Born in 1963 in Marseille (France) a nice Sunday of March at siesta time, influenced by the Mediterranean sea and the Mistral wind, Heddy Boubaker has played music and experimented with sounds since 1977, starting with electric guitar in a mainly rock/punk style. He's now playing improvised music with his alto saxophone in an indescribable style, in which we are always able to hear the sea and the wind among many other ... things. Actively participated to organisation of Zieu-M-Zic festival in 2003 and 2004. Participate to numerous projects and never stop to do many artistic meetings. He also live in, with his familly, and manages the improvised music venue "la maison peinte" near Toulouse. Active member of IREA association and of SonoFages collective.

Over the past twenty-five years JACK WRIGHT has been a bold saxophonist, as well as an influential musical personality. Either on tour or organizing the next one, he has played in virtually every venue available to experimental improvised music in the US, and many in Europe as well. In 1982 he began Spring Garden Music as a vehicle for organizing an improvisational music community, which continues to grow through regular No Net weekend sessions. He has been called the Johnny Appleseed of free improvisation for his encouragement to young players. As a musical explorer as well, his music passes through radical shifts of style and approach from one year to the next, yet always somehow identifiable as his own. These days he is playing mostly alto and soprano saxophones, in every possible direction, sometimes even recognizable as such. He lives in Easton, which enables him to commute easily to NYC and Phila. He is also increasingly active in Europe, touring both sides of the Atlantic with European musicians

Jack Wright has over sixty partners around the US and in Europe with whom he plays on his travels and records. His most recent tours have been with Fabrizio Spera and Alberto Braida in Italy; with Agnes Palier and Olivier Toutlemond in France, Switzerland and Germany, with Michael Johnsen and Sebastien Cirotteau in Europe; with French soprano sax player Michel Doneda and percussionist Tatsuya Nakatani in Japan, France and the US; Carol Genetti, sound vocalist of Chicago, and Jon Mueller, percussionist of Milwaukee; cellist Bob Marsh of the Bay area; Nate Wooley, trumpet, of NYC in Europe; Michael Griener percussion and Sabine Vogel flute of Berlin; Reuben Radding, NYC bassist; and Phil Durrant, English laptop musician.

Chinary Ung (Cambodia) -- Khse Buon (Philadelphia premiere)
Yoon-ji Lee (Korea) -- Sono (Philadelphia premiere)
Carl Christian Bettendorf (Germany) -- Memorial
J.S. Bach -- Suite #5

Cellist Jason Calloway has performed to acclaim throughout North America, the Caribbean, Europe, and the Middle East as soloist and chamber musician.  He has appeared at festivals including Lucerne, Spoleto USA, Darmstadt, Klangspuren (Austria), Acanthes (France), Perpignan, Valencia, Citta' della Pieve (Italy), Jerash (Jordan), Casals (Puerto Rico), Sarasota, Blossom, Music Academy of the West, the New York String Seminar, and Encore.  Mr. Calloway appears around the world as cellist of the Naumburg award-winning Biava Quartet and has collaborated in chamber music with members of the Curtis, Juilliard, Miami, and Amernet String Quartets; he has also travelled widely as a member of 'In Freundschaft,' a duo with trombonist, Steve Parker, and with Animato!, a duo with pianist Christopher Weldon.  He gave his Carnegie Hall recital debut under the auspices of Artists International and has also been heard in New York at Alice Tully Hall, Steinway Hall, the Museum of Modern Art, the Kosciuszko Foundation, the 92nd Street Y, and the Polish Consulate; in Los Angeles at Disney Hall, the Bing Theatre, the Skirball Center and Pepperdine University; in San Francisco at Hoover Auditorium; in Philadelphia at the Academy of Music and the Ethical Society; and live on WQXR (NYC), KMZT (Los Angeles), WFLN (Philadelphia), and on RAI television (Italy).

A devoted advocate of new music, Mr. Calloway has performed with leading ensembles on both coasts and with the New Juilliard Ensemble both in New York and abroad, in addition to frequent appearances in Philadelphia with Bowerbird, Soundfield, and Network for New Music. series.  Among the hundreds of premieres he has presented are solo and ensemble works of Berio, Knussen, Lachenmann, and Pintscher and he has collaborated intensively with some of today's most important composers including Birtwistle, Carter, Davidovsky, Dusapin, Henze, Hosokawa, Husa, Franke, and Rihm.  As a dedicated supporter of young composers, he has for several seasons presented a series of concerts of solo cello works newly composed for him, most recently at Harvard and Temple universities, and in a return to Spoleto USA gave the public premiere of Yanov-Yanovsky's 'Hearing Solutions' for cello and ensemble.

