Starting Jan 27, and continuing everything Thursday evening, The Red Room in Your Room returns to your room and might even return to the Red Room, omnicron allowing.
Exclusive sets of experimental and improvised music streamed deluxx 4 U. t
witch.tv/highzerofoundation.
FEB 24TH
Kenta Nagai is a Japanese-born sound artist who has resided in the United States since 1990. After graduating from Berklee College of Music in 1996, Nagai relocated himself to NYC and started playing his fretless guitar on the street, subway platforms, clubs and galleries. From 1999 to 2002, he was a core member of the artist-run gallery and performance space “Cave”, in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Throughout those years, Nagai also played regularly at “downtown” NY venues including Roulette, the Knitting Factory, Tonic, ABC no Rio, and CBGB gallery. He worked closely with dancers Boaz Barkan, Jennifer Monson, Daria Fain, DD Dovillier, and Zack Fuller, premiering many performance works at PS122, Danspace, The Chocolate Factory, and other venues. Nagai maintains an ongoing collaboration with Austrian choreographer Melanie Maar. In December 2017, he provided sound for Butoh dancer Kota Yamazaki and his company Fluid hug-hug in the premiere of a new work at Baryshnikov Arts Center in NYC. Nagai’s musical performances have been featured in concerts at Lincoln Center, Carnegie Hall, the Whitney Museum, Ruben Museum, and the Hershhorn Museum at the Smithsonian in Washington, DC. Nagai presently plays guitar for Italian composer Alessandro Bosetti in a power trio called “Trophies” (along with drummer Tony Buck). The band tours Europe regularly; their fourth album “A Family of Three (Band Photo)” was released in 2017 on the Unsounds label. Nagai also plays in a new band of Paul De Jong (formerly of “The Books”). In 2011, Kenta Nagai spent one year living in rural Japan, very close to the place where he grew up. When not assisting his wife with her research on “goze” vocal performance and shamisen, he conducted his own research into the rural culture of Japan, and underwent training in shamisen with Tsurusawa Asaso V. Now he lives in rural upstate NY.
Jason Charney is a composer and multimedia artist based in Baltimore. He writes music for voices, instruments, and electronics and creates installations employing sound, light, code, and objects. Recent projects include an 8-channel sound piece made from field recordings in southern Honduras, a collection of kinetic sculptures using speakers to explore the reciprocity of human relationships, and a graphic score for piano/percussion commissioned for a program dedicated to Pauline Oliveros.
Jason is the Technical Director for Mind on Fire, a contemporary music orchestra in Baltimore, and plays synthesizer in Moth Broth.
I’m at @jcharney on instagram and twitter.
website: jasoncharney.com
Hi Tom Ensemble is a new percussion quartet from Baltimore MD, consisting of Kyra O’Donnell, Alex Armbruster, Adam Smith, and Brandon Gouin. Mentored by Tom Goldstein at the University of Maryland Baltimore County, Hi Tom Ensemble specializes in new music, theater percussion, and improv. On this program they present a unique combination of two pieces: “Indeterminacy” by John Cage performed simultaneously with “Creative Construction Set” by George Lewis. These pieces show Hi Tom’s influences, and their fusion creates new opportunities in the world of avant-garde percussion music.
Instagram – @hitomensemble
YouTube – https://www.youtube.com/channel/UChZLh0C2I23AQVS4bRekcpA
photo by Juliane Schütz.
Kyrre Laastad will be performing “Houdini Rite” by Hugh Shrapnel.
Kyrre Laastad is a musician, engineer and producer based in Trondheim, Norway. After finishing his studies at the jazz department of NTNU in Trondheim and at the music technology department at The Norwegian Academy of Music, he has gone on to make his own strange worklife in the field of music, working as a recording engineer and producer at Øra studio in Trondheim with artists such as Lost Girls, Eirik Hegdal and the Trondheim soloists, while also still performing solo and together with various artists such as Jenny Hval, Michael Pisaro-Liu, Deep Thoukus and Mats Gustafsson in Norway and throughout Europe and America.
