Gift Tapes/DRAFT presents Jason E Anderson and RM Francis, with support from Seattle’s Office of Arts and Culture. Jason E Anderson will present a new composition called CORM (Consequence of Recursive Memory). RM Francis will present new computer synthesis work to open the evening. All proceeds from this performance will be donated to friend and fellow musician Norm Chambers to assist him with medical expenses.

Anderson will also deliver a one hour workshop/demonstration at Patchwerks at 3 PM prior to this event. He will discuss the new composition and share some strategies he’s devised to control modular synths with SuperCollider.

Jason E Anderson is an artist now living in the Inland Empire of the Pacific Northwest, having left Seattle in 2018 to live among the Palouse farmlands just outside of Pullman WA. His work includes performance, recordings, film/video, installation, music for dance, producing and publishing. Anderson performs and records music under his own name and in performance art/film collaboration LIMITS with dancer Corrie Befort. In 2001, he began performing in Seattle’s free improv/experimental music circles and in 2008 he co-founded improv synth duo Brother Raven with Jamie Potter, leading to his active involvement in the synth music scene running experimental music label Gift Tapes/DRAFT. In performance, Anderson employs systems that generate sound and patterns that are subject to manual manipulation. His occasional use of voice/text, particularly in the context of LIMITS, has augmented his use of abstract sound with extra-musical information to address concepts and context within the auditory realm. See also: Mesh Collaborative, Space Habitat, Spare Death Icon, and Harpoon Pole Vault.

About CORM

Consequence of Recursive Memory is a composition for voice/computer, comprised of prepared texts spoken by the performer in dialogue with a computer as a framework to observe recursion within human memory. The computer ‘listens’ to text spoken by the performer, which uses statistical analysis to model increasingly complex responses articulated by means of rudimentary sound synthesis. The system is biased to stimulate conceptual links between the textual content and technological process, but obfuscates speech intelligibility and pacing to equalize this information with the electronic sound.

The composition and performance of CORM are made possible with support from the Office of Arts and Culture, City of Seattle.

RM Francis is an artist working with computer-generated sound via performance, recording, and installation. His work has been presented throughout North America at numerous festivals, including Debacle (Seattle), 2 Day (Portland), Diffusion (Baltimore), and Human Festival (Philadelphia). His Hyperplastic Other project is a series of works utilizing chocolate, video, performance, and sound to dramatize alternative models of subjectivity. Francis was also a member of Mesh Collaborative, a computer music ensemble employing network architecture to explore novel modes of distributed authorship and human-computer collaboration. He lives in Seattle, where he is also active as a concert organizer.

After 16 years of musical collaboration, drummer Ted Poor and trumpeter Cuong Vu come together in a rare duet setting to celebrate new beginnings.

Ted joined Cuong’s band in the Spring of 2003 and the two have been making music together ever since. They have made numerous records together and toured the world over. The tables are now turned, with Ted supplying the repertoire and driving the initial aesthetic. This concert will surely be a celebration of space, groove, melody and resonance.

Ted Poor is a Seattle-based drummer whose adventurous, soulful playing has vaulted him to the stages of some of today’s most important musicians and placed him amongst those drummers most in demand. After graduating from the Eastman School of Music in 2003, Ted moved from his hometown of Rochester, NY to New York City where he quickly made a deep impression on its jazz and indie-rock music communities. In his ten years in NYC Ted appeared on dozens of recordings and shared the stage with many world renowned artists such as Bill Frisell, Pat Metheny, Kurt Rosenwinkel, Cuong Vu, Ben Monder, Myra Melford, Mark Turner, Gabriel Kahane, My Brightest Diamond, Aaron Parks, and Ralph Alessi.

Now a resident of Seattle, Ted has joined the band of Los Angeles based singer/song-writer Andrew Bird; appearing on and touring the albums Are You Serious and My Finest Work Yet (Loma Vista/Concord). As his presence in the Los Angeles music community has grown, Ted has collaborated with producers and artists such as Michel Froom, Blake Mills, Tony Berg and Madison Cunningham – appearing on Cunningham’s recent release Who Are You Now (Verve). Ted also performs regularly on the live radio broadcast of Live From Here with Chris Thile.

