MSP/Piano/Synth/+: w Biggi Vinkeloe Roughtet’s US Tour • Makeout Room (04 May) • The Emerald Tablet (14 May) • The Second Act (20 May) • The Nunnery (24 May – afternoon) – all dates: San Francisco

I’m very excited to once again join German/Swedish saxophonist and flautist Biggi Vinkeloe with her US touring ensemble, the Biggi Vinkeloe Roughtet!

We’re doing 4 Bay Area dates, all in San Francisco. Immediately below is a list of the dates, followed by info on Biggi and her crew, then details of each date adding info about the venues and other acts.

⫸ Added: Examiner.com review of show #1 below: here

Biggi Vinkeloe Roughtet — Bay Area Tour Dates

◉ Mon 04 May: Makeout Room, San Francisco (Set 1, with Lisle Ellis on bass, video by Warren Stringer)

+ Set 2: Love, Devotion Surrender (Karl Evangelista, Ross Hammond, Eli Wallace, & Bob LaDue)

+ Set 3: Crickets (Ila Cantor, Kasey Knudsen, John Wiitala, & Hamir Atwal / हम्मीर अटवाल)

(jump to 04 May show specifics)

◉ Thu 14 May: The Emerald Tablet, San Francisco (Set 3, with Lisle Ellis on bass, video by Warren Stringer)

+ Set 1: The Godfather of instrument inventors, Bart Hopkin (solo)

+ Set 2: Master vibraphonist Mark Clifford (solo)

(jump to 14 May show specifics)

◉ Wed 20 May: The Second Act, San Francisco (Set 4, with Scott Walton on bass, video by Megan McKearney)

+ Set 1: Electronic mind-distorter, Heartworm

+ Set 2: Unpopular Electronics featuring Gino Robair

+ Set 3: Pioneer of networked computer music, John Bischoff

(jump to 20 May show specifics)

◉ Sun 24 May (afternoon): The Nunnery, San Francisco (Set 2, with Scott Walton on bass)

+ Set 1: Unfolding modernist string structures by Adam Fong and Brent Miller

(jump to 24 May show specifics)

There is going to be a LOT of wonderful music in these shows, but something that always excites me about playing with Biggi is using her sound samples and field recordings, especially ones recorded during her tour of India under the auspices of the Goethe Institut. A pioneer of blending voice samples and “found music” with wind instruments, Biggi has contributed a variety of other samples to these shows as well.

The Biggi Vinkeloe Roughtet

Details for each show follow below under our bios.

A sorceress of avant / jazz wind energy, and veteran of stellar collaborations with Roberto Bellatalla, Alberto Braida, Chris Brown, Lisle Ellis, Marco Eneidi, Ken Filiano, Gianni Gebbia, Vinny Golia, Giancarlo Locatelli, Miya Masaoka (正岡みや), Barre Phillips, Gino Robair, Cecil Taylor, Peeter Uuskyla, and Marie Wärme, among many others, Biggi Vinkeloe will réprise her long-standing collaboration with Bay Area master drummer Don Robinson, whom Coda Magazine has described as a “percussion Dervish”, and among whose most notable collaborators are Alan Silva, Anthony Braxton, Oliver Lake, Glenn Spearman, Larry Ochs, Bobby Few, Raphé Malik, and Joe McPhee.

Laptopist/pianist Joe Lasqo studied classical music in India; computer music at MIT, Columbia, Berkeley/CNMAT; has been a long-time avant jazz musician; & has lived, played & listened in many East Asian and European countries (now in SF).

Special interests include applying AI techniques from expert systems, natural language processing, and computational linguistics to music; and the intersection of traditional Asian musics with modernism.

Joe is a regular member of Aaron Bennett’s Electro-Magnetic Trans-Personal Orchestra and Jim Ryan’s Green Alembic, as well as his own Renga-kai (連歌会) & Mukaiji-kai (霧海箎会) ensembles, and has played and recorded with musicians such as: Bruce Ackley, Steve Adams, Viv Corringham (London/NYC), Beth Custer, Thomas Dimuzio, Vinny Golia, Phillip Greenlief, Ron Heglin, Darren Johnston, Thollem McDonas, Lisa Mezzacappa, David Michalak, Tom Nunn, Suki O’Kane, Simon O’Rorke (NZ), Teddy Rankin-Parker, Rent Romus, Joe Snape (UK), Lucie Vítková (Czech Rep.), Paul Winstanley, Jack Wright, and Pamela Z, among many others.

