JESSICA ACKERLY has established herself on the Canadian and American rock and jazz scene as a unique guitarist, composer and band leader. Born and raised in Alberta, Canada, Jessica now resides in New York City where she has worked alongside notable musicians like Tyshawn Sorey and Martin Bisi (Sonic Youth, Herbie Hancock, John Zorn). Ackerly has had the opportunity to perform at established venues including John Zorn’s The Stone, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, and The Blue Note and has toured as both a band leader and sideman throughout Canada and the United States. 

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Her musical palette is diverse and draws from highly refined compositional structures to free improvisation and jazz, with a slight nod to no wave and avant-garde soundscapes. All About Jazz has stated upon the release of her acclaimed debut album that "her work demonstrates her independence and refusal to conform, yet it is rooted firmly in that which has influenced her. If she maintains this course, Ackerley has a brilliant career ahead of her." Jessica continuously tries to expand her musical horizons with various projects across Canada and the U.S. In August 2019, Ackerley released her follow-up sophomore album, A New Kind of Water, recorded at BC Studios (John Zorn, Sonic Youth) with Martin Bisi. 

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MICHAEL BISIO (bassist/composer) has been called a poet, a wonder and one of the most virtuosic and imaginative performers on the double bass. Nat Chinen writes in The New York Times: "The physicality of Mr. Bisio's bass playing puts him in touch with numerous predecessors in the avante garde, but his expressive touch is distinctive." Bisio has over a hundred recordings in his discography, more than two dozen as leader or co-leader, as well as a dozen more documenting his extraordinary association with piano icon Matthew Shipp. Jazz Times describes Bisio as "a performer who resonates with intelligence, emotional depth, and probing virtuosity." Signal to Noise writes, "Bisio is one of the few musicians who has managed to meld this high concept of physicality with the soulful charge of jazz. His fiddle-high, scraped overtones create a tangled choir that is impossible to resist; his expressiveness with the bow is unmatched."

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Bisio's current project as a leader is Bisio/Knuffke/Lonberg-Holm, featuring Kirk Knuffke on cornet and cellist Fred Lonberg-Holm. Their current recording “Requiem for a New York Slice” (Iluso) is dedicated to producer Mike Panico and has been well received: "This music shows the magic power of great improv to inspire and heal those who need it. A perfect remedy.” Downtown Music Gallery Requiem for a New York Slice also ranked #59 on The Free Jazz Collective’s Top 101 Recordings in the 2010’s. The Art Spirit, Bisio/Knuffke/Lonberg-Holm will be released on the historic label ESP Disk Fall 2020

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Michael has been recognized with nine project grants from various arts organizations, plus the prestigious Artist Trust Fellowship. In 2017 he was invited to be Master Artist in Residence at Atlantic Center for the Arts and is instructor of bass at Bennington College (2009 - present). 

Michael has been a member of the Matthew Shipp Trio since 2009 performing throughout the Americas and Europe at Carnegie Hall, Newport Jazz Festival, Buenos Aires Jazz Festival, Am I Jazz? Festival, Kiev, MoMA, The Vision Festival, NYC and Festival Sons D’hiver in Paris. 

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DANIEL CARTER, born in Wilkinsburg, Pennsylvania in 1945, is a musician and writer. Since coming to New York City, in 1970, he has sought out musicians and situations that encourage free expression. In the 1950s he sang in so-called doo-wop groups, took clarinet lessons, played in school bands (into the 60s), and the 49th Army Band (around 1967-69). When he first came to NYC, he played in soul bands as well as so-called avant-garde jazz groups. He has always tried to transcend genre-boundaries, which is, today, as daunting a challenge as ever, but he's found that the many musicians he's met and played with, and the invaluable treasure of a huge, ever-growing, number of recordings and videos (so many, readily available on the internet, cable t.v., and radio), have recharged and renewed him, all along the way. He lives in Manhattan with his cat, Sophie. He has performed, recorded, and/or toured, with many musicians, through the decades, since the mid 60s, including Sun Ra, Cecil Taylor, Sam Rivers, Alan Silva, Ras Moshe, C. Spencer Yeh, Karl Berger, Sean Lennon, Yoko Ono, William Parker, Thurston Moore, Yo La Tengo, David Grubbs, and many others. 

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CLAIRE DEANE is from New Rochelle, New York and was raised on a healthy diet of Balanchine ballet, rock music and slapstick comedy, constantly egged on by her family of dancers. She began her dance training at Scarsdale Ballet Studio under the direction of Diana White and was a founding member of the Taylor Teen Ensemble at the Paul Taylor School. Claire graduated from Purchase College, SUNY with a BFA in Dance Performance. While at Purchase, she had the pleasure of working with Doug Varone, Alexandra Beller, Sidra Bell, and Kevin Wynn, among others. Her senior repertory solo “Scherzo 300” choreographed by Deborah Lohse, was selected as a Director’s Choice and performed at New York Live Arts with Purchase Dance Company in 2017. She has also performed with the Merce Cunningham Trust, and was a part of Isabel Lewis’s immersive dance work “Occasions and other occurrences” at Dia:Beacon. She is currently thoroughly obsessed with her pursuits as a co- director of A-Y/dancers, and thanks her lucky stars to have such spectacular co-directors.