Mr. Calloway prizes his work with Pierre Boulez and the Ensemble InterContemporain, both at the Lucerne Festival and at the Zug (Switzerland) Kunsthaus in Schoenberg's 'Serenade' as part of a major Kandinsky/Gerstl exhibit, in addition to his collaborations with the violinist Gilles Apap; with tap dancer Savion Glover; and with Eduard Schmieder and iPalpiti.  He is also artistic director of Shir Ami, an ensemble dedicated to promoting the music of Holocaust composers, and X-band, a newly formed ensemble based in Boston.  A native of Philadelphia, Jason Calloway is a recent graduate of the Juilliard School and the University of Southern California.  His teachers have included Ronald Leonard, Rohan de Saram, Lynn Harrell, Fred Sherry, Orlando Cole, Robert Cafaro, Joel Sachs, Felix Galimir, Luis Biava, and Seymour Lipkin.  Mr. Calloway is grateful for the assistance of the Maestro Foundation.

The tuba player Robin Hayward, born in Brighton, England in 1969, has been based in Berlin since 1998. Through a combined conceptual and empirical approach he has radically extended the tuba’s potential in both the areas of noise and microtonality. His compositions for other instruments reflect a similar medium-specific approach. As an interpreter his specific playing ability has been utilized by leading composers such as Alvin Lucier, Christian Wolff and Peter Ablinger. He has toured extensively both solo and in collaboration. His research to date has been documented in his solo CD Valve Division and numerous collaborative releases. Active in many contemporary music ensembles including Phosphor, Ictus and Kammerensemble Neue Musik Berlin, in 2005 he founded Zinc & Copperworks for continued research into brass instruments.

Anthea Caddy is an Australian cellist who applies a distinctive and idiosyncratic set of techniques to her instrument. Exploiting the cello’s textural, spatial and dynamic capabilities she draws reference points from electro-acoustic and contemporary compositional approaches to inform her practice. Interested in the relationship between electronic and acoustic sound, she seeks to consolidate both the conceptual and practical aspects of these two media, articulating techniques and concepts indigenous to digital spatialisation in her performances and recordings. She has toured nationally and internationally performing in festivals and series solo and in collaboration within a diversity of contexts.

Newton Armstong: is an Australian composer and performer working mostly with electronic instruments. In recent years his work has focussed on the development of enactive and situated approaches to performance with self-built digital instruments. He has collaborated with a diverse group of musicians, writers, dancers, choreographers, and sound, film, video and installation artists, and has toured and appeared at a number of festivals across Australia, Europe and the United States. He currently teaches in the Electroacoustic Music program at Dartmouth College.

Protectograph plays music. Stories given to you by the eccentric musical body of Eve Risser and Joel Grip. Two extreme personalities - armed with prepared piano, flute, and double-bass - who rumbles and scrapes their way through unknown paths, constantly trespassing musical borders. French-Swedish chanting. Music, En garde! Protectograph has performed at experimental improvised music festivals and venues in Scandinavia, France and USA ranging from the Louvre Museum in Paris (Musée du Louvre) to The Talking Head Club in Baltimore.

Eve Risser has her musical roots in chamber music as a flutist and pianist. While residing in Alsace, France, she merged in to the contemporary and jazz/improvised music world. Eve’s multifaceted musical creativity has been heard in various settings and groups throughout Europe, USA and Japan. She has had the opportunity to play with interesting improvisers in a broad range of contexts, such as in theatre, dance, poetry, children, solo performances, contemporary and live soundtracks to films. This young improvising version of Conlon Nancarrow uses piano, flute, Ondes Martenot, voice, composition and sound objects (toys, Barbie guitar, Theremin, turntables etc) and moves boundless between written current music, improvised music, Free Jazz and Metal. Curently Eve´s musical life is based out of Paris where she is involved in organizing contemporary and improvised music live performances and a festival. Eve has had the possibility to play with great musicians such as Yuko Oshima, Caroline Kraabel, Nina de Heney, Michael Zerang, David Stackenäs, Christine Senhaoui, Sofia Jernberg, Shelly Blake-Plock, Charlie Haden, Tim Murphy, Niklas Barnö, Adolfo Kaplan, Joris Rühl, Seiko Fukushima, John Berndt, ID M theft able, Audrey Chen to name a few.

Joel Grip: Bassist an producer originally from Stockholm, Sweden. Graduate studies at Peabody Conservatory in Baltimore under the master tutelage of bassist and composer Michael Formanek. Performances as a soloist and as a part of various groups in the USA, Costa Rica, Japan, China, India, and Europe. Besides work in a musical context, collaborations often include contemporary and Butoh dancers, as well as artists, poets, and filmmakers. Frequent touring groups of note: The Jolly-Boat Pirates, Protectograph, and Shelly Blake Music. Musical director in early 2007 of Shelly Blake-Plock and Matthew H. Welch’s production of “The Violencestring”, a musical narrative entirely comprised of performances of free improvisation merged with scripted voices and folk-song. Co-organizer of the annual improvised and creative music/art-flow festival “Hagenfesten” in Dala-Floda, Sweden. Manager of the organization “Public Health Music” which, through the arts and music, produces collaborative projects for the holistic development of homeless children in Odessa and Kiev, Ukraine and in Bangalore, India. Manager, promotor and main producer of the record label Umlaut Records.

