Lost Chocolate Lab is the moniker and double entendre of Damian Kastbauer practicing as noise maker, effects builder, and spatial audio investigator. 

Ingredients for a System of Playback: 1. Position one guitar(lcl) at the center of quad(2²) towers of synchronized amplification. 2. Augment with assorted speakers(+2) of ~/= amplitude linked by devices of time-based modulation(z) and manipulation of (semi)randomized properties. 3. Improvise across/ out/ outside/ time/ space(n) for a duration(x) defined by frequencies(20,000). 

(time travel(lcl+2²~/=z*nx)) == Guitar + Amplification + Effects + Chapel + Activate Ambient Acoustics

COVID-19 PROTOCOLS: Following current mandates from King County & WA State public health officials, proof of vaccination status or recent negative COVID test result will be required for entry, and all audience members will be required to wear a mask covering nose and mouth. Windows will be open, weather permitting.

Written in the wake of post-quarantine pandemic, Millennial Sunset is a new theatrical work by composer Tristan Gianola voicing the existential depression surrounding climate change, composed for narrator, electric guitar, amplified string quartet and electronics. Over thirteen movements, the piece follows a series of journal entries written by Gianola documenting the depression of day to day life through late-stage capitalism, while carrying the looming fears of an inescapable collapse from the repercussions of climate change. 

Featuring: 
Tristan Gianola – Composer/Electric Guitar/Electronics
Jake Sele – Narrator 
Heather Bentley – Amplified Violin
Alina To – Amplified Violin
Alex Guy – Amplified Viola 
Maria Schere Wilson – Amplified Cello 
(Artwork by V)

Tristan Gianola stands on his own as a classically trained composer and conductor raised on rock n’ roll, with an experimental mind driven by meticulous standards, DIY attitude, distaste for cliches and the neurotic desire for something new. He can be found leading multiple bands of variant original music, ranging from Guitar is Dead’s fiery punk-jazz shredding to Pink Lion’s serene electro-chamber music. From dancing around a busy sideman schedule as a prolific guitarist, producing a never-ending list of new projects, conducting classically influenced ensembles, to getting trapped in the studio for days; always looking ahead to new sounds and leaving an explorative trail of musical conquests behind. Nicknamed “Maestro” by his colleagues, Gianola is a restless force in music. He currently operates out of New Orleans, after relocating there from his hometown Seattle in 2016.

This concert will also be live streamed on LoudSwell.

Curated by Marina Albero for Nonsequitur’s NonSeq series.

COVID-19 PROTOCOLS: Following current mandates from King County & WA State public health officials, proof of vaccination status or recent negative COVID test result will be required for entry, and all audience members will be required to wear a mask covering nose and mouth. Windows will be open, weather permitting.

An evening of new music utilizing spatialized acousmatic sound, idiosyncratic metal sound sculptures and a small ensemble. 

Meditations sounding on isolation, supply chain, resonance, air conditioning, rent, love, employment, death, etc. A concert presentation of the compositional efforts of local composer Noel Kennon over the past two years. The evening is structured in two main parts with a brief pause between these two sections: 

[Opening sounding or (stones / sky, sky / stone) – (Pluto lattice reduced to whole number integers sounded as noise bands of various sizes and shapes)]

[Descent or (the passing of Uriel shut out by a locked window)  – (presentation of illusionary half steps in just intonation derived from reiteration of low harmonic primes (3,7,11,17)] 

Noel Kennon is an artist living and working in Seattle, currently associated with Gallery 1412 and Studio Ma. 

COVID-19 PROTOCOLS: Following current mandates from King County & WA State public health officials, all audience members at this performance will be required to wear masks regardless of vaccination status. Proof of vaccination status and/or recent negative COVID test result will be required for entry. Windows will be open, weather permitting.

Nonsequitur is pleased to start off 2022 with the introduction of NonSeq (previously SOUNDBox), a new artist-led curator series aimed at positively stimulating the local music scene with visionary and generative live performances. 

For NonSeq, Nonsequitur hands over curation of our monthly concerts to a team of four celebrated local artists who will collectively program twelve events in the coming year. Pianist Marina Albero, polymath/writer and Seattle Star founder Omar Willey, guitarist Carlos Snaider, and flautist Leanna Keith will each curate three concerts apiece. All of them have a unique presence in the Seattle creative community, and bring a wealth of collective knowledge and experience to the project.

Tonight we kick off this new initiative with a concert by the curators themselves, joined by violist and new Nonseq board member Heather Bentley, for an evening of solo and group improvisations, celebrating the diversity of musical values and shared commitment to listening and spontaneous creation.

If you can’t attend in person, watch us streaming live on LoudSwell.