Two master bassists will join this trio on different dates:

◉ NYC bassist and computer musician Lisle Ellis. Veteran of 40+ recordings (including Down Beat ✰✰✰✰✰ The Ornette Coleman Songbook), he’s worked with Paul Bley, Peter Brötzmann, Andrew Cyrille, Anthony Davis, Ben Goldberg, Frank Gratowski, Joëlle Léandre, Rudresh Mahanthappa (ರುದ್ರೇಶ್ ಮಹಂತಪ್ಪ), Miya Masaoka (正岡みや), Myra Melford, Bob Ostertag, William Parker, Rova Saxophone Quartet, Stefano Scodanibbio, Cecil Taylor, William Winant, Pamela Z, and John Zorn, among many others.

◉ On bass: Scott Walton.

Showing dazzling technique and incisive taste in recent Bay Area concerts with Steve Adams, Gilbert Isbin, Sten Sandell, & Gino Robair, Scott Walton is a bassist and pianist whose music negotiates the terrain between jazz, free improvisation, and the classical avant-garde.

Active in a variety of ensembles, current projects include duos with lutenist Gilbert Isbin, and with saxophonist/flautist Steve Adams; trios with dancer Ellen Webb and singer Cecilia Engelhart, with vocal artist Anna Homler and trombonist Michael Vlatkovich, and The Skerries, with guitarist Bill Horvitz and drummer Tom Hayashi; a quartet with Michael Vlatkovich, guitarist Tom McNalley, and percussionist/drummer Garth Powell; and ad hoc ensembles with electronic/computer musician Tim Perkis. He has performed or recorded with Alex Cline, Wadada Leo Smith, Vinny Golia, Myra Melford, Nels Cline, George Lewis, John Carter, Bobby Bradford, Anthony Davis, John Abercrombie, Davey Williams, Toshiko Akiyoshi (秋吉敏子), Clifford Jordan, and Philip Gelb, among many others.

It will be our honor and pleasure to welcome two of the Bay Area’s best video artists on 3 of our dates to create an expanded multimedia experience which will jam all channels:

I welcome a fresh opportunity to work with the inimitable visual synthesis of maestro Warren Stringer of Muse.

Those who have seen Warren at one of my previous shows or a Bay Area technorave know his unique mastery in combining art and algorithm for the real-time visual accompaniment of improvisatory music. (And the rest of you have something great to look forward to…)

Not only a master of improvisatory video, Warren is a software fiend in many other areas, encompassing a wide range of applications to enable social self expression for mobile devices, game machines, and the web (cf. Muse).

Megan McKearney is an imaginative visual artist based in Oakland. An intrepid traveler with a passion for photography, she’s travelled to many parts of the world including Europe, India, Egypt, Indonesia, and Guatemala, collecting images and stories that she compiles in books and transforms in art projects. She’s also worked as a cinematographer on Sue Useem’s award winning documentary Which Way to the War?. Megan also has extensive experience as a graphic designer, creating visual media for bands, venues and events, and she’s developed a unique approach to live video that incorporates her photographic images. Building from work which began with the performance art group Marana Jocund (Facebook link), Megan continues to develop this art form, combining spontaneous improvisation with her animated compositions

Arbetslag och instrument:

Biggi Vinkeloe: saxes & flute

Don Robinson: drums

Joe Lasqo: piano/laptop/synth/objects

Lisle Ellis: bass

Scott Walton: bass

Warren Stringer: video

Megan McKearney: video

Have a look at a a bit of a show at North Beach’s Emerald Tablet, from last year’s tour with Biggi (made available through the generosity of videographer Charles Smith)… and look out for an upcoming album which was recorded on that tour.

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◉ Mon 04 May, 8:30pm: Makeout Room, San Francisco (featuring Lisle Ellis on bass, video by Warren Stringer)

I’m delighted to again play the great Monday Makeout series, curated and nurtured by Bay Area greats like Lisa Mezzacappa, Darren Johnston, & Karl Evangelista — a series that has made one of the best lounges in SF one of the best places to hear ground-breaking new music as well.

Coordinates: Makeout Room, SF, 3225 22nd St, SF (between Mission & Valencia – map).

