past events
vespers 19 [solo]: Douglas Farrand ~ vespers 18: Morgan Evans-Weiler / And/In (Koen Nutters+Heather Frasch) ~ vespers 17: Laura Cetilia / Austin Larkin ~ vespers 16 [solo]: Manfred Werder ~ vespers 15: JPA Falzone / Jordan Dykstra ~ vespers 14: Bryan Eubanks / Jesse Kenas-Collins ~ vespers 13 [solo]: Morgan Evans-Weiler ~ vespers 12: Victoria Shen / Coleman Zurkowski ~ vespers 11: Katie Porter / Jennie Gottschalk ~ vespers 10: Chris Strunk / Erika Nesse ~ vespers 09 [solo]: Amnon Wolman ~ vespers 08 [solo]: Jose Rivera ~ vespers 07: Taylan Susam / Polly Hanson ~ vespers 06: Ernst Karel / Asha Tamirisa ~ vespers 05: Beam Splitter / Michael Rosenstein-Jesse Collins-Angela Sawyer ~ vespers 04: Laura Cetilia / Vic Rawlings ~ vespers 03: Andrea Pensado / Forbes Graham ~ vespers 02: Sarah Ayotomiwa Pitan / Andy Graydon ~ vespers 01: Marilyn Arsem / Dave Gross
(first Minnesota concert!)
Sunday September 22, 1 PM
Douglas Farrand
vespers 19 @ luke's (RSVP)
A bit about Doug:
I am a composer and musician living in Newark NJ and working in Orange NJ on a number of projects at the intersection of music, education, urbanism, and place-based organizing. I grew up living in and around Nottinghamshire (UK), Cork (Ireland), and Singapore, before moving to the United States of America in 2004. Since then I’ve moved from New Jersey to Ohio, Western New York state, and back to New Jersey again.
My work as a musician, teacher, and organizer is concerned with developing practices that invite us to explore our myriad processes of listening and embody a collective investigation of place, community, and personhood. I’m fortunate to be able to pursue this through numerous collaborative group and duo projects.
In Orange NJ I am the co-director (alongside composer/flutist Margaux Simmons and hip-hop artist/producer Ray Sykes) of Music City, a project with the University of Orange, a free people's urbanism school that focuses on education for equity. Music City works to connect and support music-making communities in Orange NJ, focusing on asset-based community development and popular education. I’m also director of and teaching artist with Sonic Explorations, a daily, free after-school music program at Oakwood Avenue Community School where students and teaching artists make music together in the context of string instrument classes, drumming classes, and sound/listening classes.
[Website]
Sunday September 22, 1 PM
Douglas Farrand
vespers 19 @ luke's (RSVP)
A bit about Doug:
I am a composer and musician living in Newark NJ and working in Orange NJ on a number of projects at the intersection of music, education, urbanism, and place-based organizing. I grew up living in and around Nottinghamshire (UK), Cork (Ireland), and Singapore, before moving to the United States of America in 2004. Since then I’ve moved from New Jersey to Ohio, Western New York state, and back to New Jersey again.
My work as a musician, teacher, and organizer is concerned with developing practices that invite us to explore our myriad processes of listening and embody a collective investigation of place, community, and personhood. I’m fortunate to be able to pursue this through numerous collaborative group and duo projects.
In Orange NJ I am the co-director (alongside composer/flutist Margaux Simmons and hip-hop artist/producer Ray Sykes) of Music City, a project with the University of Orange, a free people's urbanism school that focuses on education for equity. Music City works to connect and support music-making communities in Orange NJ, focusing on asset-based community development and popular education. I’m also director of and teaching artist with Sonic Explorations, a daily, free after-school music program at Oakwood Avenue Community School where students and teaching artists make music together in the context of string instrument classes, drumming classes, and sound/listening classes.
[Website]
(final boston concert)
Sunday April 14, 7 PM
Morgan Evans-Weiler + And / In (Heather Frasch & Koen Nutters)
vespers 18 @ WSAC
321 Washington Street, Somerville
MORGAN EVANS-WEILER is an interdisciplinary artist based in Malden, MA. His work is concerned with issues of time, process, materiality and the social considerations of cartographic sound. His visual work and sound installations have shown throughout the US and his compositions have been performed by ensembles such as Skogen, a.pe.re.od.ic and Extradition Ensemble. As a performer, he has been featured at venues such as Jordan Hall, Issue Project Room, Rhode Island School of Art and Design Museum, MIT List Museum and many others. He is the founder of the New England experimental ensemble, Ordinary Affects who have performed alongside Jürg Frey, Eva-Maria Houben and Christian Wolff. Ordinary Affects has received grants from the Foundation of Contemporary Arts and Pro Helvetia and they have been in residence at Avaloch Farm Institute. In 2016, along with Jed Speare, he founded the concert/book series Standing Waves. This series has produced a dozen concerts and three books of artist writings by artists such as Aki Onda, Bonnie Jones, Derek Baron, Sarah Hennies and Jake Meginsky. His music and performance is featured on record labels such as Another Timbre, Edition Wandelweiser, Elsewhere, Suppedenaum and Weighter Recordings.
Website
'AND / IN' is a Berlin-based duo of Heather Frasch & Koen Nutters creating music with objects, text, and vibrations. Shadows and light, audible and inaudible movement, air, liquids, and solids. They conduct musical investigations of objects, bodies, agents, sounds, actions, text and silence. Objects and/in silence. Text and/in sound. Reading and/in actions. A spatio-vibrational theater workshop approaching the meaning and the life of objects and humans together.
Sunday April 14, 7 PM
Morgan Evans-Weiler + And / In (Heather Frasch & Koen Nutters)
vespers 18 @ WSAC
321 Washington Street, Somerville
MORGAN EVANS-WEILER is an interdisciplinary artist based in Malden, MA. His work is concerned with issues of time, process, materiality and the social considerations of cartographic sound. His visual work and sound installations have shown throughout the US and his compositions have been performed by ensembles such as Skogen, a.pe.re.od.ic and Extradition Ensemble. As a performer, he has been featured at venues such as Jordan Hall, Issue Project Room, Rhode Island School of Art and Design Museum, MIT List Museum and many others. He is the founder of the New England experimental ensemble, Ordinary Affects who have performed alongside Jürg Frey, Eva-Maria Houben and Christian Wolff. Ordinary Affects has received grants from the Foundation of Contemporary Arts and Pro Helvetia and they have been in residence at Avaloch Farm Institute. In 2016, along with Jed Speare, he founded the concert/book series Standing Waves. This series has produced a dozen concerts and three books of artist writings by artists such as Aki Onda, Bonnie Jones, Derek Baron, Sarah Hennies and Jake Meginsky. His music and performance is featured on record labels such as Another Timbre, Edition Wandelweiser, Elsewhere, Suppedenaum and Weighter Recordings.