COVID-19 PROTOCOLS: Following current mandates from King County & WA State public health officials, all audience members at this performance will be required to wear masks regardless of vaccination status. Proof of vaccination status and/or recent negative COVID test result will be required for entry. Windows will be open, weather permitting. Given the constantly changing nature of the pandemic, all events are subject to cancellation on short notice. Check back here on the day of the show for updated info.

Read a nice preview article by Thomas May in the Seattle Times.

Marina Albero and Luis Gallo are truly captivating performers from Spain. Albero’s piano and hammered dulcimer playing is an absolute celebration of life, her spirited performances are intelligent, uplifting, and delightfully engrossing. Luis is a creative flamenco player and composer who engages with the audience through his accurate rhythm and passionate phrasing. Together they have crafted a unique repertoire of original and traditional sounds along with some jazz, Latin and flamenco standards. The evening will be lively, it will be heartfelt.

Based in Seattle since 2015, pianist, composer, and educator Marina Albero deftly draws on a lifetime of music tradition, from her native Barcelona in classical and early music as well as flamenco, to Cuba and Son Cubano, to American jazz. Her celebrated triple album A Life Soundtrack contains an all-improvised volume called Agua of solo and duos with Hans Teuber as well as originals and jazz standards. Albero was the recipient of Earshot’s Golden Ear Award as Emerging Artist of 2018 and she has been awarded as best instrumentalist and best record of 2019. In 2020 she started The Quarantine Sessions as a space for female artists to share and perform together during pandemic times; this initiative has been recently awarded with a Golden Ear “Community in Action” award. In 2021 she was the resident Artist at the Earshot Jazz Festival where she presented four different concerts that received a great and warm response by the audience and critics. She has performed and recorded with renowned national and international artists such as Chano Dominguez, Jeff Johnson, Thomas Marriot, Ganesh Rajagopalan, Thomas Marriot, Charlie Porter, D’Vonne Lewis, Rizzo, Glen Velez, L’Arpeggiata, Carlos Saura and many others. Albero is currently piano professor at Cornish College of the Arts and adjunct faculty at Western Washington University.

Luis Gallo is a Spanish musician, composer and producer based in Madrid, Spain. As an educator, Luis has conducted guitar workshops worldwide since 2010. Due to his conservatory musical background, and emphasis in flamenco and jazz education, he has been involved in a myriad of presentations of flamenco music. These performances include his work as a solo musician for family-oriented music projects and TV shows (X Factor, MTV Select, and TVE’s Club Pizzicato), as well as recorded and live appearances or University guitar workshops. Luis is a specialist in working with musicians from many different musical genres. He brings his unique flamenco-jazz guitar performance skills to diverse music styles, from classical to Indian folk music, playing on some of the most renowned international music stages, and in festivals around the world. Because of his specialized talent, Luis Gallo has worked for famous, eclectic artists such as Ara Malikian, The London Royal Opera House Orchestra, Raimundo Amador and Vasko Vassilev among others.

COVID-19 PROTOCOLS: Following current mandates from King County & WA State public health officials, all audience members at this performance will be required to wear masks regardless of vaccination status. Proof of vaccination status and/or recent negative COVID test result will be required for entry. Windows will be open, weather permitting. Given the constantly changing nature of the pandemic, all events are subject to cancellation on short notice. Check back here on the day of the show for updated info.

Composer Neal Kosaly-Meyer’s ongoing Finnegans Wake project is an unprecedented undertaking: to commit to memory and perform all of James Joyce’s final novel, one chapter per year over seventeen years, with acute attention to the work’s musical detail. Meticulous attention has also been given to the presentation, including liturgical and theatrical elements, and unique approaches to lighting and sound, all deeply informed by the singular language and vision of Finnegans Wake. The striking personality of the Chapel Performance Space itself provides a perfect, and quite Joycean, setting for these performances.

COVID-19 PROTOCOLS: Following current mandates from King County & WA State public health officials, all audience members at this performance will be required to wear masks regardless of vaccination status. Proof of vaccination status and/or recent negative COVID test result will be required for entry. Windows will be open, weather permitting.

Join pianist Steven Damouni and soprano Emerald Lessley for their Nightmare Before Christmas Concert, featuring pieces light on Christmas cheer and heavy on extended techniques. This dynamic duo of best friends will perform George Crumb’s evocative song cycle, Apparition, Elliot Carter’s Night Fantasies for solo piano, and Luciano Berio’s groundbreaking work for solo voice, Sequenza III.

