LovePunk is a love-fueled, passion-driven, penetrative musical beast! Utilizing voice, motion, & both traditional and explorative instrumentation, LovePunk leads the listener into the rich, textured heart of inspiration. Unique, while familiar, the essences of jazz, folk, funk, blues, world and tribal are recognizable, and color the group’s eclectic stylings. LovePunk’s founder, Mama Amelia Love Clearheart (Indigo LovePunk), channels and freestyles poetry and voice, afloat astounding innovations, extending from the creative Spirits of Carol J. Levin on electric harp, Carlos Snaider on guitar, Kelsey Mines on upright bass, Heather Bentley on 7-string violin, Leanna Keith on flutes, and Don Berman on percussion.

Together, these artists traverse & relay spiritual-emotional, philosophical and logical, and sometimes even socio-political insights, from the utterly simple to the thrillingly transcendental. LovePunk’s interest and intention is a healing musical contribution to the exploration & restoration of the neglected and malnourished aspects of human strength, beauty, resilience, and dedication to life and thriving.

Christian Swenson is a shaman of delight. A solitary performer dreaming out loud in the wilderness of the bodyvoice, he interweaves the mysterious and the obvious with immediacy, power and vulnerability. In 1979 Christian began accompanying his dancing with his voice and has toured the world sharing his joy in “our original instrument”. He has developed a wholly original mode of performing he calls “Human Jazz” where his body shapes his voice and his voice shapes his body. His pioneering work has been presented throughout North America and in Europe, and Asia. In 1977 he received a B.A. in Theater from the University of New Hampshire and moved to Seattle to apprentice with the Bill Evans Dance Company. Further training has included work with Tony Montanaro, Ruth Zapora, Andy Shaw, Korean shaman Hi-ah Park, and with the late Pakistani master singer Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan. For many years he has been involved in a wide variety of Seattle’s improvisation communities including Contact Improvisation, Vocal Improvisation and Playback Theater.

Doors at 7:30.

Lotus Lungs is a trio of three innovative and accomplished guitarists: Matt Benham, Bill Horist and Tom Scully. Based in Seattle, they’ve left footprints in jazz, classical, rock, avant-garde, free improvisation and experimental music, contributing to a dynamic local scene. Individually, they have each stretched the boundaries of the instrument along three dimensions: improvisation, experimentation and tradition. In combo they fuel each other, developing themes and new sonic textures to produce spectacularly varied soundscapes that chart new, eye-opening territory. Tonight they’ll play improvised acoustic and electric sets to celebrate the release of their first album, Guitar Improv Summit Vol. 1.

Neil Welch will perform acoustic solo works on soprano, tenor and bass saxophones, traversing abstract “resonance imaginations” through multiphonics, air and non-tempered melody. Recognized as a major voice of the Seattle jazz and experimental music fields, Welch’s work is derived from improvisation, using largely non-traditional techniques that explore sonic resonance. With a strong connection to place, he performs and documents audio recordings prolifically within the urban and rural landscapes of the Pacific Northwest and beyond. Neil embraces a variety of resonant musical styles, with work spanning avant-garde jazz, modern composition, solo saxophone, North Indian classical music, and electronic sound processing. His playing unabashedly confronts the acoustical limits of the instrument.

Haley Freedlund is a trombonist and vocalist, working primarily in free improvisation, jazz, pop, and new works. She has been based in Seattle since 2011, where she has since been establishing herself as a multi-disciplinary powerhouse in the performing arts community. She is a frequent collaborator with Wayne Horvitz, Tom Varner, Christian Pincock, Heatwarmer, Karl Blau, Inverted Space Ensemble, and Verlaine & McCann. She has enjoyed collaborations with Cherdonna Shinatra, iji, Phillip Greenlief, Boom Tic Boom, The Empty Pockets, BATTERY, and St. Paul de Vence.

Amelia Coulter plays the alto trombone. She works mainly with alternative techniques, including modified/prepared trombones and vocal-, text-, location-, and object-oriented performance, with a focus on the Gregorian chant tradition. She has: a bachelor of music from Cornish College of the Arts, and a cat named Hippo.