Tim Feeney seeks to explore and examine the timbral possibilities inherent in everyday found and built objects. He treats his percussion setup as a friction instrument, using bows, scrapers, and rosined drumheads to capture and amplify frequencies that go unheard when an object is struck with a traditional mallet. He supplements this acoustic console with an electronic instrument, arranged from no-input mixers, contact microphones, and effects pedals, that synthesizes and alters the spectral characteristics of low-fidelity sine tones, feedback, and noise.

Baltimore 's Paul Neidhardt is one of the countries most astonishing new music percussionists. A trained, highly disciplined player with a flair for complex textural sound produced by friction, Neidhardt's approach to improvising covers the majority of the terrain explored by the explosive side of European free music and subtle textural players like Sean Meehan and Jason Kahn, while retaining a freshness and flexibility of purpose all his own. His background playing rock and African music adds a potential for propulsive intensity to his playing not usually found in players so skilled in the arts of minimalist reductionism. Despite recovering from injuries that limited his time playing in recent years, he is a highly in-demand player, working with groups like Trokeneis, Death in the Maze, and Multiphonic Choir, as well as frequent collaborations with Jack Wright. He is currently a member of the Red Room collective and High Zero Foundation.

Alban Bailly, a native of France, began his music path by playing rock his youth. He moved onto studying Jazz, which opened him to free improvisation in the late nineties. In 2001 he studied Arabic music and oud in Marrakech, Morocco. Back to Nancy, France, Alban became an active performer, playing solo and together with performers in Europe. It is at this period the gypsy and Balkan music intrigued him and took him to Serbia to meet traditonal Eastern European music in 2004. Since making Philadelphia his home in 2005, Alban has experienced abundance of opportunity as a composer and a performer, collaborating with musicians from Eastcoast and beyond. Using his guitar and accordion, he plays various genres of music and often collaborates with dancers.

Composer, free improvisor, and organizer, Dustin Hurt is emerging as a key element to Philadelphia 's experimental and new music scene. Dustin's frequent collaboratations include a duo with Alban Bailly (as Ko Koed), a trio with Tim Albro and Jesse Kudler (as HZL BRD), and a trio with Sean Mattio and Troy Herion. He is a performer in Nicole Bindler's Philadelphia New Dance and Music Ensemble and was a performer in John Berndt's Baltimore based large group ensemble, Second Nature, in March of 2006. He has also performed with Toshi Makihara, Jack Wright, Gene Coleman, Christine Sehnaoui, Dave Smolen, Carlos Santiago, Leandro Barzabal, Jon Barrios, and Paul Neidhardt, among others. His composed works have been performed by members of the Philadelphia Orchestra, the Pennsylvania Ballet Orchestra, and regularly by the Philadelphia based avant-supergroup, Normal Love. Dustin is also the founding director of bowerbird, a Philadelphia based experimental music presenting organization.

Amnesiac Music and Dance performs PIA MATER, a 90 minute length work, choreographed by Nicole Bindler with live experimental music and visual art. PIA MATER, latin for tender mother, is the anatomical term for the innermost layer of connective tissure surrounding the brain and spinal cord. PM is inspired by both the anatomical image and the concept of a tender mother. The cast iincludes over 20 of philly's most talented performers and visual artists.

Amnesiac Music and Dance formerly the Philadelphia New Dance and Music Ensemble, was featured in the Sept 2006 issue of Philadelphia Magazine. The 20 + Member company, directed by Nicole Bindler, features dancers musicians and visual artists. AMD has been primarily a vehicle for large group improvisational exploration, but is making a departure with PIA MATER, a choreographed evening length work to be presented by Bowerbird in November 2007.

