2024 concerts sunday jan 5-7, 2024 (victoria theatre sf) san francisco tape music festival sunday february 11, 2024 helena sorokina (vienna) + sarah grace graves / oaklndrdctnstorchstra sunday february 18, 2024 hans tammen (nyc) / sfSoundGroup (phill niblock & monica scott) sunday february 25, 2024 gneiss (la/seoul) / bleeding vector (vogler & benedict) sunday march 3, 2024 eric theise + gino robair + tom djll / ann callaway + richard mix sunday march 10, 2024 rachel beetz (la) + anne hege + julie herndon (san luis obispo) / ken ueno sunday march 31, 2024 beth schenck quintet / matthew welch's blarvuster sunday april 7, 2024 raskin + brown + davis + shokrai / smith + montufar / lanzoni sunday april 14, 2024 balsamic / ben goldberg's insect life sunday april 21, 2024 carl stone / jordan glenn, music for other things sunday april 28, 2024 john bischoff / zofo sunday may 12, 2024 a/b duo / gretchen jude + cheryl leonard sunday may 19, 2024 sarah saviet (berlin) / sam weiser + dustin carlson sunday may 26, 2024 pacific pythagorean music festival :: view entire concert history here ::

JANUARY 5/6/7 2024

THE SAN FRANCISCO TAPE MUSIC FESTIVAL 2024 Victoria Theatre 2961 16th Street San Francisco click here for more info

FEBRUARY 11 2024  7pm  $10-$25

HELĒNA SOROKINA + SARAH GRACE GRAVES THE OAKLAND REDUCTIONIST ORCHESTRA Visiting from Austria, mezzo-soprano HELĒNA SOROKINA joins local composer-vocalist SARAH GRACE GRAVES to perform Scelsi's Sauh voice duos alongside solos and duos written for, and in certain instances by, them. Featuring music by GIACINTO SCELSI, HARRISON BIRTWISTLE, JON YU, SARAH GRACE GRAVES, and others. The concert also features the OAKLAND REDUCTIONIST ORCHESTRA, a supergroup of local musicians with a predilection for lowercase/fricative/reductionist acoustic improvisation that often sounds more electronic than acoustic. This ensemble grows out of a rich tradition of "American reductionist" music that emerged (re-emerged?) in the late 1990's and early 2000's. Previous projects like Tom Djll's Grosse Abfahrt and The Jack Wright Large Ensemble Eight By Nine document the Bay Area's contribution to the genre. PERFORMERS Hallie Smith, violin Danishta Rivero, voice Lisa Mezzacappa, bass Joshua Marshall, tenor saxophone Brendan Lai-Tong, trombone Matt Ingalls, clarinets Ron Heglin, tuba Diane Grubbe, flutes Sarah Grace Graves, voice Jacob Felix Heule, percussion Tom Djll, trumpet Kevin Corcoran, percussion Chris Cooper, objects, electronics

FEBRUARY 18 2024  7pm  $10-$25

HANS TAMMEN with GINO ROBAIR SFSOUNDGROUP: PHILL NIBLOCK + MONICA SCOTT HANS TAMMEN is just another worker in rhythms, frequencies and intensities. He likes to set sounds in motion, and then sit back to watch the movements unfold. Using textures, timbre and dynamics as primary elements, his music is continuously shifting, with different layers floating into the foreground while others disappear. This flows like clockwork, “transforming a sequence of instrumental gestures into a wide territory of semi-hostile discontinuity; percussive, droning, intricately colorful, or simply blowing your socks off” (Touching Extremes). In his Eigengrau series he explores overtones and noises that are emerging from pianos, guitars and other stringed instruments affected by vibrations from transducers. Eigengrau is the color you see when you close your eyes, which is due to the perception of an ever-changing field of tiny black and white dots seen in the phenomenon. For this concert Tammen is joined by bay area stalwart GINO ROBAIR on assorted electronics. The "house band" for the WEST OAKLAND SOUND SERIES, SFSOUNDGROUP is a unique collection of performer-composers that have presented their own compositions, improvisations, new commissions, electronic music, and standard avant-garde repertoire for over two decades. For this concert they remember PHILL NIBLOCK with a performance of Disseminate, commissioned in 1998 by Petr Kotik for The Orchestra of the S.E.M. Ensemble. As in most of Niblock’s music, he creates sound differences by combining many simultaneous microtonal pitches/tones (by means of multitrack mixing) to make clouds of sum and difference tones. The score for Disseminate specifies 16 parts which can be pre-recorded or live. For this concert the piece will be performed partially “on tape” with four “live” musicians. sfSound also performs MONICA SCOTT'S Migrations for mixed quintet, where spectrograms of local bird calls are freely interpreted and translated into musical gestures both composed and improvised. While the work is a free-standing 4 movement piece, its genesis is in Scott's multimedia collaboration Lightfast - Intertwine, an exhibition that is showing at the di Rosa Center for Contemporary Art February 24-June 2, 2024. SFSOUNDGROUP Sam Weiser, violin Monica Scott, cello Kjell Nordeson, percussion Brendan Lai-Tong, trombone John Ingle, saxophone Matt Ingalls, clarinet Kyle Bruckmann, oboe

