Clifford Dunn & Racketology

Seattle’s newest ensemble dedicated to new music, Racketology, gives its first public performance with a program full of new works intended to reinvigorate excitement for experimental music. Ensemble members include Clifford Dunn (flute), Brianna Atwell (viola), Josiah Boothby (horn), Bonnie Whiting Smith (percussion), and Douglas Niemela (electric bass guitar). Included in the program are Mark Applebaum's The Metaphysics of Notation; Brian Cobb's D. & A.; Clifford Dunn's Splinters; Evan Florey-Barnes' The Nuances of Rachel; Doug Niemela's Quintology (For Racketology); Jeremy Jolley's Essai; and James Welsch's Trio minus Mandy Patinkin.

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Occultural Music Festival Benefit

This fundraiser for the upcoming third annual Seattle Occultural Music Festival features ten very different guitarists performing 10-minute sets: Dave Knott, Lori Peterson, Ken Jacobson, Resistor, Tom Baker, Crystal Perez, Demian Johnston, Sky Lynn, Timm Mason & Mark Schlipper.

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Danny Holt + Steven Arntson

Los Angeles-based pianist Danny Holt’s Piano/Percussion Project situates the pianist amidst an array of percussion instruments, as he is called on to perform on both simultaneously. An eclectic lineup of composers from around the globe has written works specifically for Holt’s piano/percussion setup, each responding to the instrumentation in his/her own way. Opening is Seattle-based concertinist Steven Arntson, whose focus on the classical tradition and extended performance techniques aims to expand the limits of what can be done with the humble concertina.

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Splash! – Contemporary Cowboy"

Seattle chamber group Splash! (Roger Nelson, piano; Janna Wächter, voice; special guest soprano Anneliese von Goerken) present an evening of traditional cowboy songs, Morton Feldman and Jarrad Powell piano works, Ivan Sokolov and Charles Ives songs, Aaron Copland Emily Dickinson poems, Libby Larsen Calamity Jane songs and the premiere of Janna Wächter's Contemporary Cowboy. The combination of the a capella cowboy songs dating back to 1865 and Morton Feldman's piano music creates an atmosphere similar to the immense prairie. Wächter has woven contemporary sounds with her own original "cowboy music".

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Karen Bentley Pollick: Violin & Alternating Currents

Presented by Nonsequitur. Karen Bentley Pollick gives the Seattle premiere of four new compositions for violin with electronics by Alabama composers: Charles Norman Mason's Metaman, Dorothy Hindman's Fantasia for Karen Alone, Capital Spheres by Michael Angell, and Duetto con Bobik by Brian Moon. Also, Sole Injection by Illinois composer Zack Browning, Impossible Animals by Californian David A. Jaffe, Vista by Washington composer Alex Shapiro, and Solo Blues for Violin and Piano by New Yorker Dan Tepfer.

read more → Karen Bentley Pollick: Violin & Alternating Currents

Splash! – Contemporary Cowboy"

Seattle chamber group Splash! (Roger Nelson, piano; Janna Wächter, voice; special guest soprano Anneliese von Goerken) present an evening of traditional cowboy songs, Morton Feldman and Jarrad Powell piano works, Ivan Sokolov and Charles Ives songs, Aaron Copland Emily Dickinson poems, Libby Larsen Calamity Jane songs and the premiere of Janna Wächter's Contemporary Cowboy. The combination of the a capella cowboy songs dating back to 1865 and Morton Feldman's piano music creates an atmosphere similar to the immense prairie. Wächter has woven contemporary sounds with her own original "cowboy music".

read more → Splash! – Contemporary Cowboy"

Crepuscule Trio + Vertigo

Presented by Nonsequitur. Operating for many years under the radar of the Los Angeles mainstream jazz world, the Crepuscule Trio represents the most fundamental and vital aspects and values of what came to be termed "free jazz." Saxophonist Ken Kawamura, bassist Anthony Shadduck, and drummer Alan Cook mine the tradition they know intimately while blasting it open into the realm of spacious and multi-directional musical possibility. Seattle clarinetist Jesse Canterbury leads Vertigo, an all-acoustic quartet in a strikingly original mix of chamber music, improvisation, and tune-oriented melodic material.

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Wyndel Hunt + Christopher DeLaurenti

Wyndel Hunt integrates melody and noise using electronics, acoustic instruments, field recordings, and the occasional piece of amplified trash. His recent work focuses on conceiving narrative, painting, and sculpture as analogues for structuring composition and shaping sound. Christopher DeLaurenti debuts new field recordings as well improvisations with software-based sound generation, including phase-based compression, spectral inscription, and databending.

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Affinity Chamber Players: Young Adventurers

The Affinity Chamber Players plus soprano Kimberly Giordano, present a program of adventurous new music chosen from works submitted in response to Affinity’s call for scores, the call for scores for the Young Adventurers Competition, plus the music of preeminent composers of the Pacific Northwest: Brad Sherman's Fire, Elizabeth Alexander's My Aunt Gives Me a Clarinet Lesson, Tom Baker's Three Songs, and Emily Doolittle's Four Pieces about Water, as well as the young and talented Benjamin Davis' The Puppet Show.

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Seattle Composers' Salon

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. This month's composers: Marcus Oldham, Clifford Dunn, Tom Baker, Brad Sherman, and Jonathan Haek.

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Transport Series: Mari Kimura

Presented by Washington Composers Forum. Violinist Mari Kimura continues the great tradition of the virtuoso composer/performer. She embraces the worlds of extended violin techniques and interactive computer music, making them her own. She is also well known for developing the extended technique of “Subharmonics” — playing notes below the open-G string without lowering the tuning of the instrument. The program includes several of Ms. Kimura's own works, and music by Salvatore Sciarrino, Jean-Claude Risset, Takayuki Rai, Frances White, and Conlon Nancarrow.

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Lubomyr Melnyk: Continuous Music

Presented by Nonsequitur & Unseen Worlds Records. Read a preview in The Stranger.

Ukrainian-Canadian composer/pianist Lubomyr Melnyk's Continuous Music is based on the principle of a continuous, unbroken line of sound from the piano, created by generating a constant flow of rapid notes, usually with the pedal sustained non-stop. Often classified as Minimalism, Melnyk refutes that term, since he has to generate so many notes to create these "Fourth Dimensions of Sound." His earlier works devoted much attention to the overtones which the piano generates, but his more recent works are more involved with the melodic potential of this music. His classic 1978 album KMH was reissued in 2007 by Unseen Worlds.

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