Enter a world where sound is spirit, and every performance is a ceremony. Tiger Poems, a trio of visionary explorers, conjures a unique universe where the rigorous spontaneity of free improvisation meets the primal pulse of animistic trance ritual.

Hear the voice as a wild, untamed instrument. Arrington de Dionyso (Old Time Relijun, Malaikat dan Singa) channels guttural overtone singing and hollering melodies, while his bass clarinet offers everything from raven-croak murmurs to Ayleresque glossolalia. He is met by the all-caps kinetic piano of Gust Burns, a master of texture and dynamic architecture, who navigates the strings and keys to build tumultuous, resonant storms. Noel Kennon holds the space together, sculpting time and vibration with an array of gongs, metallic objects and giant bass drums. The trio yawps in a language of shimmering overtones and deep, grounding frequencies that physically shake the air.

TIGER POEMS is not a concert, but the invocation of an ancient growl. In the resonant acoustics of the Chapel Performance Space at the Good Shepherd Center, the trio weaves a collective, unrepeatable journey. Expect a transformative “beyond-listening” experience—a cascade of primal echoes, modern dissonances, and hypnotic rhythms that bypasses the intellect to speak directly to the body and the unseen.

Tiger Poems invites you to witness the moment where music becomes ritual, and the performance space becomes a sacred ground for summoned sound.

Ahmad Yousefbeigi will open the event promptly at 8pm with a solo set showcasing his breathtaking mastery of the Kurdish Daf (frame drum).

James Falzone presents Mystery of Winter Skies, new music for the rare combination of string quartet and penny whistles. Commissioned and premiered in 2025, the work is a meditation on the mystery of existence and natural beauty. 

Featuring: 

James Falzone: composer and penny whistles
Alex Guy: violin
Luke Fitzpatrick: violin
Erin Wight: viola
Rose Bellini: cello 

Threshold is an improvising band composed of Seattle music scene veterans Don Berman (drums), Dennis Rea (guitar), Simon Henneman (guitar), and Heather Bentley (cello). This project is the manifestation of a musical vision Berman has held for years. His late father, William Berman, was a master violist who performed extensively in symphonic and string quartet settings. Having listened to so much of his chamber music playing, Don decided to form a 21st century string quartet: cello, two guitarists, percussion, and creative electronics, as opposed to the classical two violins, viola, and cello format. The music from their first album has been described as “often challenging listeners to identify the sources of the unique sounds they are hearing.” Bruce Greeley wrote about their second album: “A quartet of questions. . .I hear four equal voices. . . [T]he music proves to be its own consciousness-expanding sound show for the ears!” — Earshot Jazz Magazine (41:7) July, 2025.

Active for more than 20 years, Tempered Steel is Frank Junk, and Dennis Rea playing amplified, electronically enhanced thumb pianos. The trio thumbs its collective nose at musical convention with seamless improvisations conjuring everything from phantom harpsichords and subterranean percussion to vintage musique concrete. The group has played Seaprog, the Olympia Experimental Music Festival, Northwest Folklife Festival, the Zero-G Concert Series, and scads of underground haunts in the Pacific Northwest. Recommended to partisans of Harry Partch, John Cage’s prepared piano music, and Konono No. 1. Tempered Steel’s eponymous album is available through the usual streaming services. 

Composer and percussionist Joey Largent, visiting from Istanbul, joins movement artist Maumae (formerly Katrina Wolfe) for a three-hour durational performance of sculptural movement, improvised cymbal music, and field recordings.

In 2021, Joey Largent and Maumae performed a three-hour, durational work, Basaltic Void Dervishes, for improvised cymbals and dance at the Chapel, featuring a long-form movement duet in collaboration with her mother, Kawtee Wolfe. Nearly four years later, in this continuation of the work, they will come together again to construct another expansive meditative space at the peak of winter, oriented towards their shared practices of mysticism and inward investigation. 

Maumae will work with slow, sustained movement, gradually transforming the relationship between her body and a sculptural costume composed of industrial wire mesh and dried hydrangeas. The costume is visible in its original form at the beginning of the performance and is slowly dismantled and reshaped through movement over time. As the piece unfolds, the costume will not return to its initial state, rather, its changing nature will constantly be understood from when one enters the space to how long one remains present.