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WENDY EISENBERG is an improvising guitarist, banjo-player, vocalist and poet. Using the languages of free jazz, new music, metal and art song, their music challenges the representational and technical demands placed on guitar and banjo in contemporary music. 

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They have two solo careers: improviser/composer, and songwriter. Wendy’s debut record as an improviser, “Its Shape Is Your Touch,” came out in October 2018. Their trio, “The Machinic Unconscious,” with Ches Smith and Trevor Dunn, released their debut album on Tzadik that same month. Both records made Billboard’s Critic’s Choice Top Ten Jazz Records year end list, and received features and attention from NPR and National Sawdust. Their album of quiet art-pop songs, Time Machine was remastered and re-released on Feeding Tube records on September 7th, 2018. 

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In addition to their work as a solo artist, they have written and performed in numerous projects, including the critically acclaimed experimental band Birthing Hips, described by NPR as “brainy, noisy punk based in sonic adventure, technical mastery, and rejection of the status quo.” They lead a rock trio, Editrix, which explores similar parameters. 

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Their work as an improviser has led them to collaborate with Matt Mitchell, Trevor Dunn, Ches Smith, Ted Reichman, Joe Morris, Damon Smith, Shane Parrish and Zach Rowden, among many others. They have premiered work by John Zorn, Matt Mitchell, Ted Reichman, Maria Schneider, and Marta Tiesenga, as well as works by their many peers, and have premiered their own work at The Stone, The New School, the Hartt School of Music, New England Conservatory, and Hampshire College. Wendy has provided soundtrack work for the scientific projects of MIT Media Lab fellow and scientist-artist Ani Liu. Their poetry has been set into two large scale works by Matt Curlee, premiered at the Eastman School of Music in 2014 and one awaiting its premier featuring percussionist Michael Burritt. Their writings on music can be found in John Zorn’s Arcana VIII: Musicians on Music, Sound American Ed. 23, and in the “Improvisation and Inclusion” edition of the Contemporary Music Review. 

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AMANDA HEIDEL is an installation, visual, and video artist working in the Hudson Valley. Her work revolves around natural materials, working with textiles, dyes, and fungus. Heidel's work focuses on the mushroom life cycle as a metaphoric model for community minded collaborative work and self care. Her graduate research project, (a ten-year project called Mushroom Shed located on Huguenot Street in New Paltz, NY) is a space for those interested in growing food on waste materials collected from local businesses as well as cultivating relationships in the community to help one another grow. Mushroom Shed is a demonstration of a collaborative model inspired by the organism and organizational patterns of mushroom life cycles and underground mycelial networks. 

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ZOOTS HOUSTON is a Kingston, NY based multi-instrumental improviser of various sorts. He works primarily with misuse and perversion of objects and systems. Virtuosity, volatility, futility, and capability are thought of. Past projects and collaborators include The Green Pasture Happiness, Nick Hoffman, Brent Gutzeit, and Graham Stephenson. 

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FRED LONBERG-HOLM (Kingston, NY) has played and studied music in a variety of situations from the Juilliard School to the gutter. A former student of Anthony Braxton, Morton Feldman, Bunita Marcus and Pauline Oliveros, his primary projects are his Valentine Trio and The Lightbox Orchestra. He is also a member of a number of ongoing collective projects (The Boxhead Ensemble, The Friction Brothers with Michaels Zerang and Colligan, The Flatlands Collective, Keefe Jackson's Fast Citizens) as well as participating in numerous one off "ad-hoc" or in frequently convening ensembles. Improvisors he has worked with include Jim Baker, John Butcher, Wilbert DeJoode, Axel Doerner, Mats Gustafsson, Charlotte Hug, Glenn Kotche, Peter Kowald, Nicole Mitchell, Torsten Muller, Jim O'Rourke, Jeff Parker, David Stakenas, Ben Vida, and Michael Zerang. He has contributed cello sounds to numerous recording projects by rock groups including Califone, Freakwater, God-is-my-copilot, L'altra, Smog, Super Chunk, US Maple, Wilco and many others. 

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FRANK MEADOWS is a bassist, sound artist, and improviser currently based in New York City. His solo sets for double bass touch on drone, modern classical, and free improvisation in and around prepared sound collage. He's collaborated with the likes of Tashi Dorji, Shane Parish and more. 

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MARK TRECKA is a Chicago-born writer, sound artist, performer, and activist living in the Hudson Valley. Last month, Trecka released “In Ellipsis Landscapes,” a collaboration with Susan Alcorn, as a limited edition split cassette with Midwife on The Flenser label. Trecka has collaborated with A-Y/dancers and Claire Deane a number of times since 2018; he founded Pillars and Tongues in 2007 and has recorded and toured with Dark Dark Dark since 2009. His first full-length solo recording, “Everything Falling Crosses Over” was released in April 2019. 

https://mtrecka.bandcamp.com/album/in-heaven-2

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NOTICE RECORDINGS began in Chicago in 2009 and is now located in Kingston, NY and New Orleans, LA. Run by Evan Lindorff-Ellery (NY) and Travis Bird (LA), Notice releases experimental and contemporary sound works

 

Event organized by Evan James Lindorff-Ellery and Miriam Atkin in collaboration with Three Phase Center.

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