Gino Robair's Radical Divination

Gino Robair’s Radical Divination is a structured improvisation for two papermakers and music ensemble (5 players). Using divination as a metaphor for the creative act, the piece models methods of augury (e.g., astrology, cards, scrying, etc.) where the musicians interpret graphic scores and aspects of the performance environment based on a unique set of variables that change over the course of the event. Inspired by prompts and environmental elements (sound, light, color), the graphic scores are interactively created by the papermakers with recycled materials during the 45-minute performance. At the end of the concert, audience members are invited to take pieces of the newly made paper home with them. Since its 2023 premiere at BAMPFA, the piece has been staged nearly a dozen times in Europe.

Gino Robair is a composer/performer and visual artist whose work explores how nonstandard notations influence interpretive performances across different media. He has recorded with Tom Waits, Thurston Moore, Anthony Braxton, Terry Riley, Derek Bailey, Fred Frith, and John Butcher, among others; and performed with John Zorn, Nina Hagen, Wadada Leo Smith, Thinking Fellers Union Local 282, and the Club Foot Orchestra. Currently, Gino is completing a PhD at UC Davis that focuses on papermaking as a form of embodied choreography, resulting in ephemeral memory-objects that carry traces of their materialization which can be used as resources for interpretation within a performance context.

Personnel:
Papermakers: Michelle Wilson/ Gino Robair | Krys Bobrowski - Gliss Glass, Kelp Horn | Kyle Bruckmann - Oboe, English Horn | Tom Djll - Trumpet, Electronics | Cheryl Leonard - Natural-Object Instruments | Karen Stackpole: Gongs, Skatchbox

Normalways

With bricoleur extraordinaire, Sudhu Tewari at its axis, Normalways is the blending of two thirds of the rhythm band flatways and the duo Normal. Sudhu’s home-made instruments are augmented by fellow flatways bandmate Jordan Glenn and the second half of Normal, Fred Frith. This is the first outing for these three who (in pairs) share a deep musical history.
Personnel:
Fred Frith - inventions | Sudhu Tewary - inventions | Jordan Glenn - percussion/inventions

Hook & Wire

Hook & Wire is a quintet founded in by Dana Jessen, with her New Music double reed comrade Kyle Bruckmann, in order to strengthen ties with the Bay Area’s vibrant Creative Music community during her frequent trips to town. With the two both contributing modular, open-ended compositions for improvisers, the group careens across aesthetics of textural electro-acoustic noise, polyrhythmic propulsion, spacious delicacy, and rollicking free play. The alchemy of doubled double reeds with one of our region’s more ubiquitous crack rhythm sections and the wild card of Rivera’s electro-acoustic brujería amounts to a delightfully oblique take on a “jazz” combo. Their name is a nod to the legendary Amsterdam-based post-punk band Dog Faced Hermans – a major shared touchstone for the two co-leaders musically, politically, and personally.
Personnel:
Dana Jessen – bassoon, compositions, Kyle Bruckmann - oboe/English horn, electronics, compositions Danishta Rivera – voice, electronics Lisa Mezzacappa - bass Jordan Glenn – percussion

Sung Kim

Sung Kim is an architectural woodworker and experimental musical instrument builder living and working in the San Francisco Bay Area. His works are hybrids based loosely on historically obsolete and indigenous musical instruments. His instruments combines acoustic vessels and analog circuitry to create infinite, controllable tones. Some include those that can be bowed made from wood with animal-hides (deer, rabbit etc) and bodies with 24 strings including some that look like a bass sitar merged with Wolverine's adamantium spine (16 strings), and wooden boxes with oscillators that emitted a mix of pinging bleeps and droning, resonating strings. There are even some that emulate incredibly simple guitars, like bass banjo, with just three strings with oversized tuning pegs like buckteeth.
Personnel:
Sung Kim - inventions, voice

Inner Ear Brigade

Inner Ear Brigade is creatively unfiltered: a mix of progressive rock, jazz, and experimental pop delivered through intricately detailed compositions and arrangements.""(East Bay Express) Inner Ear Brigade (IEB) has toured around the US  and played several festivals. They have released three full length albums, Perkunas, Dromology, and Rainbro. ""Inner Ear Brigade creates its own compelling universe, full of unexpected twists and turns, bursts of ear-bending virtuosity""(Fred Frith) Steeped with a vintage analog sensibility, effects processing, and synthesizers, IEB draws inspiration for their sounds from “RIO elements (Rock In Opposition), Canterbury Sound, Magma Zeuhl, and Frank Zappa”. IEB is led by Bay Area guitarist and composer Bill Wolter. Band members of IEB have played / worked with the Secret Chiefs 3, Cheer Accident, Fantastic Negrito, and members of the Grateful Dead.
Personnel:
Bill Wolter - Guitar, compositions | Madeline Tasquin - Vocal, Keyboards, Electronics | Josh Marshall - Saxophones | Ivor Holloway - Saxophones | Stephen Wright  - Bass | Evelyn Davis - Keyboards | Tim Rowe - Drums