David Brandon Ross holds a Bachelor of Music degree from Berklee College of Music Boston, MA as well as a degree in mechanical design from SUNY Corning, NY. He studied theater with Charles Combs at Berklee and also trained at Dell’arte school of physical theater in Blue Lake California. Dave has been composing, performing and recording in the NYC avant garde music scene since 2002 releasing numerous albums as a leader and side man. He is the recipient of a Boston Music award and has played at Lincoln Center, Kennedy Center for the arts in Washington, DC and Vision Festival, NYC
Nava Dunkelman is a percussionist and improviser based in Brooklyn, NY. Her musical approach is innovative and dynamic, combining virtuosity and intuition. Meticulous in an intrinsic way, she uses her distinctive sound pallet to explore and give life to a vast spectrum of musical possibilities. Nava’s current projects are electro-percussion experimental noise duo IMA with Amma Ateria and percussion duo NOMON with her sister Shayna Dunkelman.
Erin received an M.F.A. in Experimental Sound Practices and Integrated Media from California Institute of the Arts, a B.M. in jazz studies and piano performance from Loyola University New Orleans, and is currently pursuing a doctorate in experimental music and digital media at Louisiana State University. She worked as an audio technician, artist, and educator for five years in Los Angeles and as a jazz and classical pianist, composer, and arranger for ten years in the New Orleans area.
FEB 17TH
Photo by Daniela Imhoff Kantoj de Fermiteco
Cansu Tanrıkulu (1991, Ankara) is a singing multi-media artist, composer and improviser based in Berlin. She is one of the busiest young voices in the European Creative Music Scene leading/co-leading multiple bands including Melez (w. Jim Black & Elias Stemeseder), MeoW (w. Jim Black, Liz Kosack & Dan Peter Sunderland) & Tanrıkulu feat. Greg Cohen & Tobias Delius.
As a vocalist: Her elastic singing, wide stylistic vocabulary and far reaching approach to melody and text-based improvisation made her an in-demand vocalist in multiple genres. She actively performs in renowned platforms of Europe (Jazzfest Berlin, A’larmé Festival, Saalfelden Jazzfestival etc) with her bands next to her side-person projects including Max Andrzejewski’s Hütte & Guests Playing Robert Wyatt’s Music, Nick Dunston’s SKULTURA, James Banner’s USINE & Stine Janvin’s Chords for Calling.
As a composer: Tanrıkulu’s initial instinct is to frame topics that are hard to imagine as musical entities and work with exceptional creative personalities. She had her theatre composition debut in 2021 for “Krampus” in Maxim Gorki Theater/Berlin alongside Korhan Erel. Her album, inspired from the tableaux art of Edward Kienholz, with the trio (w Greg Cohen and Tobias Delius) was released on LowSwing Records in November 2021 and reached out to Taiwan, USA, Japan and all over Europe with reviews including the MINT Magazin, BR Klassik and premiered w. Marc Ribot as guest in Jazzfest Berlin. She is currently expanding her scope of projects as well as working as a recording/ performing artist for established international artists (incl. Nate Wooley’ Seven Storey Mountain VI 2021, Anthony Braxton’s Sonic Genome in 2019). She is a recipient of Jazz-Preis der Karl Hofer Gesellschaft for Soloist (2019), Elsa Neumann Stipendium – UdK (2021) and has a degree in Cognitive Psychology – to this day she is inspired from the research in the field when she composes.
Thom Nguyen is an Asheville, North Carolina-based improviser and drummer of MANAS (An acclaimed duo with Tashi Dorji) YOE, Nest Egg, We Bow To No Masters, and more. Producing energetic bursts and invoking a sensitivity to space that one often associates with Free-Jazz and New Music percussion, Nguyen’s approach elegantly bridges works of sonic sculpture with a punk aesthetic of immediacy, aggression, and playfulness.
Instagram – @thom_nguyen__
Fifteen singers are arranged in an 18th century room in Stockholm, Sweden. After a short warm-up, the choir takes a collective breath and sings the first note of a Bach chorale. But it doesn’t continue. Instead, the music changes to a wall of dissonant tones. Each singer has been asked to hold the individual note until he or she runs completely out of air. Only then can the next note be started. The singers are getting tired. They seem to fall into a kind of trance, listening and singing intently as their air runs out again and again. At the very end, the two last singers complete the music, breathlessly. After a stunned silence, laughter, coughing, surprise.
