SPRING REVERB 06 5th Annual Festival of Creative Music, Dance and Art create + bloom + flourish
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Artist Bios Baker's Union Baker's Union is the improvising trio of David Brandt (drums), Morgan Guberman (contrabass) and Scott Rosenberg (reeds). The group has been playing and rehearsing together regularly for the last two years and has developed a loose sound that values feel and intuition over any specificly defined style. Percussionist/composer David Brandt has been a professionally active creative musician since 1989 in Boston, New York, Europe and San Francisco. He has performed with many new music notables including Butch Morris' New York Skyscraper and Oghene Kologbo's Afrobeat Academy and studied with Milford Graves, Alan Dawson and Bill Dixon. He currently lives in San Francisco and performs regularly. Morgan Guberman is a multi-instrumentalist, composer, and performer, that resides in Oakland, CA., where he plays music and runs an environmental hauling company. Over the past decade Scott Rosenberg has had the good fortune to work with many of the most interesting and creative musicians both at home in the States and in Europe. In addition to playing reeds in Baker's Union, Rosenberg plays guitar and sings in P.A.F. Borborygmus Borborygmus first rumbled onto the San Diego music scene at the dawn of the millenium as the performing unit of the newly formed Trummerflora collective. The ensemble's energetic live performances can be heard on "No Stars Please" (2001 Accretions). The Wire described it as "collective improvising: a pool of players immersed in the unfolding of a continuous present, egos submerged in the sound stream. The stream's currents tug towards free jazz, the extremities of rock, the 20th century chamber avant garde and electroacoustic strangeness." Though active only for about a year, the group's rumbling effects can be heard on many of Trummerflora's consequent releases. Now after nearly five years,, Borborygmus rears its multitudinous head once again to cast forth the gurgles and growls from the belly of the musical underground. Borborygmus are: Tracy McMullen, Jason Robinson, Ellen Weller - winds; Al Scholl, Marcelo Radulovich - guitars; Robert Montoya - electronics; James Ilgenfritz, Scott Walton - basses; Marcos Fernandes, Curtis Glatter, Nathan Hubbard - percussion. David Borgo David Borgo is a saxophonist, improviser, composer, and ethnomusicologist with over 20 years of performing experience. He won first prize at the 1994 International John Coltrane Festival and he has toured throughout Europe, Asia, Latin America and the United States. David has recorded four CDs as a leader: With and Against (Resurgent Music), Massanetta Springs (Circumvention Music), Reverence for Uncertainty (Circumvention Music), and Ubuntu: A Tribute to South African Jazz (Cadence Jazz Records). He is also a featured collaborator on many other CDs on the Acoustic Levitation, Positone, and Nine Winds record labels. David has a B.M. in Jazz Studies from Indiana University, a Ph.D. in Ethnomusicology from UCLA, and is currently an Assistant Professor of Music in the Critical Studies and Experimental Practices Program at UC San Diego. He has published numerous scholarly articles on improvised music and his book, Sync or Swarm: Improvising Music in a Complex Age, was published by Continuum in 2005. davidborgo.com Madelyn Byrne Madelyn Byrne is a composer of both acoustic and electro-acoustic music. Recent work includes In Your Dreams, an inter-media piece which Madelyn scored and performed in on the laptop computer and synthesizer. She has also played laptop in the inter-media piece Spoonful of Hope and as part of the SoundCommons Orchestra. Other recent projects include Notre Dame Suite for piano and computer (commissioned by Peter Gach) and scoring the documentaries Horse Vet and Colors that Grow. Past honors include winning the Friends and Enemies of New Music Composition Competition, recordings on CRI records and SoundWalk, and selections for performance at the International Computer Music Conferences in Hong Kong and Beijing. Madelyn's music has also received performances, television, radio, and internet broadcasts throughout the world. Madelyn joined the Palomar College faculty in the Fall 2000 semester and completed her DMA in composition at The Graduate Center in 1999. She has also been a guest composer at Columbia University's Computer Music Center. daphne.palomar.edu/mbyrne Charming Hostess Charming Hostess is three women in a whirl of eerie harmony, hot rhythm and radical braininess. Our music is intensely physical, rooted in the body--voices and vocal percussion, handclaps and