"EYE-FULL FILMS presents
A NIGHT OF SILENTS, Pt. 1

A NIGHT OF SILENTS, Pt. 1 features two rarely seen progressive ""silent films"" by David Michalak: Not Quite Right and the ""poetic and hypnotic..."" Face of a Stranger. ""My idea was to allow gesture and expression to reveal the characters inner feelings and relay the narrative."" Rare films by magician, wizard and accidental filmmaker George Melies open the show.

GEORGE Méilès
selected shorts / 1895 - 1905 / 10 min
Live music accompaniment by Bruce Ackley & David Michalak

NOT QUITE RIGHT
Directed & Photographed by David Michalak / 1987 / 10m.

A dark, haunting psychological portrait of a man struggling with his demons and a desire for change. Saxophones argue on the telephone while an elevator descends into a musical hell storm. Man finds world, Not Quite Right.

With Helmut Wautischer Soundtrack by J.A. Deane/David Michalak with Bruce Ackley

FACE OF A STRANGER
Directed & photographed by David Michalak / 1977 / 60m.

While famed director Nichols Ray worked on his ""experimental"" film with students at SUNY COLLEGE in Binghamtom, N.Y., local upstart David Michalak worked on his own feature, paying tribute to shadowy German expressionism, silent movies and the serials of the 1920s. Not a word is spoken in this tale of a kind-hearted man who turns to cruelty when his lover dies an unexpected tragic death. His sanity is challenged further when he meets a woman bearing a strong resemblance to his deceased partner. Expression and gesture covey the story. Michalak shot the film on location at a restored turn of the century house, The Devil's Punch Bowl (a rock quarry) and in the lush forests of upstate New York with his film company Eye-Full Films.

James Russell Lowell’s review from the premiere at Roberson Museum in 1977 is, in part, quoted here, calling the film, “remarkable....poetic and hypnotic... David Michalak’s folkloric opus transports his audience into a world shared by UFA expressionists of the silent era yet it possesses a wonderful, uncanny immediacy – both poetic and hypnotic.”   
 
The film is full of nightmares, dreams and visions of a love lost and features glowing performances by Billie-Marie as both the haughty Otilla and servant Anna.

“What a revelation it is to see an actress who truly, innately, comprehends the visual relevance of cinema!  She endows her face - her every gesture - with emblematic meaning, conveying an almost unearthly quality. Michalak’s camera, script and direction allow us to see her (Anna) as the ultimate trusting soul; accepting one fate after another, finding empathy only in a dancing dream-clown, who all-too-briefly enchants her.”

The films stars: Billie-Marie as both Otillia and Anna, David Gardner as Gunnar, Gerald Michalak as Jarl and Michael Butler as Hynek who dances and features a newly recorded score by the internationally acclaimed pianist Thollem McDonas.
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Godwaffle Noise Pancakes is back for a 4/20 edition! As always, free gourmet vegan pancakes with entry fee!

Transient // Swinging Chaneliers (LAFMS) // Elaine Carey (L.A.) // Fognozzle // Doom Legs

Free gourmet vegan pancakes with entry fee! Starts at NOON SHARP!!
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COMPOSER MEETUP

Present what you’ve been working on, ask for feedback, hear what others are up to, discuss relevant new music topics, and spend time with colleagues and good company!
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The Nathan Clevenger Trio, featuring Jordan Glenn & Cory Wright, celebrates the release of their new album, 'Unsettled by the Ocean.' For tonight's performance, the trio is joined by Phillip Greenlief & Marié Abe.


Nathan Clevenger Trio + Phillip Greenlief & Marié Abe

Oakland musicians Nathan Clevenger, Jordan Glenn, and Cory Wright share a long and entwined history of collaboration across various projects, including Wiener Kids, Ashen Cleric, and Fellow Hominids. Formed in 2021, the trio has released 3 albums -- including the forthcoming ""Unsettled by the Ocean"" -- and recently initiated a series of collaborations with guests, including Kasey Knudsen, Crystal Pascucci, Phillip Greenlief, Marié Abe, and Safa Shokrai. Working from, between, and against Clevenger’s compositional frames and utilizing the multi-instrumental flexibility of each player, the trio (and guests) weaves between non-idiomatic improvisation and often gnomic composed material, with focus on spaciousness and timbral detail.


