Serving the San Francisco Bay Area New Music Community

Sat, Aug 2 2014 7:30 PM


13th Annual Outsound New Music Summit
Improvisations improvisers exploring the language of the unknown
Jill Burton Trio
Tim Perkis - electronics, Doug Carroll - cello, Jill Burton - voice/movement
Emergency String (X)tet
Violins: Mia Bella D'Augelli, Jeff Hobbs, Christina Stanley
Cellos: Doug Carroll, Shanna Sordahl, David Michalak - lap steel guitar, Kanoko Nishi-Smith - bass and koto, Bob Marsh - cello, composer
Obstreperous Doves
Bill Noertker - bass, Nava Dunkelman - percussion, Christina Stanley - violin/pedals, Karl Evangelista - guitar/pedals, Dave Mihaly - drums
Advance Tickets @ Brownpapertickets

Jill Burton Trio
Jill Burton - vocals, Doug Carroll - cello, Tim Perkis - electronics

This will be a first-time trio collaboration between deeply experienced and versatile musicians: Jill Burton, Tim Perkis (electronics) and Doug Carroll (cello). It is the nature and purpose of free improvisation to simultaneously compose and perform specific musical subject matter utilizing no specific musical direction whatsoever. In performance, this is inherently dramatic, both for the audience and the performers alike. The unfolding of the interactions as well as the musical content comes largely as much to the surprise to the musicians as to the audience. In this sense the positive effect is much the same for audience and performer alike, a shared experience of discovery and unpredicted coherence emerging without conscious planning, which in turn facilitates an appreciation of subtle and extreme degrees of expressive interaction between the intellect and the intuition among the performers, and between performer and audience. In short, a mutually unifying adventure, a mutual curiosity; this itself is a near-universally beneficial experience.
Jill Burton is an improviser, extended vocalist, dancer, performance artist and energy worker. Noted as one of the great foundation improvisers of America, she is also known for incorporating spiritual healing with improvised performance. Active in the American improv scene since the early 1970s, she has lived and worked all over the country, including a 10-year stint in the 1980s as part of the downtown East Village experimental arts community, and six years in Sitka, Alaska, where she worked with Tlingit storytellers providing musical accompaniment for their healing stories. Burton is unusual for a musician in that her work is ephemeral, in-the-moment, and therefore recordings of her work are rare. She has collaborated with many notable experimental musicians and dancers, including LaDonna Smith, Davey Williams, Jane Scarpantoni, Judy Dunaway, David First, Rain Worthington, Gino Robair, Jack Wright, and Scott Walton.
Tim Perkis has been working in the medium of live electronic and computer sound for many years, performing, exhibiting and recording extensively throughout North America and Europe. His work has largely been concerned with exploring the emergence of life-like properties in complex systems of interaction. A founder of the computer music band The Hub, he is also a well known performer in the San Francisco Bay Area's active improvised music scene, and a designer of multimedia systems for corporate clients. Recordings of his music are available on the Artifact, Lucky Garage, Meniscus and Limited Sedition labels.
International cellist and composer, Doug Carroll expands into new sound domains with the use of electronic processing and creative thought. Carroll's compositions for electronic cello and tape feature the spontaneity and drama of a live performance combined with the richness and diversity of the taped material. His solo improvisations have received international acclaim for their stark originality and musical sensitivity. Additionally, he has composed for a variety of multimedia events, including modern dance, theatre, film, and video, as well as collaborations with visual artists.

The Emergency String (X)tet
Violins: Mia Bella D'Augelli, Jeff Hobbs, Christina Stanley
David Michalak - lap steel guitar, Doug Carroll - cello, Kanoko Nishi-Smith - bass and koto
Bob Marsh - cello, composer

The Emergency String (X)tet grew out of the ashes of Fred Longberg-Holms Phenomenal String Quartet in Chicago about fifteen years ago. After the dissolution of the Phenomenal Strings, founder Bob Marsh created The Emergency String (X)tet. Originally taking the form of a more conventional string quartet while engaging in a most non-traditional improvisational approach to the music, it has expanded to be more inclusive of numbers of players and the type of instruments involved. Thus, the "(X)" refers not only to the unknown factor inherent in improvisation, but also to the number of players and instrumentation in any given performance creating exciting new, energetic and aural possibilities each time it performs. They combine free improvisation and the use of graphic scores in their performance. This year, at the 13th Annual Outsound New Music Summit the (X)tet will perform its world debut of a Terrascore for founder Bob Marsh's 70th birthday. The Terrascore is a musical geobiographic representation of an individual. This Terrascore will represent Detroit, Chicago, and San Francisco. They will also perform the original compositions “Window,” “Door,” “River,” and “Les Michilux 10.”

Obstreperous Doves
Christina Stanley – violin, voice, electronics; Karl Evangelista - guitars; Bill Noertker - basses; Nava Dunkleman - percussion; Dave Mihaly- drums

Obstreperous Doves was founded in 2011 by bassist/composer Bill Noertker as a forum for improvised group praxis. For 14 years, Noertker has led his own experimental jazz ensemble, Noertker’s Moxie, for which he composes music inspired by visual art.
Though the dove is traditionally a symbol of peace, the quest for peaceful coexistence is not necessarily passive. In the democracy of the group improvisation, obstreperousness is valued. In music it is possible to assert one’s own voice and to simultaneously listen to and value the voices of one’s fellow human beings. This is the ethos of the Obstreperous Doves. Each member of this ethnically diverse, cross-generational ensemble brings their own wide range of musical experiences. All are composers, improvisers, bandleaders, and sidepersons. All have played in a variety of situations and genres. All are able to draw from their wealth of experience to engage each other in improvised musical conversation.

Cost: $15 general $12 students/seniors
Audio samples in which musicians at this event play:
Videos featuring musicians playing at this event
Fred Frith and Nava Dunkelman
Grex