Michele Blu is a Baltimore-based Kemetic Yoga Instructor, owner of Michele Blu Yoga Studio, Blu Treasures hand crafting line full of creativity, art, fashion music uniqueness and lots of love, co-founder of Kemetic Lullaby, who uses singing bowls, sample player, percussion to evoke what she loves and that is sharing healing, spiritual grounding and Postive energy
Lexie Mountain is an artist, writer, and performer living in Baltimore, MD. Currently she works in watercolor, field recording, and poetry, and during 2020 she hosted a weekly live chat show “Bad Advice for Good People” on the Baltimore-based Twitch tv channel Quarantv. Her writing has appeared in Art in America, Bmore Art, Baltimore City Paper, and The Toast, and she can be seen in the feature film Adventures in Success (Jay Buim & Susan Juvet, 2018) which premieres in New York and Los Angeles on March 5 and Baltimore on March 6 at the Charles Theatre.
Deakin and Geologist are founding members of the group Animal Collective. Some of their earliest performances were done at the Red Room in the late 90’s as teenagers, so it is meaningful to be able to contribute a performance to the High Zero community so many years later. More recently the duo have collaborated over the last 5 years working with combinations of Geologist’s modular synthesis work, hurdy gurdy playing and Deakin’s improvisational piano. In 2017 they curated and performed at an event at the Parkway that consisted of a screening of the documentary “Tony Conrad: Completely in the Present” followed by individual performances by various Baltimore musicians in homage to Conrad’s minimalism. They also were involved in the musical accompaniment to a screening of Lotte Reiniger’s Prince Achmed put on by Baltimore’s own Sweaty Eyeballs at the Parkway. Most recently they composed and performed the music for the movie Crestone, directed by Baltimore resident Marnie Ellen.
FEB 10TH
Photo by Lillian Graham
Forbes Graham is a composer, musician, sound artist, and visual artist whose work explores themes of simultaneity, perceptibility, transformation and collage. His work “Encounters I” for trumpet, electronics, and voices premiered at Roulette in 2019. He performed with Michael Pisaro at (the) co-incidence festival in 2017 and has appeared at other music festivals including High Zero, Vision, and The Thing In The Spring. He was commissioned to write a piece for the Festival of New Trumpet, and has created work for the avant-rock ensemble Normal Love.
Graham is the creator and producer of “Beyond/Apex”, a bi-weekly podcast dedicated to showcasing contemporary and experimental music. To date, this show has featured the works of over 100 composers and creatives, ranging from emerging artists such as Cecilia López and Claire Rousay to more established artists like George Lewis.
network glass
decade long audio focused project from baltimore based artist Door.
Lucas Yasunaga is a midia sculptor and experimental musician who makes solar electronic bugs, parasitic tools, and musical instruments to reimagine and explore our idea of relatedness. Extending the parent project called Electronic Entomology (electronicentomology.com), he has been reconfiguring and modifying electronic instruments to be able to host the bugs in their body.
This work is formation-B of a sculpture called Vessel for 10 Suns. Many electronic bugs that participated in this performance are hosted in individuals’ homes and borrowed specifically for this reunion.
Higurashi
Budgie
Tetorapotto
Sarah2
Lion
blue whale
くっつき虫 4
forest twin
clock mobile
Ben Bennett is an improvising percussionist who has toured North America, Latin America and Europe as a soloist, in various ensembles, and ad-hoc collaborations. His closest musical collaborators are Jack Wright, Zach Darrup, Evan Lipson, and Michael Foster. Coming from an early background in jazz drumming, he developed a personal approach to percussion which took the lineage of free-jazz, free-improvisation, and extended technique as its foundation. Searching for an expanded sonic palette and fluid movement between techniques, he distilled the drum set into a small collection of drum heads, stretched membranes, and other self-made and modified objects which produce a wide variety of sounds from minimal materials, and which can be reconfigured during performance.
Obie Feldi took piano lessons at age 5 for 4 years. Obie is a musician in Baltimore.
FEB 3RD
Molly Jones’ practice incorporates improvisation and composition with saxophones, flutes, and electronics. Her work originates in a place of playfulness, listening, and attention.
photo credit: Josiah Cuneo
Jessica Pavone – composition and viola
∞∞∞
The J. Pavone String Ensemble, an unconventional trio consisting of Pavone on viola, Abby Swidler on violin and viola, and Aimée Niemann on violin.
Founded in 2017, they present original compositions that expand on the themes of Pavone’s extensive solo work for viola while incorporating recent research into the effects of sonic vibration on human physiology and emotional health.
