Karayorgis/Vandermark Duo @ Zeitgeist, Cambridge MA

Rob Chalfen & Subconsciouscafe New Chamber Music presents

-PANDELIS KARAYORGIS / KEN VANDERMARK DUO
-KATT HERNANDEZ - solo violin (opening)

“Reed player Ken Vandermark and pianist Pandelis Karayorgis will play a set of duets on the night before their new recording session. This comes four years after their Boxholder release No Such Thing with bassist Nate McBride and a series of concerts around the same time in trio or quartet settings with drummer Curt Newton."

PANDELIS KARYAORGIS
References to Thelonious Monk and Lennie Tristano, Cecil Taylor and Andrew Hill sometimes appear in accounts of his playing but these are valid more as reference points than as true stylistic touchstones. It might be more accurate to suggest that Karayorgis brought to turn-of-the-century jazz piano hints of how those earlier innovators might have played had they been up-and-coming now rather than then. To quote Billy Taylor, in a blindfold test carried out by Bill Milkowski in JazzTimes, “I have no idea who this is but it is really very clever, very refreshing." Clearly, Karayorgis is intent on pushing the envelope of improvised music, and is very capable of achieving his aims. (Encyclopedia of Popular Music, Copyright Muze UK Ltd. 1989 - 2005)

KEN VANDERMARK
For the past 20 years, Ken Vandermark has been exploring and expanding the possibilities of improvised and composed music.

Since moving to Chicago in 1989, he's worked within a variety of contexts with many internationally renowned improving musicians. Currently, the majority of his work has been directed toward the Vandermark 5, Bridge 61, The Peter Brotzmann Chicago Tentet, Fme, Sonore, The Nilssen-Love/Vandermark Duo, The Territory Band and Free Fall.

Beyond creating music, Ken has made many significant and highly respected contributions to both the local and international jazz/improvised music collectives. In 1996, he and writer John Corbett began co-organizing the Empty Bottle “Wednesday Night Jazz Series" concerts that continue to bring improvisers from Chicago, North America, and Europe to audiences on a weekly basis. Ken became the head curator of these performances in January 2002, and began directing the “Chicago Improvisers Series" which now features local ensembles for month long Tuesday night residencies. His work as a presenter led to being invited to act as the creative director for the ACME Festival, a four-day event held in Athens, Georgia, April, 2004, which featured concerts and workshops involving 21 musicians from Germany, Norway, Sweden, and the United States.

KATT HERNANDEZ
has been living in the Boston area, playing the violin, for the last six years. She has collaborated with many musicians, dancers, and others including Joe Maneri, Zack Fuller, David Maxwell, Marc Bisson, Matt Somalis, John Voigt, Allisa Cardone, Gordon Beeferman, Jonathan Vincent, Walter Wright, Joe Burgio, Eric Rosenthal, Jeff Arnal, Jamie Mclaughlin, Andrew Neumann, Dave Gross, and Hans Rickheit. She has twice been invited to perform on the Autumn Uprising, High Zero, Mobius ArtRages, and Improvised and Otherwise festivals, and has also appeared at the Montreaux-Detroit, Brandeis New Music, Boston CyberArts, Michiania, IAJE, IASJ, and Ear Whacks festivals. She has been a guest artist at MIT, Harvard, and the New England Conservatory, performed in many local venues and any number of subway passages, urban grottos, and troglyditical performace spaces, as well as other experimental and life-making places throughout the Bos-Wash metropolis

Katt has focused primarily on freely improvised music, working on drawing electronic-like sounds from her completely acoustic violin. She also works extensively with microtonality, drawn from a study of a mixture of sources, including traditional folk and sacred musics of the Middle East, Turkey, and Eastern Europe, and the Maneri/Sims 72 note system. She has also played music of the late Ottoman Empire and Whirling Dervish ceremonies with the Eurasia Ensemble. She plays somewhere for groups of people at least weekly, come hell or high water.

Production: Rob Chalfen.