Threshold is a quartet comprised of Seattle improvised music scene veterans. Organized by Don Berman, the group assembled for a free-ranging session in 2023, and discovered they can enter a musical space “through threshold” where they improvise together in a deep listening manner that almost sounds composed. Some call it “great band chemistry”.

This project is the manifestation of a musical vision Don had held for years: a 21st century string quartet. Deeply influenced by his late father, William Berman, a master violist who performed extensively in symphonic and string chamber music settings, the decision was made to create a contemporary chamber group. In his words: “I took the liberty of choosing cello, two guitarists, percussion, and creative electronics, as opposed to the classic two violins, viola, and cello format. Complex polyphony that fits together extremely well.” Threshold is: Heather Bentley (cello, electronics), Don Berman (percussion), Simon Henneman (guitar, electronics), Dennis Rea (guitar, electronics). The show will celebrate the release of Threshold’s second recording, “Live at Vermillion”, mixed, mastered and produced by Gregg Miller, for his exciting new label, Sonic Action Records.

Far-reaching in musical scope but containing approachable sonic inroads, the Neil Welch Trio explores compositions and improvisations with deep grooves, malleable time, swinging phrasing, jagged phrasing, microtonal melodies, and much more. The group will perform all original compositions by Neil Welch, crafted specifically for this ensemble. Neil Welch (soprano, tenor and bass saxophones), Julian Weisman (acoustic bass), and Greg Campbell (drums, percussion objects, and french horn).

Saxophonist Neil Welch is a Seattle-based improviser, acoustic and electronic artist, curator, composer, recording artist and educator. His practice is firmly linked to the natural world, welcoming inspiration from the abundant wildernesses of the Pacific Northwest. These influences are sonically reflected by a measured use of space and activated silence, with such specialized techniques as multiphonic-acoustic chord playing, microtonal pitch content, and air/wind-based sound. He is also a deep practitioner in the sculpting of a compelling melody, played on horn voices ranging from soprano to bass saxophone.

Brilliant musicians and dancers will collaborate to create… who knows? A night of exploratory deep listening, collaboration, experimentation, improvisation in multiple formats, including interactive opportunities for the audience.

Sound Artists: Abbey Blackwell, Amy Denio, Carol J Levin, Caroline Kraabel, Christian Pincock, Haley Freedlund, Jenny Ziefel, Leanna Keith, Mark Filler, Susie Kozawa.

Movement Artists: Aaron Swartzman, Aiko Kinoshita, Christian Swenson, Hannah Rice, Katrina Wolfe, Sheri Cohen.

Beth Quist (Bobby McFerron, Cirque du Soleil, The Crown) and leithaus (The Crown, Seattle Guitar Circle, Orchestra of Crafty Guitarists) will be performing new and old solo material and collaborations.

leithaus (aka Gregroy Meredith) debuts a new cycle of songs for 8-String Touch Guitar, loops, and spoken word (from his recently published book Silence and Surrender). Beth Quist will be perform on hammered dulcimer, keyboard, guitar, and cajón to accompany her otherworldly vocals.

Joan Laage/Kogut Butoh – Mortal Magnetism
with James Falzone (clarinet, penny whistle, shruti box), Jackie An (violin) & Aaron Harmonson (acoustic bass)

Katrina Wolfe – Intricacies Expanding
with Michael Shannon & David Stanford (electro acoustic instruments)

+ a film by Michael Shannon

With new solos, Joan/Kogut & Katrina return to the Chapel collaborating with well-known local musicians in an evening celebrating the richness and fleetingness of life in all its colorations.

Jackie An (they/them) is a violinist, composer and improviser, born and raised on the unceded land of the Pueblos (Albuquerque, New Mexico) who now resides on the ancestral lands of the Duwamish (Seattle, Washington). Their violin is fitted with a contact mic, turning the violin into a microphone that is actively listening for sound. The signal from the violin is channeled through guitar pedals plugged into an amp. The resonant frequencies create vibrations in the air that move any responsive membrane against mallet, wire, memory: The resulting auditory textures evoke subconscious imagery and stories for the audience to journey through.