Joey will perform on ten closely mic’d cymbals, layered with long-form, natural field recordings collected during his recent travels in Türkiye and Georgia (საქართველო), and past travels in Washington State. His sound offers a deep, repetitive resonance that enraptures both space and the body.

Doors open at 6 PM. The performance begins promptly at 6:30pm and continues without intermission until 9:30pm. Audience members are welcome to come and go as needed, though those who are able are encouraged to arrive at the beginning and remain for a longer stretch in order to experience the full arc of the costume’s transformation with the sound. To preserve the gentleness of the closing, we ask that no entry or exit occur between 9:00pm and the end at 9:30pm. 

Attendees are encouraged to bring blankets, sleeping pads, or anything that helps them settle comfortably into the space. Gentle movement, meditation, dancing, and sema are welcome. Those who remain through the end are warmly invited to stay for a short period afterward of conversation and shared time.

Joey Largent is a semi-nomadic composer, writer, and publisher from Arkansas, currently based in Istanbul. His work often centers on long-duration work, acoustic mysticism, and field recording, exploring sound as devotion and sustained presence.

Maumae (formerly Katrina Wolfe) is an interdisciplinary artist working with sculptural movement, organic materials, costume, film, and photography. Her practices explore the body and organic and recycled materials as sites of transformation, ritual, and ecological memory.

TORCH (Brian Chin, trumpets, Eric Likkel, clarinets, Steve Schermer, bass, and Bonnie Whiting, percussion) is a multi-arts collective of artists dedicated to the creation and performance of new socially-conscious work. Embedded within the collective is a contemporary chamber music ensemble whose original compositions play with our heady intellects and our groove-craving souls. Rooted in contemporary classical, jazz, and improvised music, TORCH bridges the gaps between genres, re-imagines classic masterworks, and demonstrates an indie-band model of self-composition. This performance features original music by the collective as well as world premieres by local favorites Tom Baker, Sarah Bassingthwaighte, Ed Castro, Garrett Fisher, and Aidan Gold.

A night of free-improvised music flavored with drone and noise.

Just back from touring, Friends of the Road is an experimental string band from Seattle exploring long-form acoustic drones rooted in a melting pot of influences from American-primitive, dhrupad, and free improvisation which coalesce into original arrangements of traditional folk tunes.

Casey Adams is a Seattle-based builder and creator of electro-acoustic noise. As a performer, Casey attempts to fuse disparate and peripheral sounds while exploring movement, tension, intensity, and the materiality of auditory experience; pursuant of a moment that never arrives.

‘what’ is the East/West Sound performing and recording duo of A.F. Jones and Dave Abramson. Since their formation and first tour in 2018, their shows and recording projects are entirely improvised.

An evening of improvised music from Lu Evers (clarinet), Amy Denio (alto sax, voice), Lady Zade (cello), and Tom Scully (guitar). The joy of spontaneity, sharing in the moment of awareness, the scintillating particles in the diverse array of dimension.

An evening of ambient and electronic drone music, slow and calming. Come and relax for as long as you wish.

Ben Kaya is an American composer, producer and performer based in Belgium. His work primarily is concerned with simplicity, limitation and repetition, using long durations, repetitive motifs and a focus on texture in sound and visuals to bring a natural life to his vision. He will use hardware synthesizers in the trio to create a blanket and base layer of sound.

Last Train West is a Seattle-based producer and sound artist. His work blends sampling with generative melody. Using synthesizers and samplers, he will provide melodic reinforcement throughout the performance.

Aetheres is a Seattle-based composer and sound designer whose work blends ambient textures with dramatic, melodic expression. In this performance he will use various electronic devices to add texture to the ever present cloud.

Poetry and ambient engross the air in an evening built for the therians of the PNW.

Exploring the cacophonous silence of the desert with hypnotic percussion and animal calls, Bassariscus takes you on a trip through the therianthropic mind.

frrn is a Seattle-based ambient experimental musician. With both her records and improvised live performances her music is a blending of melodic, sweeping drones and fragments of tone and texture that build vast emotional landscapes that invite the listener to dive deep within and to drift and reflect as the river of sound pulls them along. Her music exists somewhere in-between, weaving through darkness and light.