heartbeats, sex-breath and silence. We live where Jewish and African diasporas collide, incorporating doo-wop, Pygmy counterpoint, Balkan harmony and Andalusian melody. Our music is deeply engaged with text and with questions of authenticity, montage, and the effect of music on non-verbal languages. Our last CD (Trilectic, Tzadik) explored the political/erotic nexus of Walter Benjamin and his Marxist muse with humor and sensuality. The new CD (Sarajevo Blues, Tzadik) sets Bosnian poetry as a form of love and resistance to the brutalization of war. Charming Hostess was founded by Jewlia Eisenberg to make ambitious music for voices and rock out at the same time. charminghostess.us Charles Curtis Acknowledged internationally as a performer of new and experimental music,cellist Charles Curtis has been closely associated for over fifteen years with the legendary avant-garde composer La Monte Young. As director of Young's Theatre of Eternal Music String Ensemble, Curtis has participated in more performances and premieres of Young's works than any other interpreter. For a number of years Curtis has maintained an interest and a presence in the downtown New York free music scene, performing in clubs like Tonic, the Knitting Factory, the Cooler, ABC No Rio, CBGB and Acme Underground. He collaborated over a period of years with poetry-rock pioneers King Missile, John S. Hall, Dogbowl and Kramer, and has been a guest of artists and groups such as Alan Licht, Michael J. Schumacher Donald Miller, Dean Roberts, Elliott Sharp, David First, Ben Neill Bongwater, Borbetomagus, Circle X, and with individual members of the bands Television, Pere Ubu and Public Image Limited. As an outgrowth of his intensive work with La Monte Young and his presence in the New York avant-garde rock scene, Curtis has evolved into a creative artist straddling the boundaries between art rock, sound art and minimalist composition. Since 2000 Curtis has been Professor of Contemporary Music Performance at the University of California, San Diego, where he had previously been guest lecturer and performer. DJ Tenshun Jon Calzo is an eclectic turntablist/electronic musician from San Diego. In recent years, he has performed concerts in Austin, Los Angeles, San Francisco and San Diego's own Museum of Contemporary Art-Downtown, as well as collaborations with Curtis Glatter, Jason Robinson, Nathan Hubbard, Marcelo Radulovich and many others. Calzo is also a member of an electronic music duo called TENSHUN which has released several short-run 7" and CDrs in the last three years. Calzo's extensive background in DJing coupled with his investigations of extended sound possibilities and modified turntables places him at an interesting vantage point where the lines of musical genres are blurred. Thomas Dimuzio A composer, musician, mastering engineer and label proprietor based in San Francisco. Long regarded as a musical pioneer for his innovative use of live sampling and studio techniques to create consistently compelling works, Dimuzio has earned a deserved reputation worldwide as an avant-garde sound artist in touch with the aesthetic pulse of time and technology. Effortlessly moving from electro-acoustic and noise to glitch, dark ambient, improv and drone, Dimuzio's eclecticism bespeaks a career equally informed by profound dedication to his craft and collaborations with friends, artists and technologists alike. Thomas Dimuzio's recordings have been released by ReR Megacorp, Asphodel, RRRecords, Sonoris, Gench and other independent labels. Among his frequent collaborators are Chris Cutler, Fred Frith, Dan Burke, Joseph Hammer, David Lee Myers, 5uu's, Due Process, Matmos, Wobbly, and Negativland. www.thomasdimuzio.com www.gench.com Marcos Fernandes Born in Yokohama, Japan, Marcos Fernandes has long been active as performer, producer and curator. He has performed in Japan, Hong Kong, Mexico and the US as a solo improviser, phonographer and as percussionist/sound artist with various ensembles, including Wormhole, a decade-long collaboration with percussionist/sound artist Robert Montoya. Fernandes started the artist-based independent label Accretions in 1985. He is a founding member of the Trummerflora collective, dedicated to creative music in Southern California. Fernandes' recordings have appeared on Accretions, Bake/Staalplaat, Circumvention, Pan Handler, Pax, Pfmentum, Phonography.org, Public Eyesore, Ribosome and Solitary B. Fernandes has performed and/or recorded with some of today's more innovative experimentalists and has participated in various festivals including Festival Beyond Innocence (Osaka), Yokohama Jazz Promenade, so.cal.sonic (Long Beach), San Francisco Electronic Music Festival, Spring Reverb (San Diego), San Francisco Alternative Music Festival, Big Sur Experimental Music Festival, Olympia Festival of Experimental Music and the Northwest Electroacoustic Music Festival. He has appeared at Spruce Street Forum, Museum of Contemporary Art, CRCA/UCSD, Sushi Performance Gallery (San Diego), CECUT, Don Loope (Tijuana), Open Gate, Beyond Baroque, Line Space Line, KXLU (Los Angeles), Fringe Gallery (Hong Kong), Luggage Store, 21 Grand, KFJC (Bay Area), Polestar, COCA, Sonarchy Radio/Jack Straw (Seattle), Red Room (Baltimore), Big Apple, Bridge, Tokuzo, Pit Inn, Super Deluxe, Airegin (Japan) among others. www.marcosfernandes.com Hans Fjellestad Hans fjellestad - minimoog voyager, moog analog delay and metasonix butt probe "Los Angeles based musician and filmmaker Hans Fjellestad may have earned more column inches recently for his film work than his composition of late, but let's not allow the volume of an off- Hollywood career drown out the quieter tones of a growing and consistently interesting musical opus." - Louise Gray, The WireFjellestad has presented his music, film and video art in the U.S., Canada, Europe, Australia, Japan, Mexico and Brazil. He has an extensive discography both as a solo artist and in collaboration with many legendary players in the international experimental music scene. An "innovative musician" (All About Jazz) and "mad scientist of sound" (SLAMM), Fjellestad's music has been described as "unbridled sonic freedom... raw, almost shamanic energy that embodies the true essence of unrestricted music" (XLR8R) and a "spicy concoction...refusing to behave itself, it screams, throws things and makes a mess" (The Wire). Fjellestad has performed in such far-flung venues as The Roxy (Prague), Shinjuku Pit Inn (Tokyo), Festival Beyond Innocence (Osaka), Big Apple (Kobe), ABC No Rio (New York City), Bimbo's 365 Club (San Francisco), SIGGRAPH (Los Angeles), Velvet Jones (Santa Barbara), Don Loope (Tijuana), Spring Reverb Festival (San Diego/ Tijuana), Den Anden Opera (Copenhagen), Yokohama Jazz Promenade, Big Sur Experimental Music Festival, San Diego Repertory Theatre, and the Northwest Electroacoustic Music Festival (Portland).As filmmaker, Fjellestad has directed numerous projects, including the feature documentaries Frontier Life (2002) and Moog (2004). www.hansfjellestad.com Curtis Glatter Curtis Glatter is an American composer, improviser and percussionist born on February 20, 1972. Glatter was raised in Dearborn Heights, Michigan and began performing at the age of eight. In 2000, Glatter graduated with a B.A. in Music Composition from Oakland University in Rochester, Michigan. In the past ten years, members of the Trummerflora Collective, Detroit Symphony, Pontiac Oakland Symphony and Camarada Ensemble have premiered his compositions. Glatter relocated to study in Vienna in 1999 and later the following year he was invited to study at Carnegie Hall. He has studied composition as well as classical and African percussion techniques at Henry Ford Community College, Interlochen Arts Academy and Oakland University thus affording him the luxury to utilize a wide variety of possibilities when composing or improvising. Glatter is currently a living in Southern California and remains an active member ASCAP, a member of the TRUMMERFLORA COLLECTIVE, Artistic Director for the new music concert series called NEW SOUNDS DOWNTOWN in San Diego, California, a composer/performer in the Glatter/Hubbard Percussion Duo, a member of both Nathan Hubbard Skeleton Key Orchestra and the splinter group Skeleton Key Percussion Ensemble, an affiliated member of the Center for the Promotion of Contemporary Composers and a writer for the San Diego New Music Newsletter. www.castorandpolluxmusic.com/CG/CGbio/CGbio.htm Vinny Golia woodwinds, composer Vinny Golia is a composer who fuses the rich heritage of Jazz, contemporary classical and world music into his own unique compositions. As a bandleader, Golia has presented his music to concert audiences in Europe, Canada, Mexico, Japan and the United States in ensembles varying dramatically in size and instrumentation. Mr. Golia has won numerous awards as a composer, including grants from the National Endowment of the Arts, The Lila Wallace Commissioning Program, The California Arts Council, Meet the Composer, Clausen Foundation of the Arts, Funds for U.S. Artists and the American Composers Forum. In 1982 he created the on-going 37 piece Vinny Golia Large Ensemble to perform his compositions for chamber group and jazz orchestra. A multi-woodwind performer, Vinny's recordings have been consistently picked by critics and readers of music journals for their yearly "ten best" lists. In 1990 he was the winner of the