Website
'AND / IN' is a Berlin-based duo of Heather Frasch & Koen Nutters creating music with objects, text, and vibrations. Shadows and light, audible and inaudible movement, air, liquids, and solids. They conduct musical investigations of objects, bodies, agents, sounds, actions, text and silence. Objects and/in silence. Text and/in sound. Reading and/in actions. A spatio-vibrational theater workshop approaching the meaning and the life of objects and humans together.
Friday March 8, 8 PM
Laura Cetilia / Austin Larkin
vespers 17 @ WSAC
321 Washington Street, Somerville
Cellist and electronic musician Laura Cetilia is a performer, composer, educator, and presenter. A daughter of mixed heritage, she is at home with in-betweeness. As a composer, her music has been described as “unorthodox loveliness” by the Boston Globe and and her debut solo album was hailed as “alternately penetrating and atmospheric” in Sequenza 21. The Grove Dictionary of American Music describes her electroacoustic duo Mem1 as a “complex cybernetic entity” that “understands its music as a feedback loop between the past and present.” Mem1 has held artist residencies and toured extensively throughout the U.S. and Europe. In her viola/cello duo, Suna No Onna, she has worked closely with and premiered works by composers André Cormier, Jürg Frey and Antoine Beuger, among others. As a product of the now-dwindling public school music program, Laura believes in the right to accessible music education and is a Resident Musician at Community MusicWorks, a non-profit organization that provides free after-school music education programs for children in urban neighborhoods of Providence, RI. There she teaches cello, is co-director of the media lab and the curator of the Ars Subtilior experimental music series. She is also a proud mother of one.
[Website]
Austin Larkin (on tour from Seattle) is an artist, composer and violinist focusing on sound and its (in)audible forms and substances. Recently he lived in Yogyakarta to gain perspective into the architectural qualities of central Javanese karawitan, specifically how the tones dwell and unfold. Prior to this he studied composition at Cornish College of the Arts with Eyvind Kang, Jessika Kenney, and Jarrad Powell, all whose work and philosophy remain an influence. His practice with the violin remains a primary means of manifesting and researching sound, utilizing impressions of intonation and ornamentation. He lives near the Duwamish River in Seattle, WA.
[Website]
Laura Cetilia / Austin Larkin
vespers 17 @ WSAC
321 Washington Street, Somerville
Cellist and electronic musician Laura Cetilia is a performer, composer, educator, and presenter. A daughter of mixed heritage, she is at home with in-betweeness. As a composer, her music has been described as “unorthodox loveliness” by the Boston Globe and and her debut solo album was hailed as “alternately penetrating and atmospheric” in Sequenza 21. The Grove Dictionary of American Music describes her electroacoustic duo Mem1 as a “complex cybernetic entity” that “understands its music as a feedback loop between the past and present.” Mem1 has held artist residencies and toured extensively throughout the U.S. and Europe. In her viola/cello duo, Suna No Onna, she has worked closely with and premiered works by composers André Cormier, Jürg Frey and Antoine Beuger, among others. As a product of the now-dwindling public school music program, Laura believes in the right to accessible music education and is a Resident Musician at Community MusicWorks, a non-profit organization that provides free after-school music education programs for children in urban neighborhoods of Providence, RI. There she teaches cello, is co-director of the media lab and the curator of the Ars Subtilior experimental music series. She is also a proud mother of one.
[Website]
Austin Larkin (on tour from Seattle) is an artist, composer and violinist focusing on sound and its (in)audible forms and substances. Recently he lived in Yogyakarta to gain perspective into the architectural qualities of central Javanese karawitan, specifically how the tones dwell and unfold. Prior to this he studied composition at Cornish College of the Arts with Eyvind Kang, Jessika Kenney, and Jarrad Powell, all whose work and philosophy remain an influence. His practice with the violin remains a primary means of manifesting and researching sound, utilizing impressions of intonation and ornamentation. He lives near the Duwamish River in Seattle, WA.
[Website]
Saturday February 2, 630 PM
Manfred Werder
vespers 16 [solo] @ luke's
Manfred Werder performing 20160 (2016, ongoing)
Manfred Werder, composer and performer, is wandering through the abundance. His scores feature words and sentences found in poetry, philosophy and the world. Earlier works include stück 1998, a 4000 page score whose nonrecurring and intermittent performative realization has been ongoing since December 1997. Lives in situ.
Manfred Werder on 20160:
“The score 20160 consists of 3 rolls of semitransparent paper with the seize of each 10cm x 22m, trisected from a found paper roll. In January 2016 I began inscribing the first roll with typewriters found on site. The first performative presentation took place in Ciudad de México February the 9th, 2016. In early 2019 I will have reached the end of the first roll. I’ve been tracing the world onto the roll, words and text found on the street, in poetry and philosophy. In the act of writing, the world operates on the unveiled paper, impregnates it and so actualizes the score, and once the paper is again rolled up, its veiled transparency lets the world’s abundance manifested on the paper mingle into ever new possible compounds.”
This program is funded in part by Swiss Arts Council Pro Helvetia.
[Website]
Manfred Werder
vespers 16 [solo] @ luke's
Manfred Werder performing 20160 (2016, ongoing)
Manfred Werder, composer and performer, is wandering through the abundance. His scores feature words and sentences found in poetry, philosophy and the world. Earlier works include stück 1998, a 4000 page score whose nonrecurring and intermittent performative realization has been ongoing since December 1997. Lives in situ.