Shimi is a storyteller, musician, and performance artist whose work moves between memoir, myth, and ritual. Her performances explore the thin boundary between what is human and animal, what is sacred and what is feral. Bringing Lykaeon to Seattle, she offers a forest-born performance of spoken word and music — part poetry, part monologue, all howl. Blending mythology, ancient stories, and sound art, she calls you back to the wild, inviting you to remember the instinct that still lives beneath the skin — the pull of something ancient and creaturely inside.

Accompanying the longer acts of the nights, we will also get to behold the works of 4 different poets. Rose Novick will read poems about centipedes. Nocki :3 will perform an oration of several extended monologues on its experiences since moving to Seattle, falling in love, finding community, and dealing with what comes after. Twig shares his story of an unexpected and profound shift. Trop will provide the results of her states of mental fluidity where she writes about feelings of inhumanity and the pains that come with human coexistence.

This event is hosted by Impact! Foundation, a trans-run nonprofit founded and doing live events in Seattle.

(Image above by netsui_prime)

Doors open 6:30.

Guitar Worship Service is playful in name but the intention praises the importance of the creative possibilities of a guitar. Since 2013, GWS presentations select musicians/sound sculptors/artists to examine what a guitar physically or conceptually is. While there are different types of guitars (electric, acoustic, steel, bass, homemade, video game, etc.), past performances have given audiences diverse solo sets and unique one-off collaborations. With encouragement to push creative boundaries, the GWS series has but one requisite for every live performance: At least one guitar, in whatever capacity, is applied with unrestricted interpretation. 

For this evening, the 10th Guitar Worship Service proudly presents five highly anticipated sets washed in improvised visual projections: 

Golden Counting resulted from a 1 + 1 + 1 = 3 happenstance to form an incomparable trio. 12-string prepared guitar (Sue Ann Harkey) + cello (Lori Goldston) + electronics (Tondiue) seems an unlikely equation, however this project has performed once and only at The Chapel in 2023. Each of these musicians stand as pillars when performing solo sets. But 2023’s performance interlaced these three unique artists who effortlessly loped toward aural achievement. To hear 2023’s performance and to read the backstory on Golden Counting’s formation, review the link and you’ll understand how the math adds up.

Daniel Menche is an iconic experimental musician from Portland, Oregon. His extensive history of recording and performance continues to span over three decades. Menche’s sonic abstractions manifest through intense noise, immersive drones, dense ambiance, acoustic instruments, and many other sources creating an absolute, abstract sonic world. For this evening’s performance, Daniel will apply proven acumen toward interpretations of what a guitar is or rather can be.

Dave Webb has been obsessed with every aspect of a guitar since 1993. While most known as a technically mind-blowing rock and metal player with regional and international groups, Dave has ventured into jazz, free improvisation, and outsider territories. This will be his first performance at the Chapel but he is no stranger to musicians who have been regular performers here. In fact, he’s been a collaborator with several of them, so this venue will be an acquainted forum. But given his dexterity, it’s a mystery what genre or blended styles Dave will display for us.

The Colour Out of Space was a prolific duo with plenty of performances left in the vapour trails of their eventual disappearance. It has been eight years since the last witness. Patrick Neill Gundran (electric guitar) and Blake DeGraw (various brass wind instruments) re-emerge from the darkness to shine upon us their motley destinations to auditory chaos. Past sets have arrayed dense clashes of instrumentation not unlike planets colliding to orbiting silent voids not unlike the vastness of outer space itself. TCOoS’s trip could lead us anywhere including uncharted expanses. Welcome back, audionauts.

Moned produces as a guitar conduit that, by sculpting seismic walls of warm feedback, manipulating frequencies, and layering volume-swelling tones, further explores this instrument’s endless possibilities to sound nothing like its traditional intention. However, this set will present a piece titled “Mating/Demating” which will involve the amplified dismantling of an electric guitar built on the foundation of a tempered Larsen Effect. Create to destroy. Destroy to create. A unique one-off experience to witness. 

Color Bard Visual projected eye-melting optics on the huge white wall behind the Chapel’s stage for the 8th Guitar Worship Service. Matthew Terry uses that wall as a canvas to improvise sound-triggered interactions with the performing musicians to create an audio/visual occurrence while transforming the Chapel into an ocular wonderland soundtracked by the strangest of guitar recitals.

Please join us for this exclusive experience.