Jazz Times TDWR award for Bass Saxophone. In 1998 he ranked 1st in the Cadence Magazine Writers & Readers Poll and has continually placed in the Downbeat Critic's Poll for Baritone Saxophone. In 1999 Vinny won the LA Weekly's Award for "Best Jazz Musician". Jazziz Magazine has also named him as one of the 100 people who have influenced the course of Jazz in our Century. Golia has also contributed original compositions and scores to Ballet and Modern Dance works, video, theatrical productions, and film. As an educator Vinny has lectured on music & painting composition, improvisation, Jazz History, The History of Music in Film, CD & record manufacturing and self-production throughout the United States, Europe and Canada. He currently teaches at California Institute of the Arts. In 1998 Golia was appointed Regent's Lecturer at the University of California at San Diego. Vinny has been a featured performer with Anthony Braxton, Henry Grimes, John Carter, Bobby Bradford, Joelle Leandre, Leo Smith, Horace Tapscott, John Zorn, Tim Berne, Bertram Turetzky, George Lewis, Barre Phillips, The Rova Saxophone Quartet, Patti Smith, Harry "the Hipster" Gibson, Eugene Chadburne, Kevin Ayers, Peter Kowald, John Bergamo, George Gruntz Concert Jazz Band, Misha Mengelberg, Han Bennick, Lydia Lunch, Harry Sparrney and the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra amongst many others. Gunther's Grass Gunther's Grass began in 2005 as a collaboration between Marcelo Radulovich and Christopher Adler, to bring together two ancient drone-based instruments from across the world, the medieval European hurdy-gurdy and the Lao/Northeast Thai mouth organ khaen. Chilean-born Marcelo Radulovich is an audio/visual artist residing in the U.S. www.marceloradulovich.com Christopher Adler is a composer, improviser and performer living in San Diego, California. His compositions draw upon over a decade of research into the traditional musics of Thailand and Laos and a background in mathematics and computer modeling. As a pianist and conductor, he has performed with many of the West coast's finest improvisers, he performs contemporary solo and ensemble repertoire and is the pianist for the San Diego New Music resident ensemble NOISE. He received Ph.D. and Master's degrees in composition from Duke University and Bachelor's degrees in music composition and in mathematics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and he is currently an Associate Professor at the University of San Diego. His work may be heard on Tzadik, pfMENTUM, Nine Winds Records, Artship Recordings, and WGBH's Art of the States. www.christopheradler.com Anna Homler Encompassing music, spoken word, and installation, intermedia artist ANNA HOMLER's alternative languages extend the possibilities of meaning and communication. With a sensibility that is both ancient and post-modern, HOMLER makes words musical and music like words. Since 1982, she has collaborated in America with composers/musicians Steve Moshier, Davis MOss, Ethan James and Spastic Colon, and in Europe with the Voices of Kwahn, Steve Beresford, Peter Kowald, Richard Sanderson, Geert Waegeman, and Pavel Fajt. HOMLER has performed at well-known venues throughout the United States and Europe, including appearances at P.S. 122, the Kitchen, Dixon Place, and the Poetry Project at St. Mark's Church in New York; Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions (L.A.C.E.); Supraclub in Prague; Klarinsky in Bratislava, Slovakia; Ketty Do in Bologna, Italy; the Stadgarten and the Loft in Koln, Germany; and the Melkweg and Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam. She has participated in such international festivals as Sonic Disturbance at the Cleveland Public Theare; New Music America in Montareal; the Tegentonen Festival at the Paradiso in Amsterdam; Milanopoesia in Milan; Primavera Jazz Festival in Sardinia; the International Festival in Innsbruck, Austria; Spoken Word Festival in Brussels, Belgium; Dissidenten International des Musiques Actuelle in Nancy France; Musique Actuelle in Victoriaville, Quebec; Musik Triennale Koln, Koln, Germany; and the LMC Festival, the Purcell Room, South Bank, London. Highlighting HOMLER's work is the performance/installation project PHARMACIA POETICA, which examines the symbolic and tonal qualities of words and objects. Having traveled nationwide as part of the exhibition 40 Years of California Assemblage, the installation has also been shown at Gracie Mansion in New York; the Center for Contemporary Arts in Santa Fe and Nonsequitur Music Gallery in Albuquerque, New Mexico; Gallery 400 in Chicago Illinois; the Melkfabriek in Den Bosch, Holland; and at Gallery Oko in Amsterdam. From 1994 to 