(Originally scheduled for Feb. 9 as part of the 34th Seattle Improvised Music Festival, but cancelled due to snow.)

Seattle Improvised Music Festival presents a performance of Dance & Music, curated by Stephanie Skura.

Scruffy & determined, with fierce eyes, sharp beaks, & hearts melting! Nine deep-diving, life-long-improvising, shamanic music/dance mavens come together for the first time, guided by ancient instincts & minimal oxymoronic scoring. A rare-breed, wizardly dream-team for lovers of non-sequitor, alternative flow, & multi-versal realities:

Dancers: Linda Austin (PDX), Paige Barnes, Vanessa DeWolf, Nate Dryden (SLC), Jordan MacIntosh-Hougham, Stephanie Skura; Musicians: Dave Knott, homemades; Steve Peters, field recordings, found things, Jenny Ziefel, clarinets [replacing Beth Fleenor, who is sadly unable to join us as originally planned]

“Performance is political not because of its subject matter but because of the way
performances are made, how they’re structured, and what they show about people
relating to each other.” [from Skura’s essay “Politics of Method”, in Reimaging America: The Arts of Social Change. New Society Publishers, 1990]

Nuanced, ego-dissolved music & dance!
Rarified & recalcitrant!
Ragged, restless, brainy, besmirched!

Seattle Modern Orchestra will be be joined by composer and vocalist Erin Gee for the performance of five of her on-going Mouthpieces Series. About these works for voice and ensemble, Gee explains that “the articulatory possibilities of the mouth are often mapped onto the instruments, mirroring and expanding the vocal sounds to form a kind of “super-mouth” that can move beyond the physical limitations of a single vocal tract. Merging the voice with both the instruments and with breath, and repeatedly returning to formlessness through “a more (or less) pronounced utterance of the mouth.” Gee’s sound world is paired with Kaija Saariaho’s Aer, the last movement titled Phoenix from her 1991 ballet Maa.

Program:
ERIN GEE, Mouthpiece II
ERIN GEE, Mouthpiece Remix
ERIN GEE, Mouthpiece – segment of the 4th letter
ERIN GEE, Mouthpiece XXIX
ERIN GEE, Mouthpiece X
KAIJA SAARIAHO, Aer for 7 instruments and electronics

(Photo: Jonah Sutherland, still from video)

Years of geographical dislocation finally find guitarist Janet Feder (Denver), drummer Jen Gilleran, and pianist James Han reuniting as Recess at The Chapel for an evening of compositions and improvisations based on structure, film, weather patterns, and politics. Maybe. We’re sure about the first two at least. We welcome your company for this rare convergence.

A relatively new group, Rae consists of Abbey Blackwell (bass), Ronan Delisle (guitar), and Evan Woodle (drums). Abbey has written a set of songs with lyrical tunes and sometimes jarring harmonies that complement each other, offering relatable melodies with an avant-garde undercurrent. Abbey, Ronan, and Evan’s background in free improvisation and jazz bring the songs to life — the individuals are a part of the Racer Sessions community and play in a wide variety of jazz, rock, and avant-garde projects. All of those strands can be found in Rae’s music.

Levi Gillis writes intricate songs for guitar and voice. His beautiful harmonies and heartbreaking melodies expand past his background in jazz and into the realm of folk music.

Seattle cellist and composer Lori Goldston, joined by a broadly skilled ensemble of local collaborators, premiers Rivulet, a new piece created especially for this concert about collective strength and imagination, and extra-linguistic memory moving in music and water. Composed with graphic and traditional notation, the score tests and dwells in brackish margins between musical conventions. She is joined by Dave Abramson (percussion & drum set), Haley Freedlund (trombone), Kole Galbraith (bass), Greg Kelley (trumpet), and Austin Larkin (violin).

Presented by Nonsequitur.

Flutist Colleen McElroy and saxophonist Evan Smith explore an adventurous program of modern music which will feature the new work Six Moments by Seattle composer Tom Baker.

