VIOLINIST

Sarah Bernstein is a New York-based composer and violinist whose work incorporates vocals, electronics, improvisation and original text. She is known for her fiery multidisciplinary performances, and has garnered international acclaim for her distinctive recordings. She leads bands, performs solo, and collaborates with artists in avant-jazz, chamber music, experimental pop and noise. Her approach merges post-tonal and polyrhythmic melody with sonic exploration and raw emotion.

Read more about Sarah on her website.

EXPERIMENTAL SAXOPHONIST

Michael Foster is a saxophonist and multi-instrumentalist working in the fields of free improvisation, noise, free jazz, graphic & video notation, performance art, and other forms of weird music.

Foster utilizes extensive instrumental preparations, augmenting his saxophone with amplification, objects, balloons, drum heads, vibrators, tapes, and samples as a method of subverting and queering the instrument’s history and traditional roles. ​In addition to his work as a performer he is also active as a curator throughout New York City, co-founding "Queer Trash," a curatorial collective focusing on providing visibility to LGBTQIA+ performers engaged in experimental performance practices.

Learn more on Michael’s website.

EXPERIMENTAL VOCALIST

Born and raised in East New York Brooklyn, Vocal Artist, Performer, Composer, Storyteller, Interdisciplinary Artist Shelley Hirsch has been pushing boundaries with her unique vocal art and performance work, drawing on her life experiences, her memory, her vivid imagination for decades.

The New York Times called her "A woman of a thousand voices... She offered an enthralling demonstration of the way songs, vocal styles and language might have evolved out of more primal musical impulses".

For upcoming performances and information, visit Shelley’s website.

BASSIST

Brandon A. Lopez, deemed the “Ubiquitous Free Improv Bass Ace” by the Village Voice and said to play with a “bruising physicality” by the Chicago Reader, was born and raised in the splendors of Northwestern New Jersey, in the shadow of NYC. It was there that he cultivated a taste for the left of center musics and subsequently, dug graves. He’s had the pleasures of working with many of the world’s luminary left of center musicians. Is a frequent collaborator (With Weasel Walter, Mette Rasmussen, Gerald Cleaver, Peter Evans, Ingrid Laubrock, Dave Rempis and many others) and has toured and played prestigious halls, DIY basements, festivals all across North America and the European Continent. He’s currently leads a piano trio dubbed “Mess” with Sam Yulsman and Chris Corsano. He frequently plays solo. He is also the 2018 Artist-in-Residence at Issue Project Room and was awarded the Van Lier Fellowship through Roulette this same year. He attended New England Conservatory.

Listen to Brandon on his website.

EXPERIMENTAL DOUBLE BASSIST

Described by the New York City Jazz Records as "one of the most adventurous bassists on the scene” and by the Chicago Reader “genius for sound exploration” Franco-German bassist and composer Pascal Niggenkemper creates music blurring the lines between improvised, pure sound, and experimental music with a distinct musical language infused with new bass techniques.

The focus of his musical work is the extension of the sound horizon of the double bass: the acoustic modification of the sound using preparations as well as motors, where he explores the interaction between man and machine ('beat the odds').

Learn more about Pascal’s technique and performance schedule on his website.