Celebrating the release of the first new Climax Golden Twins record in many years, the Twins will play a set of rare and unusual 78rpm records and Edison cylinders on period equipment, followed by an improv set featuring percussionist Dave Abramson and contra bassist John Seman with the Twins on guitars, electronics and found sounds.

Founded in 1993 by Robert Millis and Jeffery Taylor, Climax Golden Twins is best known for the soundtrack to Session Nine (with the OST on Milan International). They have released compilations of 78rpm shellac records (the Victrola Favorites book on Dust-to-Digital), as well as collage, field recording, musique concrète, instrumental rock, and improv LPs, CDs and cassettes. Their new double LP continues many of these threads and features contributions by friends from Seattle’s vibrant music scene and beyond including Dave Abramson (Diminished Men), John Seman and Mark Ostrowski (Monktail Creative Music Concern), Alan and Richard Bishop (Sun City Girls), Ko Ishikawa (master Japanese sho player), Greg Kelley (trumpet), artist Jesse Paul Miller, music therapist David Knott, painter Marefumi Komura, members of Kinski, the A Frames, Dreamsalon, Yves Son Ace and more.

In addition to working as Climax Golden Twins, Jeffery Taylor plays with Hound Dog Taylor’s Hand and Spider Trio, while Robert Millis has released solo recordings on the Helen Scarsdale Agency and has worked extensively with the Sublime Frequencies record label.

Please join French hornist/composer Tom Varner for a new work for improvising ensemble. Tom has assembled a fantastic assortment of Seattle’s best improvisers:

Tom Varner, French horn
Leanna Keith, flute and bass flute
Aniela Perry, cello
Greg Campbell, percussion and brass
Christian Pincock, trombone and electronics
Max Dawes, guitar, electronics, voice
Weijun Huang, tenor saxophone
Kelsey Mines, bass

(Please note: there is no elevator service on this date, and listeners will need to walk up 4 flights.) 

(Photo: Michelle Smith-Lewis)

An observation of improvised ambient and drone music in various executions under a first quarter moon.

Joey Largent‘s work focuses on exploring long-duration compositions and improvisations for acoustic ensembles and solo performance. Beyond generating music alone, his goal is to offer a space for introspection, releasing from attachment, beauty, and connection. Through site-specific work and field recording, he seeks to connect daily experience more profoundly with the impermanent harmony of the natural world. He has collaborated with numerous dancers, musicians, and interdisciplinary artists over the years, and has studied North Indian Classical singing with several disciples of Pandit Pran Nath including Michael Harrison and Rose Okada.

Tarsier Eyes is the solo project of Dustin Williams, combining warping motifs of dense prepared guitar textures and keening drone beds.

August is based out of Anacortes, Washington and features members August Eliason and Jorgen Lovehart (and for this performance drummer Casey Adams) who will be playing drone music focused on and inspired by the ocean and lunar cycles. This will be layered with various assorted bells and percussion.

Drowse is the project of Kyle Bates based out of Portland, Oregon and currently residing in Los Angeles, California. Kyle’s music fuses elements of drone, musique concrète, ambient, and folk with often very introspective documenting lyrics. His music has been described as “the aural equivalent of blood rushing back to a sleeping limb”. He is currently pursuing a doctorate at CalArts.

“Outlaw Space is a high-energy post-jazz quartet that defies genre labels and adjectives.” — Scott Schaffer.

The formula for Outlaw Space is simple: be patient, color the room, play the infinity within boundaries, raise the vibration and astonish everyone.

Incredible skill, orchestral richness, and an eclectic playfield of musical influences define the improvisations and compositions of this piano quartet led by acclaimed pianist Stephen Fandrich, with William Monteleone, “the quietest most attuned saxophone player ever,” violinist Kirill Polyanskiy, and special guest, percussionist Greg Campbell. Expect a calming, mysteriousness evolving to a brilliant, poised intensity via an ancient/contemporary music, with roots in just intonation, modal improvisation, jazz, European classical music, and Javanese karawitan.