Choreographed and directed by - Nicole Bindler; Dance: Adams Berzins, Liza Clark, Patricia Dominguez, Eve Hanan, Kilian Kroell, John Luna, Graeme McHenry, Shannon Murphy, Sara Narva, Naomi Pressman, Molly Root, Michelle Stortz, and Amberlee Woods; Music: Tim Albro, Ashley Deekus, Andy Hayleck, Katt Hernandez, Michael Anton Parker, Bhob Rainey; Set Design: Paul Santoleri, Costume Design - Patricia Dominguez, Lighting Design - Zornitsa Stoyanova

Nicole Bindler, (b.1977) BA., LMT., She has choreographed over fifteen original dance works and has performed over 100 improvised dances in cities throughout the U.S., Canada, Argentina and In Berlin. Some notable venues include, Links Hall, Williamsburg Art neXus, The Joyce Soho, The Somerville Theater, The Creative Alliance, The Theater Project, The Kennedy Center. In August 2004, her solo "Places I've Never/Been" was performed in Quito, Ecuador by dancer, Stephanie Sherman. Bindler has performed in The High Zero Festival, The Transmodern Age Festival, The Shawinigan Street Theater Festival, The Imagine Festival of Arts, Issues and Ideas, The Philadelphia Live Arts Festival, the D.C. Improvisation Festival, the Performance Mix Festival and the nEW Festival. She has performed in the work of Linda Diamond, Heather Azano-Brown, Brenda Divelbliss, Jennifer Hicks, Debra Bluth, Ju-Yeon Ryu, Leah Stein, Zaitoun Dance Troupe She has collaborated with dozens of experimental musicians, dancers and visual artists including Asimina Chremos, Bhob Rainey, John Berndt, Le Quan Ninh, Leonel Kaplan, Gene Coleman, The Signal Quintet, Janene Higgins, and Bilwa. Bindler recently completed a dance for the camera, "Rosemary, That's for Remembrance", with collaborator, Loren Groenendaal. She is a member of the Spontaneous Performing Artists Network, dances with PIMA Group and she directs the 20 member company: "Amnesiac Music and Dance", formerly the Philadelphia New Dance and Music Ensemble, which was featured in the Sept 2006 issue of Philadelphia Magazine.

Banner photo: Bilwa; Action Photos: MAP

Thollem Mcdonas

Tatsuya Nakatani (percussion) is originally from Osaka, Japan. In 2006 he performed in 80 cities in 7 countries and collaborated with 163 artists worldwide. In the past 10 years he has released nearly 50 recordings on CD. He has created his own instrumentation, effectively inventing many instruments and extended techniques. He utilizes drumset, bowed gongs, cymbals, singing bowls, metal objects, bells, and various sticks and bows to create an intense, organic music that defies category or genre. His music is based in improvised/ experimental music, jazz, free jazz, rock, and noise, yet retains the sense of space and beauty found in traditional Japanese folk music. In addition to live solo and ensemble performances he works as a sound designer for film and television. He also teaches Masterclasses and Workshops at the University level. He also heads H&H Production, an independent record label and recording studio based in Easton, Pennsylvania. He was selected as a performing artist for the Pennsylvania Performing Artist on Tour (PennPat) roster as well as a Bronx Arts Council Individual Artist grant.

Seth Meicht was born in 1976 and grew up in the Philadelphia area. He studied saxophone at the University of the Arts and studied privately with Ron Kerber, David Murray, Odean Pope, and Ben Schachter. Seth leads his own trio as well as being a founding member of The Meicht Group and The Sepia Trio. The Meicht Group garnered critical acclaim for the recordings Dig the Sound Live (2000) and Loud Like Hemlocks (2001) which were released on Scrapple Records. The Sepia Trio's newest release is on Utech Records and is entitled cleft. The Seth Meicht Trio has just released its debut CD on Cadence Jazz Records (CJR1196) and, adding Matt Bauder, has released Illumine on C.I.M.P. (#350).Seth has shared the stage with such luminaries as Michael Brecker, James Carter, Ravi Coltrane, Byard Lancaster, Prince Lasha, Joe Lavano, David Murray, Odean Pope, and Bobby Zankel. Seth is a member of the Odean Pope Saxophone Choir and also the Lars Halle Jazz Orchestra.

Matthew Mitchell was born on July 19, 1975 and his interest in music quickly became apparent. As a toddler, Matt would sit down with a Fisher Price record player and a stack of vinyl LPs and memorize lyrics, track times, musicians and other trivia about his parents' albums: The Beatles, Stevie Wonder, Jimi Hendrix and others. Matt began playing piano at the age of 6, with composing beginning at age 10. As his appetite and aptitude for music grew, so did his involvement, and by age 13 came the knowledge that music would be his life. Following high school, Matt attended music schools for five years, spending three years at Indiana University and two at the Eastman School of Music, culminating in a Master's degree. During his school years, Matt played a wide variety of music in a wide variety of contexts, including experiences with rock, fusion, hip-hop, salsa, Brazilian, and polka bands, as well as the 'usual' assortment of jazz and classical experiences. Notable teachers from this time period include David Baker, Luke Gillespie, Michael Cain, and Elizabeth DiFelice. In the jazz realm, Matt has performed and/or recorded with Ralph Alessi, Wes Anderson, David Baker, Jimmy Coe, Ravi Coltrane, Peter Epstein, Pookie Johnson, Ayelet Rose Gottlieb, Josh Roseman, and David Young. Since 1999 he has played with both the improvising trios Kaktus and Feigner as well as the art rock band Thinking Plague. He currently lives in Philadelphia and performs, composes, assembles, and records music that reflects his continually growing array of interests, musical and otherwise.