— Set 1, 8:30pm: Biggi Vinkeloe Roughtet, feat. Lisle Ellis on bass, video by Warren Stringer (jump to Biggi Vinkeloe Roughtet description)

— Set 2, 9:20pm: Love, Devotion Surrender (Karl Evangelista, Ross Hammond, Eli Wallace, & Bob LaDue)

Taking inspiration from the “mystic shredding” period of John McLaughlin & Carlos Santana’s work in albums such as My Goal’s Beyond, The Inner Mounting Flame, and the eponymous Love, Devotion Surrender, this exciting new ensemble explores just how high two guitars can fly, propelled by a powerful rhythm section of vibrant pianist Eli Wallace and Africa-influenced avant drummer and percussionist Bob LaDue.

◉ Karl Evangelista (guitar | FX)

As well as organizing concerts at the Makeout Room and the incendiary Light a Fire Series, Filipino-American guitarist/composer Karl Evangelista is part of a new wave of creative musicians grounded in jazz, 20th-century experimentalism, and pop song, exploring the place of multiculturalism and ethnic co-existence in an increasingly post-cultural, trans-idiomatic cultural space. The creative force behind boundary breaking group Grex (who recently gave a brilliant performance at YBCA’s New Frequencies Festival), Karl has been called “essential current-and-future listening, his music “a near-seamless blend of modern jazz, contemporary structuralist composition, indie rock, and blues rock” (Tiny Mix Tapes). This complex, powerful aesthetic fosters an “otherworldly experience” that is “completely original” (Eugene Weekly).

Karl has explored the possibilities of intercultural dialogues across a vast spectrum of academic and professional situations, working in a wide variety of ensembles with or under the direction of Achyutan (Marvin Patillo), Scott Amendola, Steve Berlin (Los Lobos), India Cooke, Fred Frith, Eddie Gale, Ben Goldberg, Matthew Goodheart, Phillip Greenlief, Darren Johnston, Lewis Jordan, Myra Melford, Hafez Modirzadeh (حافظ مدیرزاد), Bill Noertker, Zeena Parkins, John-Carlos Perea, Gino Robair, Daniel Schmidt, Marcus Shelby, Aram Shelton, David Slusser, Damon Smith, Karen Stackpole, Moe! Staiano, and AIR co-founder Francis Wong (王世明), and has performed in works by Luciano Chessa, Christian Jendreiko, Polly Moller, AACM co-founder Muhal Richard Abrams, and Art Ensemble of Chicago co-founder Roscoe Mitchell. Karl holds a BA from UC Berkeley & an MFA in Improvised Music from Mills College.

◉ Ross Hammond (guitar | FX)

To let Ross speak for himself:

“I’m a guitarist, improviser and composer living in Sacramento, CA. I never really know how to answer when people ask what type of music I play. I suppose it’s rooted in jazz and folk and rock and soul, and then it’s heavy on the improvisation, except when it’s a composed piece. Oftentimes the music I make is totally improvised. Sometimes there’s no music at all and it’s just sound. And then again I’ve been known to play a lot of acoustic, roots based music with other like-minded folks. Sometimes I’ll accompany singers, songwriters, poets and dancers. From time to time I’ll also get chances to write music for films and other art projects. I’m not sure there’s any easy way to describe all of that, so I just say that I play the guitar.”

Ross has collaborated/gigged/recorded with: Kevin Seconds, Oliver Lake, Pheeroan akLaff, Vinny Golia, Vladimir Tarasov (Владимир Тарасов), Nicole Mitchell, Dwight Trible, Calvin Weston, Jamaaladeen Tacuma, Alex Cine, Amy Reed, Steve Adams, Ken Filiano, Mike Pride, Max Johnson, Catherine Sikora, Scott Amendola, Steuart Liebig, Sameer Gupta (समीर गुप्ता), Daryl Shawn, Tony Passarell, Alex Jenkins, Erik Kleven, and more.

Those who have heard Ross Hammond are familiar with the problem of describing his fluid music, always unpredictable (except you can be sure it will always be warm, ear-opening, and very, very hip).

And those who know the music scene of the Greater East Bay stand in awe of Ross’ role in organizing Nebraska Mondays at Luna’s and many other events that keep the flame creative music burning brightly in Sacramento, Davis, Berkeley and points beyond.’

◉ Eli Wallace (keyboards)

Pianist and composer Eli Wallace began his studies at Lawrence U. under Fred Sturm, Mark Urness, and Lee Tomboulian, and continued for a Master’s in Music (Jazz Composition) at the New England Conservatory, where he studied with Jason Moran, Jerry Bergonzi, Ken Schaphorst, Frank Carlberg, & Kati Agócs.