Dr. Steven Damouni is an active performer of both contemporary and traditional repertoires. He holds a Bachelors of Music in Piano Performance, a Masters of Art in Music from Washington State University, and a Doctorate of Musical Arts in Piano Performance from the University of Washington. He has won numerous regional and state competitions and is equally at ease as a chamber musician. In 2015 he participated in New England Conservatory’s Summer Institute for Contemporary Performance Practice where he performed the Concord Sonata of Charles Ives in masterclasses and at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum.

Highly sought after performer, instructor, and clinician, Dr. Emerald Lessley began performing and studying music at a young age. She completed her Doctorate of Musical Arts in Vocal Performance from the University of Washington in 2017. Emerald’s favorite operatic roles have included, Fiordiligi in Mozart’s Così fan tutte, Donna Anna in Mozart’s Don Giovanni, Suor Angelica in Puccini’s Suor Angelica, Dido in Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas, and Belisa in the U.S. premiere of Maderna’s opera Don Perlimplìn. In addition to traditional operatic repertoire, Emerald is an active performer of new music, premiering new works in both the U.S. and Europe. Dr. Lessley is a full-time music faculty member at Olympic College in Bremerton, WA.

Joey Largent presents his expanded solo work for ten amplified cymbals as a 3-hour immersive, durational performance in collaboration with movement artists Katrina Wolfe and Kawtee Wolfe, who will join collectively with delicate, continuous, improvised movement throughout. The piece will be performed in near darkness in pairing with hypnotic field recordings captured in the terminal chamber of the continuously dripping Falls Creek Cave. The work is inspired by a composition written in 2018 for Ole’s Cave near Mount St. Helens. 

The work is a continuation of compositions from Largent’s recent site-specific release, Below Diorite Waters (Dragon’s Eye Recordings, 2021), using continuously malleted, closely mic’d cymbals to explore the natural harmonic relationships between cymbals, and to magnify their organic layers of overtones in a sensorially-limited environment. The piece uses no electronic processing, EQ, or effects beyond amplification. 

Those who attend are invited to enter with a dim flashlight or headlamp (putting it out once seated), and are free to come and go at any time, or remain for the entirety of the piece. Seating will be primarily on the floor, with a few chairs for those who need them. All who attend are encouraged to bring floor pillows, blankets and any other items comfortable to them to the space. 

Joey Largent is a composer and performer exploring relationships between sound, environment, and context, focusing on improvised music for dance and long-duration solo and ensemble compositions, often working with just intonation, improvisation, and long, subtle tones that gradually unfold over time. Much of his performance and recording practices are created in or inspired by site-specific, isolated locations in nature. Joey’s compositional style comes from studies in Southeastern European folk music, butoh, improvisation, microtonality, and North Indian classical music. Amongst others, he has studied with Rose Okada, Michael Harrison, Tatsuya Nakatani, Jung Hee Choi, and La Monte Young. Joey’s work seeks to produce deep feeling and experience through sound — one that is strongly immersive, sensitive, and relational to the experience of feeling full presence in an environment, attempting to offer the opportunity to explore the expansive qualities of place, self, and memory through listening alone.

Katrina Wolfe is a movement artist and visual artist, primarily focused on performing and teaching the technique of Motion Awareness (Ma), which she has developed by integrating her experience in Butoh with foundational aspects of Vipassana Meditation. After years of practicing figurative sculpture, Katrina’s visual artwork has shifted to the creation of installations and costumes made from organic and recycled materials, which are a key element of her performances. The practice of Motion Awareness in site-specific, and especially remote, natural locations is an intrinsic part of Katrina’s work, serving as a constant reminder that the human body is simply another aspect of nature. Her work seeks to offer both viewer and practitioner increased awareness of the universality of impermanence, resulting in the cultivation of intention, empathy, and compassion in all aspects of life.

Photo: Joey Largent; Ole’s Cave Entrance, Mount St. Helens

COVID-19 PROTOCOLS: Following current mandates from King County & WA State public health officials, all audience members at this performance will be required to wear masks regardless of vaccination status. Proof of vaccination status and/or recent negative COVID test result will be required for entry. Additionally, chair seating will be arranged to maintain social distancing; people who live together may group chairs accordingly. Windows will be open, weather permitting.

The Seattle Phonographers Union is a collective of sound recordists who have been improvising together with unprocessed field recordings since 2002. Coming from diverse backgrounds (musicians, recording engineers, game designers, etc.), they treat the sounds of the world as raw material for moving and evocative sound collages woven in real time. There will be free SPU CDs for all who attend.

COVID-19 PROTOCOLS: Following current mandates from King County & WA State public health officials, all audience members at this performance will be required to wear masks regardless of vaccination status. Proof of vaccination status and/or recent negative COVID test result will be required for entry. Additionally, chair seating will be arranged to maintain social distancing; people who live together may group chairs accordingly. Windows will be open, weather permitting.