In the fall of 2018, Ted signed with record label New Deal (Verve/Universal) and is currently finishing his debut release You Already Know, a collaboration with saxophonist Andrew D’Angelo and producer Blake Mills. Ted is currently an Assistant Professor of Jazz Studies at the University of Washington in Seattle. Ted endorses C&C Drums.

Cuong Vu is widely recognized by jazz critics as a leader of a generation of innovative musicians. A truly unique musical voice, Cuong has lent his trumpet playing talents to a wide range of artists including Pat Metheny, Laurie Anderson, David Bowie, Dave Douglas, Myra Melford, Cibo Matto, and Mitchell Froom.

As a youngster, Cuong’s intense dedication and love for music led him to a full scholarship at New England Conservatory of Music where he received his Bachelor of Music in Jazz studies with a distinction in performance. Transitioning from his studies in Boston, he moved to New York in 1994 and began his career actively leading various groups while touring extensively throughout the world. As a leader, Cuong has released eight recordings, each making critics’ lists of the 10 best recordings of their respective years. Each record displays how he has carved out a distinctive sonic territory on the trumpet, blurring all stylistic borders while developing his own compositional aesthetic.

A recipient of numerous awards and honors, Cuong was awarded the Colbert Award for Excellence: The Downtown Arts Project Emerging Artist Award. Currently an associate professor in jazz studies, he was awarded the University of Washington’s prestigious Distinguished Teacher Award in his third year on faculty and is a Donald E. Petersen Endowed Professor.

In 2002 and 2006, Cuong was a recipient of the Grammy for Best Contemporary Jazz Album as a member of the Pat Metheny Group. He’s been recognized as one of the top 50 young Jazz Artists in an article called “The New Masters” from the British magazine, “Classic CD” and in 2006 was named the Best International Jazz Artist by the Italian Jazz Critics’ Society. Amazon listed Vu’s Come Play With Me on their “The 100 Greatest Jazz Albums of All Time”. Cuong is a Yamaha Performing Artist, playing the Yamaha Custom YTR8310Z trumpet.

(photos: Ted Poor by Piper Hanson; Cuong Vu by Steve Korn)

Post-classical composers and pianists Kyte Mika (Seattle) and Peter Colclasure (San Jose, CA) play a set each of original work, aiming for a soothing, ambient, and beautiful sonic landscape.

Peter Colclasure is a Bay Area composer who lived in Seattle for six years. He played in various rock bands and toured full time before finding work as a ballet accompanist. Asked to write music for dance performances, he started composing instrumental music, blending piano, Fender Rhodes, sampled loops, distortion, and strings. He has since released two albums, performed at the San Francisco Center for New Music, and had nearly a dozen of his pieces choreographed by various dance companies across the country. His music was described as “Steve Reich meets Radiohead” by one review, but you can hear traces of Bach, Philip Glass, Debussy, and Olafur Arnalds.

Kyte Mika is a pianist and composer native to the Pacific Northwest, and has been working out of Seattle for the past five years. Since stumbling on neglected pianos as a kid, they have spent the past 18 years combing influences from post classical, ambient, and electronic genres to evoke distinct and fascinating narratives.

Athens, Ohio-based percussionist, composer, and educator Aaron Michael Butler presents concerts of contemporary solo and chamber music, and has been active in the creation of new works through commissioning composers of his generation. His recent work includes a solo release on Full Spectrum Records (Tim Feeney’s Things I Said I’d Never Be), a performance at the Black Mountain College Museum’s {Re}Happening, touring and recording Brian Harnetty’s latest project, Shawnee, Ohio (karlrecords), with performances at the Liquid Music Series and Duke Performances, and presentations at the Percussive Arts Society International Convention and Nief Norf’s Genre Lines Research Summit.

For this performance, Aaron will be featuring works recently composed for him by Nick Zammuto (of The Books), Brian Harnetty, and Rob Funkhouser; and David Gibson’s Lillian Brook, a ground-breaking vibraphone solo from 1973 that was nearly lost until Aaron revived it for performance in 2018.