1995 the PHARMACIA POETICA was part of the traveling exhibition Outsie the Frame: Performance and the Object, a survey of performance art in the U.S. from 1950 to the present. It was also exhibited at Karbon in Zurich, Switzerland; as part of the Santa Monica Festival, Santa Monica, California; and most recently at Gerlesborgsskolan, Gerlesborg Sweden. HOMLER's music first became known in the 1980's with her Breadwoman cassette (High Performance Audio), a collaboration with Steve Moshier. Her debut CD, Do Ya Sa di Do (amf), was released in 1992. In 1994 she was featured on sugarconnection: alien cake (No Man's Land) and in 1995 on Macaronic Sines (Lowlands), a collaboration with Geert Waegeman and Pavel Fajt. In the mid-1990's, she released two CD's with the Voices of Kwahn in the U.K.: Silver Bowl Transmission (North/South) and peninsular enclosure (Swarf Finger). In 1997 a recording of her live performance with Waegeman and Fajt was released as Corne de Vache (Victo). Her newest release is House of Hands (ND). www.annahomler.com Nathan Hubbard Nathan Hubbard, percussionist, improvisor, instrument builder, composer, is fast approaching 30. His current projects run the gamut from solo improvisations to extended compositions for his 30 member ensemble Skeleton Key Orchestra. He has a new double CD out, featuring compositions from 1998-2005 on Circumvention Music. And he is happy to announce that his longest standing collaboration to date (with Kelly Lancaster) is expecting a daughter in August 2006. www.castorandpolluxmusic.com James Ilgenfritz/Sarah Weaver Duo The duo of bassist James Ilgenfritz and Trombonist Sarah Weaver has been active for 7 years, with numerous CD's, including one duo release from 2004, "...Close to the Body" on Earthtones Records, and numerous performances and clinics in New York, Michigan, Illinois, Iowa, and California. They have performed together at the 1999 Edgefest in Ann Arbor, MI, at the Deep Listening Space in Kingston, at the Colony Cafe in Woodstock, NY, and the University of Iowa in Iowa City. With a collective resume that includes work with Pauline Oliveros, Marilyn Crispell, Mark Dresser, and Otomo Yoshihide, their work together reflects careful attention to disparate aspects of improvised music. In addition to their work performing and giving clinics on improvisation, the duo has also been extensively involved in Soundpainting, the language of conducted improvisation developed by New York Composer Walter Thompson. In late 2006 a second duo CD, "Flowers Open in Yr Footsteps" will be released. www.jamesilgenfritz.com www.sarahweavermusic.com Intense Situations of Peril Glenn Bach, laptop Shea M. Gauer, electronics Scott A. Peterson, electronics Intense Situations of Peril is an improvising ensemble of electronic/laptop musicians who perform new, hybridized soundtracks to the cities in which they perform. Source material sampled from the audio track of a mainstream motion picture filmed in a particular city is collaged with raw audiovisual data collected on location. With a fluctuating roster of touring and local musicians and video artists, the ensemble will sample and manipulate the city's source material, improvising a completely unrehearsed image stream and soundscape, a one-of-a-kind audiovisual remix of place. For Spring Reverb, ISOP will perform "San Diego," a piece derived from samples taken from the Steven Soderbergh film, Traffic (2000), along with field recordings and other information gathered from various San Diego neighborhoods. Tracy McMullen Tracy McMullen is a saxophonist, composer and scholar. She has a B.A. in Political Science from Stanford University, and an M.M. in Jazz Performance and an M.A. in Music Composition from the University of North Texas. She is currently a Humanities Fellow in the Critical Studies/Experimental Practices doctoral program at UCSD. Her interests include: the corporeal logics of performance, including the creation of knowledge, meaning, and being in the act of performing/improvising; the connection between current Western theoretical models, such as post-structuralism, and the Eastern philosophy of Buddhism; Heidegger, Derrida, post-structuralism, Buddhism, conceptual art/artists and the art of performance. She has studied saxophone with David Murray and Dewey Redman and improvisation/composition with Anthony Davis, Mark Dresser and Phil Winsor and has performed and/or recorded with Scott Amendola, Jon Birdsong (Beck), David Borgo, Anthony Davis, Trevor Dunn, Jon Evans (Tori Amos), Rick Helzer, George Lewis, Bertram Turetsky and Victoria Williams among others. She can be heard on the Cadence Jazz label and numerous independent labels and is a member of the Trummerflora