Michael Szekely studied jazz at the Hartt School of Music, led by saxophonist Jackie McLean. He has also studied percussion with drum master Milford Graves. Since 1993, Michael has co-led various projects with saxophonist Allen Livermore, resulting in two recordings: Feet Music’s Assertions & sketches (Chroma Independent Media, 1995) and the ALMS Trio’s Advocates (Eighth Nerve Records, 2005). Michael also plays with the improvisational quartet Double-clutch and the Courtney Parker Quartet and has worked with Anthony Braxton, Toshi Makihara, Ed Mann, Stephen Haynes, and Taylor Ho Bynum.

Michael Bullock (contrabass, electronics, video) is a composer and improviser based in Troy, NY. He has performed in an eleventh century stone chapel, a Czech monastery, and on the side of mountain. As a soloist, in duo with cellist Vic Rawlings, and with electronic duo rise set twilight (with Linda Aubry), Mike has performed across the US and in France and Czech Republic. He has collaborated with Bhob Rainey and Greg Kelley (of nmperign), Mazen Kerbaj, Christian Wolff, Lê Quan Ninh, Daniel Carter, and Theodore Bikel. Mike is a member of the BSC, a large ensemble of improvisers originating in Boston, which has collaborated with musicians and composers from all over the world. His recordings appear on Grob, Intransitive, CIMP, Emanem, Kissy, Fargone, Rounder and Naxos. In 2002 he founded Chloë, a label dedicated to electro-acoustic music. Plus One Events, an experimental music series, was founded in 2005 in collaboration with Linda Aubry. Mike is a doctoral candidate in the Electronic Arts department at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy. http://finenoiseandlight.net

Keith Rowe

more info:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keith_Rowe
http://efi.group.shef.ac.uk/musician/mrowe.html

video:
http://web.mac.com/misha_david/iWeb/mishaXdavid/
Keith%20Rowe.htm http://youtube.com/watch?v=HnUVpiFHhmM

audio:
http://www.efi.group.shef.ac.uk/audio/Very.mp3
http://erstwhilerecords.com/catalog/018.html (click on 'tracks')
http://erstwhilerecords.com/catalog/030.html (click on 'tracks')
http://erstwhilerecords.com/catalog/041.html (click on 'tracks')

Toshi Makihara studied drums, percussion and improvisation with Sabu Toyozumi, a prominent percussionist in Tokyo. Since arriving in the United States in the late 1970's he has worked with various new music ensembles as well as with numerous dance and theater companies internationally. Makihara has provided original music to Arden Theater Company, Diversions Dance Company (Wales), Pennsylvania Ballet, ZeroMoving Dance Company and Leah Stein Dance Company among others, and has worked with musicians including Steve Beresford, Peter Brotzmann, John Butcher, Nels Cline, Eugene Chadbourne, Tom Cora, Amy Denio, Thurston Moore, William Parker and John Zorn. He has also collaborated with poets, visual artists, filmmakers and performance artists widely. Since the fall of 2000, Makihara has been focusing on three separate performing styles: 1. New Jazz performances on a conventional drum-set, 2. music for theater and dance using a variety of percussion and discovered sound media, and 3. the experimental free improvisation using a simple setting consisting of one snare drum and one small cymbal.

Stochaistic composer Tom Boram studied twelve-tone and computational methods of high complexity with Nori Applebaum and Vincent Charles Peale at IRCAM in Paris in the early 80's before moving on to create his own completely deterministic form of composition which analogizes musical forms to receding sheaves and other structural devices of Topose Theory. As a young man, Boram was highly affected by reading Rene Thom on Catastrophe Theory and so decided to dedicate himself for life to a restrained form of dandyism which he considered to be both a reaction against Europe AND The United States--a commitment to a nearly static 18th century world outlook. He lives and works in Baltimore with his three cats and a large collection of original hand-carved puppets.

