursively building towards the sky. Meanwhile, John Swanke just dropped the first chapter of his rain country music – stark Americana-inflected guitars, woozy synths, and beautiful field recordings on local label Eiderdown. It’s really something special. Rounding out the evening is Sonora Enjambre, who creates swarms of cascading sound designed for spiritual respite and reflection, guided sonic journeys that prioritize the regenerative power of deep listening. Come out and celebrate these certified rippers.

Spiritual Exit (Aaron Davis) is a Portland-based experimental musician with over 25 years of practice in drone and ambient music. Previously known for his project Acre (early 2000s-2016), which earned critical acclaim for technical innovation and appeared on decade-best lists alongside Tim Hecker and Yellow Swans, Spiritual Exit represents an evolution toward more dynamic emotional territories while maintaining his commitment to heavy and immersive sounds.

John Swanke is a Camano Island-based instrumentalist exploring what he calls “rain country” music, a deeply personal approach that bridges experimental guitar work with regional landscape and ambient tones. John’s practice is rooted in collaboration and a contemplative pride in his natural surroundings.

Sonora Enjambre (Sombra) is a descendant of the Condor y la Aguila who dwells on Duwamish land. Often times, we are inundated with the distraction of “reality and responsibility” and denied what is needed for our spirits to regenerate. Sonorous respite is the desired experience to be shared, reflection for the soul is encouraged, open hearts are welcome.