FEBRUARY 25 2024  7pm  $10-$25

GNEISS BLEEDING VECTOR GNEISS (pronounced "nice"), a band from Los Angeles consisting of JEONGHYEON JOO (haegeum) JOSHUA GEROWITZ (guitar, composition), ETHAN MARKS (trumpet, composition), and GEORGIA BELL (bass, composition/design), brings a set of composed and improvised music themed on the formation and transition of rock. This is a preview concert of their upcoming album, Gneiss, developed and recorded throughout 2023. BLEEDING VECTOR (ERIC VOGLER, guitar + LORIN BENEDICT, voice) is a duo of jazz-infused musical improvisers who delight in playing manifestly structured music in a loose and playful way. This will be their first performance since the release (on bandcamp), of their 1-track extended-suite album, "ARST / ARSED". In this show, they will be performing material NOT on the aforementioned album.

MARCH 3 2024  7pm  $10-$25

ERIC THEISE + UNPOPULAR ELECTRONICS (GINO ROBAIR with TOM DJLL) ANN CALLAWAY + RICHARD MIX ERIC THEISE presents an episode of his Synesthete's Atlas project, where he manipulates projected digital maps in dialogue with local heros of experimental music UNPOPULAR ELECTRONICS (GINO ROBAIR with TOM DJLL). Real time cartographic improvisations using projected, manipulated digital maps, and custom-built electro-acoustic instruments. Evenings of street grids, rivers, islands, and curiosities from the built environment. Saturated colors. Glitches in crowdsourced data. Orphaned information and free-floating symbology. Theise's work can be seen atop San Francisco's Salesforce Tower Top throughout February 2024 in the Midnight Artist series, midnight to 1 every night. ANN CALLAWAY plays her Three Existential Postcards for Piano and Char: Six Poems by Shinjiro Kurahara with RICHARD MIX, bass; plus works for solo voice by JOHN CAGE, MORTON FELDMAN, HENRI POUSSEUR, ELLIOTT CARTER, troubadors, trouveres & minnesingers.

MARCH 10 2024  7pm  $10-$25

RACHEL BEETZ + ANNE HEGE + JULIE HERNDON KEN UENO + MATT INGALLS RACHEL BEETZ performs Pareidolia, for perfectly tuned oscillators with glacial transformations. The piece explores the phenomenon where our brains attempt to make patterns out of random information: auditory pareidolia. As a composer, flutist, and improviser, Beetz explores presence through sound and listening. Her works recreate physical atmospheres based on her deep listening adventures in the wild, exploring hidden worlds of nature and machines. Combining experimental field recordings and electronically modified flutes, her works examine community, environmentalism, and women’s work through sound, textiles, and lighting. Her projects have been featured in concert halls and galleries in Australia, Iceland, India, the United Kingdom, and the United States. You can hear her on Orenda, Blue Griffin, iikki, Neuma, and Populist record labels. She is currently a co-director of the Wasteland Music and Populist Records. ANNE HEGE performs a short set of works for her live-looping instrument, The Tape Machine. First constructed in 2009, the Tape Machine is a portable instrument created with three hacked cassette players––one recording tape head and two playback points running a handmade tape loop. In simple terms, it is an analog, live-looping instrument where the listener, by sound alone, can identify the transparent process and technology. There is no hidden processing, just the magic of a single blank tape loop. Born in Oakland, Hege has composed for film, installation art, dance, and concert settings. The New York Times praised her score for Carrie Ahern’s dance installation SeNSATE, as “convincing” and “strangely environmental.” Influenced by Hege’s deep listening practice, her latest compositions range between ritual, music, and theater, with some homemade instruments thrown in for good measure. Hege is currently the artistic director of the Peninsula Women's Chorus. She performs regularly in her electronic duo, New Prosthetics, and the laptop ensemble Sideband. Her latest work, an opera for laptop orchestra and live voices, The Furies: A Laptopera, premiered at Stanford's CCRMA in November 2022. JULIE HERNDON performs Electronic Etudes: a collection of pieces that seamlessly integrate keyboard instruments and live electronics, from acoustic piano to analog and digital synthesis. Herndon is a composer, performer, and sound artist exploring the body’s relationship to sound. Her electroacoustic work has been described as “truly brilliant” (Kulturpunkt), “like a signal from another world” (Tages-Anzeiger), and “blended to inhabit a surprisingly expressive space” (San Francisco Classical Voice). Her compositions and installations have been presented at MATA Festival and National Sawdust in New York, Artistry Space in Singapore, Museo de Arte Contemporaneo de Oaxaca in Mexico, Music Biennale Zagreb in Croatia, Sogar Theater in Switzerland, and by Forest Collective in Australia. She is currently an Assistant Professor of Music Technology and Composition at Cal Poly. Beetz, Hege, and Herndon conclude their set with an improvised trio. For over a decade, the duo of KEN UENO (vocals) and MATT INGALLS (clarinet) has presented their unique arsenal of extended techniques for an experience that defies classical expectations of sounds that can be made on voice and clarinet. Composer/vocalist/sound artist Ueno is a recipient of the Rome Prize and the Berlin Prize and currently a Professor at UC Berkeley. He sings overtones, multi-band multiphonics, sub-tones, and throat sings. Oakland-based Ingalls' clarinet technique includes circular-breathing, multiphonics, various breath effects, and a unique hybrid-timbre polyphonic effect.