Colleen McElroy is the Piccolo/Second Flute of the Spokane Symphony, and is also Second Flute/Piccolo in the Boise Philharmonic Orchestra. She is a member of Emissary Quartet (an ensemble of four flutes), serves as Vice-President of the Seattle Flute Society.

Evan Smith is a versatile woodwind artist who holds DMA from the University of Washington, where he conducted research into the compositional techniques of Yusef Lateef. He leads an active touring and teaching schedule and is the co-director of the Seattle Saxophone Institute.

Their duo performance was born out of the desire to explore all the timbral flexibilities of the different combinations of flute and saxophone pairings, while following a lineage of composition from 20th century works to contemporary composers and improvisation. Their aim is to expand the palette of existing repertoire for these two instruments while challenging the preconceptions of each instrument’s role in classical and contemporary music.

Kin of the Moon has the profound honor to welcome New Music rising star soprano Emily Thorner to Seattle for her only West Coast appearance in 2019. Premiering both Kaley Lane Eaton’s FUNERAL SENTENCES FOR DAMAGED CELLS and Leanna Keith’s Concerto for Tea Ceremony, Emily is known for her command of stratospheric high notes and is highly sought-after for world premieres due to her unusual range and fearless virtuosity. One of only two vocalists to appear at the 2018 Bang on a Can Festival, Emily recorded the US premiere of Wolfgang Rihm’s Frage, known for its impossibly high tessitura of over twenty-two high F’s and beyond.

Three World Premieres:

Concerto for Tea Ceremony by Leanna Keith invites the audience to experience a traditional Chinese tea ceremony, an activity practiced by Leanna’s family for generations. Inspired by “cha dao” or “the way of tea,” performers are given a set of instructions which are triggered by the elements of a live tea ceremony ritual. The text asks the audience to consider how meditation works, and gives permission to try to practice a meditation-like state throughout the piece, while also allowing and expecting both the audience and performers to fail. The music slowly evolves from a setting of peace to one of full-blown distraction, reaching for clarity by the end.

Crow by Leanna Keith is a love letter to the Pacific Northwest. As a Midwest refugee, Leanna’s experience moving to Washington State was colored by suddenly seeing crows every day, having never seen them in Middle America. She would spend hours outside watching them, the ways they would move while alone, the ways they flocked together. Having moved without knowing anyone in the region, her taiko drum ensemble became her newfound flock. Upon learning that the onomatopoeia for the sound of a taiko drum being hit on the rim was “KA” (also the onomatopoeia for the sound crows make in Japan), an idea was born to combine the two musical realms she loved so dearly. The piece combines taiko drums with piano, vibraphone, and viola – passing a melody around the ensemble where the tune is dissected into pieces, and then warped and reattached through the sounds of the taiko drum.

FUNERAL SENTENCES FOR DAMAGED CELLS by Kaley Lane Eaton is a multi-movement work for Emily Thorner, ultra-soprano, and ensemble Kin of the Moon that tells the story of Kaley’s family’s journey through multiple generational traumas and how that relates to our current societal predicament. The birth of her great-great-aunt in an insane asylum; the orphaning of her great-grandparents; tumultuous migration to the American West; her grandfather’s tragic experience in a concentration camp; her mother’s untimely death; and the current situation of the living generations of her family, caught in a limbo on this continent they did not rightfully inherit, faced with the disintegration of the American dream. How can the singing voice be a metaphor for epigenetic transmission of trauma and information? How does the evolution of language contribute to our ability to express these traumas? The creation of FUNERAL SENTENCES has been sponsored, in part, by a generous composer grant from CityArtist.

Inverted Space Ensemble presents a concert that incorporates the Harry Partch Harmonic Canon, multiple toy pianos, cimbalon, and multiple string quartets. Toy pianos will be featured in two Seattle premiers of works by Luke Fitzpatrick and Jeff Bowen, which also use Harry Partch’s Harmonic Canon. Brooks Tran will perform John Cage’s Suite for Toy Piano. Harry Partch Ensemble Director Charles Corey will perform the music of Kurtag on cimbalon featuring soprano Sarah Kolat. In addition, the concert will present String Quartets by John Cage, Robert Ashley and La Monte Young.