First set:
Daniel Levin + Rob Brown + Michael Evans
Daniel Levin
“Cellist Daniel Levin is a major new voice on his instrument and in improvised music.”
– Ed Hazell
Daniel Levin was born in 1974 in Burlington, Vermont. He began playing the cello at age six. He has performed and/or recorded with Billy Bang, Borah Bergman, Tim Berne, Anthony Braxton, Rob Brown, Whit Dickey, Mark Dresser, Joe Morris, Joe McPhee, William Parker, Warren Smith, and others. Daniel has recorded as a sideman on Clean Feed Records, EMANEM, Not Two, and RogueArt, and as a leader, on Riti Records and HatHut.
Rob Brown
Rob was born in Hampton, VA in 1962. He has been playing the saxophone since the age of 11. He moved to NY in 1984 and since then, has been actively leading groups or working as a sideman with Matthew Shipp, Wiliiam Parker, Joe Morris, Whit Dickey.
Others that Rob has performed and/or recorded with are Cecil Taylor, Anthony Braxton, Denis Charles, Bill Dixon, Butch Morris, Reggie Workman, Henry Grimes, Roy Campbell Jr., Hamid Drake, Fred Hopkins, et. al, as well as various dance groups, poets, and performance artists. He has toured Europe extensively. He is a 2001 CalArts/Alpert/Ucross Residency Prize winner and has received many Meet The Composer Fund grants. In 2006 Rob was awarded a Chamber Music America New Works grant.
Michael Evans
Michael Evans is an improvising drummer/composer whose work investigates and embraces the collision of sound and theatrics. As well as being a drum set player, his work with unusual sound sources includes found objects, homemade instruments,various digital and homemade analog electronics.
He has worked with a wide variety of artists including Samm Bennett, Jac Berrocal, EasSide Percussion, Fast Forward(Gobo), God is my Co-Pilot, Alexander Hacke (Einsturzende Neubauten), Susan Hefner, Skip LaPlante’s Music for Homemade Instruments, Sean Meehan, Gordon Monahan, Joe Morris, Evan Parker, William Parker, LaDonna Smith, Toronto Dance Theatre and Peter Zummo.
Second set
KIOKU + Daniel Levin and Rob Brown
KIOKU is an experimental trio consisting of taiko and percussion (Wynn Yamami), live electronics (Chris Ariza), and saxophones (Ali Sakkal).
http://www.kiokugroup.com
http://www.myspace.com/kiokugroup
Wynn Yamami is a taiko drummer, percussionist, and composer whose work recontextualizes Asian traditional music. He has collaborated with such artists as Toshiko Akiyoshi, Badal Roy, Giovanni Hidalgo, and Arturo O’Farrill, and has performed in Europe, Japan, and across the US. He currently lives in Manhattan, where he practices Japanese dance, performs with the traditional group Soh Daiko, and leads the Japanese street music band HAPPYFUNSMILE.
Christopher Ariza is a composer and programmer of sonic structures and systems. He has composed for theatre, film, concert hall, and interactive media, and has been the recipient of numerous fellowships, awards, and commissions. His web-based media and systems include the babelcast, the telequalia, Post-Ut, algorithmic.net, and envl.net. His music, software, and research are distributed via www.flexatone.net.
Saxophonist Ali Sakkal draws from a dynamic blend of musical influences. He has studied with Branford Marsalis, Oliver Lake, classical virtuoso Greg Dufford, and European free-jazz pioneer Evan Parker. Active in both San Francisco and New York City, he has performed nationally and internationally with Heftpistole, fAt kiD, HAPPYFUNSMILE, and Fish Knuckle. Ali has spent the past few years as a music educator in New York City.
http://alisakkal.com