Nathan Clevenger

Nathan Clevenger is an Oakland born composer and multi-instrumentalist, working on the margins of modern composition, jazz, and improvisation. In 2022, Clevenger released ‘i had a dream about amnesia’, an album compiling 2 suites for solo, duo, and trio configurations, composed and recorded during the Covid-19 lockdown. The eight-piece Nathan Clevenger Group has released three albums, including ‘Stateless’ (2019, Slow & Steady Records). Nathan's Trio, with Jordan Glenn & Cory Wright, has released 3 albums and initiated a series of collaborations with guest artists. Notable recent performances include the premieres of extended compositions at the Berkeley Finnish Hall ('Astrolabe' for large ensemble), SF Contemporary Jewish Museum (‘for david berman’, performed by Ashen Cleric) and the Exploratorium (‘Ice Hours’, a multimedia collaboration with violinist/composer Kristina Dutton and artist Kim Miskowicz).


Jordan Glenn

Jordan Glenn spent his formative years in Oregon and in 2006 relocated to the Bay Area where he received an MFA from Mills College. Since then he has been most closely associated with Fred Frith (FF Trio, Gravity Band), William Winant, Zeena Parkins (The Adorables), Roscoe Mitchell, Ben Goldberg, Todd Sickafoose, John Schott, Lisa Mezzacappa (avantNOIR, Glorious Ravage, Lisa Mezzacappa Six), Motoko Honda, Dominique Leone, Michael Coleman and the bands Jack O’ The Clock, Kyle Bruckmann’s Degradient, tUnE-yArDs, and the Oakland Active Orchestra. He has also worked with Rhys Chatham, Secret Chiefs 3, The Rova Sax Quartet, composer/bagpiper Matthew Welch and has been commissioned to create scores for evening-length dance pieces by Sharp & Fine and Liss Fain Dance. As a leader he has composed and conducted the trio Wiener Kids, Mindless Thing (a collaboration with poet Jim Ryan) and the percussion heavy large ensemble BEAK.


Cory Wright

Reeds player and composer Cory Wright studied music at Oberlin Conservatory and the University of Southern California and has been involved in both the jazz and creative music worlds for the past 20 years, including time spent in New York, Los Angeles and his current home in the San Francisco Bay Area. His recent projects reflect his interest in blurring the distinction between composed and improvised music, and in combining the harmonious with the atonal, the grooving with the arrhythmic. Wright has performed in ensembles led by Anthony Braxton, Vinny Golia, Todd Sickafoose, Adam Rudolph and Yusef Lateef. He is currently a member of Bristle, the Nathan Clevenger Group, and Goggle (saxophone quartet) and leads his own projects Fellow Hominids and The Green Mitchell Trio.

Marié Abe

Born in Japan, Marié Abe is an accordionist, keyboardist, and an ethnomusicologist based in Oakland. Marié enjoys exploring the intersection between improvisation and composition, while integrating her interest in vernacular and popular musical styles ranging from indie pop to Ethiopian jazz, Balkan, Brazilian forró, Colombian vallenato, and more. She has recorded, performed, and toured with various artists across the US, the UK, Europe, Japan, and Brazil, including 70's Ethiopian groove collective Debo Band (Subpop), Japonize Elephants, Thorny Brocky, Ramon and Jessica, Fred Frith, Carla Kihlstedt, Guts and Buttons, Ethiopiasia (Kyoto, Japan), Chichuike (Japan), and more. Marié also teaches as Associate Professor of Ethnomusicology in the Department of Music at UC Berkeley.

Phillip Greenlief

Since his emergence on the west coast in the late 1970s, saxophonist/composer Phillip Greenlief has achieved international acclaim for his recordings and performances with musicians and composers in the post-jazz continuum as well as new music innovators and virtuosic improvisers. He has performed with Wadada Leo Smith, Meredith Monk, Rashaun Mitchell & Silas Reiner, and They Might Be Giants. Albums include two LANTSKAP LOGIC TRIO releases (w/ Evelyn Davis and Fred Frith), THAT OVERT DESIRE OF OBJECT with Joelle Leandre, ALL AT ONCE with FPR (Frank Gratkowski and Jon Raskin), and OH THAT MONSTER with LA punk pioneers Thelonious Monster. Recent residencies have included the Banff Center for Art and Creativity, Neue Muzik Koln, and Headlands Center for the Arts. His critical writing has been published in Artforum, Open Space (SFMOMA), Sound American, and Signal to Noise.

"The Bay Area's do-it-yourself ethos has produced a bevy of dazzlingly creative musicians, but few have put the philosophy to work as effectively as Phillip Greenlief." – Andrew Gilbert, San Francisco Chronicle"
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Violinist and Composer Concetta Abbate presents a program of music for solo violin and voice to showcase her new music and arts organization Sound & Memory. After completing her Death Doula certification in 2021 Concetta saw a need to incorporate music into contemporary rituals for both grief and death, as tradition evolves over time. She will present a program of original compositions and arrangements which highlight the healing nature of music around loss, and filling the void or empty space with warmth and regeneration. Sound & Memory provides music memorial offerings at sliding scale rates and accepts tax deductible donations through its fiscal sponsor the Groupmuse Foundation.

