Pianist Eric McElroy celebrates the incredible diversity of music in our time, ranging from neo-romanticism to pop-classical fusion. The highlight is Frederic Rzewski’s De Profundis, one of the masterpieces of contemporary music. It is composed for “speaking pianist”, meaning the pianist not only plays but also speaks, sings, shouts, hums, and much else. The spoken text is taken from Oscar Wilde’s eponymous letter which he wrote while imprisoned at Reading Gaol, condemned for acts of “gross indecency”. It is an expression of sorrow, love, despair, and spirituality. It is the attempt of a ruined man to reconcile himself to his fate. The concert also features Eric’s own composition The Perilous Realm (2014), which won the 2015 MTNA National Award for Composition, Jacob TV’s The Body of Your Dreams for piano and soundtrack, and the American premiere of Piano Sonata No. 2, Op. 71 (1972), by John Joubert in celebration of the composer’s 90th birthday.

An evening of music and discussion with Seattle composers:

Patrick O’Keefe, Sonata for Piano
S. Eric Scribner
Blake Degraw, Diler, for strings
Cole Bratcher, Transit Maps, fixed media with projection

The Seattle Composers’ Salon fosters the development, performance and appreciation of new music by regional composers and performers. At bi-monthly, informal presentations, the Salon features finished works, previews, and works in progress. Composers, performers, and audience members gather in a casual setting that allows for experimentation and discussion. Everyone is welcome!

Tom Varner writes: About three years ago, I really enjoyed a collaborative concert that I led with an improvising brass ensemble and sound artists associated with the Seattle Phonographers Union. In the Good Shepherd Chapel Space, it was magical. We did another variation on this type of collaboration in January 2017, and now we’ll present another version, this time with a mix of brass, reeds, strings, percussion, and at least three field recording artists. For me, it is a nice departure from my other work as a more jazz-influenced French hornist/composer, and provides a great setting for musical quiet and reflection — though not without some wonderfully noisy moments! James Falzone (clarinets), Heather Bentley (violin, viola), Paul Kikuchi (percussion), and field recordists Steve Peters, Steve Barsotti, and Doug Haire are great improvisers — I can’t wait to hear a clarinet in a duo with some crackling ice, or a violin with some other haunting far-away sounds. Do come join us.

(Photo: Daniel Sheehan/EyeShotJazz)

Gift Tapes/DRAFT presents the fourth installment of its 2017 program at the Chapel. Jarrad Powell will present some of his electronic music, offering up a rare opportunity to experience these works outside of a music for dance context. Opening will be Portland duo Golden Retriever.

Jarrad Powell is a composer, performer, and a professor in the Music Department at Cornish College of the Arts where he teaches composition, world music, gamelan, tuning and temperament, and other theory-related classes. He is Director of Gamelan Pacifica, , one of the most active and adventurous gamelan ensembles in the US,  and Co-Director of IETI+I (“yeti”), the Institute of Emergent Technology + Intermedia at Cornish. His compositions have been performed and broadcast internationally and include pieces for voice, gamelan, various western and non-western instruments, electroacoustic music, music for theater, dance and experimental film. His work also includes numerous cross-cultural collaborations, particularly with Indonesian artists. As Music Director and composer for Scott/Powell Performance, a contemporary dance company formed in 1994, he has created over 20 major works with choreographer and visual artist Mary Sheldon Scott. His recordings can currently be found on New World Records, Present Sounds, and Blind Stone Records.

Golden Retriever, the duo of Matt Carlson and Jonathan Sielaff, have been developing their musical language since 2008. Primarily working with the intersection of modular synthesis and amplified/effected bass clarinet, the duo have done eight releases for labels like Thrill Jockey, Root Strata, and NNA Tapes. Their music combines an intense emotional immediacy and meditative focus with strong melodicism and an organic, naturalistic approach to experimental electronic sound. Their next record for Thrill Jockey, Rotations, will be released this year, and features the duo expanding their sonic palette to incorporate a full chamber ensemble into their sound world.

An evening of ambient/electro-acoustic music celebrating new releases by three Seattle artists on local labels that have since moved on to warmer climes.

Marc Barreca has been making electronic music in Seattle since the mid-1970s, releasing a number of projects over the years on the Hawaii-based Palace of Lights label. His most recent PoL releases are the solo project Aberrant Lens, and the brand new double CD collaboration with K. Leimer, Dual Mono.

Jake Muir is a sound artist currently residing in Seattle. Armed with a keen ear for textural environments and haunting aural landscapes, Muir creates ghostly soundscapes from field recordings, reinterpreted vinyl loops, and radio segments. This source material is processed digitally to further place these found sounds into a new context. His newest release is Acclimation, on the Dragon’s Eye label in Los Angeles.