Manfred Werder on 20160:
“The score 20160 consists of 3 rolls of semitransparent paper with the seize of each 10cm x 22m, trisected from a found paper roll. In January 2016 I began inscribing the first roll with typewriters found on site. The first performative presentation took place in Ciudad de México February the 9th, 2016. In early 2019 I will have reached the end of the first roll. I’ve been tracing the world onto the roll, words and text found on the street, in poetry and philosophy. In the act of writing, the world operates on the unveiled paper, impregnates it and so actualizes the score, and once the paper is again rolled up, its veiled transparency lets the world’s abundance manifested on the paper mingle into ever new possible compounds.”
This program is funded in part by Swiss Arts Council Pro Helvetia.
[Website]
Saturday July 21, 8 PM
James P. Falzone / Jordan Dykstra
vespers 15 @ washington street art center (WSAC)
321 Washington St., Somerville MA
James P. Falzone was born in Worcester, Massachusetts in 1986. He studied organ under Carlton T. Russell at Wheaton College in Norton, Massachusetts. In 2014, he founded the Providence Research Ensemble with the aim of performing his own works as well as those of other contemporary composers. In 2015, we was a student-resident-composer at the Ostrava Days music conference and festival in the Czech Republic, where two of his pieces we performed. He was an artist-fellow at the RISD Museum for the 2016 year. In addition to his work with the Providence Research Ensemble, Falzone also performs with Ordinary Affects, based in Boston. In addition to his more strictly formal compositional practice, he also enjoys writing songs and is a versatile improviser. An album of his ensemble pieces is released on the label Infrequent Seams.
Jordan Dykstra (1985) is an American composer and violist from Sioux City, Iowa, United States. Dykstra studied composition at Azusa Pacific University in Azusa, California., Portland State University in Portland, Oregon., the California Institute of the Arts in Valencia, California, and Wesleyan University in Middletown, Connecticut. He studied composition at CalArts with Michael Pisaro and Wolfgang von Schweinitz, and has met privately with Chiyoko Szlavnics, Daníel Bjarnason, and Alvin Lucier. He has worked as a composer on film music for Gus Van Sant and as a session violist and string director for Dirty Projectors. Dykstra has performed on solo viola at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, at the Portland Art Museum in Portland, at Harpa Concert Hall in Reykjavik, Iceland, and at the Syros Institute in Ano Syros, Greece. In 2014, Dykstra received an Individual Artist Fellowship from the Oregon Arts Commission to apprentice with composer Daníel Bjarnason in Reykjavík, Iceland. While in Val Verde, CA in 2015, Jordan Dykstra founded Editions Verde, a small-run publisher of art and musical objects.
[Website]
James P. Falzone / Jordan Dykstra
vespers 15 @ washington street art center (WSAC)
321 Washington St., Somerville MA
James P. Falzone was born in Worcester, Massachusetts in 1986. He studied organ under Carlton T. Russell at Wheaton College in Norton, Massachusetts. In 2014, he founded the Providence Research Ensemble with the aim of performing his own works as well as those of other contemporary composers. In 2015, we was a student-resident-composer at the Ostrava Days music conference and festival in the Czech Republic, where two of his pieces we performed. He was an artist-fellow at the RISD Museum for the 2016 year. In addition to his work with the Providence Research Ensemble, Falzone also performs with Ordinary Affects, based in Boston. In addition to his more strictly formal compositional practice, he also enjoys writing songs and is a versatile improviser. An album of his ensemble pieces is released on the label Infrequent Seams.
Jordan Dykstra (1985) is an American composer and violist from Sioux City, Iowa, United States. Dykstra studied composition at Azusa Pacific University in Azusa, California., Portland State University in Portland, Oregon., the California Institute of the Arts in Valencia, California, and Wesleyan University in Middletown, Connecticut. He studied composition at CalArts with Michael Pisaro and Wolfgang von Schweinitz, and has met privately with Chiyoko Szlavnics, Daníel Bjarnason, and Alvin Lucier. He has worked as a composer on film music for Gus Van Sant and as a session violist and string director for Dirty Projectors. Dykstra has performed on solo viola at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, at the Portland Art Museum in Portland, at Harpa Concert Hall in Reykjavik, Iceland, and at the Syros Institute in Ano Syros, Greece. In 2014, Dykstra received an Individual Artist Fellowship from the Oregon Arts Commission to apprentice with composer Daníel Bjarnason in Reykjavík, Iceland. While in Val Verde, CA in 2015, Jordan Dykstra founded Editions Verde, a small-run publisher of art and musical objects.
[Website]
Friday May 18, 8 PM
Bryan Eubanks / Jesse Collins
vespers 14 @ washington street art center (WSAC)
321 Washington St., Somerville MA
Bryan Eubanks has been developing his idiosyncratic approach to 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 spatial diffusion techniques.
[Website]
Since 2008 Jesse Kenas Collins has been working in both solo and group contexts around Boston. His focus is on the confusion of brass and woodwind instruments integrated with electronics and free reeds. With improvisation being his core approach Jesse works closely with many artists around New England. His solo efforts are focused around occasional performances and a practice of informal recordings, distributed as small hand made editions on Tape and CD-R.
[Website]
Bryan Eubanks / Jesse Collins
vespers 14 @ washington street art center (WSAC)
321 Washington St., Somerville MA
Bryan Eubanks has been developing his idiosyncratic approach to 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 spatial diffusion techniques.
[Website]
Since 2008 Jesse Kenas Collins has been working in both solo and group contexts around Boston. His focus is on the confusion of brass and woodwind instruments integrated with electronics and free reeds. With improvisation being his core approach Jesse works closely with many artists around New England. His solo efforts are focused around occasional performances and a practice of informal recordings, distributed as small hand made editions on Tape and CD-R.
[Website]
Saturday March 3, 630 PM
Morgan Evans-Weiler
vespers [solo] 13 @ luke's
Morgan Evans-Weiler is a Boston based artist and educator whose work ranges from composition and sound installation to drawing, video and design.Evans-Weiler maintains a busy performance schedule and has performed throughout the United States. He has collaborated and performed with Seth Cluett, Sarah Hennies, Mike Bullock, Dave Gross, Bhob Rainey, Dafne Vincent-Sandoval, Jed Speare, Antoine Beuger, Magnus Granberg, Christoph Schiller and many others. He is director of the New England based ensemble ‘Ordinary Affects’ whom have performed works by Jurg Frey, Magnus Granberg and premiered works by Antoine Beuger and Michael Pisaro.
