Mosswood Sound Series :: Presented by sfSound

MOSSWOOD SOUND SERIES
a weekly experimental sound series presented by sfSound every Sunday

mosswood chapel :: 3630 telegraph oakland ca :: 2 blocks from macarthur bart :: enter 2nd door on 37th st
masks recommended (performers will be unmasked)
$10-$25 sliding scale (cash & venmo accepted at door)
click here to purchase advance tickets ($20) online on eventbrite

sunday june 11, 2023 7pm echo's bones / low bleeds
sunday june 18, 2023 7pm brett carson / john schott + cecilia e angelhart + ellen webb
sunday june 25, 2023 7pm nathan clevenger group / usufruct

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SUNDAY JUNE 11 2023 7pm $10-$25

ECHO'S BONES
(SHELDON BROWN + AMBER LAMPRECHT + JOSEPH NOBLE)
LOW BLEEDS
(JAY KORBER + RANDYLEE SUTHERLAND)

Pushing a duo of tenor saxophone & drums through the lineage of shearing notes / loud banging which produces a sonic contrast that teeters on the breaking point, LOW BLEEDS (JAY KORBER, tenor saxophone RANDYLEE SUTHERLAND, drums) chew upon the rigid boundaries of music and explore the total uninhibited free form. No deviation from raw direct performance.

ECHO'S BONES (SHELDON BROWN - Clarinet, Bass Clarinet, Alto Flute, Bass Flute; AMBER LAMPRECHT - Oboe, English Horn, Alto Flute; JOSEPH NOBLE - Flute, Alto Flute, Bass Flute) woodwind trio plays improvised music that has been described as “avant pastoralism in a chamber music mode”. Our music develops from the combined timbres of three different acoustic woodwind instruments blending, diverging and conversing, incorporating numerous musical traditions in free improvisational performances.

During the lockdown, a pattern started that has continued to this day: three musicians gathered regularly in a room filled with curly plants to play music together with zero plans, guiding points or directions. With such open parameters in place, they experimented with the sounds of our instruments and played with color, line and texture through free improvisation. The result was ECHO's BONES. Lately, they’ve come out of our living room and have been performing in book-adjacent venues around the Bay Area. They are honored to bring our complimentary flavors, counterpoints, splashes, grunts, squeaks, trills, haunting melodies, and fog horn blasts to Mosswood Chapel.

AMBER LAMPRECHT, oboe, English horn, flutes. Besides Echo’s Bones, Amber is a member of The Red Room Orchestra, Marc and the Casuals, The Awesome Orchestra Collective, and does session work. She's performed with Sixto Rodriguez, Tony Danza, Jello Biafra, Bart Davenport, Noertker's Moxie, Mark Eitzel, The Vocal Arts Ensemble, The San Luis Obispo Symphony Orchestra, The Shotgun Players, Ted Brinkley’s big band ensembles, and many other groups. Recordings of her music have been used for films, radio, and samples for hip-hop.

SHELDON BROWN, clarinet and bass clarinet, alto and bass flutes, has been active on the Bay Area creative music scene for over 30 years. In 2014, he premiered his commissioned extended work, Blood of the Air, at SFJAZZ’s 32nd Annual San Francisco Jazz Festival, the studio recording being released in 2018. In 2019 he performed a set of his original big-band music at the Tabuleiro Jazz Festival in Minas Gerais, Brazil. He formed Sheldon Brown Group in 1996 to perform his original music. Sheldon Brown Group has performed at Yoshi’s, SFJazz and many other Bay Area venues. As a member Club Foot Orchestra he has composed and performed music for Club Foot’s scores for Pandora’s Box, Sherlock Jr. and others. He also performs or has performed with Omar Sosa, Anthony Braxton, Electric Squeezebox Orchestra, Clarinet Thing, Ted Brinkley’s big band ensembles, Ben Golderg, and the Marcus Shelby Jazz Orchestra.