The Concert Series
Bowerbird@LANDMARKS is an ongoing curatorial partnership that expands cultural offerings in Philadelphia by bringing experimental and improvisational music, film, dance and other creative, genre-defying performing arts to historic sites in the region. Showcasing the newest performing arts is nothing new for Landmarks' four historic, 18th century houses---Grumblethorpe, Physick House, Powel House and Waynesborough. These houses would often have been the locations for recitals of the most "fashionable" music of their time. Even Thomas Jefferson was known to have played the fiddle in the Powel House, which was the one of the most significant cultural and social centers of colonial and revolutionary Philadelphia. Events in the bowerbird@LANDMARKS series revive this long-lost tradition of intimate concerts, and provide an intelligent alternative for contemporary audiences. http://www.philalandmarks.org/projects5.aspx

The Physick House: An Inventive Spirit
Built in 1786 by Madeira wine importer Henry Hill, the Physick House, formerly the Hill-Physick-Keith House, was named after Dr. Philip Syng Physick, the “Father of American Surgery.” Dr. Physick took up residence in the house in 1815 after separating from his wife, Elizabeth Emlen Physick, and lived there until his death in 1837. One of the foremost surgeons of the time, Dr. Physick was among the few courageous doctors who remained in the city to care for the sick during the yellow fever epidemic of 1793. Among his many patients were John Adams' daughter, Dolly Madison, Dr. Benjamin Rush, and Chief Justice John Marshall. President Andrew Jackson consulted Dr. Physick about lung hemorrhages and was told to stop smoking.

Many of Physick's medical accomplishments were years ahead of his time. He pioneered use of the stomach pump, used autopsy as a regular means of observation and discovery, excelled in cataract surgery, and was responsible for the design of a number of surgical instruments and operative techniques. Dr. Physick was affiliated with America's first hospital, Pennsylvania Hospital, and was one of the most sought after medical lecturers of the 19th century. His lectures prepared a generation of surgeons for service throughout America. It is because of his status as a teacher that he was dubbed the “Father of American Surgery.” In addition to beautiful period rooms, the second floor of the Physick residence houses a medical museum depicting the amazing career of Dr. Physick as well as a collection of medical instruments from that era.

The square, four-story brick Physick House is the only free standing Federal townhouse remaining in Society Hill. With its huge doorway fan light – the largest in any Pennsylvania residence in 1786 – plus grand proportions and straight, classical lines, Physick House is an exceptional example of the Federal style. Its collection has outstanding examples of French-influenced Neoclassic furnishings. Its unusually large city garden contains plants popular in the 19th century and features a winding path, grotto and classical statuary.  

Slought Foundation and Soundfield NFP are pleased to announce an evening of new and experimental music featuring French violist Vincent Royer and Philadelphia-based Ensemble Noamnesia performing music by Luc Ferrari on Thursday, October 18th, 2007 from 8:00-9:30pm. This concert is part of the 2007-2008 Soundfield @ Slought series.

Luc Ferrari (1929–2005) was a French composer, particularly noted for his electronic music. Ferrari was born in Paris and studied the piano under Alfred Cortot, musical analysis under Olivier Messiaen and composition under Arthur Honegger. His first works were freely atonal. In 1958 he co-founded the Groupe de Recherches Musicales with Pierre Schaeffer and François-Bernard Mâche. He taught in institutions around the world, and worked for film, theatre and radio. By the early 1960, Ferrari had begun work on his 'Hétérozygote,' a piece for magnetic tape which uses ambient environmental sounds to suggest a dramatic narrative. The use of ambient recordings was to become a distinctive part of Ferrari's musical language. Ferrari's 'Presque rien No. 1 (Le Lever du jour au bord de la mer)' (1970) is regarded as a classic of its kind. In it, Ferrari takes a day-long recording of environmental sounds at a Yugoslavian beach and, through editing, makes a piece that lasts just twenty-one minutes. It has been seen as an affirmation of John Cage's idea that music is always going on all around us, and if only we were to stop to listen to it, we would realise this. Ferrari continued to write purely instrumental music as well as his electronic pieces. He also made a number of documentary films on contemporary musicians in rehearsal, including Olivier Messiaen and Cecil Taylor.

Violist and composer Vincent Royer was born in Strasbourg, France. He studied music in Strasbourg and then in Germany with Ulrich Koch and Rainer Moog. He has received wide recognition for his work as a performer of new music, improvised music and classical music. He is a violist in the Guerzenichchorchester in Cologne and has performed with many top ensembles for new music in Germany, France and Belgium. Currently he is a violist with Musique Nouvel in Belgium. He has worked with many important composers, including Gerard Grisey, Pascal Dusapin, Luc Ferrari, Mauricio Kagel, Denys Bouliane, Robert HP Platz, Earle Brown, Andrew Toovey and Horatiu Radelescu. He has performed in numerous festivals of new music, including Darmstadt, Ars Musica in Brussels, Lucero de Paris, Musicia festival in Strasbourg, Witten days for new music, Calgari Festival, Sound Field in Chicago and the Salzburg Festival, among others.

