Beau Wood, EJ Brannan, Trevor Eulau, Jacob Lipp, and Matt Camgros perform a ceremonial free improvisation that invites listeners to enter a space that is sacred, musical and performative. The group will utilize singing bowls, percussive instruments, bass, and viola.

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. 

Trevor Eulau – guitar, singing bowls, voice
Beau Wood – bass
Jacob Lipp – saxophone
EJ Brannan – percussion/drum set
Matt Camgros – percussion/drum set

An evening with two stunningly original bowed string masters:

Judith Hamann (Berlin)
Solo cello and duo with cellist Lori Goldston (Seattle)

Swil Kanim (Ferndale, WA)
Solo violin

Swil Kanim is a US Army Veteran, classically trained violinist, native storyteller/actor, and a member of the Lummi Nation. Swil Kanim considers himself and his music to be the product of a well-supported public school music program. Music and the performance of music helped him to process the traumas associated with his early placement into the foster care system. His compositions incorporate classical influences as well as musical interpretations of his journey from depression and despair to spiritual and emotional freedom. The music and stories that emerge from his experiences have been transforming people’s lives for decades. Because of his unique ability to inspire audiences to express themselves honorably, Swil Kanim is a sought-after keynote speaker for conferences, workshops, school assemblies, and rehabilitation centers, and travels extensively throughout the United States, enchanting audiences with his original composition music and native storytelling.

Judith Hamann is a cellist and performer/composer from Narrm/Birraranga/Melbourne, in so-called Australia. They have “long been recognised as one of Australia’s foremost contemporary-music cellists” (RealTime Arts) and as a composer who “destroys the fiction of the musician who lives and works outside conventional parameters and puts in its place a series of compositions that are fundamentally humane” (Louise Grey, WIRE Magazine). Their work encompasses performance, improvisation, electro-acoustic composition, field recording, electronics, site specific generative work, and micro-tonal systems in a deeply considered process-based, or even ‘nomadic’ approach to creative practice.

Judith will perform studies drawing on their work for cello and humming, and shaking. Here, Judith challenges the boundaries of their instruments, cello and voice, considering how bodily and sonic thresholds offer generative sites of instability and movement, vulnerability and intimacy. Currently their work is focused on an examination of expressions and manifestations of ‘shaking’ in solo performance practice, a collection of new works for cello and humming, and ongoing research surrounding ‘collapse’ and the ‘de-mastering’ of instrumental practice.

Curated for Nonsequitur’s NonSeq series by Lori Goldston.

88 keys, 17 pedals, 12 strings, 4 pickups, 4 wizards, and a medley of metal pipes assemble together to conjure an evening of previously unimagined incantations and spells.

Tom Baker is a composer, guitarist, improviser, electronicist, and educator. He will attempt to employ all 17 pedals on his pedalboard during this show, in honor of his childhood hero, Evel Knievel.

Leanna Keith uses a variety of tubes and air (otherwise known as flutes) to create melodies, textures, and conjurations.

Local speculationist Keith Eisenbrey ponders and putters with the inner workings of music far more hours of the day than the majority of surveyed dentists recommend, and may still be wandering around in an oblique pitch-class dimension.

Jim Knodle continues to outrun the wrecking ball in pursuit of the golden moments of music. He currently gathers select groups of like-minded players for algo-rhythmic performances.

(Graphic: Daniel Husser)

Nonsequitur welcomes the new cohort of community curators for their 2023 NonSeq concert series: Lori Goldston, Paul Kikuchi, Afroditi Psarra, and Michaud Savage all bring a wealth of experience and broad musical knowledge to the job of selecting the artists Nonsequitur presents. Each of them will be responsible for curating three NonSeq events in the coming year, for a total of twelve shows featuring local and visiting artists. To kick off the new concert season, they will also be performing in a special Curators Concert at the Chapel. Each artist will have a 20-minute set to fill however they wish – solo, with others, or a mixture of both. Please join us for an evening of improvisation, composition, and electronics.

What do dreams remember? Do they remember us? Dream Amnesia is a specific and unspecific atmosphere of half answers to these and other questions that take the form of poems and sound, déjà vus and clouds.

Melanie Noel is a poet preoccupied with bugs and animals and how they might write to each other across species and time. She’ll be reading from her dream diaries.

Kyle Hanson creates shimmering sounds on the accordion with an original bellows technique. This evening’s music will be a mix of ambience and song.

Simone Baron is a polyglot pianist, accordionist, improviser and composer whose work is “ego-less, genre agnostic and without expectations” (JazzTimes) and engages curiously and charismatically with a broad spectrum of idioms. Simone is a Victoria Artist and plays a Poeta XB Accordion. She leads a mostly hammock-filled nomadic existence these days, but does bounce between NY & DC a fair amount. 

Marina Albero is one of the true gems on the Seattle music scene. Since her arrival from Barcelona in 2014, her playing, magnificent when she arrived, has evolved exponentially. Her immersion in jazz, flamenco, Cuban and classical forms during her musical life are well represented in her sound. 