MARCH 31 2024  7pm  $10-$25

BETH SCHENCK QUINTET MATTHEW WELCH'S BLARVUSTER The BETH SCHENCK QUINTET features BETH SCHENCK on alto saxophone, KASEY KNUDSEN on tenor saxophone, MATT WROBEL on guitar, LISA MEZZACAPPA on bass, and JORDAN GLENN on drums. Although these Bay Area improvisers have played together in different configurations for a decade, this quintet of musicians brings together their diverse backgrounds and influences to create boundary-pushing improvisation out of new compositional work from Beth. Inspired by the individual voices of each member of this ensemble, Beth set out to write music to specifically feature each one of these exceptional musicians. The result is music that is both challenging and accessible. MATTHEW WELCH'S BLARVUSTER [MATTHEW WELCH (pipes, sax, vox), AARON GERMAIN (bass) and JORDAN GLENN (drums, perc)] is a bagpipe-driven amplified ensemble dedicated to Matthew Welch’s unique compositions and bagpipe virtuosity. Blarvuster’s music merges Scottish pipes, Balinese gamelan, minimalism, improvisation and rock into a textural labyrinth of ecstatic sound. The ensemble was formed in Brooklyn, New York City in 2002 and is now based in the San Francisco Bay Area. Blarvuster has performed at notable venues and festivals including: National Sawdust (NYC), Celtic Connections (Glasgow), The Stone (NYC), Jazzwerkstatt and BeeFlat (Bern, CH), Roulette, Le Poisson Rouge, EMPAC, Western Front (Vancouver), Switchboard Festival (SF 2014), The Kitchen (NYC), Tonic, Issue Project Room, Zebulon, MOMA, Galapagos and CBGB’s, TAC and most recently the Piping Live Festival in Glasgow. The ensemble’s debut eponymous album "Blarvuster" appeared on John Zorn’s Tzadik Records in 2010, with a follow up record, The Finger Lock, released on Kotekan Records in 2018. “The ensemble’s border-busting music is original and catchy” – The New York Times