Ensemble Noamnesia was founded in Chicago in 1987 and frequently performs new and experimental music. In 1997, the group initiated a series of projects with an international orientation, including a residency with German composer Helmut Lachenmann, which included four concerts of his music in collaboration with the Goethe Institute, The Museum of Contemporary Art, and The Renaissance Society at the University of Chicago. Subsequent projects included performances at the Museum of Contemporary Art with the Beppie Blankerkt Dance Company and the music of Charles Ives, a concert of music by Gerhard Staebler and Kunsu Shim, and two concerts of music by George Crumb. More recently, featured composers have included Luc Ferrari and Otomo Yoshihide, as well as Mathias Spahlinger, Burkhard Stangl, Vinko Globokar, Nic Collins, Malcolm Goldstein, Amnon Wolman, Karlheinz Essl, Jennifer Walshe, Salvatore Sciarrino, Chao-Ming Tung, Michael Maierhof, Yuji Takahashi, and many others. Gene Coleman is the artistic director of Ensemble Noamnesia.

Leonel Kaplan (BsAs, Argentina 21/11/73) is largely a self-taught musician, and one of the undoubtedly most commited and subtle south american musicians currently active on the international improvised music scene. After many formatives years as a local free jazz figure, was the discovery of free improvisation, which led him to understand how to take maximum advantage of those aspects of his instrument directly linked to air itself. Thus, the physical nature of the instrument and the presence of air as the bearer of sound, became fundamental points of reference in his quest for a personal language, in which he draws away from the tradition of the trumpet in order to draws ever closer to its nature. In this process, he also found himself as a musician. During the past years Kaplan has collaborated with improvisers such as: Michel Doneda, Bhob Rainey, Xavier Charles, Lê Quan Ninh, Jack Wright, Ivar Grydeland, Sean Meehan, Tatsuya Nakatani, Axel Dörner, Wade Matthews and Ingar Zach between many others outstanding musicians. He also currently works in the music and dance world with Andrea Fernandez and Nicole Bindler and runs his own music label, called Three Chairs Recordings.

Matthias Kaul started as a Rock- and Jazzdrummer He studied percussion at the Hamburg Musikhochschule, received numerous scholarships, and was awarded an advanced degree in Solo Performance. He has cooperated with other musicians and composers such as John Zorn, David Moss, Carla Bley, Malcolm Goldstein, Mauricio Kagel, Hans Werner Henze, Vinko Globokar and Joachim Hespos. He has made several concert tours in Europe, North and South America, Kanada, Africa, Taiwan, Japan, India and Korea. He has been featured, as percussionist and composer, on numerous record labels, including Wergo, Hat Hut, col legno, and CPO. Although Kaul has never studied composition, his activities as a Alle Fotos ©Achim Duwentäster composer have grown in the last ten years; his works have been performed worldwide. The IMD in Darmstadt and the Bavarian State Opera recently commissioned him to write music-theater works for their festivals.

made possible with the support of High Zero 2007

Slought Foundation and Soundfield NFP are pleased to announce an evening of experimental music by Birgit Uhler and guest musicians from Philadelphia on Wednesday, October 3rd, 2007 from 8:00-9:30pm. This concert is part of the 2007-2008 Soundfield @ Slought series.

Improvised music with Birgit Ulher (trumpet, Hamburg) and Philadelphia musicians Katt Hernandez (violin), Dave Smolen (electronics), Jesse Kudler (electronics), Evan Lipson (bass), Tim Albro (guitar), Alban Bailly (guitar), Dustin Hurt (trumpet) and Gene Coleman (bass clarinet).

Birgit Ulher was born in Nuremberg, Germany in 1961. She originally studied the visual arts, and the affinity for music of Fluxus artists continues to influence her music. Since moving to Hamburg in 1982 she has been involved in free improvisation, co-founding a musicians collective, dance-projects and solo-performances, often performed in unique and ephemeral groupings with many respected European and American improvisers. She has performed widely in in Europe and the United States with Jürgen Morgenstern, Martin Klapper, the Trio PUT (with Ulrich Phillipp und Roger Turner), Nordzucker (with Lars Scherzberg und Michael Maierhof), Tim Hodgkinson, Dorothea Schürch, Ernst Thoma, Rhodri Davies, Söres Zsolt, Robyn Schulkowsky, John Edwards, Michael Zerang, Damon Smith, Lou Mallozzi and Gino Robair.