These two electrifying and innovative improvisers join forces to present an evening of fresh new music inspired by moss and somatic empathy. The evening will feature works-in-progress written and developed at the Bloedel Reserve on Bainbridge Island, where Simone Baron is the composer in residence this month, as well as literary experiments, graphic scores and your run-of-the-mill stunningly lyrical heartbreak song. They will be joined by some friends, and there will also be a group improvised component at the end- feel free to bring an instrument.

Local experimental label Obscure & Terrible presents a selection of their roster, featuring Kole Galbraith, Medina/Walsh, Domenica Diavoleria and Empire State Observatories. With a focus on drone, noise, improv and electro-acoustic music, Obscure & Terrible has been bridging Northwest sound artists with national and international collaborators since 2020. 

Olympia-based musician Domenica Diavoleria recently released her album “Forever Your Salesgirl” on Obscure & Terrible, which Dave Segal describes as, “ambient music of great desolation and eeriness.” The album focuses on “hauntology” with clouds of synthesizers serving as Domenica’s pallette. 

Seattle guitarist/keyboardist Sean Curley has been generating music for the past decade under the alias Empire State Observatories. The project draws comparisons to Fripp & Eno’s ambient works and Loveless’ wall of sound guitar distortions. 

Seattle and Estonia-based artist Kole Galbraith creates both fast-frenetic harsh noise pieces and long-form drone abstractions, which are described by French artist Golem Mechanique as, “somewhere between Bernard Permegiani walking on fire and an unknown Stalker soundtrack. Brutal literature. Every sound is relevant.”

Duo Medina/Walsh is a collaboration between artists Josh Medina and Paurl Walsh, whose almost decade long collaboration has ranged from electro-acoustic americana music to minimal audio-visual installations. Ever changing and evolving, this rare performance follows the release of Walsh’s solo endeavor into abstract techno via his album “Pocket Worlds” (Debacle/Yield).

The Seattle Composers Alliance proudly presents Living Strings, the latest installment of its popular Live Sessions concert series. Original compositions for string quartet, written by members of the Seattle Composers Alliance, have been selected for public performance by Arcobaleno Strings. Featured composers: William Aleshire, Galina Belolipetski, Lawrence Brown, Mariza Cabral, Amy Denio, Jenny Davis, Freddy Fuego, Gretta Harley, Ramgopal Krishnaraju, Anne Merryfield, Richard Rodseth, Seven Sky, Jacob Stenzel, Oren Sternberg, Kai Strandskov, and William Zander. Compositions were chosen from a recent Call for Scores to be performed in the ongoing Live Sessions concert series, which is open to the public.

The Seattle Composers Alliance (SCA) was founded in the early 2000s by a small group of composers and audio professionals, and has since expanded to include 60+ music creators who compose for film, video games, dance, concert performances, and much more. Its mission of Connecting Seattle’s Music Creators to Community, Education, and Opportunity is powered by the generosity of donations from music lovers around the world, and is fiscally sponsored as a non-profit by Shunpike. The Seattle Composers Alliance Live Sessions Concert Series has become a post-pandemic success story in Seattle, featuring the original works of SCA members performed quarterly by renowned Seattle-area musicians. 

Arcobaleno Strings is a group of Seattle area musicians founded in 2008 by cellist Nicole Williams. The ensemble performs regularly throughout the Puget Sound area at both private and public events, and explores an expansive variety of genres including classical, rock, jazz. All of its musicians fit uniquely into the Seattle area music scene playing with many different ensembles, teaching in varied environments, and creatively exploring their own music projects. 

Oort Smog aims to continue the sax-drum duo tradition, inspired by early formations such as John Coltrane and Rashied Ali and continued through the years by Anthony Braxton & Andrew Cyrille, Sax Ruins & Dead Neanderthals. Mark Kimbrell and Patrick Shiroishi combine elements of brutal prog (both are members in Upsilon Acrux) and free improvisation in their long form composition Every Motherfucker is Your Brother.

Joining Oort Smog on stage will be Seattle-based saxophonist Neil Welch and drummer/composer Sheridan Riley‘s Big Plans.

Tari Nelson-Zagar was a special part of the Pacific Northwest music community, moving with ease between free improvisation, jazz, and new & old classical music. She was known for her musical skill, keen intellect, and generous and humorous personality. Tari “transitioned off-planet” (in her words) last October, after a tragically short battle with breast cancer. Join us for a concert of remembrances and music as we honor Tari through words, sound, and movement.

Participants include Jesse Canterbury, Eric Rynes, Gust Burns, Paul Rucker, Sheri Cohen, Daisy Zajonc, Michael Zachary, Greg Campbell, Christian Asplund, Andrew Drury, Stuart Dempster, Tom Baker, Lori Goldston, and Jim Knodle.  

In lieu of a traditional admission fee, we will accept voluntary donations on Tari’s behalf to Community Passageways.