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This month’s Pleiades Series features a collaboration with the transatlantic ChicagoxFrance collaborative organization The Bridge! Céline and Katie are part of the this iterations *touring band* and will be playing in quartet with Chicagoans Caroline Jesalva and Al Kolot.
After the planned sets we’ll return to the classic Pleiades Open Jam where any/all femme/trans/nonbinary artists are invited to bring an instrument and get in on some improvisations with Celine / Katie / Caroline / Al + other attendees. You can sign up for the jam at pleiades@elasticarts.org or at the door when you arrive. Any jam participants are offered free admission to the show1
At April’s Elastro Series we’re pleased to welcome NYC-based artist Laura Ortman, a duo from Chicago residents Kim Nucci and Ruby Que, and solo set from the inimitable Kikú Hibino.
Ortman is in town for a couple site specific performances at the Museum of Contemporary Art, so we’re so pleased they’re able to present work with us here at Elastic Arts.
Simone Baron (NYC) / Emily Rach Beisel (Chicago) duo, followed by a fresh new ensemble presented by The Bridge blending musicians from France and Chicago!
2 sets, starting at 8:30PM
$15/$10 w/ Student ID - Tickets Available at the Door
Too many wrestlers to love, too many wrestlers to love to hate, and tons of great bassists to listen to .. and why not do the second installment for the Bass Dreams minus B. FPE has allowed me to dig into the other side of my musical life once and once again Bass Dreams minus B: OYAJI ROCK was inspired by all my favorite bassists and wrestlers --Tatsu Aoki Tatsu Aoki's super badass real cats jammed out some true trips this time around. Tiger Tanaka and Rami Atassi are unhinged on electric guitar, eating boundaries for breakfast and lunching on cosmic interconnectedness. All of it quantum interaction, particles at arbitrary distances, precision interpenetrations, flow states bouncing, excited, one mind. Rumback hitting drums to catch the jams, pushing on an impulse drive, everyone chasing the fire.
We’re excited to welcome Michael Foster’s The Ghost to Elastic Arts for a special Sunday night performance. The Ghost is a trio that celebrates and ruthlessly probes the free jazz tradition's queer feelings, drawing inspiration from noise, reductionism, and the leather culture to unpack the masculinist aesthetics of musical catharsis. The Ghost is Michael Foster (tenor/soprano saxophones, samples, compositions), John Moran (bass), Joey Sullivan (drums). The prolific trio of Hearsay w/ Allen Moore (turntables/electronics), Ishmael Ali (cello, electronics), and Bill Harris will kick things off this evening. 8pm start.
In conjunction with Experimental Sound Studio and the CLEAT Series we continue our series of artist-led introduction workshops exploring spatial audio.
The workshops are approximately 2 hours and will begin with a demonstration and discussion of each individual artist’s approach to multichannel sound. In the second half of the workshops, participants will have an opportunity to experiment with multichannel sound techniques on the 16-channel CLEAT system installed at Elastic.
No prior experience with multichannel sound necessary! You will need to bring your own laptop to actively participate in the second half of each workshop, however you are also welcome to simply listen and observe without a laptop.
Tonight Anthony Janas presents: Better Living Through Multichannel Playback An introduction to multichannel performances with Reaper.
The workshops are FREE but space is limited. Come to one, or come to all! Following this round of four workshops we will start planning future CLEAT workshop series in Fall 2024, Spring 2025, and Fall 2025.
Artist Guests
May 1: Anthony Janas
May 8: Dorothy Carlos
May 15: Allen Moore
May 22: Kiku Hibino
This week’s Improvised Music Series welcomes a menagerie of musicians from Chicago and the Greater Midwest.
First time quartet of guitarist Seth Andrew Davis (Kansas CIty), violinist Alex Cunningham (St. Louis), bassist Andrew Scott Young (Chicago), and drummer Weasel Walter (Chicago) share the night with a duo of saxophonist Sarah Clausen (Chicago) and pianist Erez Dessel (Chicago).
Tonight we step into nombreKARI’s world via an intimate performance at Elastic Arts. Kari invites you to join him and a live band, as he takes you through staple songs, the unreleased, and bits of his upcoming EP, rebecca’s room. Stop for a night and dive into the music with Kari!
Tonight Asian Improv aRts Midwest presents two sets from Chicago artists. First up we have a duo from Kishino Takagishi and Henry Wolf presenting Radio in the Well. In this debut performance from the duo, Wolf and Takagishi will utilize their cumulative experiences as musicians and filmmakers to exhibit sample-based and multi-instrumental pieces. These works will feature live instrumentation exploring curated environmental landscapes to create a duet between conductors of all varieties. Next we’ll hear Songs of the Moon Over Mountain from multimedia artist Mallory Qiu. Drawing upon the rich cultural tapestry of her roots, Mallory Yanhan Qiu intricately weaves together multimedia elements to invite the audience to immerse themselves in the essence of her cultural and artistic journey from her hometown Chongqing to Chicago. The performance is a sensory experience, incorporating a mesmerizing blend of piano and synthesizer improvisation intertwined with movement, poetry reading, and projection visuals. Divided into four distinct chapters, each segment unfolds like a poetic narrative: "一时啼" (A Momental Chirp), "万重山" (Ridge after Ridges), "月向西" (Moon Towards West), and "影入湖" (Shadow into the Lake).
We again meet on a Sunday afternoon for our AfriClassical Futures Series on April 4th! At this show we’ll be featuring Detroit based artist King Sophia(they/she) as they present the music and legacy of Coleridge-Taylor Perkinson as a profound representation of Classical Black Folk Songs. It will be a deep dive into Perkinson's Lamentations, the folk songs within, and the stories surrounding the music and composer. Interspersed between King Sophia's performances of the Black Folk/Song Suite for solo cello will be stories of Perkinson's life and community, including the cellist he wrote the piece for, Ronald Lipscomb, and their work as part of America's first integrated symphony orchestra. We’ll also hear improvised folk songs performed by series curators Julian Otis and olula negre based on the traditional Black motifs found in Lamentations. The evening will conclude with all three performers improvising folk songs based on the entirety of the work and the meaning behind it. This will be an incredibly special matinee and we hope you can join us.