Since relocating to the Bay Area, Eli’s played with many musicians and ensembles in wildly different genres, e.g. Karl Evangelista’s Ai-Ai, Jim Ryan’s ensembles Virtual Assembly & Retro Blue, John Givens’ No Lovely Thing, and Bill Wolter’s Inner Ear Brigade, as well as appearing on Dan Meinhardt’s album Gone West. His own recent project is a series of pieces composed for solo piano that embrace his interest in jazz, improvisation & contemporary avant-garde classical music. Eli is also making waves in a new trio with Karl Evangelista and Jon Arkin.

As a composer Eli’s been commissioned to write music for jazz big band, solo piano, chamber orchestra, and dance, and his piece Influx Rebellion was well-received at the EarShot Jazz Composers Orchestra Institute Readings (in affiliation with Columbia University / American Composers Orchestra).

◉ Bob LaDue (drums and percussion)

Africa-influenced avant drummer and percussionist Bob LaDue, the leader/avatar of music phenomenon Denny Denny Breakfast, is a unique presence on the Bay Area percussion scene, with a range encompassing driving traditional rhythms, electric/voodoo post-Miles sound, and large post-modern percussion choruses using the West African chekeré (for example his recent brilliant Luggage Store show with masses of the Bay Area’s most interesting percussionists in kaleidoscopic chekeré groupings.)

— Set 3, 10:10pm: Crickets (Ila Cantor, Kasey Knudsen, John Wiitala, & Hamir Atwal / हम्मीर अटवाल)

An all-star modern jazz quartet of Bay Area luminaries closes out the evening:

◉ lla Cantor is a young, dynamic, award-winning guitarist and composer based in Oakland.

She’s trained widely in composition, and jazz and classical guitar at the New School U. in New York; the Banff Center for the Arts in Alberta, Canada; in Spain with renowned Argentine composer/pianist Guillermo Klein; and with mentors such as John Scofield, John Abercrombie and Ben Monder.

Ila has toured and played internationally, as both a band member – w Aaron Parks, Steve Cardenas, Reid Anderson, Les Paul, and others – and leader, throughout the US & Spain. Her first CD, Mother Nebula (Fresh Sound Records), was released in 2006, and she’s composed music for the award-winning films Horizons and Blast.

Although grounded in jazz, Ila’s music and playing challenges our contemporary categories of music. Her guitar speaks for itself. At a moment of great ferment and interplay among all kinds of music – highbrow and pop, West and East, rock and jazz, alternative and mainstream, straight and outside – her work stands out for its compelling originality and musical integrity.

◉ Kasey Knudsen (sax)

Kasey Knudsen is a San Francisco based saxophonist, composer & educator. After studying at Berklee College of Music, she relocated to the Bay Area, and has been commissioned by the JazzSchool’s Emerging Artist Series, Intersection For The Arts, & the De Young Museum to write and perform new work. She leads her own trio and sextet, and co-leads The Schimscheimer Family Trio w Bay Area drummer Jon Arkin & pianist Michael Coleman and The Holly Martins, with vocalist Lorin Benedict and guitarist Eric Vogler.

Kasey performs with many ensembles and bandleaders, including Evan Francis (Facebook link), Ben Goldberg, Fred Frith, Eric Garland and Henry Hung’s Klaxon Mutant All Stars, the Ian Carey sextet, the Montclair Women’s Big Band, Graham Connah, Adam Shulman, Nathan Clevenger, Aaron Novik, Michael Coleman, the Bay Area Composers’ Collective Orchestra, Jarrett Cherner, Q Morrow, Rob Ewing’s Disappear Incompletely and more. Kasey has toured the world with tUnE-yArDs, including a number of performances at South By South West; she has played with: Scott Amendola, Fred Frith’s world premiere of Gravity Live, the Marcus Shelby Jazz Orchestra, Realistic Orchestra’s Brass Bows & Beats, The Slip, Joe Bagale, The Industrial Jazz Group, Rova Saxophone Quartet’s Sax Cloud, & many others.

◉ John Wiitala (bass)

San Francisco-based John Wiitala has worked with some of the greatest names in jazz, including Joe Henderson, Junior Cook, Charlie Rouse, James Moody, Bud Shank, and Cecil Payne. He’s toured with Richie Cole, Arturo Sandoval, Shorty Rogers, and Jessica Williams, performed with Wesla Whitfield, Madeline Eastman, Mark Levine, and Hal Stein, and has played at jazz festivals around the world, including Monterey, North Sea, Montreux, Detriot, and JVC/Concord. His recording credits include work with Scott Hamilton, Jessica Williams, Mark Levine, as well as Anton Schwartz.

