Workshop with the indefatigable and inimitable Thollem McDonas.

Thollem McDonas (Piano)
“An intense and virtuosic keyboardist” (Time Out New York), he travels perpetually as a performer, comproviser, activist and teacher, covering much of the North American continent and Europe. Musical collaborators include: William Parker, Susie Ibarra, Alex Cline, Amy Denio, Faruq Z. Bey, Jad Fair, John Butcher, Gino Robair, Jon Raskin, Henry Kaiser, Scott Amendola, Daniel Carter, Federico Ughi, Theresa Wong, Vinny Golia, Nels Cline, and Hafez Modirzadeh, among many many others. Thollem’s also created music for films by Martha Colburn, Matthew Barney, and Peter Sparling, among others. “He inhabits a world uniquely his own, rhythmically, harmonically
and formally.” (Terry Riley)
www.thollem.com

Panel discussion featuring performers from this year’s festival. Come and listen to contemporary artists discuss maintaining their artist pursuits and practice while balancing jobs, kids, and ‘real life’.

Featuring:
Moderator: Ben Kates

Guests: Matt Hannafin, Ava Mendoza, Reed Wallsmith, Claudia Savage, and Brandon Conway

IMPROVISED ROUND ROBIN DUETS

This hour long performance will consist of a continuous series of overlapping five minute improvised duets, with the exact order and pairings decided at random before the show.

This year’s performance will be:

Peter Broderick (viola/voice)
Todd Sickafoose (bass)
Liz Vice (voice)
Chris Funk (guitar)
Rebecca Sanborn (keyboards/voice)
Andre St. James (bass)
John Gross (tenor saxophone)
Jonathan Sielaff (bass clarinet)
Michael Stirling (voice/tambura)
Samantha Boshnack (trumpet)
Chris Johnedis (drums)
Matt Carlson (analog synth)

Curated by Blue Cranes’ Reed Wallsmith

Ava Mendoza joined by local garage-free-jazz group Halfbird.

Ava Mendoza’s eclectic guitar playing that draws on elements of classical, blues, Jazz, metal and noise had earned her recognition as the fret board and stompbox wizard in the Oakland noise and free-improvisational music scenes. Since then, Mendoza has relocated to Brooklyn, New York where she plays in her trio Unnatural Ways and has extensively toured the USA and Europe. Mendoza brings an everlasting fluxus moods and energies to her performances. Mendoza does not hesitate to jump from blues finger picking to abrasive metal and walls of noise all with seamless transitions to make the wide variety of sounds very cohesive and personal which a listener can identify as an authentic expression of a musician that does not believe in the boundaries of classification and genres.
http://avamendozamusic.com/

Halfbird is Grant Pierce (drums), Ben Kates (sax), and Brandon Conway (guitar). They play wild, maximalist improvisations influenced by free-jazz, punk, thrash, and noise.
https://halfbird.bandcamp.com/

This is a piece of a piece for three performers. Your feelings about my body, a semi-improvised work-in-process, illuminates the vulnerable spaces of individual bodies and sounds, where they unite and divide. It will be performed in its entirety this fall at Performance Works Northwest.

Stephanie Lavon Trotter is just a vocalist, just a woman, just creating performances that utilize the sounding and moving body. She has a B.Mus from Cornish College of the Art and a MFA in Interdisciplinary Arts from Goddard College.

Nancy Ellis recently appeared in Boom Arts’ production of Matias Umpierrez’s TeatroSOLO at the Portland Art Museum. Next up is Stage Two of (Un)Made with Linda Austin.

Dora Gaskill is a dance artist, lighting designer, and writer. She is interested in how the objects of these practices confront each other in representational spaces. Dora is excited to present a new work called S-words at Performance Works Northwest this fall.

As a composer Vinny Golia fuses the rich heritage of Jazz, contemporary classical and world music into his own unique compositions. Also a bandleader, Golia has presented his music to concert audiences in Europe, Canada, Mexico, Japan, Australia, New Zealand and the United States in ensembles varying dramatically in size and instrumentation. Mr. Golia has won numerous awards as a composer, including grants from The National Endowment of the Arts, The Lila Wallace Commissioning Program, The California Arts Council, Meet the Composer,Clausen Foundation of the Arts, Funds for U.S. Artists and the American Composers Forum. In 1982 he created the on-going 50 piece Vinny Golia Large Ensemble to perform his compositions for chamber orchestra and jazz ensembles.

