An evening of 2 sets of improvised music:
Booker Stardrum (USA) - percussion/electronics
Ryan Packard (SWE) - percussion/electronics
John McCowen - clarinets/recorders
Ása Ólafsdóttir - guitar
Cameron Anderton - bassoon
Óskar Þór Arngrímsson - modular synthesizer
Doors open at 8.30 PM
The event starts at 9 PM
ADMISSION 2.000 ISK
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Booker Stardrum is a composer, percussionist, producer, and educator. His compositions are sculptural, carved from the dense layering of instruments and manipulated samples, a pantonal harmonic sense, and an intuitive approach to rhythm. Stardrum has released three solo records (‘Crater in 2021,’‘Temporary etc.’ in 2018 and ‘Dance And’ in 2015). ‘Temporary etc’ is a highly personal amalgamation of electro-acoustics, minimalism, ambient, jazz, and contemporary experimental electronic music that The Wire said “further solidifies Stardrum’s position as one of America’s most intriguing composers.” ‘Crater’ expanded on the techniques of his previous effort with “jaw-unhinging splatterdrum masterworks that seem to explode from Stardrum's tactile performance (BoomKat).” Throughout the last decade, Stardrum has performed, toured, and recorded with Horse Lords, Lee Ranaldo, Carl Stone, Wendy Eisenberg, Weyes Blood, Lisel, Cloud Becomes Your Hand, Landlady, and the Young Jean Lee Theater Company, in addition to countless experimental and improvisational collaborations. He has toured in the US, Europe, Asia, and South America and has performed at such festivals as Big Ears (US), Meltdown (U.K.), Brighton (U.K), Rewire (NL), Le Guess Who (NL), Festival Bo:m (ROK), Hopscotch (US) and Ecstatic Music (US). His discography includes solo and collaborative releases on independent labels such as NNA Tapes, Northern Spy Records, Mexican Summer, Saddle Creek, Luminelle, Prom Night Records and Home Tapes.
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Ryan Packard is a percussionist, composer and sound artist currently based in Stockholm, SE and Chicago, IL. His sound installations have been featured at the MCA Chicago, Graham Foundation, Defibrillator, Hyde Park Arts Center, Galeria Labirynt, High Concept Labs, Constellation Chicago, and Experimental Sound Studio. His compositions have been performed by Fonema Consort, Ensemble Chartreuse, Seth Parker Woods, The Morton Feldman Chamber Players, and the AndPlay Duo. As an improviser and collaborator, Ryan performs with Nelly Agassi, Dave Rempis, Brandon Lopez, Jasper Stadhouders, Nate Wooley, Oscar Jan Hoogland, ZRL (Zach Good and Lia Kohl), John McCowen, Nestle (Cyrus Pireh and Rob Lundberg), ombra di organo (Keefe Jackson and Manuel Troller), Kieran Daly, Jason Roebke, RGB (Paul Giallorenzo and Charlie Kirchen), Daniel Wyche amongst many others. He’s a member of the new music ensemble, Fonema Consort and has performed with Ensemble Dal Niente, Joshua Abrams & Natural Information Society, MOCREP, a.pe.ri.od.ic ensemble, Chicago Composer’s Orchestra, NYC experimental rock group Skeleton$, Slow Mass, V.V. Lightbody, Michael Albert Music Group, Nate Kinsella’s Birthmark and Architek Percussion Quartet as a founding member. Ryan has a masters of music from McGill University and bachelor of music from the Oberlin Conservatory of Music.
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John McCowen is a composer/clarinetist focused on extending the possibilities of the clarinet. His work has been described by The New Yorker as “the sonic equivalent of microscopic life viewed on a slide”. John's multiphonic approach embraces drones, difference tones, and beating harmonics as a means to squeeze out the compositional potential within a single, acoustic sound source. Documents of this practice have been released by Edition Wandelweiser, International Anthem, Astral Spirits, SUPERPANG, Dinzu Artefacts, and others. John was a 2017 & 2019 artist-in-residence at Lijiang Studio in Yunnan, China, and also the 2020 artist-in-residence at ISSUE Project Room in Brooklyn. He received the Elizabeth Mills Crothers Award for excellence in music composition in 2016 from Mills College where he received an MA in Music Composition under the tutelage of Roscoe Mitchell.