APRIL 7 2024  7pm  $10-$25

RASKIN + BROWN + DAVIS + SHOKRAI HALLIE SMITH + ADRIAN MONTUFAR SIMON LANZONI JON RASKIN (saxophones) has been a member of Rova Saxophone Quartet for the last 46 years exploring the relationship of improvisation and composition, developing and honing the language of ensemble music and researching linguistic possibilities of the saxophone. CHRIS BROWN (piano & electronics) makes music with self-designed sonic systems that include acoustic and electroacoustic instruments, interactive software, computer networks, microtonal tunings, and improvisation. BEN DAVIS (cello), trained in classical cello and composition at the Guildhall, London. Later, he developed a taste for free improvisation, performing with Ellery Eskerlin, Evan Parker, Louis Moholo, Vincent Courtois, Wada Leo Smith, among others. SAFA SHOKRAI (bass) has been based in the Bay Area for 30 years. His musical practice focuses on finding new ways to connect art with the varied cultures present in the Bay, always drawing inspiration from traditions to create something fresh and vibrant. HALLIE SMITH (viola) and ADRIAN MONTUFAR (voice and flute) present an amplified acoustic duo. Hallie is a musician and composer currently based in Oakland. Her work is focused towards sound installations and producing ambient electronic music. Adrian is currently a graduate student in the UC Berkeley music composition program. His practice blends instrument design and physical computing with voice and movement improvisation. Together, their duo gathers a lexicon of contrasts: loveliness and revulsion, staccato outbursts and droning time-stretching, airy textures and visceral surges. SIMON LANZONI is a Franco-American artist who combines visual and sonic art to create multi-sensory experiences, which explore central themes of the human condition, such as memory, language, and the fluidity of consciousness. His practice is inspired by the visual perception of art, and the inherent physicality of sound. The fusion of the two mediums creates experiences in which sonic and visual become interchangeable. Sound enters into the third dimension, taking on a visual form, while what is seen becomes a physical, and aural experience. It is this quest for fluidity between the two mediums that is the driving force behind the aesthetics of his installations.

APRIL 14 2024  7pm  $10-$25

BALSAMIC BEN GOLDBERG'S INSECT LIFE BALSAMIC is a collective of sound and movement improvisers who developed their practice in (mostly) outdoor public spaces since 2020. This edition features: KEVIN CORCORAN - percussion RAE DIAMOND - found object, voice SHOSHANA GREEN - movement MEGAN NICELY - movement SUKI O'KANE - percussion EDWARD SCHOCKER - hichiriki, shō, ocarina PAIGE STARLING SORVILLO - movement Berkeley clarinetist BEN GOLDBERG, trombonist DANNY LUBIN-LADEN, cellist BEN DAVIS and saxophonist RAFFI GARABEDIAN present INSECT LIFE - a group dedicated to olive oil cake and the work of the imagination.

APRIL 21 2024  7pm  $10-$25

CARL STONE JORDAN GLENN, MUSIC FOR OTHER THINGS CARL STONE returns to the Bay Area for an intimate performance of solo electronic music. Stone is one of the pioneers of live computer music, and has been hailed by the Village Voice as “the king of sampling” and “one of the best composers living in (the USA) today.” He has used computers in live performance since 1986. Stone was born in Los Angeles and now divides hs time between Los Angeles and Japan. He studied composition at the California Institute of the Arts with Morton Subotnick and James Tenney and has composed electro-acoustic music almost exclusively since 1972. He is on the faculty of the Department of Media Engineering at Chukyo University in Japan. Drummer, percussionist, composer, improviser and constant collaborator JORDAN GLENN presents sketches for a new ensemble of clarinet, cello, guitar and vibraphone. Will these compositional seeds find their way to future contexts like dance or theater? Will Jordan remember how to play the vibraphone? Let's find out. JORDAN GLENN - vibes/perc/composition CORY WRIGHT - clarinets/bari sax BEN DAVIS - cello MATT WROBEL - guitar

APRIL 28 2024  7pm  $10-$25

ZOFO JOHN BISCHOFF The Bay Area's premier piano duet, ZOFO plays excerpts from Echoes of Gamelan. This new program explores the influence of Balinese gamelan music on western composers, as well as how our music perception changes depending on the context. P R O G R A M Pemungkah and Tabuh Telu, from Balinese Ceremonial Music     (transcribed by Colin McPhee for two pianos, arranged for one piano by ZOFO) Beta Cygni - George Crumb Prisms for Gene Davis, excerpts 1, 2, 4, & 5 - Brian Baumbusch In the Kraton - Leopold Godowsky Speech Delay - Ni Nyoman Srayamurtikanti (transcribed by Brian Baumbusch) JOHN BISCHOFF (b. 1949, San Francisco) is an early practitioner of live computer music known for his solo constructions in real-time synthesis. A founding member of The League of Automatic Music Composers and The Hub network music bands, he was on faculty for many years in the legendary Music Department at Mills College. He presents three solo compositions for computer and custom analog circuits. Both Visibility Study (2015) and Bitplicity (2020) feature homemade analog circuits in performance with software synthesis elements generated by a laptop. The analog circuits are pulse-wave oscillators sounding in audio and sub-audio realms which are animated by performer actions—-primarily the momentary shorting of conductive points in each circuit. To accomplish this, the circuits are fabricated by the composer with critical trace points brought to the top of the circuit box in the form of brass rails. The rails run parallel to each other where they can be "shorted" (the circuit points closed) with coins wielded by the performer. The two solos share common software structures throughout: -as circuit tones come to life they sound at the loudspeakers and trigger digital synthesis responses via the laptop as well - circuit events are also analyzed for spectral content and elapsed time between events - the pitch and timing of subsequent digital synthesis is driven by this performance-acquired data--no pre-performance data is employed Calliope (2022) is a take-off on Leon Theremin’s realization of Henry Cowell’s concept—an instrument called the Rhythmicon which automatically reiterates its tones at rates corresponding to the ratios of selected pitch combinations. I was inspired by a YouTube clip of Andre Smirov playing one of Theremin’s original instruments. The device is so beautifully elegant, and sonically quirky at the same time, that I wanted to build a digital synthesis version on the same principles but where the electronic instrument has internal drift in all dimensions - the tones migrate out of tune and disassemble in time as each phrase develops.