Concetta Abbate centers death, life, and their interplay in her work as a violinist, vocalist, and composer. Her work invites contemplation, reverie, and play into spaces often avoided: grief, loss, decay, and taboo. Abbate uses beauty as an entry point to make complex sonic forms accessible to a diverse audience. Her music elegantly crosses genres, drawing on her classical training and decades of study in jazz, folk, and popular forms. Using her violin as an extension of her voice, she weaves enchanting story-songs that ask profound, challenging questions.
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Please join us for the last installment of The Opus Project in the 2023-2024 season, Opus 4!

We have an exciting program, featuring composers Marie Herrington, Mark Alburger, Ravel, Gounod (in a world-premiere arrangement by Jonny Incipido), Hindemith, Nadia Boulanger, Sarasate, and Copland!

Playing and singing on this concert we have newcomers Paul Dab on piano, Emily Tate Daniel as a soprano, Caleb Alexander as a tenor, Charles McGregor as a baritone, Sarah Biagini on violin, and Stephen Zielinski on clarinet. Returning Opus Project favorites will be singers Megan Cullen and Maya Goell.
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THIS S#^T IS UGLY
Thomas Dimuzio - live electronics
Phillip Greenlief - tenor saxophone, Bb clarinet
Wobbly - live electronics, sampling, all the other things

TSIU Is a trio sound bath of fire and ice in rainbow colors - the kind of music that leaves light stains on the soles of your feet. Tt will also be one of the final performances from soon-to-be-no-longer bay area saxophonist Phillip Greenlief with still waking in san francisco electronic wizards Thomas Dimuzio and Wobbly (Jon Leidecker). Electro-acoustic improvisation, sure, but not the well mannered stuff that could pass for Audi commercials. this is America, after all, where water is soon to be an endangered species.
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NYC jazz guitarist Paul Kogut presents selections from his ongoing project of reimagining classic Grateful Dead tunes through new harmonic lenses. He will be joined by violinst & composer Niko Omar Durr performing music by Saariaho and Corigliano.

For the past 25 years, Paul Kogut has been steadily building an international reputation as a jazz guitarist and composer. His latest CD, “Turn of Phrase” features the legendary rhythm section of George Mraz and Lewis Nash. It’s release in August 2012 on the Chicago-based Blujazz label was met with heavy airplay and critical acclaim, with Grammy-winning journalist Neil Tesser saying “Here’s the main thing to know: you won’t hear a better guitar-trio album this year.” Hiro Yamanaka of Jazz Guitar Book Japan calls Paul “a great player with a contemporary style” and The Chicago Tribune says “There's no question that Kogut stands as a serious player with a sophisticated sense of harmony and a penchant for meticulously honed motifs.” Paul has worked with artists Charles Earland, Clark Terry and J.R. Monterose; current appearances put him in the company of George Mraz, Lewis Nash, Drew Gress, Vinnie Sperrazza, Francois Moutin, Ari Hoenig, Kelly Sill, Carlton Holmes, and Sheryl Bailey. In addition he has led his own trio at numerous venues, including Manhattan’s renowned 55 Bar, Chicago’s Jazz Showcase , Nighttown Cleveland, Chris’ Jazz Cafe Philadelphia, Austin's Elephant Room, Porgy & Bess Vienna, Inntone Fest Austria, Brucknerhaus Concert Hall, Cafe Museum Passau, Chingusa Yokohama, Montgomeryland Tokyo, Planet Arts Jazz One2One, and the Red Hook Jazz Festival. He was featured at the Jazz and Colors Fare Thee Well celebration of the Grateful Dead at Chicago’s Field Museum.

