A Flawed Contraption (Greg Campbell, percussion, and Jesse Canterbury, clarinets) is the duo incarnation of a pair of musicians who have worked together for years in other situations. They share an affinity for careful and responsive listening and an appreciation of space in improvisation. The sonorities employed — percussion, vibes, clarinets — are particularly well-suited to the large and warm space of the Chapel. For this performance, they’ll present a mixture of improvisations and loosely structured compositions.  

(Photo: Jesse Canterbury, La Push, WA)

“Modern jazz history is rife with strong duos, but Wayfaring stands out by channeling ideas from American folk tradition or the church into music that extends well beyond the language of jazz. Stunning.” – Peter Margasak, The Chicago Reader

Taking its name from a beloved American folk song, Wayfaring is a duo project between bassist/vocalist Katie Ernst and clarinetist James Falzone. What began as a casual meeting between like-minded players has formed into a collective of unusual nuance and depth, drawing on source material from the jazz tradition, hymns, folk songs, and original compositions from Ernst and Falzone. Wayfaring has toured extensively in the US and Canada and has been featured at the Hyde Park Jazz Festival in Chicago and the Earshot Jazz Festival in Seattle. Their debut recording, I Move, You Move, was released in Fall 2017 on the Allos Documents label to much critical acclaim. Their follow up record, Intermezzo, is released January 23rd, 2024 and is celebrated tonight at the Chapel. 

(photo: Shaya Lyon)

A.F. Jones will play an electro-acoustic partita with lap steel guitar and electronics, improvising narrative and textures.

Daniel Menche presents a relentless dichotomy of extreme musical emotions, the noise and sound is intensely presented to make way for a pure emotional experience. 

Illusion of Safety presents The End, an improvised set of post-industrial dark ambient noise providing a potential space to gaze at the infinite.

A.F. JONES is a Dallas-born, Washington-based musician, composer, and sound designer. Current and past projects include Missive, ‘what’, Telescoping, Steerage, MANKINDA, and Buck Young. Jones manages and operates Laminal Audio, a mastering and sound design studio located in Tracyton, WA, in the West Puget Sound. His most recent film is the acclaimed What Is Man and What Is Guitar?: Keith Rowe.

Daniel Menche is an iconic experimental musician from Portland, Oregon. His extensive history of recording and performance spans three decades and counting. Menche’s sonic abstractions manifest through intense noise, immersive drones, dense ambiance, poly-rhythmic percussion, turbulent nature field recordings, abused acoustic instruments and many other sources. His music is adventurous in execution as well as presentation, creating an absolute, abstract sonic world.

Since 1983, Daniel Burke and his many conspirators under the Illusion Of Safety banner have over the course of 40+ full length releases traversed most every facet of the avant sound plane, from early industrial pop deconstruction to blindingly minimal sound art to densely surreal found-sound collage, each unique approach bending and reconstituting the expectations and possibilities of each realm, creating uneasy music that is dense and dystopian and yet also beautiful. Performing over 300 live concerts throughout Europe and the states included No Fun 2008, the Wroclaw Industrial Music Festival 2009, Sonic Circuits in 2010, with Shen Wei Dance Arts in 2011 at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in NYC, and at the Crisis Data Transfer Pre-Party October 2023. Outside of IOS Burke has collaborated with Jim O’Rourke, Jon Mueller, Randy Greif, Darin Gray, Z’EV, Cheer-Accident, Thomas Dimuzio, Kevin Drumm, Bill Horist, and others.

Daniel Burke (Illusion of Safety, Chicago) will perform a few new songs for solo piano in the style of Erik Satie, Harold Budd, Mark Hollis and David Sylvian.

Marc Barreca will perform loop-based electronic music using a laptop, modular synth and MIDI accordion.

Tertium Quid – a trio of Bill Horist (guitar & devices), Dave Abramson (drums), and Daniel Burke (guitar & devices) – reconvene to perform an improvisational set exploring the possibilities of sustain, silence, noise, texture, harmony, dissonance, and time. 

This live concert and party will celebrate the release of Six Seasons, an album of chamber music for clarinet and strings by 2022-23 Seattle Symphony Artist-in-Residence Angelique Poteat. Poteat (clarinet) will be joined by clarinetist Laura DeLuca and violist Olivia Chew to perform two works on the album. There will also be playback of excerpts from the title work, “Six Seasons,” and bonus performances of two addition pieces not included on the album, one world premiere and one Pacific Northwest premiere, by cellist Efe Baltacigil, pianist Thomas Lee, and bassist Will Langlie-Miletich. Complimentary hors d’oeuvres and non-alcoholic beverages will be provided, and physical CDs of the new album will be available for sale at the event only.

Angelique Poteat is a native of the Pacific Northwest, and many of her works are inspired by the natural beauty of the region. Her music has been described as “engaging, restless” (New York Times), “serious and nicely crafted” (American Record Guide), and “extremely accomplished and vividly picturesque” (Seattle Times), receiving performances on four continents by ensembles including the Seattle Symphony Orchestra, arx Percussion Duo, Emerald City Music, CernaBella, and Trio Claviola. As a clarinetist, Poteat enjoys performing a wide variety of genres, from orchestral to new music for bass clarinet. She has appeared as a soloist with the Yakima Symphony Orchestra, North Corner Chamber Orchestra, and Saratoga Orchestra, and also performs with the Seattle Modern Orchestra, Northwest Sinfonietta, and regularly with the Seattle Symphony Orchestra, Bellingham Festival of Music, and Sunriver Music Festival.