JOSEPH NOBLE, flute, alto flute, bass flute. In addition to Echo’s Bones, Joseph also plays or has played in Ouroboros, Cloud Shepherd, Chamber Cloud, and Ornithos Loom at venues including The Center for New Music, Luggage Store, SIMM Series, Bird and Beckett, Oakland Freedom Jazz Society, and Sonoma Musica Viva: The Music of Edgar Varese and Friends. He has also published three books of poetry.

SUNDAY JUNE 18 2023 7pm $10-$25

BRETT CARSON
JOHN SCHOTT + CECILIA E ANGELHART + ELLEN WEBB

Pianist and composer BRETT CARSON plays a set of piano music spanning the 1920’s to the present. The program begins with two of the most significant compositions of Anton Webern: the short and sweet Kinderstück (1924), which is the first work he composed using the twelve-tone method, and the Variations for piano, Op. 27 (1936) a piece that had a significant impact on the composers of the Darmstadt school in the 50s. Also featured is Nicole Mitchell’s Interdimensional Interplay (2016) for live piano with prerecorded flute and with video, which presents a kind of virtual duet between the soloist and Mitchell’s flute. Finally, there are two premieres: Bay Area composer and drummer Jason Levis’s composition portrait of explanations, or not (2023 Revision) is presented in a new revision for improvising pianist, and Brett Carson presents a new piece for piano and Gameboy.

BRETT CARSON is a composer, pianist, improviser, poet, and theater artist based in Oakland. His compositional work, which has been described as "fascinatingly intense" (Stephen Smoliar, SF Classical Voice), explores the juxtaposition of a gleefully chaotic plurality of musical approaches. This is combined with a penchant for surreal world-building and an exploration of the bizarre and uncanny, along with a commitment to writing for the voice and the stage. Notable compositional projects include his song cycle “Mysterious Descent”, a one-act play “Mary's Dilemma, or That Sinking Feeling”, and an experimental chamber opera “Just Visiting (X-Ray Vision)”. His latest song cycle, “The Secret Life of the Paramecium”, premiered in the Bay Area as part of the Dresher Ensemble Artist Residency to sold out audiences in September, 2022. In addition to his compositional work, he is active as a pianist, keyboardist, and synthesist, performing internationally in the realms of free improvisation, contemporary classical music, jazz, and rock. Performance venues and festivals include the Chicago Jazz Festival, Sons d'hiver, Roulette, the Barbican, the Kennedy Center, the Broad (LA), the Yerba Buena Arts Center, Auditorium Parco della Musica (Rome), and SESC Pompeia (São Paulo). He has worked closely with a wide variety of composers/performers including Bill Baird, Brian Baumbusch, Nicolas Collins, George Lewis, Nicole Mitchell, Roscoe Mitchell, Bill Noertker, Zeena Parkins, Rent Romus, and William Winant. From 2019-20, he performed as the pianist for the Art Ensemble of Chicago.

SUNDAY JUNE 25 2023 7pm $10-$25

NATHAN CLEVENGER + JORDAN GLENN + KASEY KNUDSEN + SAFA SHOKRAI + CORY WRIGHT
USUFRUCT (POLLY MOLLER + TIM WALTERS)

PROPOSALS

Our focus is on the bay area experimental and new music community, hopefully encouraging crossover among sub-scenes (composition and improvisation; established and emerging; institutional and underground; etc.) We strongly suggest local musicians attend concerts before requesting to perform on the series. Visiting aritsts are also welcome, ideally splitting a concert with local musicians. We are also seeking compositions (in all forms of notation) to be performed by the sfSoundGroup.

There is a "hall-like" reverberation in the space. Extremely dense or heavily amplified music isn't a great match for the acoustics, although it is possible to use drum kits and electronic music with some sensitivity. We have a 92-key (down to a Low F!) 1953 Bösendorfer 7’4” Model 225 Piano (no sostenuto pedal; inside/prepared is OK). There is a basic sound system with a mixer and two QSC K12 loudspeakers.

50% of ticket sales is given to the performers.

If you are interested in performing on the series, please send an email to series@sfsound.org.