Nate Wooley grew up in a Finnish-American fishing village in Oregon. He has spent the rest of his life trying musically to find a way back to the peace and quiet of that time by wholeheartedly embracing the leap between complete absorption in sound and relative absence of the same. He began playing trumpet professionally at age 13 with his father. Nate’s music deals more with a cobweb of sound then with pure melody and meter. He is sought out for his work in the free jazz idiom, but finds more meaning in a well prepared sound or silence or burst of feedback. He currently resides in Jersey City, New Jersey and has performed or recorded with Anthony Braxton, John Butcher, Alessandro Bosetti, Chris Forsyth, Fred Lonberg-Holm, Tony Buck, Joe Morris, Jack Wright, Fritz Welch, Jason Roebke, Scott Rosenberg, Herb Robertson, Randy Peterson, and Tim Barnes. www.natewooley.com
Audrey Chen is a Chinese-American musician and performance artist born outside of chicago in 1976. using the cello, voice and analog electronics, chen’s work focuses on the combination and layering of traditional and extended techniques. a large component of her music is improvised and her approach to this is often extremely personal and visceral. her performance work incorporates sound, movement and visual/sculptural concepts. chen performs solo and in collaboration with a wide number of musicians and dancers. Among musicians, she has worked with many great improvisers, including phil minton, elliott sharp, aki onda, phill niblock, frederic blondy, jim pugliese, alessandro bosetti, mike cooper, mats gustafsson, mazen kerbaj, michael zerang, tatsuya nakatani, le quan ninh, joe mcphee, susan alcorn, michele doneda, paolo angeli, and gianni gebbia. some current projects include duos with phil minton, frederic blondy, katt hernandez, and nate wooley. the SILO trio with nate wooley and leonel kaplan. and Trockeneis with andy hayleck, dan breen, catherine pancake and paul neidhardt. chen has performed in europe, russia, australia, new zealand, china, japan, taiwan and the USA. She is currently based in Baltimore, MD USA where she is member of the red room and high zero collective, an on-going series and international festival devoted to experimental improvised music. www.myspace.com/audreychen
Clarence “Herb” Robertson is internationally renowned as an innovative instrumentalist, composer and arranger in both traditional and avant-garde jazz idioms and new music. In 1981, Robertson became one of the original members of Tim Berne’s ensemble and shortly after joined Mark Helias’s band. It is with these two artists that Robertson first began receiving enormous critical acclaim on tour throughout the United States and Europe and on subsequent recordings documenting his original brass concept incorporating extended mute technique.
From 1985 to 1992, Robertson recorded as a leader with JMT musical productions in Munich, Germany, producing five albums under his own name. On various other labels, he has recorded with many of the leading lights of the New York Downtown Scene including Bill Frisell, Wayne Horvitz, John Zorn, Bobby Previte among others (selected discography included). After his debut album, TRANSPARENCY, Herb Robertson formed his own quintet and opened the Greenwich Village Jazz Festival in 1986 to high critical acclaim. This was the first time an avant garde band opened a major jazz festival in the United States. Soon after, the quintet toured Europe.Robertson has been leading groups ever since, and now records as a leader for Leo, Splasc(h), Cadence, and the CIMP record labels. Robertson has been invited as a soloist and guest artist for many important European Jazz and New Music productions. He was invited to the important “October Meeting” in Amsterdam in 1987 and 1992, along with Cecil Taylor, Anthony Braxton, Gerry Hemingway, Steve Lacy, Paul Bley, Horace Tapscott et al, and is a frequent performer at the Berlin, Saalfelden, Willisau and Nicholsdorf music festivals. He toured with the Charlie Haden Music Liberation Orchestra at major jazz festivals in Italy, England, Scotland, Switzerland and Austria.
Since the 1990’s Robertson has recorded and performed internationally with Tim Berne , the Mark Helias Band, The Fonda / Stevens Group, the Simon Nabatov Quintet, Andy Lasterís Hydra and Barry Guyís New Orchestra along with many others. He has since performed/recorded with Anthony Davis, Bobby Previte, Elliot Sharpe, David Sanborn, The George Gruntz Concert Jazz Band, the London Jazz Composerís Orchestra, the Klaus Konig Orchestra, Rashied Ali, Ray Anderson, Bill Frisell, Paul Motian and Dewey Redman, among many others. Currently Robertson’s own ensembles include The Double Infinitives, the Herb Robertson Brass Ensemble, and his improvising trios with Dominic Duval, Jay Rosen, Paul Smoker and Phil Haynes. Among Robertson’s performances and recordings for theatrical and dance productions are the Merce Cunningham Dance Foundation with composer, David Behrman and the Public Theater production of “Track and Field” with composer, John Zorn.
Hahn Rowe
Git plucking, violin sawing, knob twiddling, wax handling, wave channeling man about town…
Composer, producer, engineer, dj and multi-instrumentalist (violin, guitar, electronics) Hahn Rowe has migrated freely between the rock, electronic music, improvisation and new music scenes for over 20 years. As a member of composer Glenn Branca’s ensemble in the mid 80s, he was introduced to NYC’s cross pollinating music and art scenes. It was during this time that he joined atmospheric chamber rock quartet Hugo Largo, who released two acclaimed records on Brian Eno’s Opal/Land label. Hahn Rowe has worked on a diverse assortment of recordings by people such as David Byrne, Foetus, Ikue Mori, Antony and the Johnsons, Mini, Moby, R.E.M., That Petrol Emotion, Syd Straw, Swans, Zahar, Firewater and Michael Brook.Rowe’s work with Brussels/Berlin-based choreographer Meg Stuart (Damaged Goods) has resulted in the creation of 5 major evening length dance/theater works - Disfigure Study, No Longer Readymade, Replacement, Blessed and Forgeries, Love and Other Matters.
Carole Kim is an interdisciplinary artist with a focus on live video performance and performance-based video installation. She brings a very tactile approach to digital technologies, pushing video’s capacity as a responsive medium in the moment. She has exhibited and performed widely in the US and abroad. Recent venues include the Museum of Modern Art, New York, Museum of Contemporary Art-Los Angeles, REDCAT/Disney Hall, the Getty Center, Springwave Festival/LIG Performing Arts Hall (Seoul, Korea), Trampoline: Platform for New Media Art (Nottingham, England), the Stanford Jazz Festival, Engine 27 (New York), Arizona State University-West Interdisciplinary Arts & Performance Program (Phoenix, AZ), the Knitting Factory (LA), ArtSonje Center (Seoul, Korea) plus numerous festivals and performance series. She is a featured artist in the August 2008 issue of ABITARE/China. Eyebeam Atelier in New York commissioned a piece on the web and the performance/installation Reverse House Kit was featured in the DVD publication Aspect vol2: New Media Artists of the West Coast.
(Please see www.carolekim.com)