Niko Umar Durr (b.1995) is a composer and violinist who has been active in the music/composition community in the San Francisco/Oakland area for 22 years. Living in the Bay Area has offered them many opportunities to learn and hone their skills as a composer.
Niko was a student at The Crowden School and during this time they became a student of composer Molly Axtmann. Soon after Niko joined the inaugural class of the John Adams Young Composers Program and eventually became a student of John Adams himself. Niko has had works performed by Left Coast Chamber Ensemble as well as various faculty and students associated with The Crowden School and Oakland School for the Arts from 2009-2013. Niko was also director of music at Harmonikos, a young composer/performer’s forum organized by fellow Crowden students from 2009-2013.
Niko has performed with Young People’s Symphony Orchestra (YPSO) in Berkeley, CA, Bay Area Rainbow Symphony (BARS), in San Francisco, CA, Berklee Contemporary Symphony Orchestra (BCSO) at Berklee College of Music in Boston, MA, Oakland Civic Orchestra (OCO), in Oakland CA, and the recently established International Pride Orchestra (IPO) in San Francisco, CA. In 2021, Oakland Civic Orchestra announced Niko as Composer-in-Residence. Since then the community based orchestra has premiered several works including most recently “Zephyr in Gemini” and “Renegade”.
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Fire at the Plantation House (FatPH) celebrates the release of their debut album “Southampton Insurrection”. An afternoon of memorable melodies and mosh-inducing riffs!
Fire at the Plantation House is a one-person project based on occupied Ohlone land (otherwise known as San Francisco) FatPH lyrically wrestles with the injustices that shape our world and pushes the musical boundaries of its sole member, John Angel. Weaving together eclectic genres such as death metal, bluegrass, neo-soul, and sacred choir, Angel creates vast musical journeys that manage to stay rooted in memorable melodies and mosh-inducing riffs. FatPH’s debut album, Southampton Insurrection, explores how systems of oppression in the past project themselves into our present and future and confronts what it is to be a person of privilege who wants to change the world for the better.

fatph.com
fatph.bandcamp.com
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Gachapon features players Nancy Beckman, Cindy Webster, Tom Bickley and Dean Santomieri. For this performance featuring dancer Christina Braun. Photo of Christina by Tim Walters.

Artist bios:

Cindy Webster is a Board Certified Music Therapist/Therapeutic Musician
working in the San Francisco east Bay. She also plays the musical saw, Hurdy-gurdy and other things as well. An admirer of avant-garde music, she creates soundscapes using found objects, found sounds and effects. She has
appeared in San Francisco, Dublin, Zootown and Grass Valley Fringe Festivals; Y2K Loop Festivals in Providence, Santa Cruz and Mexico;
Musical Saw Festivals in Austria, New York and California; trees, phone booths, rooftops, film and recordings. Cindy has been described as, “She can do more with her voice and saw than you can do with anything,”

Nancy Beckman
https://tigergarage.org/nancy-beckman/

Studied Myoan-Ryu shakuhachi honkyoku through Meianji Temple in Kyoto for
five years, receiving the name Fukushin and the license (menkyo Kaiden) to teach from the temple. Later, she studied various types of shakuhachi and
ethnomusicology at Wesleyan University. She also graduated from the Music for Healing and Transition Program, where she played shakuhachi and lyre
for hospice. As a member of ensembles Gusty Winds May Exist (with Tom Bickley), The Cornelius Cardew Choir and Dream Down Duvet, she improvises
and plays experimental music and composes improvisational sound
meditations. She lives in Berkeley and teaches the traditional Myoan
shakuhachi repertoire.

Tom Bickley
https://tigergarage.org/

Composer/performer (EWI, electronics)
Studied Gregorian chant, other medieval music, and African
American sacred music, and recorder. His degrees are in music, liturgy and
library and information science. He is certified by Pauline Oliveros to
teach the meditative improv techniques of Deep Listening. In addition to his work with new music ensembles Gray Code and Comma, he has performed with Pauline Oliveros, Anne LeBaron, Viv Corringham, Philip Gelb, the
Denison Kimball Trio, the Scratch Orchestra and others. He is active in the duo Gusty Winds May Exist, with shakuhachi player Nancy Beckman, co-founded and directs the Cornelius Cardew Choir, and teaches for the
Center for Deep Listening @ RPI and the Bay Area Center for Waldorf Teacher Training.

Dean Santomieri
http://www.deansantomieri.com

Guitar, Taishogoto and spoken word artist; composing / improvising for guitars in non-standard tunings. He is active in the San Francisco Bay
Area free improvisation music scene and has been associated with the groups, Donkey Boy, Malcolm Mooney and the 10th Planet, The Cornelius Cardew Choir, Ghost in the House, I Franzen, and since 2011,
Santomieri-Farhadian Duo. He has also collaborated with dancers Christina Braun, Dawn McMahan, Kinji Hayashi and others.
CD recordings: Crude Rotation, musique concrète, 3” CD, 2000. The Boy Beneath the Sea, story narration and music, 2001. Facebook, the Opera, for
three singers and piano, 2013. Santomieri-Farhadian Duo, RedBlue, guitar and violin, 2015.

Christina Braun, Movement collaborator.

Christina Braun’s choreography has been presented by the International Butoh Festival Thailand, the West Wave Dance Festival and the Asian Art Museum. Christina has been working in collaboration with composers since 2002, most extensively with instrument inventor Tom Nunn and David Samas of Pet the Tiger. As SF Butoh Lab, Christina has produced Butoh dance symposia, performances and workshops to strengthen a
culture of peace with collaborative art practices.
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