Please note that our building’s only elevator is still out of service, so the only way to access the Chapel is via a couple flights of stairs. We apologize for the inconvenience.

Trevor Eulau (guitar, singing bowls, voice), Beau Wood (bass), Jacob Lipp (saxophone), EJ Brannan (percussion/drum set), Matt Camgros (percussion/drum set) perform a ceremonial free improvisation that invites listeners to enter a space that is sacred, musical and performative.

The group started as an effort to clear heavy energies from a University of Washington music room. The room carried a lot of weight, and Matt, EJ, Trevor and Beau decided to hold a ceremony to help uplift the room and hopefully bring it some radiance and relief. The resulting music was the start of a magical gathering of friends, making music that is present and all encompassing. This will be the first sharing of this intimate kind of music making with others. 

Please note that our building’s only elevator is still out of service, so the only way to access the Chapel is via a couple flights of stairs. We apologize for the inconvenience.

Veteran Seattle electronic music composer Marc Barreca performs electronic compositions with modular synth and audio processing. He has been making electronic music in Seattle since the mid-1970s, releasing a number of projects over the years on the Hawaii-based Palace of Lights label. His most recent releases include the solo CD Recordings of Failing Light, and a collaboration with K. Leimer, Drowning Guides.

Young Scientist was formed in Seattle in the mid-1970’s by James Husted, Roland Barker and Marc Barreca, performing for several years with analog synths, tape loops and keyboards. Following re-releases of 1970s material on the German labels Bureau B and Vinyl on Demand, Husted and Barreca sporadically reunite for live performances of YS’s immersive blend of pulsating electronics and soundscapes.

Monster Planet is a place that lies beyond the furthest reaches of our imaginations. Extensive research into this vast uncharted world is conducted by the mysterious SYNPROV CORP, a pulsating throb of musicians, producers, sound designers, visual artists, pixel bandits, and B-movie chuds, based in Seattle, WA, USA, Earth, Solar System, and so on and so forth… Audiences are immersed in surreal audio/visual performances that blend cutting-edge ambient, experimental electronica, obscure cinema, DIY visuals, and general WTFness.

Please note that our building’s only elevator is still out of service, so the only way to access the Chapel is via a couple flights of stairs. We apologize for the inconvenience.

Local percussionist and composer Aaron Michael Butler premieres two new works for solo percussion by composers Matt Sargent and Anthony Donofrio. 

Donofrio’s Until Then plays with narrative by interweaving six musical “stories” – related through texture, timbre, and/or musical material – in a non-linear arc that explores the effects that duration can have on memory and meaning. 

Of Bell Arcs, Sargent says:

Bell Arcs is a book of patterns, composed for Aaron Michael Butler. The piece began its life as a few pages of non-repeating, simple-yet-strange patterns that lived in the back of one of my notebooks for several years. When Aaron asked about a new piece and mentioned his instrument collection (including a collection of unusual orchestral chimes), the purpose for these patterns as a compositional idea suddenly came into focus. Each of the movements of “Bell Arcs” present the performer with questions of notation, physicality, and improvisation. The music is constructed throughout with slowly phasing/orbiting patterns, which reveal new variations with every pass. I hope that the listener feels drawn to dwell and meditate within this environment of ringing metal.

Matt Sargent will also perform his Fifth Illumination for solo electric guitar and electronics. 

Please join us for an evening of delicate, meditative experimentalism. Listeners are encouraged to bring yoga mats, blankets, etc. to enjoy the evening if they wish. No one turned away for lack of funds.

Please note that our building’s only elevator is still out of service, so the only way to access the Chapel is via a couple flights of stairs. We apologize for the inconvenience.

Lara Grant (Portland) is a designer, educator, and fabricator of interactive works that often include e-textiles and wearable electronics. Her past adventures include being part of the Instructables Design Studio, teaching a studio class called Wearable and Soft Interactions at California College of Arts, and co-authoring a chapter on soft and musical circuit projects in the 3rd edition of Handmade Electronic Music, by Nicolas Collins. She is currently a co-organizer of the electronic textile camp. The sewing machine has been a chosen tool of Lara’s for many years, so it made sense to explore one sonically while looking for interesting ways to create sounds. During the night Lara will perform with some of her latest sewing machine instruments in conjunction with her modular synth setup.

Julia Santoli (Brooklyn) is a multi-disciplinary artist and experimental musician who creates immersive and precarious environments with voice, feedback, electronics, and installation. Her approach to vocalization integrates embodied practice with an attention to close listening and empathetic response, in electroacoustic compositions and structured improvisations often tipping the scales between resonant clarity and extreme sonic states. Currently, she is pursuing doctoral studies in music and social practices in the Ethnomusicology program at The Graduate Center, CUNY. She is also a part of the Feedback Ensemble alongside Luke Stewart, Leila Bordreuil, Chris Corsano, John McCowen, C. Spencer Yeh, and Nate Wooley. This evening, Julia will construct a system of feedback sources throughout the space, enacting a site of deep listening and improvisation. Songs will emerge from her current work traversing dream stages through frequency patterns.