James Falzone is a clarinetist, composer, and improviser whose work in the jazz and creative music scenes has won him international acclaim. A veteran contemporary music lecturer and clinician, as well as an award-winning composer who has been commissioned by chamber ensembles, dance companies, choirs, and symphony orchestras around the globe, Falzone leads his own ensembles —Division Quintet, Allos Musica and The Renga Ensemble — and has released a series of critically-acclaimed recordings on Allos Documents, the label he founded in 2000. Falzone performs throughout North America and Europe, appears regularly on Downbeat Magazine‘s Critics’ and Readers’ Polls, and was nominated as Clarinetist of the Year by the Jazz Journalist Association. A respected educator and scholar, James is presently the Dean of Cornish College of the Arts in Seattle.

Aaron Harmonson has performed thousands of shows in hundreds of venues around the world across a wide range of genres. Artists in which he has performed/recorded/engineered/co-produced alongside include Sierra Ferrell, Robert Sarazin Blake, Louis Ledford, Vicki Peterson (The Bangles), John Convertino (Calexico, Neko Case), Stone Gossard (Pearl Jam), Levon Henry (Allen Tousaint, Michelle Ndegeocello), Lori Goldston (Nirvana, Earth, Black Cat Orchestra), Medearis Dixon (Kendrick Lamar), Ari Joshua, Petunia and the Vipers, Jimmy James (True Loves), Country Dave and the Pickin’ Crew, Eric McConnell (Loretta Lynn, Jack White), Randy Weeks, Von Wildenhaus, and Evening Bell. Aaron joined the cast for Joan’s Refuge(e) at the Chapel in 2023.

After studying with the Ohnos and Yoko Ashikawa in Tokyo in the late 80s and performing with Ashikawa’s group Gnome, Joan Laage/Kogut Butoh settled in Seattle directing Dappin’ Butoh. Known as the Northwest butoh pioneer, she is a co-founder of DAIPANbutoh Collective. Joan has performed at the first New York butoh festival, and at Amsterdam, Paris, Vienna and Warsaw. A Ph.D. from Texas Woman’s University, who wrote on the butoh body, she is featured in Tanya Calamoneri’s Butoh America. She directs her annual site-specific performance Wandering & Wondering at the Seattle Japanese Garden and Kubota Garden and tours Europe every year. Joan frequently attends events at the Chapel and has been producing her own work there for many years.

Michael Shannon is a sound/recording artist, musician, photographer, and performer of experimental media, based in Seattle. He began performing in the punk clubs of San Francisco in the late 1970’s evolving performance and sound designs through various venues and media, specializing in the use of a variety of string instruments from Asia, field recordings, percussion, sound objects, electro-acoustic strings, and electronics. Since relocating to Seattle, he has provided music and sound for performances by Yoko Murao, Joan Laage/Kogut Butoh, Helen Thorsen, and Shoko Zama. He’s presently a member of Seattle-based performing/recording groups Gyre, Eye Music, Aono Jikken Ensemble.

David Stanford is a musician and sound artist living and working in Seattle. He currently plays with graphic score group Eye Music, silent movie soundtrack creators Aono Jikken Ensemble, feedback-based electronics trio Gyre, and for the past several years has been focused on staging sound events at outdoor locations such as beaches, backyards, and forests in collaboration with Michael Shannon and Joan Laage. 

Katrina Wolfe is a movement artist, teacher and choreographer. Having begun her creative work with visual arts, she now creates costumes, installations, and wearable sculptures from organic and recycled materials, which she incorporates into her performances. She studied butoh with Joan Laage and Atsushi Takenouchi. A multi-day workshop with Daisuke Yoshimoto and video documentation of butoh founder Tatsumi Hijikata’s work has also greatly inspired her personal style of movement. Another important aspect of Katrina’s work is dancing with the elements of nature in remote and site-specific locations. She also takes photographs, writes, and creates films from her performance work.

Curated by Ewa Trebacz (violin, piano, electronics) and Heather Bentley (viola), this evening honors the great tradition of Racer Sessions. Ewa, Heather, Neil Welch (saxophone), and Greg Campbell (percussion, etc) open with a 20 to 30 minute set, followed by spontaneous improvisations from those who gather.

