Karen Bentley Pollick, violin

Presenting an array of electronic music with violin performed recently at Stanford University’s CCRMA, SPECTRUM Female Composers Festival in Brooklyn, and CINETic in Bucharest.

David A. Jaffe: Impossible Animals for violin and computer generated voices (1989)

Constantin Basica: The Making of “The Making of a Violin” (2018)
concept, text, soundtrack and video by Constantin Basica, recorded and live improvisations by Karen Bentley Pollick

Nina C. Young: Sun Propeller for scordatura violin and electronics (2012)

Christopher Jette: Simetra for violin and electronics (2018)

Chris Lortie: Jouska for violin and electronics (2017)

Milica Paranosic: Al’Airi Lepo Sviri for violin, electronics and video (2005)

Melanie Mitrano: Remember Who You Are for violin and tape (2015)

Rest & Digest

Rest & Digest is an evening of experimental music and poetry. Guests are invited to bring blankets and repose for the sets. No one turned away for lack of funds.

Ashley Eriksson Project a psych-techno music group based on Whidbey Island. It is composed of Ashley Eriksson on vocals and spacious storytelling, and Gabe Adams, Elijah Moore and Nick Toombs on a variety of drone-y instruments.

MeriAnanda is a Sound Healer who lives in Gig Harbor, Washington. She has been using vibrational sound healing tools since 2004. During a Restful Sound Bath she combines the Tibetan and Crystal singing bowls to create a pure and organic sound that seems to assist people into a relaxed state. It is heavenly, soulful and naturally uplifting. There is nothing like using the sacred sounds to tune us up to our natural state of peace, love, joy, and freedom. A true respite from the stresses of everyday life.

Nick Toombs has played music from an early age but it was not until the birth of his first daughter and move to Whidbey that he started to seriously consider playing in public and composing. He has regularly played at the farmers markets and small Whidbey venues as a solo artist where he incorporates folk elements with electronics in the experimental ambient vein. He can also be found playing bass in the avant rock band Marshlands. For the past three years he has been a regular musician at the Bayview Hall Sunday prayer body dances, singing and playing percussion, bass, and 6 string banjo. These dances are 2 hours of improvised music based on the 5 rhythms dance template with a rotating cast of musicians stepping in to fulfill different roles. The synergy between musicians and dancers and the improvised spirit feeds him in ways he could not have expected and he greatly values the freedom embodied there.

Dog Sister is an experimental poetry band with a rotating cast of players. For this set Lauren Moore will be collaborating with Vida Rose to present poems surrounding digestion and guide the audience through an interactive body scan experience.

mmuumm is a moniker of Seattle artist Brit Ruggirello. Combining her love of distorted loops and electronic voice echoes, Brit explores the sounds of womb resonance tones + somber aches of love.

Tom Varner & Friends: End of Summer Sound Vespers

I have really enjoyed some special collaborations with members of the Seattle Phonographers Union together with live instrumental improvisers, over the past four years. We’ve done three concerts with different instrumental combinations, and this will be our fourth, this time returning to our original setting of field recordings, mixed brass, and percussion. These concerts have been, frankly, magical — you might hear some gorgeous muted brass long tones meeting up with crackling ice, insects, or sounds of a totally unknown origin! Feel free to move around — we will set up in all corners of the beautiful Chapel space. Please join us!

Tom Varner, French horn, with:
Steve Barsotti, Amy Denio, Doug Haire, and Steve Peters, field recording improvisers
Samantha Boshnack, Greg Kelley, Jim Knodle, Ray Larsen, and Thomas Marriot, trumpets
Stuart Dempster and Haley Freedlund, trombones
Greg Campbell, percussion and brass

Tom Varner is a French hornist, composer, improviser, bandleader, and teacher, who moved to Seattle in 2005, after 26 years in New York. He’s played with Steve Lacy, LaMonte Young, John Zorn, Bobby Previte, Jim McNeely, and many others, and has 14 CD’s out as a leader/composer.

Radon Daughters & Guests

Radon Daughters is a free improvised sound collaboration of between Patrick Neill Gundran (Uneasy Chairs), Clifford Dunn, Blake DeGraw (FHTAGN, Plancklength) and horridus (devilsclub). Tonight they will be joined by Butoh artist Kaoru Okumura. Exploring the interaction of sound, movement and light without expectation, the goal is no goal.

With guests:

Caspar Sonnet is a composer, singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist currently residing in Portland, Oregon. He has been composing and performing experimental/improvisational music since 1996. Sonnet’s multi-instrumentalist abilities include: lap steel dobro, harmonica & percussion. Native American mythology, pre-war blues, world music and minimalist composition are among many of his current interests.

Adam Levitt is a frequent collaborator and solo performer, using saxophone and electronics to create improvised material that usually lands somewhere between noise, drone, ambient and free jazz. Over the last year, he has done a series of performances using a dying amplifier, producing unique and varied results.

Live video projections by CitrusSheila.

Plancklength + Morher + Noel Kennon

A night of original electroacoustic works presented in a six-channel surround sound.

Plancklength is a multidisciplinary sound-art collective consisting of Jeff Anderson, Chloe Wicks, and Blake DeGraw. Their work celebrates sound as a physical phenomenon and typically explores music as a three-dimensional construct. Plancklength’s surround-sound works have been featured internationally as part of Vox Novus’ 60×60 concert series, and they recently presented La Voix des Airs, a month-long interactive sound-art installation utilizing manipulatable tone generators the collective built themselves.

