June 2024 Events
IN STUDIO PERFORMANCE
Saturday, June 22, 2024 FINKFEST
Friends, mentors, collaborators, and esteemed colleagues of the late guitarist John Finkbeiner convene for an evening of music in tribute to his distinctive musical voice, in remembrance of him on what would have been his 50th birthday.
Featuring a new work composed for a 10-piece electric guitar choir by Lisa Mezzacappa, and musical tributes composed and arranged by Aaron Bennett and Charles Sharp, Cory Wright, Darren Johnston, Sheldon Brown, Jason Levis, Henry Hung, and Myles Boisen.
Saturday June 22, 7pm (doors 6:30pm)
Dresher Ensemble Studio
2201 Poplar Street Oakland, CA 94607
All are welcome, admission by donation at the door
Performers
Sax Quartet: McKean-Plonsey-Jonas-Wright Darren Johnston, trumpet Henry Hung, trumpet Scott Larson, trombone Rob Ewing, trombone Cory Wright, woodwinds Sheldon Brown, woodwinds Charles Sharp, woodwinds Aaron Bennett, tenor saxophone John Hanes, drums Jason Levis, drums Myles Boisen, guitar |
John Schott, guitar Morris Acevedo, guitar Karl Evangelista, guitar Eric Vogler, guitar Noah Phillips, guitar John Shiurba, guitar Nathan Clevenger, guitar Chris Welcome, guitar Eli Crews, electric bass Lisa Mezzacappa, acoustic bass |
Learn more: https://www.facebook.com/events/980765167030504
WEST OAKLAND SOUND SERIES
A weekly new-music and experimental-sound series presented on Sunday evenings by sfSound.
Location: Dresher Ensemble Studio (2201 Poplar Street, Oakland, CA)
Tickets: $10-$25 sliding scale (cash & Venmo accepted at door)
Eventbrite advance tickets ($20) [PURCHASE]
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Sunday, June 16, 2024
KAREN YU + KEN UENO; RUBEN MATTIA SANTORSA
RUBEN MATTIA SANTORSA performs a solo electric guitar journey through diverse sonic landscapes. This concert showcases 5 distinct “planets,” starting with the delicate sounds of Laurence Crane’s Bobby J and moving through Lisa Illean’s Tiding in scordatura tuning to Giulia Lorusso’s loop-based composition, Unspoken and her fragile À fleur de peau. Additionally, the premiere of a wake up Siri! by Ying Wang, written for Ruben Mattia’s American tour. Finally, Ruben Mattia presents his own composition, Drones II.
KAREN YU and KEN UEN0 perform Noise Box Cantos and Shadow Mudras, both developed collaboratively as a reaction to their experience being pitted in improvisative situations against a collective of modular synthesizer players. After a critical mass of a few modular synth players is reached, it is hard to discern the individual contributions of each performer. Outnumbered in such a context, Ueno and Yu, felt alienated and determined that such performance contexts were at odds with the core values of their respective performance practices as a vocalist and percussionist.
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Sunday, June 23, 2024
GOGGLE; UNITED BRASSWORKER’S FRONT
GOGGLE is the quartet of saxophonists Chris Jonas, Randy McKean, Dan Plonsey and Cory Wright. Individually they have worked with creative mavericks from Anthony Braxton, Vinny Golia, Yusef Lateef, Roscoe Mitchell, to ROVA. Still, the group has a brainiac squalling sound all its own, fueled by their original compositions—one part laboratory, the other playground. The nucleus of Goggle was formed in 1987 at Mills College, has recorded as the Great Circle Saxophone Quartet for New World Records, and since 2013, as Goggle, has worked with Taylor Ho Bynum, duo B., Lisa Mezzacappa and the Del Sol String Quartet. Goggle will be joined at this sfSound set of new compositions by special guests percussionist Jordan Glenn and vocalist Mantra Plonsey, whose mesmerizing “Nothing Wrong with Him” was featured on Goggle’s latest release Eeyahdi on Cure-All Records.
The UNITED BRASSWORKER’S FRONT seeks to draw on the broad and diverse experiences and interests of its members, to blur the lines between composition and improvisation, and between tradition and experimentation, all in the hopes of distilling this recipe into a sound that is unique, soulful, and that reexamines what a brass band can be. After many years in hibernation, this will be the first-ever performance for the newest incarnation of the UBF, originally founded in the Bay Area in the early 2000’s by trumpeter/composer Darren Johnston. Along with Johnston, the other original member, this evening will be trumpeter Henry Hung. Past collaborators include Ches Smith, Devin Hoff, Lisa Mezzacappa, Sameer Gupta, Chris Brown, Adam Theis, Ara Anderson, and many others, including the late John Finkbeiner, whose singular sound and approach on electric guitar was a crucial element to the original band’s sound.
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Sunday, June 30, 2024
LARRY OCHS GROUP; RIC LOUCHARD + TOM DJLL
TALES END is a new improvised music group fronted by ROVA Saxophone Quartet’s LARRY OCHS featuring some of the best improvisers in the Bay Area, with KYLE BRUCKMANN (electronics), DARREN JOHNSTON (trumpet), LISA MEZZACAPPA (bass), and KJELL NORDESON (percussion).
RIC LOUCHARD + TOM DJLL present Flight from Identity for piano and attendants. An attempt to expose, analyze, and release the psychosis of a black-and-white subject with 88 points of inflection and a reported history of abuse from imperialist logics. Lacking a “standard framework for understanding identity changes in a psychotic subject,” the practitioners must resort to a workshop approach using appropriate instruments and experimental methodologies. During this examination, it may become apparent that a typical Viennese-bred subject will follow a line of flight to its most restful state in a place far from its historically defined role(s). The subject is thus freed from the personality-fracturing black-tie straitjacket imposed on it by main-line pedagogy and societal expectations.
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