Collective. www.tracymcmullen.com Micro-Ritmia Mexican duo formed by pianist - composers Ernesto Martinez and Eduardo Gonzalez with the purpose of exploring mainly the hipervelocity field in music. The performing system wich also names "micro - ritmia" was created in 1986 by Ernesto Martinez and developed and taken to practice by both musicians in 1995. Next year they began to performing live in concert halls, art galleries and radio stations releasing their first - and only - CD in 1997. This recording received very positive reviews and in 1998 they are invited to perform a series of concerts and teach some master classes in New York City and Pittsburgh. That same year they participated in the "VII Electroacoustic Music International Festival in Havana" doing it again in 2000. In 2003, Martinez released a solo CD at the "Tzadik" label in wich he continues with the micro -rhytmic developement and with the making of musical instruments specially designed for micro - ritmia playing. In 2005, after a 2 year gap, they reunited for a couple of concerts in NYC at the John Zorn`s brand new place: The Stone. In November they made a 3 week tour all across the U.S. West Coast from San Diego to Seattle in wich they share venues - and expenses - with pianist - composer Thollem Mc Donas. Right now they are composing the material for their new CD. Robert Montoya Robert Montoya has been active in the San Diego music scene for the past two decades as a percussionist, improviser and sound artist. In recent years, Montoya's work has focused on sample-based computer and electronicmusic, reating complex, subtly-evolving soundscapes which can be heard on his recent solo release robert m (Accretions 2004) and in his ensemble projects Wormhole with long-time collaborator Marcos Fernandes and mrlectronic with Lisle Ellis and Fernandes. He is a founding member of Trummerflora, a musicians collective dedicated to creative music. A Tijuana native, Montoya has performed in Japan, Hong Kong, Mexico and the U.S. He has performed and/or recorded with members of Trummerflora, the Nortec Collective, George Lewis, Le Quan Ninh, Mike Keneally, Ernesto Diaz-Infante, Rent Romus, Eric Glick Rieman, Michael Dessen,David Gould , Scott R. Looney and Ultra 7. www.accretions.com/artists/robert.asp Toni Pope Toni Pope's vocalaizing not only challenges the boundaries of contemporary music but also one's very concepts of what music can be. She has developed and utilizes the capacity to sing in the ancient style of Tuvan-Northern Mongolian-throat-singing, as she weaves complex tapestries that take the listener deep into the unknown. With the exception of classical music composer Stefan Levin "Breath" and world music musicians Jim Ryan and Joseph Martinez "Light, Blue, and Yellow," every sound heard is the voice of the artist. Pope's music is vocal music, and juxtaposed against basic sound delay and reverb, stimulates an unearthly timeless quality. No way could this be described as dance music. But after repeated listening, it begins to imprint itself upon the listener's consciousness at a cellular level, coaxing the listener's evolvement. Yet and still Toni Pope's music is as fundemental as breathing and just as uplifting. It is as atmospheric as air blowing across the High Himilayan tundra and the whispering echoes of pines in bitter mid-winter. Sometimes it surprises you with its soulful sensuality and sweet sexuality. Like the love of a good woman, ignore it at your own peril! By Jonathan Evans Open to all audiences nationally and internationally, Pope has been very well received on the avante-garde and progressive stages of London, Germany, and Sweden. www.tonipope.org Dana Reason Canadian born pianist and composer Dana Reason is breaking down walls and rapidly establishing herself as one of the most exciting versatile musicians of the new generation. Equally at home on the jazz and classical concert stage, Dana is surprising audiences with her breathtaking performances. No overnight sensation, for the past decade Dana has fearlessly ventured on stage and into the unknown as she earned her reputation with many of today's leading jazz improvisers including George E. Lewis, Cecil Taylor, Barre Philips, Joe McPhee, Lisle Ellis, and Alex Cline. After attending one of her concerts, international jazz critic Frank Rubolino was prompted to write, "she speaks in a broken tongue of rarified beauty that is demanding but fully rewarding." As an interpreter she has taken on the extremes of her instrument and modern classical music with works by Sophia Gubaidulina, Elliot Carter, John Cage, Linda Bouchard, Pauline Oliveros, and Leo Smith. As a composer, she has been recognized with commissions from the