A multi-woodwind performer, Vinny’s recordings have been consistently picked by critics and readers of music journals for their yearly “ten best” lists. In 1990 he was the winner of the Jazz Times TDWR award for Bass Saxophone. In 1998 he ranked 1st in the Cadence Magazine Writers & Readers Poll and has continually placed in the Downbeat Critic’s Poll for Baritone & Soprano Saxophone. In 1999 Vinny won the LA Weekly’s Award for “Best Jazz Musician”. Jazziz Magazine has also named him as one of the 100 people who have influenced the course of Jazz in our Century. In 2006 The Jazz Journalists Association honored him with a Lifetime Achievement Award.
Golia has also contributed original compositions and scores to Ballet and Modern Dance works, video, theatrical productions, and film. As an educator Vinny has lectured on music & painting composition, improvisation, Jazz History, The History of Music in Film, CD & record manufacturing and self-production throughout the United States, Europe, Mexico, New Zealand and Canada. He currently teaches at California Institute of the Arts. In 1998 Golia was appointed Regent’s Lecturer at the University of California at San Diego. In 2009 Vinny Golia was appointed the first holder of the Michel Colombier Performer Composer Chair at Cal Arts.

Vinny has been a featured performer with Anthony Braxton, Henry Grimes, John Carter, Bobby Bradford, Joelle Leandre, Leo Smith, Horace Tapscott, John Zorn, Tim Berne, Bertram Turetzky, George Lewis, Barre Phillips, The Rova Saxophone Quartet, Patti Smith, Harry “the Hipster” Gibson, Eugene Chadburne, Kevin Ayers, Peter Kowald, John Bergamo, George Gruntz Concert Jazz Band, Misha Mengelberg, Han Bennick, Lydia Lunch, Harry Sparrney and the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra amongst many others.

Vinny Golia, Ava Mendoza and Thollem McDonas in a one-of-a-kind collaboration.

Vinny Golia is an American composer and multi-instrumentalist specializing in woodwind instruments. He performs in the genres of contemporary music, jazz, free jazz, and free improvisation.

Ava Mendoza’s eclectic guitar playing that draws on elements of classical, blues, Jazz, metal and noise had earned her recognition as the fret board and stompbox wizard in the Oakland noise and free-improvisational music scenes. Since then, Mendoza has relocated to Brooklyn, New York where she plays in her trio Unnatural Ways and has extensively toured the USA and Europe. Mendoza brings an everlasting fluxus moods and energies to her performances. Mendoza does not hesitate to jump from blues finger picking to abrasive metal and walls of noise all with seamless transitions to make the wide variety of sounds very cohesive and personal which a listener can identify as an authentic expression of a musician that does not believe in the boundaries of classification and genres.

Thollem McDonas is a pianist, keyboardist, organist, composer, improviser, singer-songwriter, activist, author and teacher. He’s spent his life skirting and erasing the edges of boundaries musically, culturally, geographically. His work is ever changing, evolving and responding to the times and his experiences, both as a soloist and in collaboration with hundreds of artists across idioms and disciplines. Thollem’s widely known as an eclectic piano player in the free jazz and post-classical worlds. He’s also the lead vocalist for the Italian agit-punk band Tsigoti for the past 8 years and has branched out significantly into the world of electronics in a variety of ways.

Danielle Ross
It’s Like This Out There, It’s Like This In Here is an in-progress solo that has been performed and researched in Los Angeles, Lincoln, Nebraska, Portland, and soon Minneapolis and Detroit. It is a study of the interplay between destruction or self-sabotage and impulsiveness, re-directing and newness. It is a celebration of how multi-faceted, frenetic, complex and messy self-identification can be. This excerpt is a small, experimental case study and a potential addition to the work.

Danielle Ross is a Portland-based choreographer and performer. She received her BFA in Dance and Performance Studies from UC Berkeley. In Portland, she co-curates the poetry/dance/video series Pure Surface, is on the board of the Creative Music Guild and is a founding member of FRONT, a newspaper dedicated to contemporary dance. Ross is currently working with Linda Austin in her work (Un)Made You, which will premiere in November, 2016 in Portland. Her solo It’s Like This Out There has been presented by Pieter Performance Space in Los Angeles, the University of Nebraska and soon, Fresh Oysters Performance Research in Minneapolis. daniellerossdance.com

John Gross
John Gross is an internationally respected musician, has resided in Portland since 1991. Among his employers past and present; Harry James, Stan Kenton, Lionel Hampton, Shelly Manne, Don Ellis, Woody Herman and Toshiko Akiyoshi. He performs regularly with Gordon Lee Quartet, David Friesen, David Frishberg, Alan Jones Sextet and his own groups Blema Bii and the John Gross quartet. John has taught at universities in the US and Europe and is the author of “185 Multiphonics for the Saxophone, A Practical Guide” published by Advance Music.

Pure Surface: A Tonal Service
A Tonal Service is an experimentation with the Pure Surface form, an exercise in communal and improvised decision making and an ensemble work with some of our favorite local poets and performers. The performance score has been co-generated by the performers.

Performers:
Anis Mogjani, Neil Aitken, Stacey Villalobos, Tron (Grape God), Sophie Linden, Jenna Marie Fletcher, Stacey Tran, Leah Wilmoth, Claire Barrera, Jen Hackworth, Linda K Johnson, Noelle Stiles and Danielle Ross

Pure Surface is a series bringing movement, text and video together to create and present short-duration, collaborative performances. Pure Surface is Danielle Ross and Stacey Tran.