MARASCA / AMBER WOLFE ROUNDS / BEN RICHTER

MARASCA is the Western, MA based duo of Liz Tonne and Rob Forman. Formed in in 2017 while living in Dallas, their project explores the interplay of Tonne’s voice, keyboard and acoustic sound sources with Forman’s synth and carefully curated vinyl selections using an array of portable vari-speed record players. Their intent is to uncover hidden sonic textures and “spaces” during the performance. Tonne has been a vocalist and improvisor for over three decades in both solo and collaborative settings including the undr quartet and The BSC. Forman founded Sedimental records in 1993, performs and DJ’s as MentalDrift, and hosts the Pierrot lunaire radio program on WMUA.

Amber Wolfe Rounds performs compositions and improvisations with guitar, electronics, and voice. She experiments with astrology as a mode of indeterminate musical composition. Amber creates ecological sound art with Zizia.

https://amberwolferounds.bandcamp.com/album/sleeping-flowers

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zhWDeuEHq48
https://zizia.xyz/

Composer-accordionist Ben Richter’s just-intonation accordion solo Portent of Laramidia creates an alien tonal landscape alternating among timbral fluctuations, melody and drone, and gradual resolution of shimmering, pulsing microtonal intervals. Inspired by nonhuman consciousness, Ben’s music orients toward new orders of magnitude to auralize the vast and infinitesimal timescales we do not experience in everyday life. Portent of Laramidia is featured on new 2CD Aurogeny, “an epic symphony of accordion mastery” (Noel Gardner, Buzz), "consistently fascinating ... pulsating, scintillating ... with momentous results" (Julian Cowley, The Wire), the follow-up to 2017’s Panthalassa: Dream Music of the Once and Future Ocean, hailed by Stephen Smoliar (The Rehearsal Studio) as “likely to offer a profound impact on the very nature of listening.” Ben is also the Artistic & Executive Director of Ghost Ensemble, an active Deep Listening teacher and researcher, and former faculty at CalArts and CUNY, and has collaborated with Loadbang, Middle Ear Project, SEM Ensemble, Nomi Epstein, Carmina Escobar, Jeonghyeon Joo, Phill Niblock, Pauline Oliveros, Michael Pisaro, David Rothenberg, and UMass-Amherst’s Y3K and Futuring Lab exhibitions.