He has toured nationally and internationally. He recently presented his work in London, Berlin, Huddersfield, Nantes, Besancon and completed a ten day residency at Elektronmusikstudion in Stockholm. In 2014 he was invited to perform at the High Zero Festival of Experimental Improvised Music. His recent album ‘Violin/Sine’ was called ‘transfixing’ by writer Steve Smith and included in the Boston Globe’s list of ‘Best Local Classical Albums of 2015’. His music has been released on the ‘Suppedaneum’ label and he has forthcoming releases on ‘Another Timbre’ and ‘ErstAEU’.
[Website]
Morgan Evans-Weiler
vespers [solo] 13 @ luke's
Morgan Evans-Weiler is a Boston based artist and educator whose work ranges from composition and sound installation to drawing, video and design.Evans-Weiler maintains a busy performance schedule and has performed throughout the United States. He has collaborated and performed with Seth Cluett, Sarah Hennies, Mike Bullock, Dave Gross, Bhob Rainey, Dafne Vincent-Sandoval, Jed Speare, Antoine Beuger, Magnus Granberg, Christoph Schiller and many others. He is director of the New England based ensemble ‘Ordinary Affects’ whom have performed works by Jurg Frey, Magnus Granberg and premiered works by Antoine Beuger and Michael Pisaro.
He has toured nationally and internationally. He recently presented his work in London, Berlin, Huddersfield, Nantes, Besancon and completed a ten day residency at Elektronmusikstudion in Stockholm. In 2014 he was invited to perform at the High Zero Festival of Experimental Improvised Music. His recent album ‘Violin/Sine’ was called ‘transfixing’ by writer Steve Smith and included in the Boston Globe’s list of ‘Best Local Classical Albums of 2015’. His music has been released on the ‘Suppedaneum’ label and he has forthcoming releases on ‘Another Timbre’ and ‘ErstAEU’.
[Website]
Friday February 16, 8 PM
Coleman Zurkowski / Victoria Shen
vespers 12 @ washington street art center (WSAC)
321 Washington St., Somerville MA
Coleman Zurkowski is a composer and musician. He studied composition at DePaul University in Chicago, IL and continued his studies at the California Institute of the Arts in Los Angeles, CA. Zurkowski lives in New York City and composes music for film, television, and commercials, while releasing albums of his own work. In 2015, he was chosen to be the resident composer of the Khora Residency at the Syros International Film Festival.
[Website]
Coleman Zurkowski / Victoria Shen
vespers 12 @ washington street art center (WSAC)
321 Washington St., Somerville MA
Coleman Zurkowski is a composer and musician. He studied composition at DePaul University in Chicago, IL and continued his studies at the California Institute of the Arts in Los Angeles, CA. Zurkowski lives in New York City and composes music for film, television, and commercials, while releasing albums of his own work. In 2015, he was chosen to be the resident composer of the Khora Residency at the Syros International Film Festival.
[Website]
Born in San Francisco and working out of New England, Victoria Shen is a multimedia artist and musician whose visual work is positioned at the intersection of art history, pop culture, and identity politics. Through a process of visual exaggeration and effacement, her video work holds up a mirror to the absurd side of images we consume. Shen's music/sound performance features analog modular synthesizers (Flower Electronics), contact microphones, and other hand-built electronics. Shen’s work is concerned with the spatiality/physicality of sound as a medium and explored the relationship between the human body with sound. Her approach to music is sculptural in both the shaping/texturing of acoustics and the design of the sound objects themselves. Shen has performed solo across North America, Eastern Europe, and Japan as Victoria Shen and under the pseudonym evicshen and with the duo TRIM in North America and the UK.
[Website]
[Website]
Friday January 12, 8 PM
Jennie Gottschalk / Katie Porter
vespers 11 @ washington street art center (WSAC)
321 Washington St., Somerville MA
Jennie Gottschalk writes, composes, talks, listens and transcribes. Some of the results can be found on soundexpanse.com, jenniegottschalk.com and in Experimental Music since 1970 (Bloomsbury, 2016). She got her doctorate in composition from Northwestern University in 2008 and is based in Boston, MA.
[Website]
Katie Porter is a clarinetist, curator, and songwriter. As a soloist and chamber musician she champions experimental music, radical music, critical music and strange, beautiful sounds. She co-founded Listen/Space Brooklyn, curates the Listen/Space Commissions, co-founded the VU Symposium for Improvised, Experimental and Electronic Music and has commissioned over 40 new works. She performs frequently as Red Desert, a clarinet and percussion duo with composer Devin Maxwell. She has performed at The Stone (NYC), The Ontological Theater (NYC), Roulette (NYC), Abrons Arts Center (NYC), American Mavericks Festival at the Kitchen (NYC), Experimental Intermedia (NYC), Issue Project Room (NYC), Lincoln Center (NYC), The Wulf, Sound at the Schindler House (LA) The LA Philharmonic's Green Umbrella Series, UMFA, Wexner Center, Contemporary Arts Center Cincinnati, NOVA Chamber Music Series, Scelsiana (Italy), End of an Ear (Austin), BLIM (Vancouver), Le Hum (Moncton), and many smaller and more obscure places (including several house concerts at her cabin in remote northern Utah). She can be heard on: XI Records, Editions Wandelweiser, FOOM, Infrequent Seams, Gravity Wave, Moniker, La Société Expéditionnaire, Notes from Sub-Underground and Dust to Digital, among others.
[Website]
Jennie Gottschalk / Katie Porter
vespers 11 @ washington street art center (WSAC)
321 Washington St., Somerville MA
Jennie Gottschalk writes, composes, talks, listens and transcribes. Some of the results can be found on soundexpanse.com, jenniegottschalk.com and in Experimental Music since 1970 (Bloomsbury, 2016). She got her doctorate in composition from Northwestern University in 2008 and is based in Boston, MA.