Chari Glogovac-Smith (Seattle) is an Emmy-nominated composer, performer, and intermedia artist. Using an evolving mixture of traditional and experimental techniques, Chari is dynamically exploring and illustrating various counterpoints between the human experience and society. Chari’s recent works have posed questions about empathy, conflict, landscapes and cultural connections, the archive, social justice, healing, listening, and time.

Curated for Nonsequitur‘s NonSeq series by Afroditi Psarra.

Please note that our building’s only elevator is still out of service, so the only way to access the Chapel is via a couple flights of stairs. We apologize for the inconvenience.

Schizophonia, from the Greek; schizo– to split / phonia– sound | the splitting of sound from its original source | The twentieth century development of sound reproduction and its cultural impact on society prompted Canadian composer R. Murray Schafer to coin the term schizophonia, writing that “…it was intended to be a nervous word… I intended it to convey…(a) sense of aberration and drama…” In his experimental theater work for harp, “The Crown of Ariadne”, Schafer employs schizophonia to mirror the trauma and violence of a Greek myth in the relationship between instrument and performer. Centered around that pivotal work, this program descends further into the labyrinth, exploring how the physical mechanism of the harp invites the use of schizophonic gestures to establish dislocated soundscapes. Each work is based on a unique choreography of sonic obfuscation where performative movement shapes new meaning and sounds, leaning into the aberration that Schafer spoke of. The harp is decontextualized, allowing it to evoke aching tenderness and brutal destruction simultaneously. Within this unsettling atmosphere, the instrument is transformed, taking the severance of sound and turning it into a ritual for understanding the ugliness and beauty of life. 

Melissa Achten is a Los Angeles based harpist focused on experimentation and immersive musical ritual. Her performances directly engage with the listener, blurring the relationship between bodies, instruments, and sound to destabilize and thereby reveal hidden meaning. Within carefully conjured atmospheres, she explores the nuances of surrealism, fantasy, mythology, and the occult and what these say about the human condition. In her hands, the harp is untangled from convention and remade as a divining tool for channeling work that is diaristic, intimate, and cathartic. Drawn to interdisciplinary form, Melissa frequently collaborates with performers, composers, and other artists to realize their work and her own.

Please note that our building’s only elevator is still out of service, so the only way to access the Chapel is via a couple flights of stairs. We apologize for the inconvenience.

Trio de Bois presents an evening of new music for reed trio (bassoon, oboe, clarinet) featuring an international roster of living composers and highlighting works commissioned for their groundbreaking Call for Scores commission project. Featured composers are Adrienne Albert, Reed Hanna, Jon Grier, and Adi Traar. This concert will also be streamed live here.

This recital represents the culmination of three years of work in commissioning and premiering 30 new pieces into the canon for bassoon, oboe, and clarinet ensemble. When this project began at the onset of the COVID lockdown in April of 2020, the ensemble learned to adapt rehearsals to an online format to make preparations from their isolated locations in three different states. The musicians of Trio de Bois have honed this process of rehearsing from Utah, Washington, and Texas, bringing in composers from around the world through Zoom to collaborate and create. After three years of virtual rehearsal and preparation, they are finally able to come together for the first time in person to perform selections from this project live and in concert.  

Lori Shepherd is a local freelance clarinetist and woodwind specialist based in Woodinville. In addition to performing chamber music on clarinet, she is often spotted doubling on sax and flute in musical pits at the Village and 5th Avenue theaters, or sitting in with local orchestras and jazz ensembles. 

Hailing from Houston, Texas, bassoonist Robyn Watson is a new addition to the Seattle music scene. Since her arrival last summer, she has been called to perform up and down the Pacific Northwest coast with the Village Theater, Auburn Symphony, Oregon Symphony, and Oregon Ballet Theater. She also continues jet set for performances with the Avant Chamber Ballet and East Texas Symphony in Dallas.

Nicole Marriott-Fullmer, oboist, resides in Pleasant Grove, Utah. She is an active freelance musician, performing on call with the Utah Symphony and Ballet West in Salt Lake City. Additionally, she plays in a contemporary fusion quartet called Chrome Street, alongside her guitarist husband and violin & cello colleagues.

Please note that our building’s only elevator is still out of service, so the only way to access the Chapel is via a couple flights of stairs. We apologize for the inconvenience.

From graphic scores to broken instruments, Ensemble Unnamable presents an evening of acoustic music, led by writer and composer Ian Gwin. 

The term “Pure Land” in Buddhist discourse refers to fields of activity beyond transmigration, spaces of contemplation a practitioner visits on the way to enlightenment. As a plane of transition from the difficulties of earthly life, a pure land invites new worlds of sound and perception. 

Inspired by this iconography and its use in meditation practice, writer and composer Ian Gwin presents a set of experimental compositions prepared for particular performers. 

These include “Pure Lands,” a minimal graphic piece written for Moscow-born violinist Kirill Polyanskiy. A graduate of Cornish School of the Arts, Kirill is the Concertmaster of the WSU Symphony Orchestra and plays in the first violin section of the Washington Idaho Symphony.

“Winter into Spring,” for solo piano, features dancer Yarrow Grae, a Seattle-born visual artist whose art has been exhibited in Norway and featured in residence at Massia Art Collective in Estonia. 