Mommy Mommy

Mommy Mommy is a genre and gender expansive rock band coming out of Oakland, CA. Their sounds shifts freely from psych rock, metal, pop and jazz, sometimes even within the same song. At the center of the band and their performances are: joy, acceptance and a place for community.
Personnel:
Chard Masulis - Drums | Lily Ramus - Lead Guitar | Autumn Salvo - Bass | Ray Sunshine -  Vocals, Keys, Guitar

Brian Kenney Fresno

Brian Kenney Fresno plays the Warr Guitar, a 12-stringed ungodly union of bass and guitar while accompanying himself on drums and vocals. His catchy lyrically fueled songs are a humorous education on all things Fresno.
Personnel:
Brian Kenny-Fresno - 12 string bass/guitar, percussion

greensatan project

Rooted in electronic music and improvisation, greensatan project traffics in themes of occult philosophy, psychedelia, Questionable Arts and Theories. A project of composer K. Atchley, the music betrays influences of minimal techno, post avant-garde, sonic sigils, curses, and invocations of the Untoward.
Personnel:
Kenneth Atchley - Electronics

Vinny Golia's Octacontagon Orchestra

Outsound Presents Vinny Golia's Octacontagon Orchestra celebrating 80 years with a special 80 piece large ensemble (Octacontagon) made up of some of the most adventurous musicians from the Bay Area and beyond. Directed by award winning composer and multi-instrumentalist Vinny Golia, he will debut a new piece created especially for this event.

As a composer Vinny Golia fuses the rich heritage of Jazz, contemporary classical and world music into his own unique compositions. Also a bandleader, Golia has presented his music to concert audiences in Europe, Canada, Mexico, Japan, Australia, New Zealand and the United States in ensembles varying dramatically in size and instrumentation. Mr. Golia has won numerous awards as a composer, including grants from The National Endowment of the Arts, The Lila Wallace Commissioning Program, The California Arts Council, Meet the Composer,Clausen Foundation of the Arts, Funds for U.S. Artists and the American Composers Forum. In 1982 he created the on-going 50 piece Vinny Golia Large Ensemble to perform his compositions for chamber orchestra and jazz ensembles. A multi-woodwind performer, Vinny’s recordings have been consistently picked by critics and readers of music journals for their yearly “ten best” lists. In 1990 he was the winner of the Jazz Times TDWR award for Bass Saxophone. In 1998 he ranked 1st in the Cadence Magazine Writers & Readers Poll and has continually placed in the Downbeat Critic’s Poll for Baritone & Soprano Saxophone. In 1999 Vinny won the LA Weekly’s Award for “Best Jazz Musician”. Jazziz Magazine has also named him as one of the 100 people who have influenced the course of Jazz in our Century. In 2006 The Jazz Journalists Association honored him with a Lifetime Achievement Award. 2013 Vinny won the Downbeat Critic’s Poll in the “New Star” category for Baritone Saxophone. Golia has also contributed original compositions and scores to Ballet and Modern Dance works, video, theatrical productions, and film. As an educator Vinny has lectured on music & painting composition, improvisation, Jazz History, The History of Music in Film, CD & record manufacturing and self-production throughout the United States, Europe, Mexico, New Zealand and Canada. He currently teaches at California Institute of the Arts. In 1998 Golia was appointed Regent’s Lecturer at the University of California at San Diego. In 2009 Vinny Golia was appointed the first holder of the Michel Colombier Performer Composer Chair at Cal Arts. Vinny has been a featured performer with Anthony Braxton, Henry Grimes, John Carter, Bobby Bradford, Joelle Leandre, Leo Smith, Horace Tapscott, John Zorn, Tim Berne, Bertram Turetzky, George Lewis, Barre Phillips, The Rova Saxophone Quartet, Patti Smith, Harry “the Hipster” Gibson, Eugene Chadburne, Kevin Ayers, Peter Kowald, John Bergamo, George Gruntz Concert Jazz Band, Misha Mengelberg, Han Bennick, Lydia Lunch, Harry Sparrney and the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra amongst many others
Personnel:
Vinny Golia - Conductor, Roster TBA