[Website]
Katie Porter is a clarinetist, curator, and songwriter. As a soloist and chamber musician she champions experimental music, radical music, critical music and strange, beautiful sounds. She co-founded Listen/Space Brooklyn, curates the Listen/Space Commissions, co-founded the VU Symposium for Improvised, Experimental and Electronic Music and has commissioned over 40 new works. She performs frequently as Red Desert, a clarinet and percussion duo with composer Devin Maxwell. She has performed at The Stone (NYC), The Ontological Theater (NYC), Roulette (NYC), Abrons Arts Center (NYC), American Mavericks Festival at the Kitchen (NYC), Experimental Intermedia (NYC), Issue Project Room (NYC), Lincoln Center (NYC), The Wulf, Sound at the Schindler House (LA) The LA Philharmonic's Green Umbrella Series, UMFA, Wexner Center, Contemporary Arts Center Cincinnati, NOVA Chamber Music Series, Scelsiana (Italy), End of an Ear (Austin), BLIM (Vancouver), Le Hum (Moncton), and many smaller and more obscure places (including several house concerts at her cabin in remote northern Utah). She can be heard on: XI Records, Editions Wandelweiser, FOOM, Infrequent Seams, Gravity Wave, Moniker, La Société Expéditionnaire, Notes from Sub-Underground and Dust to Digital, among others.
[Website]
Friday December 8, 8 PM
Chris Strunk / Erika Nesse
vespers 10 @ washington street art center (WSAC)
321 Washington St., Somerville MA
Chris Strunk is a Boston based percussionist and drummer. His solo work focuses on cymbal overtones, friction, and the vibration and rattle of non traditional objects used as percussion instruments. He has been an active show promoter and musician in the Boston area for the past sixteen years. He has been active in many groups such as Los Condenados, Avoidance, Taps, Phantom Rides, Sheer Anxiety, Conversions, Baja Blatz, Sleeper Cell, and many more. His first full length CD 'No Chart Could Map My Constellations' was recently released on the newly minted, Philadelphia based label Killing Time Between the Ice Ages.
[Website]
Chris Strunk / Erika Nesse
vespers 10 @ washington street art center (WSAC)
321 Washington St., Somerville MA
Chris Strunk is a Boston based percussionist and drummer. His solo work focuses on cymbal overtones, friction, and the vibration and rattle of non traditional objects used as percussion instruments. He has been an active show promoter and musician in the Boston area for the past sixteen years. He has been active in many groups such as Los Condenados, Avoidance, Taps, Phantom Rides, Sheer Anxiety, Conversions, Baja Blatz, Sleeper Cell, and many more. His first full length CD 'No Chart Could Map My Constellations' was recently released on the newly minted, Philadelphia based label Killing Time Between the Ice Ages.
[Website]
Erika Nesse is an experimental electronic musician and computer programmer who is fascinated by the intersection between the power of computer algorithms and human creativity. Erika has been playing in various locations around Massachusetts and New York since she started creating fractal music in 2015, including Noise Brunch at Firehouse, XFest, WSAC in Somerville, and Trans-Pecos in Queens. The computer is writing the music but no one seems to have minded yet.
[Website]
[Website]
Saturday December 2, 630 PM
Amnon Wolman
vespers [solo] 09 @ luke's
Amnon Wolman is a sound artist and a composer whose work is grounded in a belief that music as an art form expresses many dissimilar ideas of beauty. He works in four arenas: sound art, performance sound-art, composition and collaborative projects. His interest and involvement in technology and in issues of time-information guide his work alongside long-standing interests in the creative process, the relationship between a performer and the artist, and collaborations. Wolman is a well-regarded composition teacher. He taught at Northwestern University, The City University of New York-Brooklyn College, Tel Aviv University, and in numerous master classes and summer courses. He is currently on the faculty of the Jerusalem Academy of Music and Dance, and the artistic director of Ensemble Musica Nova in Tel Aviv. In the Fall of 2012 he was a guest professor of composition at Harvard University as a Schusterman Visiting Artist.
[Website]
Amnon Wolman
vespers [solo] 09 @ luke's
Amnon Wolman is a sound artist and a composer whose work is grounded in a belief that music as an art form expresses many dissimilar ideas of beauty. He works in four arenas: sound art, performance sound-art, composition and collaborative projects. His interest and involvement in technology and in issues of time-information guide his work alongside long-standing interests in the creative process, the relationship between a performer and the artist, and collaborations. Wolman is a well-regarded composition teacher. He taught at Northwestern University, The City University of New York-Brooklyn College, Tel Aviv University, and in numerous master classes and summer courses. He is currently on the faculty of the Jerusalem Academy of Music and Dance, and the artistic director of Ensemble Musica Nova in Tel Aviv. In the Fall of 2012 he was a guest professor of composition at Harvard University as a Schusterman Visiting Artist.
[Website]
Saturday October 14, 630 PM
José Rivera
vespers [solo] 08 @ luke's
José Rivera a.k.a PROXEMIA is an electroacoustic composer, electronic musician and multimedia artist. He is interested in exploring the intersections of aural and spatial experience. Trained in architecture, his sound practice often incorporates processed field recordings and various musical elements that are used in the shaping of an augmented acoustic reality. His current work is primarily expressed through the disciplines of experimental music, multichannel installation and performance, sound design, acoustic ecology, cartography, art, and architectural design. Recent works have been exhibited at the ICA Boston as part of the Leap Before You Look/Black Mountain College Exhibition, MIT’s List Visual Arts Building, and Le Laboratoire Cambridge. Along with numerous sound projects, performances and collaborations, his fluid body of work also includes an openair performance space for a youth dance and drumming group in rural Ghana.
[Website]
José Rivera
vespers [solo] 08 @ luke's
José Rivera a.k.a PROXEMIA is an electroacoustic composer, electronic musician and multimedia artist. He is interested in exploring the intersections of aural and spatial experience. Trained in architecture, his sound practice often incorporates processed field recordings and various musical elements that are used in the shaping of an augmented acoustic reality. His current work is primarily expressed through the disciplines of experimental music, multichannel installation and performance, sound design, acoustic ecology, cartography, art, and architectural design. Recent works have been exhibited at the ICA Boston as part of the Leap Before You Look/Black Mountain College Exhibition, MIT’s List Visual Arts Building, and Le Laboratoire Cambridge. Along with numerous sound projects, performances and collaborations, his fluid body of work also includes an openair performance space for a youth dance and drumming group in rural Ghana.