MAY 12 2024  7pm  $10-$25

A/B DUO GRETCHEN JUDE + CHERYL E. LEONARD GRETCHEN JUDE (voice, objects, field recordings) and CHERYL E. LEONARD (natural-object instruments, field recordings) present Peregrinations, a set of improvisations that delve into sonic minutiae. Very quiet sounds are amplified and dialogue with extended vocal and instrumental techniques as the duo evokes imaginary topographies and ecosystems. From djembe to Nintendo Gameboy to contrabass flute to drum set, A/B DUO'S no-limits instrumentation and imaginative concert programming has delighted audiences all over the United States since 2013. Made up of flutist Meerenai Shim and percussionist Christopher G. Jones, A/B Duo has made a mark for its “fresh, vibrant new music” and “commitment to widening the repertoire.” (Fanfare Magazine) For this concert, A/B Duo presents building, a new commission from Berkeley composer Ken Ueno. Building Stories, a graphic novel by Chris Ware, inspired this piece. Ware’s novel extends and reimagines both the novel and the comic book. A non-linear form, rather, a consortium of micro-linear forms in the physical guise of different forms (in various sizes and shapes), it gives physical form to a commentary on memory. Fragmentation enacts a repository of psychological traumas. The theme of "building" is literal as well as allegorical to the mechanism of "building" an identity. In my musical composition the flute is fragmented, literally and physically, so that we might build it (or re-build) anew.

MAY 19 2024  7pm  $10-$25

SARAH SAVIET SAM WEISER + DUSTIN CARLSON SARAH SAVIET explores shifting limits: between interpreter and author, idea and body, virtuosity and failure, periphery and interior. This performance will include her own music which engages with texts by Bauhaus textile artist Anni Albers, as well as music by British composers Jack Sheen and Lawrence Dunn. Sarah Saviet is an American violinist and compser based in Berlin and dedicated to the performance of contemporary music. She performs as a soloist and chamber musician and is a member of the Saviet/Houston Duo and Ensemble Mosaik. Sarah’s debut solo album SPUN (Coviello Contemporary) was recently nominated for the Preis der deutschen Schallplattenkritik for new music. Her recording of Liza Lim’s violin concerto Speak, Be Silent, with the Riot Ensemble on HCR/NMC records was selected as one of New Yorker Magazine’s "Best recordings of 2019." SAM WEISER (violin) and DUSTIN CARLSON (guitar) both exist in the spaces that straddle classical and improvised music. They have been working together for the past six months on Dustin's new suite for solo violin, entitled, "Her Warrior Longs to Rest". The piece is inspired by the Grave of Griffin Warrior (ca. 1450 BC), one of the wealthiest burials found in Greece in the last 70 years. In addition, the performance will also include Dustin's music for solo guitar, as well as duets. Sam Weiser, currently the first violinist of the Carpe Diem String Quartet, is a lifelong chamber musician and advocate of contemporary music. He holds a number of positions around the Bay Area, including assistant concertmaster of the California Symphony, member of One Found Sound, and violinist in sfSound. Formerly, he was a member of the award-winning Del Sol Quartet. Dustin Carlson is currently composer in residence with the Gabriela Lena Frank Creative Academy of Music in Boonville CA. Dustin is originally from New York where he played and recorded with notable jazz musicians such as Anna Webber, Matt Mitchell, Ches Smith, and Kate Gentile. He has recently moved to California after living as a flamenco guitarist in Sevilla, Spain.

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