Local percussion ace Bonnie Whiting opens, and the two will also play duo improvisations.

Touring duos Marcia Bassett / Samara Lubelski (NYC) and Kaori Suzuki / John Krausbauer (Oakland) perform at the Chapel Performance Space with Seattle’s Greg Kelley / Rob Millis. Doors open at 7:30.

MARCIA BASSETT (guitar) and SAMARA LUBELSKI (violin) first performed as a duo in 2009, improvising musical scores to films by Michael Snow and Hollis Frampton at X-Initiative, Next Years Model series at DIA. Since their initial collaboration, Bassett and Lubelski have continued to draw from their like-minded approach to improvisational music; creating personal interplay with the environmental surroundings to expand on abstraction, chromatic noise, and long form drone. Both Bassett and Lubelski have extensive backgrounds in the East Coast/NYC sub-underground. Bassett has performed in experimental music projects for over twenty years including Un, GHQ, Hototogisu, Double Leopards and her solo project Zaïmph. Lubelski is best known as a solo artist with eight full-length releases, but she has also been involved in various art-music provocations – Hall of Fame, Tower Recordings, as a member of Thurston Moore’s band, and in her associations with the long-standing German collective Metabolismus. The 2012 release of their first LP Sunday Night, Sunday Afternoon on KYE Records, was praised as having “ … incredible expanses and delicately menacing interplay with an increasingly satisfying audaciousness upon each subsequent listen.” — Paul Haney, Tiny Mix Tapes. The latest LP, Live NYC, (Feeding Tube Records, June 2017) “Elegantly shows just how much brain damage you can do using only a guitar and a violin… A tale of twinned and lightly fuzzed tones, twirling and blending…The threads of sound absolutely phosphoresce. It’s an incredible mix of motion, stillness and power.” – Byron Coley. The duo will have a new LP release on Drawing Room Records Fall 2019.

Kaori Suzuki (US/JP) and John Krausbauer (US) will present music for voices, amplified strings, electronics, and bell percussion. Their work originates from a shared interest in ecstatic and spiritual musics as well as the “avant-garde”. Utilizing sustained tones, alternate tunings, long durations/playing endurances, and stroboscopic lighting, their music explores the parameters and possibilities of psychotropic “experiential” environments rather than the strictly “musical”. Watch video: The Lab, 2018.

Rob Millis (guitarist, author, filmmaker, Climax Golden Twins, Idol Ko Si) & Greg Kelley (trumpeter, insurance underwriter, nmperign, Heathen Shame) have performed twice as a duo, one time involving their usual instruments guitar & trumpet in a resplendent display of feedback, the other time involving the Baldwin Fun Machine, an electric organ manufactured in the 1970s and known for creating good times, and a slide whistle run through delay and a ring modulator. Both attempts were considered successful by the participants and the third time is the proverbial charm.

Pianist Thollem McDonas is coming to town in the midst of his 6-month U.S. tour to join forces with trumpeter Samantha Boshnack and multi-instrumentalist Amy Denio. All three composers are masters of their instruments. As a trio, they bring an extraordinarily wide array of techniques and experiences to one singular concert in Seattle. These musicians approach music with precision and abandon, fierceness and joy as they explore the infinite possibilities of their instruments and their relationship to each other.

Thollem has spent his life skirting and erasing the edges of boundaries musically, culturally and geographically. His work is ever-changing, evolving and responding to the times and his experiences, both as a soloist and in collaboration with hundreds of artists across idioms and disciplines. In the last 15 years he has released over 60 albums on 22 vanguard labels to international critical acclaim. “Thollem is a modern griot who has absorbed sounds from every place he has visited.” (William Parker from Conversations II, Rogue Art).

Member of Seattle Jazz Hall of Fame Amy Denio is an award-winning composer and multi-instrumentalist (guitar family, bass, alto sax, clarinet, accordion) with a four-octave vocal range. She has written more than 400 works and has produced over 50 recordings solo and in collaboration with artists worldwide. Based in Seattle, she runs her own recording studio, record label and publishing company, Spoot Music. Her 17th solo release EUREKA will be released in September, 2019 by Klanggalerie (Vienna, Austria) in collaboration with Spoot Music.

