Ben Kates plays alto saxophone and has done since the 4th grade. He’s played with folks like Han Bennink, Ana Mendoza, Mary Oliver, Maxx Katz, William Hooker, Thollem McDonas, John Gruntfest, Linda Austin, Gino Robair, Tere Mathern, Tatsuya Nakatani, John C. Savage, Wally Shoup, Jonathan Sielaff, Arrington de Dionyso, Urs Leimgruber, U Sco, Reed Wallsmith, Smegma and John Wiese. His ongoing collaborations include Thicket (a trio with John Niekrasz and Brian Mumford), Halfbird (a trio with Grant Pierce and Brandon Conway), Academy Award Nominated Actress Minne Driver (a trio with Holland Andrews and John Niekrasz) as well as It’s OK, Girl with Danielle Ross. He’s performed at the CMG’s Improvisation Summit of Portland, The No-West Fest, FanFare at Performance Works Northwest, A Portland Circus for John Cage’s Silence at PNCA, The Quiet Music Fest, as a member of Niekrasz’s Orchestra Becomes Radicalized and toured around the country in various bands. He was the artistic director of the Creative Music Guild for several years and is now a middle school principal. He occasionally plays the baritone saxophone these days. pitchandsiren.com
Danielle Ross is a choreographer, performer, and dance scholar. She has choreographed numerous evening length works in Portland ( at venues including Disjecta Contemporary Art Center, the Headwaters Theater, BodyVox, and Appendix Projects Space) and generated many shorter works in non-traditional venues throughout the city. Her work has received funding from Regional Arts and Culture Council project grants, Oregon Arts Commission’s Career Grant, and Portland Institute for Contemporary Art’s Precipice Fund. Ross enjoys bringing together various arts communities in Portland. In 2014, she ran (with collaborator and poet Stacey Tran) Pure Surface, a series dedicated to collaborative performances made by performers, video artists, and poets. She also served on the board of and curated performance for the Creative Music Guild from 2012-2018. Ross has an ongoing collaboration called It’s OK, Girl with saxophonist Ben Kates. As a performer, she has worked with Linda Austin (Portland), Ayako Kato (Japan/Chicago), lu yim (Portland/NewYork), Bouchra Ouizguen (Morocco), and Zoe|Juniper (Seattle). Ross’ most recent project, Granular Peripheries, has been performed in Detroit, Evanston, and Chicago and is a truly site specific work documenting the social histories of each venue it is performed in. Ross is also a PhD candidate in Performance Studies at Northwestern University. For more: daniellerossperformance.com.
Noah Simpson
Energetic, dynamic, and attentive describe Noah Simpson’s modern approach to contemporary trumpet playing. Simpson is celebrated as a performer, composer, and forward thinking improviser, who has performed with artists like George Benson, Bernard Purdie, and Ron Artis II.
