Seattle composer/pianist Keith Eisenbrey will present a parcel of piano pieces with alliterative pretensions, persistently perambulating through the cycles of piano preludes by Seattle composers Ken Benshoof (2003), Lockrem Johnson (1924-1977), and Greg Short (1938-1999). Also on the program will be Kam Morrill’s Puppet Pieces (2013), Benjamin Boretz’s Partita (1955), selections from Benshoof’s Patti’s Parlour Pieces (2000), as well as Keith’s own Seventeen Prepuntal Contraludes (1981), Two Pomes Play (2000), and a partition of his 24 Preludes (2011).

Keith Eisenbrey brings to his pianism a composer’s imaginative musical understanding, and to his composition a remorselessly speculative spirit, cerebral and sensuous at once. His music seeks to illuminate those most intimate of our personal spaces: the silences across which, in which, and out from which music, thought, and utterance unfold. A native of the Puget Sound area, he studied composition with Dell Wade, Ken Benshoof, John Rahn, and Benjamin Boretz, and piano with Victor Smiley, Joan Purswell, and Neal O’Doan. He is a co-founder of Banned Rehearsal, an ongoing argument in creative musical expression, now in it’s 34th year. His critical and theoretical work has appeared in Perspectives of New Music, News of Music, and Open Space, and he assisted in the editing of Boretz’s Meta-Variations: Studies in the Foundations of Musical Thought for its republication. His oeuvres includes solo pieces for various keyboards, songs, and chamber works. He opines weekly at Now Music in New Albion.

The Baltic Arts Council Northwest was recently established to support and promote arts and culture from the three Baltic countries in celebrating the 100th anniversary of independence of the three Baltic nations, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. The rich musical world of the Baltics has emerged with a global presence that belies the small size of the three countries of the region. In this program, the first of a number of events celebrating the anniversary, we will feature music by 20th/21st century composers Pēteris Vasks (Latvia), René Eespere and Ester Magi (Estonia), and Onutė Narbutaitė and Mikalojus K. Čiurlionis (Lithuania).

Performers participating in the concert are the Skyros String Quartet, guitarist Michael Nicolella, flutist Paul Taub, and duo pianists Dainius and Asta Vaicekonis.

Two Games: Violist/improviser Heather Bentley is joined by drummer Dio Jean-Baptiste; with a second set including trumpeter Jim Knodle, vocalist Michele Khazak and harpist Carol Levin for two improvised musical games.

Two Games:

1. Heather/Dio Duo
Q. What’s the difference between a viola and a drum?
A. We are looking into it…

2. Canticle Stew:
Jim Knodle, trumpet, Timelord
Heather Bentley, viola, Philosopher Queen
Michele Khazak, vocals, High Priestess and Arbiter of Words
Carol Levin, Ambassador to the Celestial Sphere

…with audience-suggested lyrics…

Canticle Stew is a three part musical game wherein:
1. The esteemed Timelord Jim Knodle demands an exacting relationship to the passage of time;
2. High Priestess and Arbiter of Words Michele Khazak might deign to sing favorite words submitted from those gathered…or not; and
3. Ambassador to the Celestial Sphere Carol Levin will exert some fixed pitch-ness upon the proceedings in an attempt to evoke the universality of the harmonic cosmos.

Philosopher Queen Heather Bentley will exercise a modicum of benign sovereignty over the events that unfold, if possible.

The Seattle Improvised Music Festival (SIMF) is the longest-running festival in the US dedicated solely to music that is completely improvised. This is truly “music of the moment,” allowing artists from diverse musical backgrounds to meet in an atmosphere of spontaneity, intuition, playfulness, and discovery. See the complete festival schedule for details on other events.

The 2018 festival concludes with a full day of events:

3-5 PM: Performance by improvising dancers and musicians (details here).

5:30 PM: Community potluck dinner for musicians and audience. Bring food, hang out!

8 PM: Duo: Eric Muhs (stuff), Davey Williams (guitar)
Trio: Ruby Dunphy (drums), Stephen Fandrich (piano), Paul Rucker (cello)
Solo + ?: Jane Rigler (flute)

SIMF presents a performance of improvised dance and music, curated by Corrie Befort. Dancers: Corrie Befort, Allison Burke, Noelle Chun, Nahshon Marden, Karen Nelson, Amelia Reeber, Brandin Steffensen, Alia Swersky, Hendri Walujo, and Syniva Whitney. Musicians: Tom Baker (guitar), Ruby Dunphy (drums), James Falzone (clarinet), Haley Freedlund (trombone), Greg Kelley (trumpet), Ha-Yang Kim (cello), Dave Knott (sound), Cristin Miller (voice, electronics), and Steve Peters (field recordings). Stay for the musician/audience potluck at 5:30! Bring food! Hang out!

Taking place Feb. 10 – 17, the Seattle Improvised Music Festival (SIMF) is the longest-running festival in the US dedicated solely to music that is completely improvised. This is truly “music of the moment,” allowing artists from diverse musical backgrounds to meet in an atmosphere of spontaneity, intuition, playfulness, and discovery. See the complete festival schedule for details on other events.

