QueenBee Records microFEST (DAY 1): oak rdct orch / WONG+CÓRDOVA / MILTNER

Two nights of freewheeling improvised music and creative jazz from some of the scene's most adventurous and exciting ensembles. Celebrating three new recordings out this fall on Berkeley's Queen Bee Records.

This first evening is devoted to the OAKLAND REDUCTIONIST ORCHESTRA'S debut release west and east baying representing two sides of the ensemble’s output: a live concert recording documenting a performance at The Lab in San Francisco (West Bay) and an “only made in the studio” work recorded in a controlled environment in Berkeley (East Bay). A supergroup of Bay Area musicians with a predilection for lowercase, fricative, and reductionist improvisation that often sounds more electronic than acoustic, the ensemble comes out of a rich tradition of "American reductionist" music that blossomed in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Musicans: tom djll, trumpet; ron heglin, tuba; monica scott, cello; matt ingalls, clarinets; lisa mezzacappa, bass; kyle bruckmann, oboe, english horn; kevin corcoran, percussion; kevin ck lo, violin/flute/piano; kanoko nishi-smith, koto; joshua marshall, tenor saxophone; john ingle, saxophones; jacob felix heule, percussion; diane grubbe, flutes; danishta rivero, voice; cody putman, bassoon; chris cooper, guitar, electronics; cheryl e leonard, natural-object instruments;brendan lai-tong, trombone.

Many of the members studied at Mills College, which has had an extraordinary and foundational influence on the Bay Area's new music scene, particularly in experimental, electronic and improvised music, and other forms of sound exploration. Before the orchestra's performance, the concert features two special guest sets by other Mills alumni:

ROCO CÓRDOVA (voice, electronics) and THERESA WONG (cello, voice) dialogue in a realm beyond language where timbre, textures, noise, and melodies are shaped through the alchemy of improvisation.

Pesenting a rare solo electronics set, KRISTIN MILTNER is a composer and immersive sound designer based in the Bay Area. She creates music with her custom software, which she has designed to scan sound files and live input, allowing her to instantly restructure a single sound into tessellating multidimensional fabrics of sounds. She applies this method to a wide variety of sonic endeavors, whether interactive and experiential sound design, game sound design, ensemble performance and improvisation, or her solo work. She studied with Maggi Payne, Chris Brown, and Pauline Oliveros at Mills College and released her debut solo album, “Grains”, in 2007 on Praemedia, following it with “Music for Dreaming and Playing” on the Asthmatic Kitty label. She has designed soundscapes for many games, and her endeavors at Spatial Inc (Emeryville, CA) has led to collaborations with artists and sound designers at Meow Wolf, National Geographic, and researchers at the Estuary and Ocean Science Center in Tiburon, CA building elaborate real-world immersive experiences.

*reception to follow*