The Seattle-based piano trio Don’t Move creates mosaic after mosaic of sound. Together, the group splatters sonic colors against rippling rhythmic canvases; they overlay uniquely shaped melodies and flashes of bursting energy to form a one-of-a-kind puzzle of song that hangs framed in your mind above the mantle.

Comprised of the delightfully narrative pianist, Eric Bob Warren Ainley, the dramatic and stalwart bassist, Ray Clemens, and locomotive drummer, Jeff DeRoshia, the trio, which first formed in 2014, darts one way and then quickly the next. Their music spools out in both direct and improvised ways, showcasing a love for thoughtful, angular compositions.

Don’t Move has played prominent Seattle festivals like Hempfest and venues like the Sea Monster Lounge and the Jewel Box Theater, and held regular residencies at popular watering holes like Vito’s and Brass Tacks. With each performance, the band debates in music the merits of recklessness against the need for control. And in your mind, they live on.

The Sound Ensemble presents Reflections, a musical meditation on who we are as individuals and as a community, what our impact on the world has been and where we can go from here. Join us for this wonderful evening of music, community and refreshments. You won’t want to miss this incredible performance by rising star violinist Marley Erickson!

Who are we?
Contretemps – Christopher Dietz (World Premiere)
Zodiac for Violin and Chamber Orchestra – Jerry Mader
Soloist: Marley Erickson

What have we done?
Under Bleak Skies – Jennifer Butler

This beautiful world
Loki’s Castle – Sang Mi Ahn

Where do we go from here?
Nonet No. 2 – Bohuslav Martinu

Different Drummer has a whole new show! Comprised of three string players from the region’s premier chamber orchestra, the Northwest Sinfonietta, these “classical musicians” definitely know how to step out of their orchestral habitat. Violinist Brandon Vance is a two-time winner of the US National Scottish Fiddle Championship. Gretchen Yanover is an acclaimed electric cellist with three solo albums to her credit. Bassist Anna Doak has performed and/or recorded with Dave Mathews, Joe Williams, Spirit of the West, Jeremy Enigk, Tommy Tune, Joel Fan & Linda Ronstadt. Add to the mix Don Dieterich, a percussionist who is willing to whack on any number on non-traditional gadgets from lampshades to garbage cans, and you’ve got a show that represents genres as varied as the artists presenting it. Prepare to be entertained, amused and exhilarated by this unique collaboration!

“Different Drummer proves that minimalism can bite. The level of musicianship amongst the three is tonally sculpted, their arrangements complex and disciplined, showcasing a ferocious synchronization between the double bass and violin. Though the group is small in numbers, their size ends up acting as an advantage. Within each arrangement listeners can hear the unique styles from individual parts, a rarity in a large percent of the music we hear today.” — Connor Creighton, Earshot Jazz Aug 2016

Canções Profundas (Deep Songs) is an evening-length work by Seattle composer Steve Peters. Inspired by research into his family history in the Azores, a chain of nine volcanic islands in the mid-Atlantic, this evocative sonic poem explores themes of migration, diaspora, memory, identity and emotional/cultural ties to place. (See project blog for more info.)

Combining elements of narrative, documentary, and folk and experimental music, Canções Profundas (Deep Songs) is a vivid multi-layered mix of environmental sounds and music Peters collected in the Azores and in California, tracing the journey of his Portuguese immigrant ancestors. Beginning with the primal sounds of simmering geothermal pits and ocean waves gurgling in lava tubes, the piece spans the natural world of animals, the human world of agriculture, religious ceremonies, and community celebrations, following whales across the deep ocean to a distant land where the culture takes root and tenaciously survives, finally ending in the cemetery where Peters’ great-great grandparents are buried. A small ensemble of musicians modeled on Azorean brass bands surrounds the audience, improvising in response to the field recordings, and on traditional folk tunes.

Greg Campbell, percussion; Jesse Canterbury, clarinets; Lesli Dalaba, trumpet; Amy Denio, clarinet & saxophone; Steve Peters, saxophone; Christian Pincock, trombone. With recorded contributions by Joshua Parmenter, additional electronic processing; and Rafael Carvalho, viola da terra.

Presented by Nonsequitur. Made possible in part by a GAP grant from Artist Trust (2011) and an Artist Project grant from 4Culture (2014), and a Jack Straw Artist Support Program residency (2014).