Paula Josa Jones Dance Company and the Rova Saxophone Quartet. Dana Reason's major performances have included critically acclaimed concerts at the San Francisco Jazz Festival, the Guelph Jazz Festival in Guelph, New York City's Knitting Factory, the Banff Arts Festival in Alberta, Los Angeles' Festival in Pink, Frau Musica Nova in Cologne, and Place Gabriel in Paris. She has appeared on National Pubic Radio, Radio Canada, and The CBC. She can also be heard on 10 other recordings and in Peter Kowald's video, Off the Road. www.danareason.com Jason Robinson Reedist, composer and scholar Jason Robinson divides his time between performing, research and teaching. He has performed/recorded with Peter Kowald, George Lewis, Anthony Davis, Eugene Chadbourne, Earl Howard, Emily Hay, Jeff Kaiser, Eek a Mouse, Bertram Turetzky, Mel Graves, Marco Eneidi, Mike Wofford, Philip Gelb, J.D. Parran, Gerry Hemingway, Contemporary Jazz Orchestra (at Pearl's, San Francisco), the La Jolla Symphony, SONOR (among others), as well as theater-oriented groups such as the San Francisco Mime Troupe and the New Pickle Circus. Robinson is also a published author and teaches regularly at the University of California, Irvine, Southwestern College, and elsewhere. He holds a Ph.D. in Music. Robinson's 2002 release Tandem (Accretions Records) was a 2002 ãcritic's pickä in JazzTimes Magazine. Robinson is the founder and artistic director of Circumvention Music and a member of the San Diego-based Trummerflora Collective. www.jasonrobinson.com Al Scholl Largely self taught, guitarist Al Scholl's approach to music has been described as "alternately brash and intensely introspective." Years spent working at record stores and indie labels have infused his aesthetic with a stanky potpourri of influences. The diametrically opposed styles of the gutbucket '50's instro-rockers such as Link Wray flourish alongside the more refined angles of modern experimental music. At least that is what he likes to think. Scholl has been fortunate to perform and record with numerous excellent musicians that you have probably heard of. He has also played with way too many crappy ones that he sincerely hopes you will never have to hear. Luckily, Nathan Hubbard, Jason Robinson and Nate Wooley have been frequent collaborators. A Trummerflora member, Scholl's current projects include the gray matter of Trio Mahgreb (with Marcos Fernandes and Tracy McMullen), the beastly Obscuricon and several manic manifestations of the Skeleton Key Orchestra. He has also been seen performing recently with the one and only, Titicacaman. Something Strange Is Afoot Nathan Hubbard www.castorandpolluxmusic.com Justin Grinnell justingrinnell.com James Burton www.castorandpolluxmusic.com/skeleton/players/james.htm Something Strange Is Afoot is a vibraphone/bass/percussion trio formed in 2004 as an offshoot of Hubbards duo work with both Justin Grinnell and James Burton. Musically, the trio started as an investigating a few possibilities that began to surface at the end Grinnell and Hubbards tenure with the quartet Return To One. SSIA is very interested in finding unique answers and group concepts to issues of melody, harmony and rhythm. Many of the pieces SSIA performs address these issues by separating them and working on a specific idea/problem/situation. The general idea for this trio is to put these different ideas on top of each other, allowing more strata and layering of ideas/improvisations/compositions. The music at this point challenges traditional ideas of "rhythm section", "soloist", etc., allowing the trio to reinvent each members role and function as the music unfolds. www.castorandpolluxmusic.com/SSIA G.E. Stinson G.E. Stinson: Birthplace: Kingfisher, Oklahoma. Early life: migratory nomadic. Chicago at 13, hears Bo Diddley on car radio, purchases guitar. Learns to play blues listening to Muddy Waters, Sonny Boy Williamson, etc. Works /hangs out with Cash Mccall, Willie Dixon, Brewer Phillips, etc. '60s erupt. Flirts with success as blues rock guitarist. Experiments with other music forms. Starts learning Charlie Parker tunes. Miles Davis' "Bitches Brew" alters direction. Starts improvising. 1974: co-founds Shadowfax. Relocates to Los Angeles. Success and eventual dissatisfaction. 