Heather and Ewa have been making music in locales as diverse as studios, the stage, and an abandoned nuclear plant for years. They recently relished one last collaboration at the final Racer Session in December. Picking up a thread of our community improvisation fabric, they are presenting an Homage to Racer with the hope that folks will bring instruments and participate in small, curated groups after the initial set. 

Joining them are giants of the improvisatory imagination, Neil Welch, whose exploration of the limits of the saxophone has evidently not found a horizon; and Greg Campbell, percussion and (??), whose moniker could definitely be “he’ll surprise you”. We are not sure what instruments will grace the Chapel stage but we are certain that the listening will be intense and the sounds will carve us in new and unexpected ways.

(photo: Daniel Husser)

SGC Electric Quintet (Steve Ball, Travis Metcalf, Brad Hogg, Dev Ray, Don Box) is a subset of Seattle Guitar Circle, local chapter of the legendary League of Crafty Guitarists playing intricate, polymetric music arranged for electric guitar ensemble. SGC EQ perform structured improvisation that sounds composed and composed collaboration that sounds improvised. This international community was initially born via Robert Fripp’s ‘Guitar Craft’ workshops that began in 1985. Each SGC performance is a combination of tightly-arranged chaos, layered guitars ‘circulations’ – where each guitarist plays one note at a time in evolving melodies.

Julie Slick will open and collaborate with SGC EQ. Julie is a virtuoso bassist and composer known for her wide array of unique tones and substantial melodic invention. Throughout her career, she has developed a distinctive voice through international performances and recordings with acclaimed first class musicians in global progressive rock and jazz communities. She currently tours and makes albums with the Adrian Belew Power Trio and her own bass duo-fronted band, EchoTest. As of 2022, Julie has joined Jerry Harrison and Adrian Belew’s Remain in Light project, celebrating the music of the Talking Heads. Since 2023 she has performed with her fellow RIL cast, jam/funk group Cool Cool Cool to support shows across North America. She has also collaborated/appeared on stage with: the Crimson ProjeKct (featuring Tony Levin and Pat Mastelotto), Les Claypool, Danny Carey, Victor Wooten, Bela Fleck and the Flecktones, Robert Fripp, Stewart Copeland, Alice Cooper, Ann Wilson, Jon Anderson, Wynonna Judd, Lzzy Hale, Vicki Peterson, Mike Keneally, Marco Minnemann, Petra Haden, Kris Myers, and more.

Chris Cochrane and Kevin Bud Jones have been playing music together since 2013, initially in the band Collapsible Shoulder. Chris and Kevin would play gigs as a duo between Collapsible gigs, and continue to do so now. Their music has been described as neo-psychedelic with unpredictable twists and turns, an electronic sonic mash. In the fall of 2023 they composed and performed the score for Jim Hubbard’s film Nostalgia, which premiered at the LGBT Community Center in NYC as part of the NYC Aids Memorial Project arts program. Their most recent project it a new live score for Linda Austin’s dance piece, In Preparation for Disappearances to Come, on Feb. 6 – 8 at PICA in Portland.

Chris Cochrane is a Brooklyn-based guitarist/improviser/noise-maker/composer. Active in the Downtown NYC avant music scene since 1982, Chris has composed music for dance, theater and film, and has collaborated with a host of musicians including Zeena Parkins, John Zorn, Tim Hodgkinson, Billy Martin, Loren Connors, Marc Ribot, Jessica Pavone, Miguel Frasconi, Jamaaladine Tacuma, Gabby Fluke-Mogul, Brandon Lopez, Gelsey Bell, Galvin Weston, Stew,  Eszter Balint, and many others. Chris co-founded the band No Safety with Zeena Parkins, and has been a member of numerous other bands, such as Curlew, Suck Pretty, The Same, Krackhouse, and others.

Kevin Bud Jones Kevin Bud Jones has been performing and recording music solo, in groups and various collaborations since the late 70s. Originally a guitarist, he is currently exploring analog synth and electronics. While enjoying a thirty plus year career in the NY film business, always kept his hand in music and the performing arts, as well as collaborating with visual artists from time to time. In the early 80s he played in Dog Eat Dog, a proto-DIY dance band that has a second posthumously released live LP coming out soon. His trio Airport Seven with painter/drummer Steve Dibenedetto, and bassist John Terhorst performed their final show at The Kitchen in NY in December 2013, around the same time he and Chris started playing together in Collapsible Shoulder. 2024 saw the beginning of a new project incorporating electronics and tape loops in live performance that should see daylight come Spring.

