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.

An evening of music for solo viola and spatialized aleatoric acousmatic sound. The evening will be divided into two sections with a short prelude and postlude. There will be a moment of silence in between these two sections.

prelude

(opening and invitation)

section one

> ( light everbloom in respite or despite the latter failings I cannot recount to ten  )

– tacet

section two

>( forever love ring[ing] for {h} – in velvet afterglow (blues/ violent/ yellow)) 

postlude

(closing and adieu)

Noel Kennon is a composer and artist living and working in Seattle. This work often is in reference to the physical qualities of sound such as the mathematical (or theoretical) forms of pitch space in relation to the harmonic series, difference tones, and the sonority of volume or rather the sonority of space both enclosed and open (on any scale) as well as nominating the socio/environmental effects and phenomenon of sounding in space such as the purpose and politics in engaging strangers along with other unhelpful pursuits. All the while stumbling toward an expression of the sound of that which is not struck in the search of a way to reach compassion to address our collective unending suffering.

From Alaska to Amazonas: Indigenous Music, Culture, and Resistance

Join us for a richly layered evening of music, spoken word poetry, visual art, and resistance drawn from two Native cultures—the Tlingit people of southern Alaska and the Indigenous Brazilian people of the Amazon. Co-created by Nahaan, Tlingit artist of multiple genres and Indigenous activist, and by Adriana Giordano, Seattle’s premier Brazilian vocalist, and concert producer, this event will emphasize experience over concept, leading you on an exploration of the paths of Native peoples as they navigate, and resist, the challenges of colonization and climate change.

Expect powerful storytelling and visuals from Nahaan, who lives and creates art in both traditional Tlingit culture and resistance culture—from ceremonial tattooing to carving and formline art—and allies himself with the Land Back movement.

Adriana, accompanied by stellar Seattle musicians from different genres, will provide an immersive music and sound experience that evokes the Amazon and Indigenous tribal culture, drawing on recordings of tribal songs, as well as other Brazilian musical genres. This musical mosaic will provide the sensory grounding for the evening and will highlight transitions in the shifts between Indigenous Brazilian and Tlingit culture.

The band:

Nahaan – vocals, spoken word
Adriana Giordano – vocals, triangle and other percussion instruments
Gabe Hall-Rodrigues – piano and accordion
Julian Weisman – double bass
Jeff Busch – percussion

Curated by Marina Albero for Nonsequitur’s NonSeq series.

Presented by Earshot Jazz Festival. Welcomed by KBCS.

The genre-defying ensemble of four tenor saxophonists performs the music of Travis Laplante who is joined by Matthew Nelson, Jeremy Viner, and Patrick Breiner, all pushing their instrument to the limit, circular breathing hypnotic waves of sound and blistering runs to create intricate textures. With unorthodox articulations and unusual fingerings, they create a vast sonic vocabulary and yet create music that speaks directly to the heart.

*Earshot Jazz COVID-19 Policy: Earshot recommends that all ticket holders be vaccinated. Masks are strongly encouraged indoors unless actively eating or drinking. Policy subject to change. Full policy here.

(photo: Big Fish)

In celebration of their 60th anniversary this year, Jack Straw Cultural Center presents a special evening of performance featuring members of the Composers & Improvisers Workshop. Workshop alumni Lynette Westendorf, Sumiko Sato, Jim Knodle, Kenny Mandell, Don Berman, Steve Griggs, Charles Hiestand, Casey James, Elizabeth Strauss, poet Pamela Moore Dionne, and others will perform newly composed works and improvisations in a variety of combinations.

In the mid 1990s, a group of Seattle musicians began a series of workshops as a way for musicians to bring their compositions and ideas for improvisation to a collaborative session, not with the goal of performing or recording, but rather to talk over the music, the creative process, and to gain feedback from one another. Some people focused exclusively on scored music, while others led improvised “conductions” or open structured improv. The group eventually developed into the Composers & Improvisers Workshop, and was open to participation to anyone interested in developing their skills and collaborating with other musicians. CIW presented regularly at Jack Straw in the late ‘90s and early 2000s.

Just being Stephen Fandrich, at the piano, erasing time and expectation – a rare glimpse of this otherworldly musical genius in solo concert form.

Stephen Fandrich has been a resident performing artist of Seattle for 35 years. His piano improvisations exude a rare and rich combination of Russian late Romantic composers, Javanese Karawitan, and late 20th century piano improvisers. Classical piano, jazz piano, prepared piano, gamelan, bi-tonal singing, just-intonation, tuning, instrument building, sound-based installation, composition and improvisation are all current passions. Vessel, a new album produced by Gamelan Pacifica (2022), features three new works by Fandrich, including a composition combining gamelan and the Del Sol String Quartet.

Fandrich will perform long-form improvisations for solo piano and for the piano prepared with sticks of wood, to transform the piano into a custom-tuned percussion orchestra. 

An evening of dark improvised experimental music and spoken word just before the Veil begins to Thin for all Hallows Eve.

Vanessa Skantze is a Butoh artist, yoga practitioner, and writer who has performed and taught in the US and Europe for over twenty years. For this evening’s performance she will have a focus on her Spoken Word works. Skantze is a co-founder of Teatro de la Psychomachia, a DIY space which has hosted national and international performing artists and musicians for more than a decade. She also co-directed Butoh ensemble Danse Perdue. She has toured with Tatsuya Nakatani, Lydia Lunch, and shared the stage with Jarboe, and has choreographed to the music of Kris Force (Amber Asylum). Locally, she creates frequent collaborations with Noisepoetnobody and To End It All.

Ricksplund is an improvising duo from Salt Lake City consisting of Steven Ricks (trombone, electronics) and Christian Asplund (viola, piano/keyboards, electronics). The most recent manifestations of their duo work involve one improvising on a particular acoustic instrument (trombone or viola, respectively), while the other improvises adding effects, samples, and loops created from the live instrument’s sound. In some cases prerecorded/composed audio elements are incorporated. In other cases, both set the acoustic instruments aside and improvise together using our respective electronic setups. Steven Ricks creates work that is bold, innovative, ambitious, and diverse, and that often includes strong narrative and theatrical influences. He is a professor of music theory and composition in the BYU School of Music. Christian Asplund is a Canadian-American composer-performer based in Utah where he teaches at Brigham Young University.  His interests have included the intersections of text/music, improvisation/composition, and modular textures/forms. 

Among the Pacific Northwest’s hidden societies, Geist & the Sacred Ensemble forges a doom-inflected folk ritualism; dirges tinged with Eastern psychedelia and meandering meditative trances. For the last several years, the group has shown the regional underground a clear vision for their sound and lyrics, creating a shamanistic space for the listener, placing them into a trance, then building up the excitement. The overarching theme of their lyrical work is that of an idealist, a yearning for an end to the modern human condition, for destruction of the constructs and constraints of oppression. Their tunes exist as an ever-changing pilgrimage, transforming their abstract drifts into apocalyptic folk hymns or private confessionals. Geist & the Sacred Ensemble has shared the stage with acts as diverse as Oranssi Pazuzui, Insect Ark, Soriah, Six Organs Of Admittance, Pedestrian Deposit, Yonatan Gat, Father Murphy, and Jackie-O-Motherfucker. Their live shows are hypnotic and emotionally charged, often taking place at unique locations like a metal forge and foundry, forests and meadows, old schools, churches and more. Tonight at the Chapel they will be leaning into their DIG IN SESSIONS improvised experimental drone style.