1989: jettisons into Los Angeles underground music community. Still refining extended technique, frequency manipulation and laptop pulse programming. obstacle.com/ge Trio Maghreb Trio Maghreb is Tracy McMullen, Al Scholl and Marcos Fernandes who use saxophones, voice, guitars, green tea, percussion, field recordings and electronics to explore open and structured improvisation, minimalism and the blues. The Trummerflora High School Honor Band The Trummerflora High School Honor Band features students from San Dieguito High School, Grossmont High School, Oceanside High School, Carlsbad High School, San Diego School for the Creative and Performing Arts and many more. Ddirected by Nathan Hubbard and Ellen Weller, this group will present group improvisations, notated works from a variety of sources and several special guest soloists. Paquito Villa Percussionist Paquito Villa is a member of a younger generation of Mexican jazz musicians that are international in scope and remarkably creative, forward-thinking, and contributing to new transnational trends in jazz. Paquito was born in Mexico City and studied music at the Los Angeles Music Academy. In Cuba he has studied bata and Afro-Cuban percussion with Enrique Pla, Jose Eladio, and Javier Campos. He has performed throughout Mexico, the United States, and Europe with Otmaro Ruis, Dean Taba, John Belzaguy, Carlitos del Puerto Jr, Donald Vega, and others. Paquito is sponsored by Canopus Drums, Zildjian, Remo, Regaltip, Gibraltar, and Toca Percussion. www.paquitovilla.com Scott Walton Scott Walton (bassist & pianist) is a member of the Trummerflora Collective. He has been premiering new piano music by David Lipten and David Durant, and is featured on recent CD releases by Nathan Hubbard (Compositions 1998-2005), Cosmologic (iii), the Vinny Golia Quintet (One, Three, Two), and O'Keefe, Stanyek, Walton, Whitehead (Tunnel). www.jazzhalo.com/homepagesframe.html Ellen Weller Multi-winds/Pianist/Ethnomusicologist/Improvisor/Composer Ellen Weller divides her musical performance activities between improvisation, jazz, klezmer and classical music. An active member of San Diego's Trummerflora Collective ( www.trummerflora.com ) and one of the original members of Maiden Voyage, an all-female big band out of Los Angeles, Weller has performed with George Lewis, Vinny Golia, Lisle Ellis, Anthony Davis, Muhal Richard Abrams, Jason Robinson, Nathan Hubbard Skeleton Key Orchestra, Lesli Dalaba, Carla Kihlstadt, Ernesto Diaz-Infante, Hans Fjellestadt, Vanessa Tomlinson, Marcos Fernandes, Michael Dessen, Michael Friedman, Second Avenue Klezmer Ensemble and the Weller Family Jazz Quartet. She has recently appeared at several festivals, including the SF Alt Festival, the Spring Reverb 04 (San Diego), and the Big Sur Sound Shift. Her compositions have been performed in New York, Detroit, San Diego and Los Angeles, and include music for the 1996 UCSD revival production of Terminal directed by Joseph Chaiken. Ellen received her Masters in Music Composition from Queens College of the City University of New York and the Ph.D. in music (Critical Studies and Experimental Practices) from the University of California San Diego. She has taught music at all levels, from kindergarten through college, currently teaching World Music courses and a course she designed entitled "The Music of War: Patriotism, Propaganda and Protest" at the University of California, San Diego. Her past research has focused on multicultural performance in San Diego, public arts funding and cultural tourism. www.wellermusic.com Wormhole Wormhole began in 1994 as an improvisational vehicle for the duo of percussionists Marcos Fernandes and Robert Montoya. More than a decade later, after numerous reincarnations, Wormhole continues its mission of creating globally-informed experimental music. Wormhole first recorded three tracks that appear on Trummerflora (1995 Accretions), a compilation of experimental groups. As Wormhole Effect, the group released their eponymous debut CD (1997 Accretions) and the follow-up The Bastard Musicians of Mesmer (1998 Accretions). They collaborated on various dance projects in San Diego during 1999-2000, contributing music to Continuums: one, a Tommy Award-winning performance art piece and soundtrack (1999 Frequency Merge), and performing as residents at Project Cathedral, a monthly ambient multi-media performance installation. With the Wormhole Brothers, Fernandes and Montoya explored the world of electronica, performing in various settings, collaborating with members of the Nortec Collective, and contributing a track to Track Whore Volume 2 ( 2001 Panhandler). Armed with an arsenal of percussive and electronic source material, Marcos Fernandes, Nathan Hubbard and Robert Montoya join forces in 2002 to explore structured and open improvisation and soundart, and produced a piece for Trummerflora's Rubble 1 compilation (2004 Accretions/Circumvention). 2003 saw the addition of Ellen Weller on woodwinfs and the return of Burnett Anderson on trumpet, and the beginning of Wormhole's collaborations with Barcelona-based spoken word artist Roger Aplon. www.accretions.com/artists/wormhole.asp