[Website]
Friday October 6, 8 PM
Taylan Susam / Polly Hanson
vespers 07 @ washington street art center (WSAC)
321 Washington St., Somerville MA
Taylan Susam born in amsterdam (1986); lives in providence, ri. studied philosophy in leuven and istanbul. primarily interested in moral psychology, epistemology, and kant’s practical philosophy. currently pursuing a doctorate at brown university. studied composition with antoine beuger, samuel vriezen, martijn padding, yannis kyriakides, petr kotík, alvin lucier, christian wolff, and richard ayres. other important mentors include james fulkerson and dante boon. works performed in 14 countries, 41 cities to date, appeared on 3 cd’s, and reviewed in the monograph experimental music since 1970, among other academic and journalistic publications. member of the wandelweiser composers collective; scores published by edition wandelweiser. frequent collaborators (past and present) include antoine beuger, manfred werder, koen nutters, joseph kudirka, john lely, jason brogan, sam sfirri, james fulkerson, tobias liebezeit, samuel vriezen, dante boon, and jeremiah runnels.
[Website]
Taylan Susam / Polly Hanson
vespers 07 @ washington street art center (WSAC)
321 Washington St., Somerville MA
Taylan Susam born in amsterdam (1986); lives in providence, ri. studied philosophy in leuven and istanbul. primarily interested in moral psychology, epistemology, and kant’s practical philosophy. currently pursuing a doctorate at brown university. studied composition with antoine beuger, samuel vriezen, martijn padding, yannis kyriakides, petr kotík, alvin lucier, christian wolff, and richard ayres. other important mentors include james fulkerson and dante boon. works performed in 14 countries, 41 cities to date, appeared on 3 cd’s, and reviewed in the monograph experimental music since 1970, among other academic and journalistic publications. member of the wandelweiser composers collective; scores published by edition wandelweiser. frequent collaborators (past and present) include antoine beuger, manfred werder, koen nutters, joseph kudirka, john lely, jason brogan, sam sfirri, james fulkerson, tobias liebezeit, samuel vriezen, dante boon, and jeremiah runnels.
[Website]
Polly Hanson uses twigs, scissors and other such items to activate a snare drum and a mic in a way that has made her indispensable as a Boston-area player. She will be playing this one solo.
Friday September 1, 8 PM
Asha Tamirisa / Ernst Karel
vespers 06 @ washington street art center (WSAC)
321 Washington St., Somerville MA
Asha Tamirisa is a sound and media artist most interested in audiovisual composition, instruments and interfaces, and gender, race, and technology. Her work has been presented at venues such as the ICA Boston, UnionDocs, The Tank, Spectrum, I-Park Foundation, WomanMade Gallery, and on festivals/series such as Punto Y Raya, OFFoff, Magic Lantern Cinema, the Drone Cinema Film Fest, and Altered States Film Festival. She has released music on Private Chronology and on Pan Y Rosas. She is a founding member of OPENSIGNAL, a group of artists concerned with the state of gender and race within electronic / computer based art practices. Currently, she is a doctoral student in Computer Music and Multimedia while pursuing an M.A. in Modern Culture and Media at Brown University.
[Website]
Asha Tamirisa / Ernst Karel
vespers 06 @ washington street art center (WSAC)
321 Washington St., Somerville MA
Asha Tamirisa is a sound and media artist most interested in audiovisual composition, instruments and interfaces, and gender, race, and technology. Her work has been presented at venues such as the ICA Boston, UnionDocs, The Tank, Spectrum, I-Park Foundation, WomanMade Gallery, and on festivals/series such as Punto Y Raya, OFFoff, Magic Lantern Cinema, the Drone Cinema Film Fest, and Altered States Film Festival. She has released music on Private Chronology and on Pan Y Rosas. She is a founding member of OPENSIGNAL, a group of artists concerned with the state of gender and race within electronic / computer based art practices. Currently, she is a doctoral student in Computer Music and Multimedia while pursuing an M.A. in Modern Culture and Media at Brown University.
[Website]
Ernst Karel makes electroacoustic music and experimental nonfiction sound works for multichannel installation and performance. His recent projects are edited/composed using unprocessed location recordings; in performance he sometimes combines these with analog electronics to create pieces which move between the abstract and the documentary. Recent sound projections have been presented at Sonic Acts, Amsterdam; Oboro, Montreal;EMPAC, Troy NY; Arsenal, Berlin; and the 2014 Whitney Biennial. Sound installations in collaboration with Helen Mirra have been exhibited at Culturgest, Lisbon; KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin; Audiorama, Stockholm; MIT List Visual Arts Center, Cambridge; and in the 2012 Sao Paulo Bienal. Video with multichannel sound collaborations include Ah humanity! (2015, with Lucien Castaing-Taylor and Véréna Paravel) and Single Stream (2014, with Toby Lee and Pawel Wojtasik). Other projects include the long-running electroacoustic duo EKG, and the location recording/performance collective the New England Phonographers Union. Recent nonfiction vilms on which he has done sound work include The Iron Ministry, Manakamana, and Leviathan, all produced in the Sensory Ethnography Lab at Harvard University, where as a Lecturer on Anthropology, he teaches a class in sonic ethnography.
[Website]
[Website]
Monday August 21, 8 PM
Michael Rosenstein + Angela Sawyer + Jesse Collins / Beam Splitter
vespers 05 @ blue bag records
2325 Massachusetts Ave, Cambridge
Michael Rosenstein + Angela Sawyer + Jesse Collins team up (again) to form this trio of Boston noise legends.
ANGELA SAWYER: In her normal, everyday, not at all irregular life, Angela is interested in fairly extreme, obscure, avant-garde music and frequently goes on stage just to make a lot of gargling and retching noises. She also writes record reviews and liner notes and even gets paid for that sometimes. You can read her writing at Perfect Sound Forever. A list of her current bands can be found on this site, as well as some musical recordings.