◉ Hamir Atwal / हम्मीर अटवाल (drums)

An up-and-coming drummer/composer based in the East Bay, drummer/percussionist Hamir Atwal (हम्मीर अटवाल) is a Berklee College of Music graduate who has taught at Music Academy International, Stanford University, the Stanford Jazz Workshop, the JazzSchool, CSU-Stanislaus, and Santa Rosa Junior College.

Hamir has performed with such acts as the Glimpse Trio, tUnE-yArDs, Michael Coleman, the Ben Goldberg School, and was a part of his own percussion group entitled CavityFang.

He has played in such notable venues such as the Hollywood Bowl, the Village Vanguard, Nancy Jazz Pulsations, and the Monterey Jazz Festival, and can regularly be heard throughout the San Francisco Bay Area. Hamir has played and/or recorded with saxophonists Joe Lovano, Greg Osby, and Patrick Wolff; bassist/producer Bill Laswell; and clarinetist Ben Goldberg, among others.

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◉ Thu 14 May, 9pm: The Emerald Tablet, San Francisco (featuring Lisle Ellis on bass, video by Warren Stringer)

I look forward to play again at the Ground Zero of the North Beach poetry, art, and music Renaissance, The Emerald Tablet (80 Fresno St., San Francisco, map)

— Set 3, 9pm: Biggi Vinkeloe Roughtet, feat. Lisle Ellis on bass, video by Warren Stringer (jump to Biggi Vinkeloe Roughtet description)

— Set 1, 7:30pm: The Godfather of instrument inventors, Bart Hopkin

Bart Hopkin has worked as a guitarist and musical arranger for several decades, performing, recording, composing and teaching in many contexts and places. He’s also an inventor and maker of musical instruments, and the director of Experimental Musical Instruments, an organization devoted to unusual musical instruments. In addition to building, teaching and consulting, he’s written many books on instruments and their construction, and produced books and CDs featuring the work of innovative instrument makers, e.g.: Funny Noises for the Connoisseur, Nice Noise: Preparations and Modifications for Guitar, Gravikords, Whirlies & Pyrophones, Musical Instrument Design, and Orbitones, Spoon Harps & Bellowphones.

Bart’s long experience as an accomplished musician in the world of conventional instruments insures that his invented musical instruments are not merely exotic sculptures, but can be used with the expressivity and musicality of instruments which have developed through hundreds of years of historical evolution and design.

That said, they are bloody exotic sculptures — Have a look:

Bart received a B.A. magna cum laude in Folklore & Mythology, specializing in ethnomusicology from Harvard University, and later picked up a B.A. in music education and a teaching credential at San Francisco State University. He has faithfully attended the School of the Autodidact ever since.

Check out the great photo + sound gallery of many of Bart’s invented instruments here.

— Set 2, 8:15pm: Master vibraphonist Mark Clifford (solo)

Mark Clifford is an Oakland-based vibraphonist, composer, and percussionist. A much sought after performer and improviser, Marc is involved in free improvisation, new music, jazz, and rock, playing alongside musicians such as: Jeff Parker, Kjell Nordeson, Ches Smith, Joan La Barbara, Aram Shelton, Colin Stranahan, Ron Miles, Scott Amendola, Tatsuya Nakatani (中谷達也), Danny Meyer, Lisa Mezzacappa, and Sō Percussion, as well as serving as a percussionist with the Colorado Symphony Orchestra.

Mark is deeply involved in the creative music scene and has performed in a wide variety of groups including Aram Shelton’s Sound Quartet, the Oakland Active Orchestra, sfsound, DRMS (Facebook link), Aaron Novik’s Cosimo Lissy, the Dominique Leone Band, Jordan Glenn’s Beak, Denny Denny Breakfast, and Bells Atlas. Mark leads The Dirty Snacks Ensemble, an eclectic post-jazz ensemble in which he is composer, vibraphonist and vocalist. As a composer, Mark’s recent writing employs conceptual parameters for long form works, e.g. basing compositional interval structures on the ratio of vertebrae in human spines (Fair Slope). Most recently, Mark was commissioned to create a new work for San Francisco’s Switchboard Presents Series, Levity Factions 2-6. Further commissions include Fair Slope, an interdisciplinary dance / performance piece in collaboration w choreographer Sam Stone, as well as No Awareness, a setting of a rhythmic transcription of a Kool Keith verse for vibraphone, drums, & piano. Other works include: Toddler Hammock for the Oakland Active Orchestra, Winona & The Moods for New Keys ensemble, and A Crimson Hexagon, in collaboration with the Sam Stone Rooftop Dance Collective.