Pavone’s solo viola music, which stems from years of concentrated long tone practice and an interest in repetition, song form, and sympathetic vibration, is Influenced by the ‘folk song’ which lives largely through oral transmission. Each performance of the piece may be unique, which reflects the indeterminacy of Pavone’s output for solo viola; her folk music.
Providing the groundwork for her compositional language, she created the string ensemble as an outgrowth. The compositional techniques borrow from and elaborate on traditional music notation. Pavone experiments with improvisatory techniques, alternating between metered and time-based scores and improvised and notated instructions. Specific sections allow the freedom to move between sounds at the performer’s chosen rate within given parameters. In this way, the musicians develop the skill of responding to a score and a performance space as well as to each other. Through the spaces that are left open within the structure of each piece, the musicians re-create the work together during each performance. Sustained pitches and clusters of ensemble sounds generate specific physical and cognitive benefits intended to impact the audience physically and mentally, existing within and beyond music’s canonical role.
The ensemble approach focuses on a vision of collective improvisation that prioritizes a collaboratively sewn musical fabric, in contrast to the traditional improvisatory method that prizes the individuality and uniqueness of the soloist. The rehearsal method, influenced by her solo work, attends to how the body plays a role in sound and intention.
The group has performed at Black Mountain College Museum+Arts Center in Asheville, NC; the 2020 NYC Winter Jazzfest; the GARNER Art Center in Rockland, NY, Firehouse12 in New Haven, CT; Roulette and ISSUE Project Room in Brooklyn, NY; and The Rotunda in Philadelphia, PA.
In 2019, the string ensemble’s debut album, Brick and Mortar, was hailed by the Chicago Reader’s Peter Margasak as “the most assured, bracing work of Pavone’s career.” Astral Spirits Records released their second, Lost and Found, in 2020 to critical acclaim from publications such as; The Wire, The New Yorker, NYC Jazz Record, NPR, Jazzwise, and was named a “Best Contemporary Albums of 2020” by Bandcamp Daily. Chris Ingalls from Pop Matters described their music as “too stunning to lump into genres.”
photo by Walter Wlodarczyk
Lorene Bouboushian (they/them) is a genderqueer artist exploring lament as a form of critique and query into late capitalist woes. They utilize their experience in various somatic modalities to purposefully place their moving body and shapeshifting voice in uncomfortable, difficult situations. This is an attempt to shoot the quotidian psychological terror and apathy (i.e. the synthesized residue of on-demand streaming services, doomscrolling, virtue signaling, cultural amnesia, “supply chain issues,” civil forfeiture, etc.) through the body and back out to all of you. Refrigerated ancestral trauma and white guilt also make a consistent appearance.
http://lorenebouboushian.org
Thomas Stanley is an artist, author, and activist deeply committed to audio culture in the service of personal growth and noetic (r)evolution. As performer and curator, Bushmeat employs musical sound to anchor, frame, and accelerate our subjective experience of history. In 2014 he authored the Execution of Sun Ra, a critical response to the cosmological prognostications of the late jazz iconoclast. Dr. Stanley has spent three decades exploring the ramifications of Alter Destiny, Sun Ra’s unique construct for a just and sustainable AfroFuture. He has written and lectured extensively on emergent musical cultures and is co-author of George Clinton and P-Funk : An Oral History (1998, Avon paperback). He hosts “Bushmeat’s Jam Session,” a radical collage of earth music heard on WPFW-FM. His doctoral work examined Butch Morris’ art of Conduction as an extended meta-instrument offering unique opportunities for musical pedagogy and ensemble consciousness.
JAN 27
Foto: André Løyning
Microtub have released five albums: Microtub (2011), Star System (2014), Bite of the Orange (2017), Chronic Shift (2019) and Sonic Drift (2021). They have presented their music at such festivals as Sonic Acts in Amsterdam, Ultima Festival in Oslo, Festival Densites in France, Kongsberg Jazz in Norway and FIMAV in Canada. Since 2012 they have been exploring the possibilities that lie in the microtonal tuning system known as Just intonation, using the Hayward Tuning Vine interface as a tool for composing, rehearsing and sometimes also performing the music.’
Lukas MacKinney is a filmmaker and musician based in Baltimore. Through their specialization in film scoring and experimental video, they seek to explore the emotional phenomena of memory and forgetfulness.