1st set:
Greg Kelley – trumpet
Bryan Eubanks – saxophone electronics

2nd set:
Catherine Lamb – Prisma Interius IV (2017)
for viola, voices, secondary rainbow synthesizer, and trumpet

performed by:
Catherine Lamb – viola, voice
Bryan Eubanks – electronics, voice
Greg Kelley – trumpet
Laura Steenberge – viola, viola d’gamba

Catherine Lamb (b. 1982, Olympia, WA, U.S.), is a composer exploring the interaction of elemental tonal material and the variations in presence between shades and beings in a room. She has been studying and composing music since a young age. In 2003 she turned away from the conservatory in an attempt to understand the structures and intonations within Hindustani Classical Music, later finding Mani Kaul in 2006 who was directly connected to Zia Mohiuddin Dagar and whose philosophical approach to sound became important to her. She studied (experimental) composition at the California Institute of the Arts (2004-2006) under James Tenney and Michael Pisaro, who were both integral influences. It was there also that she began her work into rational Harmonic Space, which became a clear way to investigate the interaction of tones and ever-fluctuating shapes, where these interactions in and of them-selves became structural elements in her work. Since then she has written various ensemble pieces (at times with liminal electronic portions) and continues to go further into elemental territories, through various kinds of research, collaboration, and practice (herself as a violist). She received her MFA from the Milton Avery School of Fine Arts at Bard College in 2012 and is currently residing in Berlin, Germany.

Bryan Eubanks (b. 1977, US) has been developing his music through performance and collaboration since 2001. He has participated in many short and long term projects, and regularly presents his work internationally. Continually active in a variety of contexts: improvisation; composing electronic and acoustic works for small ensembles, solo instruments, computers, and electronics; organizing and curating concerts for other artists; building electronic instruments and experimenting with sound localisation. He currently lives in Berlin.

Greg Kelley has performed throughout North America, Europe, Japan, Argentina & Mexico at numerous festivals, in clubs, outdoors, in living rooms, in a bank, and at least once on a vibrating floor. He has collaborated with a number of musicians across the globe performing experimental music, free jazz and noise, appearing on over 100 recordings in the process.

Seattle composer John Teske presents a new suite of graphic and generated works for any ensemble as part of his ongoing vectorscores project. Since 2016, John has been writing music with vectorscores, which uses web technologies to generate and render scores. The shape of each piece is composed, with some flexibility in the details, so the works as a whole are crafted but each performance is unique. The new suite explores some recurring thoughts, visions, and dreams from a dark and surreal time, as well as expanding on the potential of the vectorscores project.

Any Ensemble:
Greg Campbell, percussion
Luke Fitzpatrick, violin
Haley Freedlund, trombone
Noel Kennon, viola
John Teske, double bass
Neil Welch, saxophone

John Teske writes contemporary concert music and creates site-specific concert experiences. Many of his works use graphic and alternate notation systems to craft works with an improvisational element. His recent work includes vectorscores, a collection of graphic and generated compositions; topographies, a series of musical contour maps through which musicians navigate; site-specific performances in Seattle parks; and a series of works for chamber orchestra. His music has been performed across the United States, in South America, France, and Russia, and has received support from the Seattle Office of Arts & Cultural Affairs, the Jack Straw Foundation, and the City of Seattle.

Presented by Nonsequitur.

SF Bay Area post-classical artist Cellista will perform excerpts from her latest album Transfigurations, an avant-garde, conceptual multimedia work steeped in genres, social commentary and fueled by the conscious imagery that surrounds us all. It blends ambient noise with slices of hip hop, classical music, and alternative pop to tell a common narrative through music and film and literature.

She is joined by The Zero Collective, an on-going open source collaboration specializing in improvisation, noise and audio surrealism. Sonic improviser, instrument builder and destroyer, wave distorter and analog synthesist noisepoetnobody also joins along with collaborator Cailleach.

LISTEN to noisepoetnobody’s set.

Lisbon’s Alforjs is like a strange bag on the back of the mule of the almocreve [itinerant trader], filled with assorted artifacts and relics accumulated while encountering various landscapes, traditions and rituals. Deformed from the swelling caused by so many collected cultural objects, its original weft is what unites all these references and transports them to another existence in a new form. Alforjs have always aimed to make non-referential music away from a mimicry of watertight musical genres, aiming to create idiosyncratic music with a deep and direct relationship with the context in which the band is inserted – a reflection of the cauldron of disparate influences that is Lisbon in the 21st century, from the most avant-garde jazz, to the darkest and most peripheral dance music, to noise, to electronics and electroacoustics.