Mark studied classical percussion at the University of Denver’s Lamont School of Music as well as studying studying percussion under Colorado Symphony Orchestra master percussionist John Kinzie, jazz theory and composition under pianist Eric Gunnison, and composition under William Hill; percussion and marimba at Nagoya University in Japan with Tomomi Sugō (菅生知巳); and vibraphone with two of his greatest heroes, Steve Nelson and Matt Moran.

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◉ Wed 20 May, in show starting at 8pm: The Second Act, San Francisco (featuring Scott Walton on bass, video by Megan McKearney)

It will be a great pleasure to play again at The Second Act, the terrific performing arts space and restaurant zone that Jack & Betsy Rix, members of the original Red Vic collective, have now created in the Red Vic’s former site — and great to play in the notorious “Third Wednesday” series run there by James Decker, proprietor/perpetrator of Resipiscent Records, which has created a powerful electronic music dipole traversing Haight St., resonating with the Lower Haight’s mutant sound scene @ ROBOTSPEAk.

Coordinates: The Second Act, SF, 1727 Haight St, SF (between Shrader & Cole – map).

— Set 4 of show beginning @ 8pm: Biggi Vinkeloe Roughtet, feat. Scott Walton on bass, video by Megan McKearney (jump to Biggi Vinkeloe Roughtet description)

— Set 1 of show beginning @ 8pm: The electronic artistry of Heartworm (Brandon Taylor)

Heartworm (Brandon Taylor) is “focused on cinematic sound design, experimental synth explorations, breakbeat gnarlification, musique concrète-esque collage & field recordings, slowed-down-pitch-jacked hip hop, granular reality warping, and ambient narcoleptic insomnia”.

After playing bass, drums and guitar in early bands and experimenting with electronics, Heartworm became a regular in New York’s drum & bass, experimental, noise, industrial, and downtempo electronic music scenes, co-hosting the long running “Opiate” experimental series with Aaron Spectre, and working a heavy schedule of DJ residencies, music releases, & collaborations. In NY he also co-founded the grassroots weblabel/artist collective Slum.org and worked closely with New York’s underground soundsystem scene, most notably with the Renegade Virus soundsystem crew.

Relocating to San Francisco more than a decade ago, Heartworm has worked for many years with Bay Area soundsystem collective 5LOWERSHOP, and other Bay Area soundsytems and collectives, promoting and planning events, political actions and various nefarious schemes.

— Set 2 of show beginning @ 8pm: Unpopular Electronics featuring Gino Robair

Gino Robair has created music for dance, theater, radio, television, silent film, and gamelan orchestra, and his works have been performed throughout North America, Europe, & Japan.

Gino has recorded with Tom Waits, Anthony Braxton, Terry Riley, Lou Harrison, John Butcher, Derek Bailey, Peter Kowald, Ōtomo Yoshihide (大友良英), Rova Saxophone Quartet, and Eugene Chadbourne, among many others, as well as performing with John Zorn, Nina Hagen, Fred Frith, Eddie Prévost, Thinking Fellers Union Local 282, Myra Melford, Wadada Leo Smith, and the Club Foot Orchestra.

Gino is a founding member of the Splatter Trio and the heavy-metal band, Pink Mountain. In addition, he runs Rastascan Records, a label devoted to creative music.

— Set 3 of show beginning @ 8pm: John Bischoff

John Bischoff, a great pioneer of live computer music, has been at the forefront of the digital wave from its beginning. He’s known for his solo constructions in real-time synthesis as well as his development of computer network music. John studied composition with Robert Moran, James Tenney, Robert Ashley, and David Behrman, and has been active in the experimental music scene in the San Francisco Bay Area for over 40 years as a composer, performer, and teacher. His performances around the US include two NEW MUSIC AMERICA festivals, Roulette & Experimental Intermedia in New York, and Lampo in Chicago, to name a few. He’s performed in Europe at the Festival d’Automne in Paris, Akademie der Künste in Berlin, STEIM in Amsterdam, and Fylkingen in Stockholm among other places. He is a founding member of the League of Automatic Music Composers, the world’s first computer network band, and co-authored an article on the League’s music that appears in Foundations of Computer Music (MIT Press 1985). From 1985 to now John has performed and recorded with the network band The Hub.