Morher is the musical project of Ambrosia Bardos, a multimedia artist based in Seattle and Chicago (aka w r t c h). Creating swells of sound and silence using vocalization and biometric data in tandem with analog sound manipulation, their work is improvised with intentionality of body and electronics functioning as a channel. Bardos is informed by their diasporic Rroma and indigenous Quileute ancestry; in dialogue with Queer genealogies; in process with experiences of crisis and catharsis as asex worker and survivor of pre-verbal trauma. Their artwork is a vessel for liminal spaces of communion.

Noel Kennon is a composer, performer, and improviser from Tennessee, currently studying composition at Cornish College of the Arts. His works indeterminacy, stochasticity, and microtonality.

Rebecca Lawrence & James Vitz-Wong

Rebecca Lawrence and James Vitz­-Wong first met as bass section-mates in Seattle Youth Symphony Orchestra. Seven years later, they are both striving to expand bass repertoire outside of the boundaries of classical music. Tonight they present acoustic and electronic, contemporary and original works for the double bass.

Seattle native James Vitz­-Wong is a multi­disciplinary artist and performer, and a graduate of Oberlin Conservatory and California Institute of the Arts. James’s sonic work focuses on layering soundscapes and digitally manipulated bass. Other explorations include interactive installation, immersive theater, and contemporary dance.

Rebecca Lawrence is an emerging artist committed to the performance of contemporary solo and chamber music for the double bass. A 2018 Bang On A Can fellow, her work explores the spaces between classical music, folk, pop music and experimental improvisation. She is a recent graduate of the University of Southern California and will continue her studies this fall in Paris with François Rabbath.

Karl Fousek + Michael Masaru Flora

Karl Fousek (b. 1984) is an electronic musician and composer based in Montreal, Quebec. His works explore the sonorities of modular synthesis and custom audio processing software in a variety of contexts from improvised music, to generative music, to drone and minimalism. As a performer he is committed to the pursuit of a truly “live” electronic music, participating in both concerts for solo synthesizer and in group improvisations alongside electronic and acoustic instrumentation. His music has been published internationally on labels such as Limited Interest (US), Phinery (DK), Spring Break Tapes (US), Adhesive-Sounds (CA), and others; and he has been featured in concert at MUTEK, Cluster New Music + Integrated Arts Festival, The Banff Centre, Sounds Like Audio Arts Festival, Vector Festival, and elsewhere. As a collaborator Karl has worked with Roger Tellier-Craig, Devon Hansen, Yves Charuest, Nicholas Caloia, Dan Browne, and Danny Clay amongst others.

Michael Masaru Flora is a Minneapolis-based sound artist. His interest is in the exploration of sound via research and artistic practice. Working within the intersections of art, science, music, and mathematics, he creates pieces that examine sonic morphology, spatialization, and human perception. Composition is realized through a combination of various digital synthesis methods and processing of recorded sounds. Work is often presented in site-specific multi-channel installations and performances which reveal the unique sonic footprint of the space and allows for the choreography of sound through speaker placement and animation of movement. Flora’s practice has included recording, performance, installation, video, choreography, and curatorial projects. His work has been presented at Stanford University’s Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics (CCRMA), St Cloud State University (Minnesota) as well as clubs, galleries, theaters, warehouses, and universities throughout North America. His latest recording “Xi ” was published by Minnesota-based label Sympathy Limited.

Doug Theriault + RM Francis

Gift Tapes/DRAFT presents Doug Theriault and RM Francis for its third installment of its 2018 program at the Chapel Performance Space, in association with the Wayward Music Series.

Portland-based Doug Theriault makes his first Seattle appearance in five years, performing live cut up guitar improvisations using custom made electronics. Local RM Francis kicks off a string of west coast performances, debuting new work that is sure to convey his innovative approach to computer-generated sound. Join us for this exciting evening of new electronic music.

From North India to the Northwest

Presented by Island Consort and Wayward Music Series, From North India to the Northwest celebrates the rich musical connections between artists from diverse musical backgrounds. During one evening, the event will alternate performances by two outstanding ensembles:

From Kolkata, India master sitar player Pandit Debi Prasad Chatterjee will perform alongside Northwest artists Ravi Albright on tabla, and saxophonist Neil Welch (of Bad Luck, King Tears Bat Trip). The artists will explore a fusion of classical and western improvisation.

Whidbey Island-based pianist Sheila Weidendorf leads an ensemble exploring contemporary classical music of Alan Hovhaness, Rebecca Clarke’s Morpheus and more. Weidendorf is joined on stage with Seattle’s James Patterson (french horn) and Roxanna Patterson (viola).

Bounty of the Wayside

Bounty of the Wayside produces spontaneous song and interludes: lyrical, plaintive and driving, with impromptu-conjured tales of mortals and other beings. There are hints of Ivor Cutler, The Fall, Philip Glass, George Eliot.

Nancy Clarke on violin and backing vocals (Danger Bunny, Honey, Graham Connah)
Jeremy Eaton with words, vocals and snare drum
Kyle Hanson on accordion (The Murkies, Black Cat Orchestra)

There will be snacks during the intermission!