“Suite for Broken Instruments” groups poet Eric Acosta with composer-performer Joey Largent. Known for his bimonthly poetry reading series, Eric has published in Concision, Clamor, NoMaterial, and performed music at Vermilion Gallery in Seattle. Focused on long-duration acoustic improvisations, Joey studied North Indian Classical Singing with disciples of Pandit Pran Nath, like Michael Harrison and Rose Okada.

“One Difference” also features Largent and writer/musician Meredith Davey. Former member of eclectic trio Supernowhere, Meredith composes and plays regularly, including with local group Masha. 

Please note that our building’s only elevator is still out of service, so the only way to access the Chapel is via a couple flights of stairs. We apologize for the inconvenience.

Drummer Sean Meehan (NYC) began performing during the late 1980s, presenting his increasingly refined and reductive approach to the drum set at small, informal spaces and artist-run festivals as well as more prestigious venues. For nearly twenty years he and Tamio Shiraishi presented their summer concert series, always in different interstitial locations throughout New York City. Three of these concerts have been documented on LP on the Fusetron and GD Stereo labels.

Meehan’s most recent projects include a highly abridged audiobook of Hermann von Helmholtz’s seminal text from 1863, On the Sensations of Tone (2017), and Magazine (Sacred Realism, 2022), a piece for solo cowbell. He was featured in a recent issue of the music journal Sound American.

Seattle remains an important place for Meehan as many of his most treasured and enduring friendships and musical partnerships formed here. Tonight he’ll play a solo set with snare drum and cymbals using a range of idiosyncratic and temperamental techniques, often at the mercy of the instrument and room, but ideally some control (composition) will be evident.

tondiue is the vessel conveying the musical expressions of Seattleite Cameron Kelley. These expressions take shape as productions and performances that span a wide range of psychedelic sounds from deep listening to ecstatic dance, all while exploring the sacred roots of afrofuturistic sound design. Hypnotic rhythms, expansive atmospheres and tactile textures form the environments heard and felt in tondiue’s world. Cameron also co-operates local record label and underground event series Apt E, and is part of the organizing group for Group Hum, a local up and coming experimental arts and music festival. For this set Cameron will be joined by two revered veterans of the Seattle experimental community:

Sue Ann Harkey has been a part of Seattle and New York’s underground music and visual arts scenes for decades. Her work, which has been referred to as “futurist folk,” blends philosophical and political lyrics with improvised music inspired by free jazz, electronic, folk, and Middle Eastern and African elements. Harkey discovered improvisational music’s power in 1979, when she began playing guitar with friends; this led to her exploration of the harp-guitar and the 12-string guitar, which she played with mallets, bows, plectrums, and rods, and which also featured alternate tunings and metal discs woven between the strings. By 1980, Harkey formed the cassette label/political pamphlet distributor Cityzens for Non-Linear Futures (CNLF) and the improv group Audio Letter.

Classically trained and rigorously de-trained, possessor of a restless, semi-feral spirit, Lori Goldston is a cellist, composer, improvisor, producer, writer and teacher from Seattle. Her voice as a cellist, amplified or acoustic, is full, textured, committed and original. A relentless inquirer, her work drifts freely across borders that separate genre, discipline, time and geography.

Doors at 7:30; no one turned away for lack of funds.

Curated for Nonsequitur‘s NonSeq series by Lori Goldston.

Please note that our building’s only elevator is still out of service, so the only way to access the Chapel is via a couple flights of stairs. We apologize for the inconvenience.

An evening of experimental electronics in support of the new album, Fractured Whole, by Cruel Diagonals.

Since 2016, Los Angeles-based multimedia artist, Cruel Diagonals (aka Megan Mitchell), has been creating critically acclaimed experimental electronic music and intriguing visuals. Cruel Diagonals has recorded for respected labels Beacon Sound, Longform Editions, and Doom Trip while taking her sound into deeper strata of textural complexity and vocal dexterity. Marked by a grave ethereality, releases such as Pulse Of Indignation (2018), Monolithic Nuance (2018), A Dormant Vigor (2021), and Fractured Whole (2023) feature beautiful singing amid discordant, sinister electronics.

Raica has been producing, performing and deejaying in Seattle for 25 years. She runs Further Records, which is both an online record store and label releasing adventurous underground electronic music.   

Kole Galbraith is a musician and sound artist originally from Wenatchee, Washington. He settled in Seattle after living in Germany, Mexico, and Austria. While traveling, Kole immersed himself in improvised experimental music across multiple genres ranging from free-jazz, harsh noise, new-music, and metal.

Please note that our building’s only elevator is still out of service, so the only way to access the Chapel is via a couple flights of stairs. We apologize for the inconvenience.

Marco de Carvalho (guitar and vocal) & Mirta Wymerszberg (flute, vocal, and bandoneon) invite everyone to experience beautiful original and traditional music from Brazil & Argentina with great rhythm and a fun repertoire. Marco, originally from Rio de Janeiro, and Mirta, from Buenos Aires, bring to life the culture and feel of their cities with magical chemistry and deep artistic knowledge of their roots.