 Outlaw Space began as the “House Band” for Spite House, an acclaimed DIY venue and curated musical event in Seattle’s Capitol Hill district. Spite House is considered to be a venue; however, it is in fact a weekly musical event by donation which exists outside of the laws which govern musical creativity within the venues of Seattle. No drinks to sell, no tickets to process, no profits to count, and not much overhead to cover means that the musical performances and creativity within  are each incubated in an openness that exists outside of any pronounced musical laws, hierarchy or  economic demands at traditional venues. Outlaw Space, now a piano quartet, grew for seven years in the incubator of Spite House, beginning in 2015, with pianist-composer Stephen Fandrich and saxophonist William Monteleone. It expanded in 2018 to include percussionist Noah Colbek (now in Austin) and violinist Kirill Polyanskiy. 

2022 ICL Composers
BC Campbell
Krystal Barghelame
Paul Matthew Moore

with The Penta String Quartet:
Heather Bentley, Jordan Voelker, Aleida Gehrels, Maria Scherer Wilson

Invisible Composers Lab brings composers and musicians together, across generations, to create luminous, new creative works. The laboratory’s mission is to collaborate, fuel curiosity, and experiment in a supportive, non-hierarchical environment that welcomes inspiration from new music, improvisation, jazz, film scoring, rock, classical music and the wide sonic world. Fueled by discussions and interactive workshops over many months, each ICL Session includes workshop performances to open the collaborative conversation to listening audiences.

The ICL co-founders (composers BC Campbell, Krystal Bargehlame and Paul Matthew Moore) adventures in music have brought them to KEXP, The Royal Room, The Moore Theater, Cannes, PBS’s American Masters, The Smithsonian, The Paramount, The Seattle Symphony Youth Workshop, and Sasquatch Music Festival to name just a few. They are thrilled to be joining forces to create new possibilities at the Good Shepherd Chapel.

Joey Largent presents his most recent composition in collaboration with movement/costume/installation artist Katrina Wolfe for an acoustic just intonation ensemble composed of practitioners of Burmese vipassana, musicians, and friends. Composed primarily on the Olympic Coast and in the North Cascades near the Lower Curtis Glacier, the work follows an exploration of changing natural landscapes and physical masses as the ensemble organically weaves through a semi-improvised score paired with the gradual tidal changes of an extended field recording from the Washington Coast. Sensitive to the sound and structure, Wolfe offers a complementary reflection of the terrain through continuous, hypnotic movement that is enhanced by her meticulously hand-stitched costumes and intricate choreography. Pulling from ongoing years of study in North Indian Classical gayaki (vocal music), Largent’s composition unifies these elements by suspending a passage through variations of four different ragas of morning, afternoon, and night for a slow moving work of an unfixed duration.

Annapurna Dharma Communion:

Jackie An – violin
Michael Shannon – cello, voice
Joey Largent – cello, voice, field recording, composition
Manasvi Patel – 7-limit shruti box, bamboo chimes, copper chimes, bells 
Sam Vanderlinda – 7-limit shruti box, steel tongue drum, bells, tibetan bowls 
Katrina Wolfe – movement, costumes, choreography
Russell Christenson – 7-limit harmonium, bells
Ian Gwin – Miraj tambura

Joey Largent’s work focuses on exploring long-duration compositions and improvisations for acoustic ensembles and solo performance. Beyond generating music alone, his goal is to offer a space for introspection, releasing from attachment, beauty, and connection. Through site-specific work and field recording, he seeks to connect daily experience more profoundly with the impermanent harmony of the natural world. He has collaborated with numerous dancers, musicians, and interdisciplinary artists over the years, and has studied North Indian Classical singing with several disciples of Pandit Pran Nath including Michael Harrison and Rose Okada.

Katrina Wolfe is an interdisciplinary artist working in the mediums of performance art, costume making, installation, photography, and sculpture. A primary focus of Katrina’s work is the practice, teaching and performance of Masukhuma: a dance, movement therapy and performance art technique that has evolved from her experience in butoh, visual arts, and her daily practice of Vipassana meditation. Katrina studied primarily with butoh artists Joan Laage and Atsushi Takenouchi. She also gained great inspiration through studying the films of butoh founder Tatsumi Hijikata and through an intensive workshop with first-generation butoh artist Daisuke Yoshimoto. By creating costumes and installations from organic and recycled materials, and through merging the body with various environments – both natural and created – Katrina’s work explores issues of attachment, over-consumption, climate change, waste, and ephemerality. 

(Photo: Dmitry Artamonov)

An invitation to explore large ensemble listening and playing. All instruments welcome, no experience required, just an open mind, heart, and ear.