Tonight:

Duo: Monika Khot (guitar), Tom Baker (guitar)
Quartet: Clifford Dunn (flute), Cristin Miller (voice, electronics), Tomeka Reid (cello), Jane Rigler (flute)
Solo + ?: Davey Williams (guitar)

The Sound Ensemble is a vibrant and rising ensemble that is redefining what it means to attend a classical music concert. With music from many different styles and composers they create a welcoming space for the audience to experience and respond to the music of our time.

In this evening of monumental works you will experience pieces that represent profoundly transformative times in either the life of the composer, or in the life of a character within the piece. With great works, such as Arnold Schoenberg’s iconic sextet Verkläte Nacht and the incredible Chamber Symphony by John Adams, you will not want to miss out.

Part music concert, part neo-dance jam, part sociocultural lab test, these evenings are designed as a hybrid experience for you to explore what The Antenna Project‘s music inspires you to do. Bring a book, bring a sketchpad, bring a pillow, bring a yoga mat, bring a camera, bring a movement idea, bring a friend… The Nyxology Sessions are all about building a bridge to that next authentic level.

Christopher Hydinger’s The Antenna Project provides instrumental live-scores (improvised, context-specific audio compositions) for all variety of experiences including extended duration performance, yoga, meditation and other movement-based classes, events, performances and happenings, films, fashion shows, ceremonies and gatherings of all kinds. He employs amplified electric guitar, an effects pedal and various methods of interfacing to create full-registered music ranging from subdued waves of droning minimalism to exuberantly celebratory maximalism. Christopher’s held the artist-in-residence position at Punk Rock Yoga, creative directed and performed in the award-winning art-theater group PB_TMOG, curated and produced the quarterly Dance and Music improvisation-based performance series HERE/NOW, performed in graphic novelist Dame Darcy’s band Death By Doll and performed at venues such as Benaroya Hall, Neumos, The Crocodile, Chop Suey, On The Boards, the Henry Art Gallery, Northwest Film Forum and the Triple Door sharing the stage with such acts as Low, Woven Hand, David Bazan (Pedro the Lion), The Gossip, Sun City Girls, The Makers, Tara Jane O’Neil, Kinski, The Dead Science and Climax Golden Twins. He currently owns/operates WCS Art and Design.

Gift Tapes/DRAFT presents the Seattle Phonographers Union & Mesh Collaborative for its first installment of its 2018 program at the Chapel Performance Space, in association with the Wayward Music Series. The Seattle Phonographers Union, a unique collective with an ever-changing lineup, performs site-specific sound works using unprocessed field recordings. Mesh Collaborative is a computer network music collective that creates synthetic sonic environments by means of realtime cross-compositional systems. Both sets of sound/music will be performed over a 4-channel sound system.

Engaging in collective improvisation using only unprocessed field recordings, the Seattle Phonographers Union explores the ways in which we recognize, differentiate, map and navigate our sonic environment. Our intent is to move beyond habitual experience of sound and uncover what is foreign in the familiar and familiar about the foreign; to explore what we hear and relearn what we know. Some sounds will be familiar; others less so. Both novel and familiar sounds are juxtaposed in ways unique to each event. Our intent is to investigate and enrich both our intuitive and analytical relationship with sound. The goal is not to excite, confuse or entertain per se, but to attend to the world, which is much more detailed and diverse than any one person’s perception of it. Performers will include: Steve Barsotti, Mark Cooper, Doug Haire, Jake Muir and Steve Peters.

Mesh Collaborative’s debut performance will feature a single desktop computer performing digital synthesis in response to control messages sent by four human performers with laptops. This system, built using the SuperCollider programming language, is designed to exploit the inherent volatility of the network, complete with lag, race conditions, and possible system crashes. Performers include: a 2007 iMac, Jeff Huston, James Watkins, RM Francis & Jason E Anderson.

Karen Bentley Pollick returns to the Wayward Music Series for an acoustic violin & viola recital of repertoire by New York Women Composers, selected from a call for scores and supported by a Seed Money Grant from NYWC awarded in November 2017. Seattle violist Heather Bentley will join for the Washington premiere of Victoria Bond’s Woven for violin and viola. Also a world premiere of a new solo work by Karen Bentley Pollick, composed recently in Mexico. In addition, Stanford composer Jonathan Berger and his mentor, renowned Israeli composer Mark Kopytman, will be represented as a preview of a future concert at Stanford University’s CCRMA on May 26, 2018.

Marga Richter: Darkening of the Light for solo viola (1978)
Faye-Ellen Silverman: Memories for solo viola (1974)
Adrienne Elisha: Inner Voices for solo viola (2008)
Rain Worthington: Mixed Times of Yearning for solo viola (2014)
Victoria Bond: Woven for violin and viola (2008) with violist Heather Bentley
Mark Kopytman: Cantus IV: Dedication for violin solo (1986)
Jonathan Berger: Sink or Swim for solo violin (2006)
Karen Bentley Pollick: World premiere of new piece for solo violin (2018)