Prolific composer/trumpeter Samantha Boshnack is based in Seattle, where she leads three ensembles dedicated to playing her compositions; Samantha Boshnack’s Seismic Belt, B’shnorkestra and the Sam Boshnack Quintet. She is also a member of the composer-collective Alchemy Sound Project and co-led Reptet. She has released five critically-acclaimed albums as a bandleader, and toured extensively. “Boshnack can scream or play it sweet.” (All About Jazz New York)

Levi Gillis and Artist Trust present the premiere of Viridian Dreams, a new work for tenor saxophone and improvising chamber ensemble. Over the last year, Gillis has worked to develop a distinctive saxophonic vocabulary for solo performance. Now in this most recent iteration, he performs these works augmented by a chamber ensemble of trumpet, cello, violin and piano. Gillis’s subtle and poignant explorations of extended techniques are brought together with his earthy melodic and harmonic language. Written from the saxophone first and orchestrated later, the ensemble operate as kind of an expanded saxophone, adding a new layer of depth to the original soloistic ideas.

Levi Gillis – Tenor Saxophone
Wayne Horvitz – Piano
Ebony Miranda – Cello
Alina To – Violin
Ray Larsen – Trumpet

EARTHTONESKYTONE, the duo project of bassist Kelsey Mines and guitarist Carlos Snaider, open the show, playing a dialogue of grounding sounds of bass/percussion mixed with the subtlety of strings and voice.

Inverted Space Ensemble explores the haunting and sublime music of Bun-Ching Lam, Brian Banks and Lou Harrison. Using the ensemble configuration of violin, piano and percussion, each composer showcases their unique language in this expressive ensemble configuration. This concert will feature Luke Fitzpatrick (violin), Brooks Tran (piano), and Isaac Anderson (percussion).

East Coast Meets West brings together two multi-talented trumpet players, one a transplant from the East Coast and another a Seattle native, to perform an exciting variety of works for trumpet and piano written by contemporary East- and West-Coast composers. Featured among the works is a grand Sonata by Boston’s Michael Weinstein, an enchanting Epithalamion by Pulitzer-winner Paul Moravec, and two world premiere works by Seattle’s own Peter Nelson-King, a frequent Wayward performer and multi-instrumentalist.

Trumpet player Judson Scott holds degrees from Baldwin-Wallace College, New England Conservatory, and the University of Washington. He is currently a member of the Northwest Sinfonietta and the Tacoma Symphony, and is an active freelance musician throughout the region, having performed with ensembles such as the Seattle Symphony and Seattle Opera. He was a founding member of the Seattle Trumpet Consort and is the conductor of Brass Brand Northwest.

Active as a trumpet player, pianist, and occasional composer and writer, Peter Nelson-King holds degrees from University of Puget Sound and Boston University, and is a member of Brass Band Northwest, Ensign Symphony and Lake Washington Symphony Orchestra. He has premiered dozens of works by living composers on both the East and West coast, including several of his own, and is the author of two books of poetry.

The musical duo of Vickie Dodd and James Hoskins explores new musical territory that is at once organic and otherworldly.

Vickie is a vocalist, a pioneer in the art of sound healing, and a musician who has taught and performed internationally. In performance, she intuitively draws inspiration from the people and environment around her, channeling this into improvised vocalization, with a four-octave range that spans throat singing and many other techniques. The unique human connection of Vickie’s voice is matched by James Hoskins on cello. From Boulder, Colorado, James is a prolific artist who links polished technique with a soft instinctual touch that is rare among classically trained musicians. Together, Vickie and James spontaneously generate an improvised soundscape that is unlike any other and changes throughout each performance. Their new album, Found Sound, was just released on Right Brain Records. They will perform with special guest Carol J Levin on harp.

Opening act Spontanea is an eclectic improvisational quartet based in Seattle. Integrating influences including jazz, world, electronic and experimental music, Spontanea generates unique, reverberant soundscapes that will fill the Chapel space.