As people who have experienced forms of oppression in music making and/or life, what is our aim when we make music among ourselves? Do we just recapitulate existing power structures, but try to place ourselves at the top? How deeply ingrained in us are these musical approaches?

Should we consciously aim to avoid those oppressor-created structures and hierarchies (how?) and make new ones? 

Can we choose to let go of power (loudness, “skill”, profuseness, traditional roles of instruments) without feeling constrained?

Can we be true to who we are, and to the instruments we play, without drowning out other musicians and their instruments?

Improvising: a way of accessing music in ourselves that is not part of an external system? But this doesn’t happen by itself, requires searching…

How can we play together as a large group and ALL be heard…? How can we respect each other, and be respected?

What is it like to play from silence? From sound?

Getting away from neo-liberal constraints on the concepts around music and musicians: Should we draw on art that is related to what is called the “domestic” sphere (references – pottery, needlework, work-songs, “folk” or traditional musics)? Escape from the idea of what is required of the “professional” musician? How? Is the notion of “ritual” relevant, or is it oppressive?

How do we unite in playing, and how do we play together and maintain our separate identities? The tension between leaving space and filling space…

SPACE, COURAGE, LISTENING and CONCISENESS are essential to large-group improvisation…

How do we make the most of our difference… in how we pay attention, in our ways of listening and uttering? How far can we go into difference?

What is it like to do the “wrong” thing?

Originally from Seattle, Caroline Kraabel is a London-based improviser, saxophonist, artist and composer. She conducts and plays with the London Improvisers Orchestra (LIO). Sometimes she improvises solo while walking in London and elsewhere (broadcast over several years on Resonance
104.4 FM as Taking a Life for a Walk and Going Outside). She releases ephemeral solo pieces as part of Lonely Impulse Collective and works with many other excellent improvisers, including Robert Wyatt, Maggie Nicols, John Edwards, Louis Moholo, Cleveland Watkiss, Hyelim Kim, Pat Thomas, Susan Alcorn, Sarah Washington, and Charlotte Hug.

The Tom Baker Quartet will be performing a soundscape/composition called Songs and Triangles in which we will be joined by our amazing friend, Kaley Lane Eaton. TBQ will follow with a set of original tunes and improvisations.

TBQ is Tom Baker, guitars; Greg Campbell drums and horn; Jesse Canterbury, clarinet; Brian Cobb, bass.

“Creative, free, and at times, funky… TBQ pushes the musical envelope.” — All About Jazz

PLEASE NOTE: The elevator at Good Shepherd Center is expected to be undergoing renovation at this time, so the Chapel may be accessible only by stairs. We apologize for the inconvenience.

Join four Seattle-area composer-pianists as they perform their own works, many of them world premieres. Gavin Borchert will be presenting his hybrid work Text-piano alongside striking miniatures. Keith Eisenbrey will be playing the last two movements of his extensive Etudes d’execution imminent series. Aaron Keyt is joined by Jennifer K. Chung to premiere his new set of 4-hand works, Monsters. And Peter Nelson-King will be reprising his 28-piece suite The Magpie’s Shadow, rounding out a new piano music showcase as varied as it is unique.

Gavin Borchert is a longtime music journalist and was a copy editor for the Seattle Weekly for many years, and is currently a copy chief at Crosscut. Keith Eisenbrey has co-run Banned Rehearsal, an ongoing experimental music collective, for nearly 40 years. Aaron Keyt is a founding member of Banned Rehearsal and sings with the Harmonia Orchestra and Chorus. Peter Nelson-King plays trumpet with multiple ensembles, teaches piano and trumpet on the Eastside, and is a published poet.

COVID-19 PROTOCOLS: Performers will be masked; masks and social distancing are strongly encouraged for all attendees

Please join us as we celebrate the life and music of Norm Chambers, a beloved figure in the PNW electronic music community who passed away on October 30th. This event will provide space for sharing memories and stories of Norm, with selections from his extensive discography presented by DJ Veins (Dave Segal) and live performances by Matt Carlson, RM Francis, Raica (Chloe Harris), and Jeppa Hall (aka Queen Shmooquan) & Eli Kaufman. Messages and musical offerings from some of Norm’s many friends from afar will also be shared. Admission is free, but donations to assist with medical expenses are welcome.