Repertoire: The title piece “Six Seasons” for clarinet and string quartet is named after the cookbook of the same title by Joshua McFadden. Composed in six movements, the work breaks the year into six growing seasons which also capture snapshots of the complex life of a professional musician, beginning in early spring and journeying forward to winter. “Fluid Dovetail” for clarinet and viola originates from a unison idea in the middle of the work, where the opening is reactionary and works to achieve that unison, and the later portion embellishes with great intricacy. “Ripples of Possibilities” for two clarinets reflects on the rippling quality of the lines and how they virtuosically interweave and trade off, mimicking and varying, allowing for both individuality and collaboration. “Meditation on Providence” for cello and piano celebrates its world premiere at this performance, and is composed to commemorate Providence Heights, a religious institution of higher learning for women built on the Sammamish Plateau that was recently demolished and replaced with a football field. “Pacificus” for solo double bass receives its Pacific Northwest premiere and is a tribute to the Pacific Ocean, contrasting expansive depths of the double bass with higher volcanic explosive gestures and eerie whale song.

Rebecca Lawrence performs works for solo contrabass by James Tenney, Rebecca Saunders, Patrick Schaefer, Sarian Sankoh, Jalalu Kalvert-Nelson, and Jacob Druckman.

Currently based in Frankfurt, Germany, Rebecca Lawrence is known for her collaborative work as a contemporary and early music double bassist in Europe and the USA. Most at home in creative small ensemble environments, Rebecca is passionate about working with living composers and providing a solid ensemble foundation while imagining new possibilities for the double bass and its predecessors in various contexts. She is a sought-after collaborator with various European contemporary music ensembles including Ensemble Modern and Klangforum Wien. Additionally she studies baroque double bass, violone and viola da gamba in Frankfurt. Rebecca was born and raised in Seattle and received her first bass lessons from Anna Doak at The Bass Church. She continued her studies with Jordan Anderson, followed by David Allen Moore and Paul Ellison at USC, and François Rabbath in Paris.

Before the concert, Rebecca will teach a masterclass with students from The Bass Church in the Chapel before the concert, from 4 – 6 PM. Open to the public. If you are interested in performing please contact Anna Doak.

As the sun pauses in the low slung reaches of the Seattle skyline, musical sun ritual and summoning carry on for two nights at the Chapel Performance Space. A serene and rowdy crew of improvisers weave some magic for these dark days.

The festival continues…

Six impro wizards herald the sun’s return:

Amy Denio, Bill Horist, Carol J Levin, Greg Campbell, Heather Bentley, James Falzone… on the instruments you know them to play, and others. Expect the unexpected – pairings & ensembles tbd.

** Attend both Solstice Fest Night concerts to receive a seasonal surprise gift.

As the sun pauses in the low slung reaches of the Seattle skyline, musical sun ritual and summoning carry on for two nights at the Chapel Performance Space. A serene and rowdy crew of improvisers weave some magic for these dark days.

Heather Bentley (viola, cello), Kaley Lane Eaton (piano, voice), and Leanna Keith (flutes, voice) are joined by Seattle musical masterminds Raymond Larsen (trumpet) and Evan Woodle (drums) to thrum that light back into our daily rhythms.

For even more improvising magic, we are partnering to present Solstice Fest Night Two: Light is Returning on Dec 22, same time, same location, featuring our brilliant friends Amy Denio, James Falzone, Heather Bentley (again), Bill Horist, Carol J. Levin, and Greg Campbell. The party continues!

** Attend both Solstice Fest Night concerts to receive a seasonal surprise gift.

Finnegans Wake by James Joyce, Part II, Chapter 2, performed from memory, and with acute attention to musical detail, by Neal Kosaly-Meyer. Performed in darkness. Duration is approximately 2 1/2 hours.

Since 2014 Neal Kosaly-Meyer has been performing the chapters of James Joyce’s final novel, Finnegans Wake, from memory and with close attention to the music Joyce himself claimed to be the most important characteristic of his book. The chapters of Part II are especially noted as being the most difficult and obscure things Joyce ever wrote, with Chapter 2 by common consensus the most formidable. The chapter is presented as a textbook, complete with footnotes, and also right and left hand marginal notes. There is substantial agreement (with important confirmation from the author himself), that the footnotes and marginal notes should be understood as the voices of the three children of the pub-keeper HCE, locked in their room with their textbook to do their homework. In performance the rather forbidding page transforms to a comic quartet acted out between the staid over-serious schoolbook on one hand, and the constantly mocking and interrupting students on the other.

An ensemble featuring Noel Kennon, Dave Knott, Eric Lanzillotta, Carl Lierman, Michael Shannon, and David Stanford on various instruments acoustic and electronic performing graphic and text compositions by Dick Higgins, Robert Horton, Dave Knott, Takehisa Kosugi, Eric Lanzillotta, Mieko Shiomi, and David Toop.

Originally formed in August 2006 to perform a student composition by Sune Smedeby, Eye Music has continued to focus on playing graphic scores since that time. Graphic scores are written musical compositions that rely on visual information rather than standard notation to convey musical ideas. Often these scores are as beautiful to look at just as they are intriguing to play. In addition to graphic scores, Eye Music also plays text scores which consist of verbal instructions for music making. In all cases, the scores used by the ensemble allow for a certain amount of openness in interpretation. These are musical pieces selected for the possibilities they inspire. They often require improvisation on the part of each performer because much can be interpreted differently each time a piece is played. However, they maintain a sense of form in one or more areas making the pieces a group activity in reaching a common goal. The openness of these compositions allows Eye Music to draw its membership from a wide range of musical backgrounds, instrumentation, and musical skill. Whenever possible, the ensemble works with guest composers on their pieces to gain a greater appreciation for possible approaches and considerations in performance of these works.