Bad Luck performs in another cosmos from most bands. With more than a decade of collaboration, Neil Welch (saxophone + live electronics) and Christopher Icasiano (drums) “bear down on you like a cyclone of fire” (The Stranger). Based out of Seattle, Bad Luck is a genre-defying supernova of electronics, metal, folk and jazz. Their new album, Four, recorded at Avast Studios with Randall Dunn (Sunn O))), Earth, Marissa Nadler) slams the epic energy of free improvisations into shorter, rhythmic forms. Welch screams and breathes into his horn, acoustically creates chords, and uses electronics more familiar to guitar players. Icasiano does things that seem impossible with four drumsticks at once. “Outside of music’s commonly accepted beat exists an emancipated, implied meter, an empowered and truly free human expression.” – CityArts

Watch video of the sets by Bad Luck and Alförjs, thanks to elhotrod32.

Bleeps+Loops presents SPACE, a meditative ambient soundscape & planetarium experience in quadraphonic audio (4-speaker surround sound).

The soundtrack to your individual meditations will be provided by a collective of modular synthesists, whose individual acts will overlap to create a continuous sonic experience.

This music is best experienced in repose; we encourage attendees to bring pillows, blankets, yoga mats… anything that will nurture a contemplative space. Sit or lay back, and allow the ambient sounds of modular synthesizers wash over and surround you. Projections of the night sky, in which to get deeply and peacefully lost, play overhead.

PERFORMERS
Tim Held
Snowdn
Fathom the Void
ZodiacGallery
Demitrius
Vawter
Ohn Dāka
Auxia
Brien Barrett
Lousy Falcon

Gift Tapes/DRAFT presents Jason E Anderson and RM Francis, with support from Seattle’s Office of Arts and Culture. Jason E Anderson will present a new composition called CORM (Consequence of Recursive Memory). RM Francis will present new computer synthesis work to open the evening. All proceeds from this performance will be donated to friend and fellow musician Norm Chambers to assist him with medical expenses.

Anderson will also deliver a one hour workshop/demonstration at Patchwerks at 3 PM prior to this event. He will discuss the new composition and share some strategies he’s devised to control modular synths with SuperCollider.

Jason E Anderson is an artist now living in the Inland Empire of the Pacific Northwest, having left Seattle in 2018 to live among the Palouse farmlands just outside of Pullman WA. His work includes performance, recordings, film/video, installation, music for dance, producing and publishing. Anderson performs and records music under his own name and in performance art/film collaboration LIMITS with dancer Corrie Befort. In 2001, he began performing in Seattle’s free improv/experimental music circles and in 2008 he co-founded improv synth duo Brother Raven with Jamie Potter, leading to his active involvement in the synth music scene running experimental music label Gift Tapes/DRAFT. In performance, Anderson employs systems that generate sound and patterns that are subject to manual manipulation. His occasional use of voice/text, particularly in the context of LIMITS, has augmented his use of abstract sound with extra-musical information to address concepts and context within the auditory realm. See also: Mesh Collaborative, Space Habitat, Spare Death Icon, and Harpoon Pole Vault.

About CORM

Consequence of Recursive Memory is a composition for voice/computer, comprised of prepared texts spoken by the performer in dialogue with a computer as a framework to observe recursion within human memory. The computer ‘listens’ to text spoken by the performer, which uses statistical analysis to model increasingly complex responses articulated by means of rudimentary sound synthesis. The system is biased to stimulate conceptual links between the textual content and technological process, but obfuscates speech intelligibility and pacing to equalize this information with the electronic sound.

The composition and performance of CORM are made possible with support from the Office of Arts and Culture, City of Seattle.

RM Francis is an artist working with computer-generated sound via performance, recording, and installation. His work has been presented throughout North America at numerous festivals, including Debacle (Seattle), 2 Day (Portland), Diffusion (Baltimore), and Human Festival (Philadelphia). His Hyperplastic Other project is a series of works utilizing chocolate, video, performance, and sound to dramatize alternative models of subjectivity. Francis was also a member of Mesh Collaborative, a computer music ensemble employing network architecture to explore novel modes of distributed authorship and human-computer collaboration. He lives in Seattle, where he is also active as a concert organizer.