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Tag: improvisation


Laura Cocks & Frederico Isasti, DoYeon Kim & Henry Fraser

May 14, 2024

7pm doors 8pm music

Full dinner menu available, seating is first-come first-serve

live in the back room

LAURA COCKS & FREDERICO ISASTI

photo by Frank Schindelbeck

Laura Cocks is is a flutist with “febrile instrumental prowess” (The New York Times), who works in a wide array of environments as a performer of experimental music and “creates intricate, spellbinding works that have a visceral physicality to them” (Foxy Digitalis). Laura is the executive director and flutist of TAK ensemble, “one of the most prominent ensembles in the United States practicing truly experimental music” (I Care If You Listen) with whom Laura makes musics “that combine crystalline clarity with the disorienting turbulence of a sonic vortex” (WIRE Magazine). Laura is also a member of Talea Ensemble, and SUN HAN GUILD and performs regularly as a soloist, an improviser, and chamber musician with ensembles such as International Contemporary Ensemble, DeCapo Chamber Players, Third Sound, Wet Ink Ensemble, and many others in NYC and abroad.

Frederico Isasti is a drummer, composer, improviser and audio visual software developer based in Buenos Aires. Having participated as a drummer and co-leader in more than 20 albums of creative music groups (Alan Plachta, Pía Hernández, Elias Stemeseder, Julián Mekler, NUDO, among others) and is internationally recognized by his musical work, Federico is interested in interdisciplinary practice and has composed music for dance and produced hybrid audio-visual performances.

DOYEON KIM & HENRY FRASER

photo by Peter Gannushkin / downtownmusic.net

DoYeon Kim is a traditionally trained Korean artist who plays the gayageum, a traditional Korean string instrument, and has developed a uniquely broad approach to music, which incorporates Korean music, jazz, and improvisation, among other influences. Importantly, she introduced the gayageum into the improvisational music scene worldwide. DoYeon has performed throughout the world leading the Kim Do Yeon Band, and alongside many improvisers, including Tyshawn Sorey, Joe Morris, Agusti Fernandez, Tony Malaby and Anthony Coleman. Her first album, GaPi (2017), intimately combined traditional Korean music and jazz, and was nominated for a 2018 Korean Grammy Award in the crossover album category.

Henry Fraser moved to NYC in 2014, and has has worked with such artists as John Zorn, Ka Baird, Uniform, Brandon Seabrook, Lea Bertucci, and Isa Crespo Pardo’s sinonó. He has toured throughout the US and abroad, playing such venues as the Panama Jazz Festival, Moers Festival, New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival, and Lincoln Center. Much of Fraser’s work is rooted in his music for solo double bass, which has culminated in three releases – his latest, Breath Line is scheduled for release in the fall of 2024 – establishing him as a technical and creative force among his generation of bassists.

photo by Peter Gannushkin / downtownmusic.net 

plus CAKES XMAS SELECTS ONLY THE UPSETTER



Assembly No. 17 curated by Lester St. Louis & Luke Stewart

April 17, 2024

7pm doors 8pm music 

Full dinner menu available, seating is first come first serve 

performing live in the back room

KWAMI WINFIELD 

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“A multi-disciplinary type who plays trumpet, drums, electronics, trash, Kwami creates collections of visual creations, rocks, pez dispensers. Her music can touch on the relationship of externalized sound and the ancillary, grotesque functions required to produce them. Looking for windows between noisy circuits and noisy bodies, both bubbling from complications to resource consumption and procurement.”

PHONG TRAN 

is a Brooklyn-based composer and visual artist primarily working in digital and electronic mediums. His work revolves around emotional experience in digital and nonphysical spaces. Phong’s most recent work, The World We Left Behind, is a ballet made in collaboration with Troy Schumacher (NYC Ballet) and BalletCollective. The work was inspired by a newly commissioned tabletop roleplaying game by Samantha Leigh in which two players collaboratively explore an abandoned world and uncover shared mysteries and secrets.

SAM WENC 


is a composer, improviser, and interdisciplinary artist working with sound, text, performance and installation. Wenc has released music on Where to Now, Moone Records, Noumenal Loom, Sweet Wreath, and Obsolete Staircases. He has performed throughout the US, Canada, and Peru. He’s been artist-in-residence at Elektronmusikstudion EMS (Stockholm, Sweden) and Art OMI (Ghent, NY). In 2022, he composed the score for artist Sophia Giovannitti’s short film “A Monopoly of Violence” presented at Duplex Gallery NYC.

+ all night selector JUSTIN FRYE

…is a musician and visual artist from Virginia Beach, VA, who has been based out of New York City since 2003. Frye has released 5 LPs + countless tapes, 7”s and EPs with his project PC Worship, which also acts as a vessel for his visual art, photography & writing.

$20 at the door, cash/Venmo, no advance tickets 


Assembly #16 curated by Lester St. Louis & Luke Stewart

March 17, 2024

doors 7pm 

full dinner menu available 

seating is first-come, first-served 

performing live in the back room 

Music Research Strategies + andrea haenggi + Luke Stewart 

drums + movement + bass

WINDSCOUR 

Joe Moffett – trumpet

Zach Rowden – electronics

image by Peter Gannushkin / Downtownmusic.net

Jessie Cox 

expanded percussion

$20 at the door (cash/Venmo, no advance tickets)