Singer/songwriter/multi-instrumentalist Sue Ann Harkey has been a part of Seattle and New York’s underground music and visual arts scenes for decades. Her work blends philosophical and political lyrics as a songwriter with instrumental improvised music inspired by free jazz, electronic, folk, and Middle Eastern and African elements. Harkey discovered improvisational music’s power in 1979, when she began playing guitar with friends; this led to her exploration of the harp-guitar and the 12-string guitar, which she played with mallets, bows, plectrums, rods, and metal discs woven between the strings on invented alternate tunings. By 1980, Harkey formed the cassette label/political pamphlet distributor Cityzens for Non-Linear Futures (CNLF) and the improv group Audio Leter. She has recently self-published ‘a visual memoir’ bookzine featuring her black and white 35mm documentation of Seattle and New York’s early (1979-1988) performance art scenes.

Presented by Nonsequitur.

Strange Bedfellows are found in the crawlspace between ancestral ritual and becoming the inner child who just wants to play with toys and friends. Strange Bedfellows is a duo linking Adam Levitt and Silas Morrow, formed over impromptu public practice sessions in Seattle and surrounding areas. The duo will make use of saxophone, flute, violin, percussion, synthesizer, metal objects, toys, found discarded objects, and small consumer electronics. Most objects have been passed on or gifted by loved ones and everything else was found in random but significant circumstances. 

Opening up the evening are Glad We’re Together and BRB. Seattle based Glad We’re Together weaves innocent wonderment with human introspection and spiritual gathering through the use of flutes, harmonium drones, and imagination filled objects. Glad We’re Together is helping and you’re invited. BRB is a performance troupe coming from Olympia, WA. The group is composed of enigmatic poet Reid Urban along with musicians and performance artists Ben Kapp and Ben Michaelis. BRB is a controlled eye brow falling in Denny’s.

In celebration of his birthday, trumpeter and composer Ray Larsen presents a special set of music with his chamber sextet, Reasons Why. Featuring some of the most high-profile and in-demand improvisers in the region, this group has not been able to appear for over a year. The band plays Ray’s compositions which gravitate between lush harmonic textures and dense melodic interplay, along with plenty of improvised departures that bring each performance to new territory. Reasons Why is:

Ray Larsen – trumpets
Leanna Keith – flutes
Conner Eisenmenger – trombone
Maria Scherer Wilson – cello
Wayne Horvitz – piano
Bonnie Whiting – vibraphone and percussion

To open the concert, saxophonist and electronic wind synth artist Greg Sinibaldi, who recently relocated back to the Pacific Northwest from Brooklyn, will present one of his massive and immersive electro-acoustic solo performances.

An improvisation concert honoring late dance innovator Steve Paxton with collaborative performances by seasoned musicians and dancers using Contact Improvisation duets, ensemble play, video and audio recordings.

This concert brings freshly seasoned dance and music improvisers from Seattle and abroad to replay, discover and spread the gravity of late dancer extraordinaire, Steve Paxton, who famously said “…being essentially objective, Newton ignored what it feels like to be the apple…”

Paxton’s query regarding the small dance of standing, “Can it be smaller?” steers the Contact Improvisation style duet SMALLER by Karen Nelson and Nica Portavia in collaboration with multi-instrumentalist Evan Strauss and cellist Lori Goldston. The performers give their current answer as they explore the gigantic space found even within the most seemingly predictable outcomes.

“Tribute of Small Dance” includes a viewing of the 1989 video “Goldberg in Vermont,” voice recordings, and scrubby clips of Steve to fuel a creative recall played by an ensemble of performers including SMALLER joined by local performers Alia Swersky, Hannah Rice, Christian Swenson, Aaron Swartzman, Scott Davis, Casey Adams, and small dancing others. The urge is to bring a smidge of Steve’s many legacies, pointings, gestures, and queries consciously into this living moment.