In 2004, noted media theorist Douglas Kahn published A Musical Technography of John Bischoff in the Leonardo Music Journal (Vol. 14). Two astonishing retrospective CD packages documenting the computer network music field which John and his colleagues invented were released in 2007 and 2008: The League of Automatic Music Composers: 1978-1983 (New World Records) and 3-CD set of recordings by The Hub titled Boundary Layer (Tzadik). Recordings of John’s work are also available on Lovely Music, 23Five, Centaur, and Artifact. His recent solo CD titled Audio Combine, released on New World Records, was picked as one of the “Best of the Year 2012” by The Wire magazine. John is currently Associate Professor of Music at Mills College in Oakland, California.

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◉ Sun 24 May, Set 2, 3pm (N.B. matinée): @ the Nunnery, (3016 25th St., San Francisco, CA 94110, between Florida and Alabama Streets, map)

The Nunnery is the secret lair and new-instrument research lab of sound-inventor Tom Nunn, who hosts a series of concerts there which often involve invented / homebrew instruments and extended improvisational techniques.

The performance space is surrounded by Tom’s latest creations. Once a month he opens his atelier to the public for performances on a Sunday afternoon, and we look forward to a matinée performance there on Sun 24 May:

Set 2, 3pm: Biggi Vinkeloe Roughtet, feat. Scott Walton on bass (jump to Biggi Vinkeloe Roughtet description)

Set 1, 2pm: Adam Fong (contrabass) & Brent Miller (electric guitar)

Well-known for their savvy arts business model and the crisp, effective execution that has made San Francisco’s Center For New Music an avant-arts model throughout the country, Adam and Brent have also long worked together musically as members of the composers’ collective The Collected.

A room I take care to never miss at the summer solstice Garden Of Memory event at Oakland’s Chapel of the Chimes is the one that has Brent and Adam playing — or I might rather say, unfolding — their luminous and beautifully spacious duet pieces.

Their command of extended electro-acoustic string technique, elegant economy of means, and transcendent sonic design create a listening focus of strong clarity like a form of light for the ears.

Brent Miller is a composer, performer, and arts administrator based in San Francisco. He studied composition at the University of Arkansas with Robert Mueller and University of Missouri-Kansas City with James Mobberley and Paul Rudy. Recent projects include works for Rova Saxophone Quartet, violinist Eric km Clark (EAR Unit), Dither Electric Guitar Quartet, and Sqwonk. He has received grants from Zellerbach Family Foundation and American Composers Forum to fund his work. Brent is active in the arts administration field, managing Rova:Arts, a non-profit organization that supports Rova Saxophone Quartet. He’s also worked with Other Minds, helping to produce the annual Other Minds Festival.

Adam Fong is an active cultural entrepreneur, and a composer, performer and producer of new music. He has helped build two innovative arts service organizations in the San Francisco Bay Area: Emerging Arts Professionals (Co-Founder & Director) and the Center for New Music (Co-Founder & Executive Director). Adam received the MFA in Music Composition at California Institute of the Arts, where he studied with James Tenney and Wadada Leo Smith. As Associate Director of Other Minds (2006–2012), he produced six editions of the annual Other Minds Festival, dubbed the “premier new music festival on the West Coast” (Los Angeles Times), and many special projects including the CD reissues of Conlon Nancarrow’s Studies for Player Piano and The Complete Music of Carl Ruggles, tribute concerts to Ruth Crawford Seeger, Henry Cowell, and Dane Rudhyar, a celebration of the 50th Anniversary of Fluxus, and the American Premiere of 18 Microtonal Ragas based on Solo for Voice 58 by John Cage. Adam’s own compositions have been performed internationally in Auckland, London, Berlin, Tübingen and Darmstadt, at many US universities, and throughout California, by performers including the two-piano team Dennis Russell Davies and Maki Namekawa (滑川真希). Adam has lectured on experimental music, received international publication of his scholarly and creative work, and serves on numerous advisory boards, panels, and committees at the local and national level.

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Join us for these beautiful shows with one of Europe’s most unique improvising voices and a glittering cast of co-conspirators…

Joe