Steve Peters is a composer/sound artist who has released work on both Palace of Lights and Dragon’s Eye. His new PoL release is Airforms (Chamber Music 10). The Chamber Music series are pieces based entirely on recordings of empty room tone. Tonight he’ll perform a version of Chamber Music 5: Stained Glass, using only materials derived from a recording of the empty Chapel.

Gradus: for Fux, Tesla and Milo the Wrestler is Neal Kosaly-Meyer’s ongoing composition in progress for piano, exploring through improvisation a slowly expanding collection of pitches, and their grounding in silence, in patient attentive microscopic detail.

Neal Kosaly-Meyer has been actively working on Gradus since 2002, spending about thirteen years working through all possible combinations of A’s on the piano keyboard, and since working systematically through selected combinations including the E’s, C#’s and G’s. The role of silence in Gradus is as fundamental as that of any of the pitches employed, conceived in John Cage’s sense as all the unintended ambient sounds occurring during the piece’s performance.

Read more about this on Live Music Project and follow it on the Facebook event page.

(photo: Joe Mabel)

An evening of improvised music and lighting design with The Murkies and kt Shores.

Composer and accordionist Kyle Hanson (aka The Murkies) innovated the extended technique known as ‘alternating transverse oscillation of the bellows’ by which he obtains a shimmering sound and immersive effects. His music ranges from ambient soundscapes to psychedelic pop with many stops in between.

kt Shores is the artistic director of the arts space Studio Current in Capitol Hill and one half of the creative duo Mother Tongue.

Doors open at 7:30, music starts at 8.

Tiny Orchestral Moments is an international troupe of established, improvising musicians who meet periodically to write, record, perform, and collaborate across genres, geographies and genders.

TOM performers prepare and present collaborative repertoire for layered guitars, voices, violins, strings, wind, and percussion. The aim: structured improvisation that sounds composed and composed collaboration that sounds improvised. TOM shows unfold for the audience in 360-degrees as musicians move in and around the audience. The surround sound is complemented by three walls of ambient video, and supported by an array of guitarists from the worldwide Guitar Craft community. And, each year, we also invite one or two additional surprise ‘wild card’ guests.

The 2017 Tiny Orchestral Moments core team includes:

Janet Feder – Denver-based composer and prepared guitarist
Paul Richards – LA-based guitarist from the California Guitar Trio
Nora Germain – LA-based jazz violinist, improvising collaborator with the Orchestra of Crafty Guitarists
Nigel Gavin – New Zealand composer and world-renowned Crafty Guitarist
Amy Denio – well-known Seattle musician, composer and member of Kultur Shock and the Tiptons
Steve Ball – founder of the Seattle Guitar Circle, C3 and Electric Gauchos
Julie Slick – bassist with Echo Test and member of the Adrian Belew Power Trio
Alex Anthony Faide – Argentinean guitarist and founding member of Electric Gauchos
Aileen Bunch – Philadelphia guitarist/pianist with Symphony of Crafty Guitarists, and Tilted Axes, music for mobile electric guitars
Martin de Aguirre – Spanish guitarist and founding member of Argentina’s Big Time Trio
Sonia Wilson – Paris-based singer and Uke player, and member of New Zealand’s Gitbox Rebellion
Dev Ray – Boston-based guitarist and member of Guitar Circle New England

Please join us for a night of music by Kranky recording artists High Plains, the new duo of Scott Morgan (loscil) and Mark Bridges, in support of their debut release Cinderland. Combining electronics, cello, and field recordings, High Plains draw from classical, electronic, and film music but mostly are inspired by the rugged, mythic landscape of their geographical namesake. High Plains will be supported by the improvised electronic trio Wild Card, comprised of Paul Dickow (Strategy), William Selman, and Marcus Fischer, and Cruel Diagonals, the adventurous project of the jazz and classically trained vocalist Megan Mitchell.

High Plains (Vancouver/Madison)
Inspired by the wide vistas of their geographical namesake, High Plains is a new of duo of Scott Morgan (loscil) and Mark Bridges that combines electronics, field recordings, and cello.

Cruel Diagonals (Seattle)
An outlet for destructive sample processing, vocal exploration, and intermedia experimentation, Cruel Diagonals is the solo project of the jazz and classically trained vocalist Megan Mitchell.

Wild Card (Portland)
Hailing from the free nation of Cascadia, Wild Card is a “modular free jazz” trio of Paul Dickow (Strategy), William Selman, and Marcus Fischer.