MICHAEL ROSENSTEIN: Michael explores the interaction of acoustic and electronics sounds in collectively improvised settings. He regularly performs as a member of the groups MHQ, Deuezer, and Grizzler, in a duo with Howard Martin as well as in various ad hoc groupings. In his music, harmonics and overtones, amplified surfaces, and home-made electronics form mutable striations, moving from transparent detail to dense layers. He exploits the interface of resonant frequencies and amplification, collectively feeding off of the resultant unstable sonic events.
JESSE COLLINS: Working and living in Boston since 2008 Jesse Kenas Collins performs in both solo and group contexts, focusing on the confusion of brass and woodwind instruments integrated with analog electronics, digital video and still images. As an improviser he works closely with many artists around New England and maintains an active performance schedule, having toured throughout the US as well as Europe. Collaborators include Billy Sims, Michael Rosenstein, Morgan Evans-Weiler, Luke Martin, Bernadette Zeilinger & Diego Munes among many others.
Beam Splitter is the duo of Henrik Munkeby Nørstebø (NO) and Audrey Chen (US). Using the trombone and voice, they maneuver a balance between fragility, intimacy, the ecstatic and measured control. They share a common sense of pulse and an inherent understanding of the way they each aurally manage and let go of every consecutive moment. The lungs release through to mouths to bell, back and forth like a tactile breathing exchange.
Since beginning their collaboration in 2015, Nørstebø and Chen have been extensively touring the globe, in Europe, New Zealand, Argentina, Brazil, and the USA. They have taken part in larger commissioned works at the Teatro Colon, Buenos Airesand largely conceptualized a theatrical adaptation of MEDEA in front of the Olympic Stadium in Kiev, Ukraine (for butoh dancers and musicians) produced by the Ukho Agency. They have shared their collaborative projects with artists such as Phil Minton, Bob Ostertag, Michael Vorfeld, Thomas Rohrer, Valentin Tszin, Flavia Ghisalberti and Leonel Kaplan.
[Website]
Michael Rosenstein + Angela Sawyer + Jesse Collins / Beam Splitter
vespers 05 @ blue bag records
2325 Massachusetts Ave, Cambridge
Michael Rosenstein + Angela Sawyer + Jesse Collins team up (again) to form this trio of Boston noise legends.
ANGELA SAWYER: In her normal, everyday, not at all irregular life, Angela is interested in fairly extreme, obscure, avant-garde music and frequently goes on stage just to make a lot of gargling and retching noises. She also writes record reviews and liner notes and even gets paid for that sometimes. You can read her writing at Perfect Sound Forever. A list of her current bands can be found on this site, as well as some musical recordings.
MICHAEL ROSENSTEIN: Michael explores the interaction of acoustic and electronics sounds in collectively improvised settings. He regularly performs as a member of the groups MHQ, Deuezer, and Grizzler, in a duo with Howard Martin as well as in various ad hoc groupings. In his music, harmonics and overtones, amplified surfaces, and home-made electronics form mutable striations, moving from transparent detail to dense layers. He exploits the interface of resonant frequencies and amplification, collectively feeding off of the resultant unstable sonic events.
JESSE COLLINS: Working and living in Boston since 2008 Jesse Kenas Collins performs in both solo and group contexts, focusing on the confusion of brass and woodwind instruments integrated with analog electronics, digital video and still images. As an improviser he works closely with many artists around New England and maintains an active performance schedule, having toured throughout the US as well as Europe. Collaborators include Billy Sims, Michael Rosenstein, Morgan Evans-Weiler, Luke Martin, Bernadette Zeilinger & Diego Munes among many others.
Beam Splitter is the duo of Henrik Munkeby Nørstebø (NO) and Audrey Chen (US). Using the trombone and voice, they maneuver a balance between fragility, intimacy, the ecstatic and measured control. They share a common sense of pulse and an inherent understanding of the way they each aurally manage and let go of every consecutive moment. The lungs release through to mouths to bell, back and forth like a tactile breathing exchange.
Since beginning their collaboration in 2015, Nørstebø and Chen have been extensively touring the globe, in Europe, New Zealand, Argentina, Brazil, and the USA. They have taken part in larger commissioned works at the Teatro Colon, Buenos Airesand largely conceptualized a theatrical adaptation of MEDEA in front of the Olympic Stadium in Kiev, Ukraine (for butoh dancers and musicians) produced by the Ukho Agency. They have shared their collaborative projects with artists such as Phil Minton, Bob Ostertag, Michael Vorfeld, Thomas Rohrer, Valentin Tszin, Flavia Ghisalberti and Leonel Kaplan.
[Website]
Friday August 11, 8 PM
Laura Cetilia / Vic Rawlings
vespers 04 @ blue bag records
2325 Massachusetts Ave, Cambridge
Cellist and electronic musician Laura Cetilia is a performer, composer, educator, and presenter. A daughter of mixed heritage, she is at home with in-betweeness. As a composer, her music has been described as “unorthodox loveliness” by the Boston Globe and and her debut solo album was hailed as “alternately penetrating and atmospheric” in Sequenza 21. The Grove Dictionary of American Music describes her electroacoustic duo Mem1 as a “complex cybernetic entity” that “understands its music as a feedback loop between the past and present.” Mem1 has held artist residencies and toured extensively throughout the U.S. and Europe. In her viola/cello duo, Suna No Onna, she has worked closely with and premiered works by composers André Cormier, Jürg Frey and Antoine Beuger, among others. As a product of the now-dwindling public school music program, Laura believes in the right to accessible music education and is a Resident Musician at Community MusicWorks, a non-profit organization that provides free after-school music education programs for children in urban neighborhoods of Providence, RI. There she teaches cello, is co-director of the media lab and the curator of the Ars Subtilior experimental music series. She is also a proud mother of one.
[Website]
Laura Cetilia / Vic Rawlings
vespers 04 @ blue bag records
2325 Massachusetts Ave, Cambridge
Cellist and electronic musician Laura Cetilia is a performer, composer, educator, and presenter. A daughter of mixed heritage, she is at home with in-betweeness. As a composer, her music has been described as “unorthodox loveliness” by the Boston Globe and and her debut solo album was hailed as “alternately penetrating and atmospheric” in Sequenza 21. The Grove Dictionary of American Music describes her electroacoustic duo Mem1 as a “complex cybernetic entity” that “understands its music as a feedback loop between the past and present.” Mem1 has held artist residencies and toured extensively throughout the U.S. and Europe. In her viola/cello duo, Suna No Onna, she has worked closely with and premiered works by composers André Cormier, Jürg Frey and Antoine Beuger, among others. As a product of the now-dwindling public school music program, Laura believes in the right to accessible music education and is a Resident Musician at Community MusicWorks, a non-profit organization that provides free after-school music education programs for children in urban neighborhoods of Providence, RI. There she teaches cello, is co-director of the media lab and the curator of the Ars Subtilior experimental music series. She is also a proud mother of one.