David Rothbaum, originally a heavy metal electric bass player, now performs on analog modular synthesizer. Current projects include Monsturo (solo) and Dirty Modelz (with Albert Ortega). Since 2003 he has run the record label emr-records which specializes in putting out music he likes. www.davidrothbaum.com

New York native Jessica Pavone is a string instrumentalist and composer based in Brooklyn who holds degrees in viola performance, music education and composition. She's studied viola with tons of classical teachers, improvisation with Leroy Jenkins and is continuously learning by working within a community of creative musicians in New York, most notably through her work with composer Anthony Braxton. Most recently, she tours Europe and the United States with The Anthony Braxton Sextet and Twelve+1tet and in a collaborative duo with Mary Halvorson (guitar, viola, and voice). She currently leads two ensembles; The Pavones and Quotidian and improvises in groups led by William Parker,Taylor Ho Bynum, and Matana Roberts. She plays bass guitar with; Minnows, Christy and Emily, and Jason Cady and the Artificials. She has performed at a number of international music festivals including, the Molde Jazz Festival in Norway, The Banlieues Blues Festival in Paris, The Victoriaville Festival of New Music in Canada, the Santa Annarresi Jazz Festival in Italy, All Tomorrows Parties in England, Jazz em Augusto in Portugal, The Wels Unlimited Festival in Austria, and at the Ciclo Jazz Foundation in Spain. As a composer, she has received commissions to write chamber music for The Eastern Winds and Till by Turning, and her pieces have been heard throughout the northeast in venues such as the Kitchen and Issue Project Room in New York and Real Art Ways in Hartford, Connecticut. As an instrumentalist, she has interpreted new music by musicians such as Glenn Branca, Butch Morris, Matthew Welch, James Fei, Matt Bauder, David Grubbs, Loren Dempster, Aaron Siegel, and Andrew Raffo Dewar.

Jeremiah Cymerman is a composer and clarinetist living in New York City. The bulk of the music that he plays is improvised (i.e. not written or composed prior to performance). He is very interested in solo performance and extended technique, and as contrived as it sounds, is interested in creating, or at least contributing to, a new language for clarinet. He has performed with many incredible musicians, some famous and some not so. Having self-released several cdr's, he released his first cd as a leader, "Big Exploitation", in 2007 on the Solponticello record label of Athens, GA.His next cd, "Silence & Solitude" will be available in the fall of 2007.

Thomas Ankersmit (born 1979, Leiden, the Netherlands) is a musician and installation artist based in Berlin and Amsterdam. Initially an improvising saxophonist, his activities expanded to include live electronic music and installation pieces based on architectural acoustics and infrasound. He has been performing solo and in collaboration with other artists such as New York minimalist Phill Niblock, Kevin Drumm, Jim O'Rourke, Gert-Jan Prins, Borbetomagus and Alvin Lucier since 1998. Since 2003, Ankersmit most frequently collaborates with Phill Niblock and Milan-based electroacoustic improviser Giuseppe Ielasi.

"This music is far from austere: a kind of gradually unfolding micro drama, comprising a series of tiny vulnerabilities, frayings, insinuations, and stretches of miniaturized song. Like so many of the best improv recordings, this one seems to change shape and emphasis with every listen: delicate, languorously paced, yet tough as steel." —Nate Dorward (bagatellen.com)

From Between Trio is a collaboration of three musicians from three continents: Tatsuya Nakatani, born and raised in Japan, now living in the US; Michel Doneda, from France; and Jack Wright, from the US. The project has evolved, as do most such international groupings, through the touring efforts of the players, the search for new musical experience and partners (which is often the same thing). It is a story of each player finding, by chance meeting and by intention, those others who will create just the right musical challenge and chemistry, then taking it further.

Michel Doneda has been involved with music since he was 15 years old in the Harmonie Municipale and through playing in several dance bands; his first instrument was the alto saxophone. In 1980, in Toulouse, he created the reeds trio 'Hic et Nunc' with Steve Robbins and Didier Masmalet and, in collaboration with Théâtre de l'Acte, began l'Institut de Recherches et d'Echanges Artistiques (I.R.E.A.) comprising actors, poets, and musicians all interested in the possibilities of improvisation. At the same time, he played with the musicians of the collective G.R.I.M. in Marseille as well as the 'Tour de France' organised by Louis Sclavis. There, he met the singer Beñat Achiary with whom he has continued his musical relationship to the present day. Exchanges and meetings increased via the festival of Chantenay-Villedieu and the nato label: meetings with Fred Van Hove, Raymond Boni, Steve Beresford, Tony Hymas, Lol Coxhill, Joêlle Léandre, Phil Wachsman, John Zorn and Ravi Prasad, among others.

Originally from Kobe and Osaka, Japan, internationally renowned percussionist Tatsuya Nakatani has toured extensively throughout the world, having performed in approximately 80 cities and 10 countries. Utilizing drumset, gongs, cymbals, singing bowls, metal objects, sticks and bows, he creates collages of sound, which combine the sense of space and beauty found in traditional Japanese folk music with the extended techniques of New Music, yet with great energy and intensity. Although his music defies category or genre, it can be viewed as a cross-cultural mixture of improvised music, experimental music, jazz, free jazz, and rock.

In addition to live solo and ensemble performances, he has provided sound design for films and television projects. The latest of these was the performance of an improvised sound score for silent movie- "The Water Magician" (1933, directed by Kenji Mizoguchi), which was part