[Website]
Vic Rawlings (Boston- amplifier/ prepared cello, speaker elements/ exposed circuitry) employs a still and unstable sound language that traverses from the visceral excess of the Laurence Cook Disaster Unit to the extreme austerity of undr quartet. He has designed and built 2 separate instruments to realize this aesthetic, including extensive and invasive cello preparations- some directly based on obscure baroque instrumentation. The amplified cello is used as a resonant wooden microphone. He also continually develops an electronic instrument from the exposed circuit boards of sound processors, effectively producing an analog synthesizer with a highly unstable interface. This electronic instrument is realized by a flexible array of exposed speaker elements, chosen for their often unpredictable and idiosyncratic acoustic qualities. His solo performances deny conventional assumptions about the use of time and refuse alliance with dominant trends in improvised music.
[Website]
[Website]
Friday July 28, 8 PM
Andrea Pensado / Forbes Graham
vespers 03 @ blue bag records
2325 Massachusetts Ave, Cambridge
Andrea Pensado works with sound as a performer and programmer. She has been using digital media and live interactive musical systems since 1995. She studied in Argentina and Poland. At first, she composed mainly for acoustic instruments. However, she felt gradually more attracted by different sound realms. Today, the abrasive digital noise of her music is far away from her earlier pieces. Harsh dense layers of sounds, often interwoven with her voice, combine hybrid synthesis techniques to create a highly personal sound language, which reflects an intuitive, emotional and paradoxically also logical approach to music making. She currently lives in the US.
[Website]
Andrea Pensado / Forbes Graham
vespers 03 @ blue bag records
2325 Massachusetts Ave, Cambridge
Andrea Pensado works with sound as a performer and programmer. She has been using digital media and live interactive musical systems since 1995. She studied in Argentina and Poland. At first, she composed mainly for acoustic instruments. However, she felt gradually more attracted by different sound realms. Today, the abrasive digital noise of her music is far away from her earlier pieces. Harsh dense layers of sounds, often interwoven with her voice, combine hybrid synthesis techniques to create a highly personal sound language, which reflects an intuitive, emotional and paradoxically also logical approach to music making. She currently lives in the US.
[Website]
Forbes Graham is a trumpet player, electronic musician, and composer living and working in Boston, Massachusetts. He has worked with a diverse array of musicians and currently is a member of Para Quintet, Rock Flint Contemporary Ensemble, Wild May, Jazz Composers Alliance Orchestra, Grizzler, Construction Party, Equal Time and Citizens Orchestra. He is the founder of the Rock Flint Artists Retreat, and has appeared at numerous festivals including High Zero, Full Force, and Vision.
[Website]
[Website]
Friday July 14, 8 PM
Sarah Ayotomiwa Pitan / Andy Graydon
vespers 02 @ blue bag records
2325 Massachusetts Ave, Cambridge
Andy Graydon's work focuses on situations of absence and displacement. Including sound works, films, media installations, photographs and performances, Graydon’s work has been exhibited internationally, as well as released on records and other publications. His work, which often touches on science fiction, environmental art, and media ecology, employs such effects as copying, delaying, doubling, displacing, desynchronizing and resynchronizing.
[Website]
Sarah Ayotomiwa Pitan / Andy Graydon
vespers 02 @ blue bag records
2325 Massachusetts Ave, Cambridge
Andy Graydon's work focuses on situations of absence and displacement. Including sound works, films, media installations, photographs and performances, Graydon’s work has been exhibited internationally, as well as released on records and other publications. His work, which often touches on science fiction, environmental art, and media ecology, employs such effects as copying, delaying, doubling, displacing, desynchronizing and resynchronizing.
[Website]
My name is Sarah Ayotomiwa Pitan. I am Nigerian-American. I am female. I am queer. I am concerned with affirming the connection between conceptual modes of thought and everyday practices. I have backgrounds in music composition, piano performance, dance, sports, and visual art. I am interested in the production of noise as an improvisatory result, or byproduct of overwork and miswork. I am also currently focused on mapping the politics of traditional performance spaces. That is to say, I aim to make apparent the intersections of race, gender, sexuality, economics, education, etc. that fully dictate the quality of meaning (what’s good and what’s bad) and what means (what is within the confines of performative “law” and what transcends meaning, is beyond performative law, or what is, as Fred Moten says, “outside of the inside and outside”).
[Website]
[Website]
Friday June 23, 8 PM
Marilyn Arsem / Dave Gross
vespers 01 @ blue bag records
Marilyn Arsem has been creating live events since 1975, from solo gallery performances to large-scale, site-specific works. Many of her works are durational in nature, and minimal in actions and materials. Created in response to the site, they engage with the immediate landscape and materiality of the location, its history, use, or politics.
[Website]
Marilyn Arsem / Dave Gross
vespers 01 @ blue bag records
Marilyn Arsem has been creating live events since 1975, from solo gallery performances to large-scale, site-specific works. Many of her works are durational in nature, and minimal in actions and materials. Created in response to the site, they engage with the immediate landscape and materiality of the location, its history, use, or politics.
[Website]
For two decades Dave Gross has been transforming the saxophone into exactly what it is: a metal tube with keys, mouthpiece, and a reed. Reviews of his recordings have been as varied as "the range of textured noise that he cajoles from his instrument is impressive," "lengthy episodes of fingernails ripping at a blackboard" and "the intimacy with which he approaches the saxophone, each screw in each latch, every fiber in the reed, every pad or valve, and all the negative space in between, is simply astounding.” Having grown frustrated with the “meaning” and “possibilities” of “music” within the last 5 years, Mr. Gross is beginning to form a different relationship to “performance” which includes influences of institutional critique, Lacanian psychoanalysis and identity politics.
