2024 CATALYTIC SOUND FESTIVAL at RHIZOME DC
Saturday December 7 :: 6-10pm :: TICKETS
We Were Here Before: Mark Cisneros / Luke Stewart / Nik Francis
Simone Baron / Dave Ballou / Adi Meyerson / Krissy Bergmark
Josh Berman / Eli Wallace / Ishmael Ali / Bill Harris
Florian Stoffner / Hans Koch / Sam Pluta
Part of the month-long international Catalytic Sound Festival.
Catalytic Sound is a music based co-operative designed to help create economic sustainability for its artists through patron support.
Poster art by Emily Vaughan Brown.
Performer bios and images below.
Josh Berman - cornet
Eli Wallace - prepared piano
Ishmael Ali - cello
Bill Harris - drum set
After convening for a recording session at Marmalade Studios in Chicago, IL, in 2021, the improvising quartet of Josh Berman, Eli Wallace, Ishmael Ali, and Bill Harris continue to hone their collective sonic identity through regular live concerts in Chicago. As documented on their first cassette release, An Ill-Fitting Garment, the group focuses on acoustic interplay, resulting in music featuring acousmatic moments that obfuscate who makes which sound, blurring and bending rhythms and pitches into a syncretic whole. Wallace’s ability to cull variegated sounds from the prepared piano matches Harris’s percussive textures and unique rhythmic sensibility. Berman and Ali find common ground in pitched and harmonic material that can sometimes disperse into territories resembling synth and electronic sounds. All four musicians trade roles during their musical interactions, sometimes falling into the background while interjecting with aberrant melodic statements at other times. The group strives to create a unified heuristic sound that simultaneously features each individual while constantly generating a sense of rhythmic propulsion, at times subtle, at times bombastic.
Josh Berman is an internationally recognized cornetist and composer. He has led the acclaimed Old Idea, Josh Berman and his Gang, and his own trio. In addition to being an indispensable contributor to Chicago's jazz and improvised music scene, Berman has been a concert presenter with fellow Chicagoan Mike Reed, producing hundreds of shows over the past 20 years. Berman's work has been critically acclaimed in the New York Times, Chicago Tribune, JazzTimes, and DownBeat, among others. His recordings can be found on the Chicago's legendary Delmark Records and more recently on Austin's Astral Spirits Records.
Eli Wallace is a pianist, improviser, and composer who resides in Brooklyn, NY, leading his own projects, collaborating with other like-minded artists, and co-curating the interdisciplinary performance series Invocation with Drew Wesely. His work as a pianist displays his vast milieu of experiences from classical, jazz, free improvisation studies, and extensive piano preparation, while his compositions employ notational strategies to broaden the manner in which sounds are created and the ways in which musicians interact. Over the past decade he has appeared on dozens of albums and has performed at such esteemed venues as The Stone, New York, NY, Experimental Sound Studio, Chicago, IL, and the Outsound New Music Summit, San Francisco, CA.
Ishmael Ali is a dynamic cellist, guitarist, improviser, and composer based out of Chicago. His work centers on exploring sound through improvisation, experimentation, composition, and collaboration, focusing on a wide array of idiomatic approaches in an ever-changing, always-growing list of projects informed by diverse influences. While varying drastically, a common thread in his work is the juxtaposition of seemingly disparate elements to create something new: both foreign and familiar. Ishmael is leader or co-leader of a plethora of working projects including Hearsay, Ensemble Ziraph, and Akjai. He has also performed or recorded with Kahil El Zabar and the Ethnic Heritage Ensemble, Avreeayl Ra, Josh Berman, Jim Baker, Fred Jackson, Ed Wilkerson, Angel Bat Dawid, Jason Stein, and many more. In addition to performing, Mr. Ali is a co-curator of the Thursday night Improvised Music Series at Elastic Arts, a co-founder and audio engineer at Marmalade, a recording and rehearsal space in the West Loop, and along with close friend and collaborator Bill Harris, runs the co-operative record label Amalgam Music.
Bill Harris is a Chicago-based drummer and improviser working at the fringes of improvisation, noise, rock, folk, and bluegrass. His work has been presented at places ranging from centers for improvised and creative music such as Elastic Arts, Constellation, and ESS; to vital rock and indie clubs such as The Empty Bottle, The Hideout, Evanston Space, Beat Kitchen, and Spot Tavern; to concert halls and centers for the arts such as Lincoln Hall, Old Town School of Folk Music, Navy Pier, and The Chicago Museum Of Contemporary Art. Some of his primary groups are Je'raf; an improvising trio with Jeff Kimmel and Ishmael Ali; Hearsay, with Allen Moore and Ishmael Ali; Joybird, with Jess McIntosh and Aaron Smith; and Errata, with Ishmael Ali and Eli Namay. Some of his most frequent collaborators include Ishmael Ali, Jake Wark, Carol Genetti, Emily Beisel, Allen Moore, Timothee Quost, Dave Rempis, Jess McIntosh, Jim Baker, PT Bell, Gerrit Hatcher, Eli Namay, Peter Maunu, Matt Piet, Brianna Tong, Wills McKenna, David Fletcher, Aaron Smith, Jeff Kimmel, Molly Jones, and Keefe Jackson. In 2015 he started Amalgam, a 100% artist-run collective and label dedicated to showcasing works of improvised and experimental music in Chicago and elsewhere, with a bi-monthly series at Cafe Mustache.
"We Were Here Before"
Mark Cisneros - Reeds, Percussion
Luke Stewart - Bass
Nik Francis - Drums
WE WERE HERE BEFORE consists of both composition and group improvisation. It is a collection of themes attempting to express deeply rooted feelings about the now and what has been. A collective memory of sorts. Or perhaps a kind of collective consciousness or genetic memory. This recording is an expression of this. Memories, reflections, and meditations on our ancestral experience of being people of color in this country.
Mark Cisneros is a Washington, DC based multi-instrumentalist, composer, and improviser whose creative output toggles between the Jazz, experimental, punk, and improvised music worlds. As a saxophonist he studied at the New School in New York City under the tutelage of such greats as Ahmed Abdullah, David Schnitter, Joe Chambers, and Tim Price. His current trio with bassist Luke Stewart and drummer Nik Francis called WE WERE HERE BEFORE just released their debut record on Catalytic Sound. He also currently plays reeds, percussion, and upright bass with Zach Barocas’ New Freedom Sound, drums in The Make-Up, and guitar in Hammered Hulls, Kid Congo and the Pink Monkey Birds, and Des Demonas.
Luke Stewart is a musician, performer, improviser-composer, organizer, and writer-researcher whose work represents a deep reverence for the history and tradition of Creative Music: a tradition which encompasses the diverse styles of expression within the body of Black Music in the United States, Africa, and throughout the world. Stewart’s regular ensembles include Irreversible Entanglements, SILT Trio, Exposure Quintet, and the experimental rock duo Blacks’ Myths; he also performs regularly in numerous collaborations.
Nik Francis is an improvising musician with a primary focus on the drum kit, occasionally integrating electronics and small acoustic instruments. He has collaborated with artists such as Jamal Moore, Jim Ryan, Mark Cisneros, Luke Stewart, and Thollem, exploring a broad range of improvised and experimental music. Through topology.systems, Francis documents much of his solo work and collaborative projects.
Florian Stoffner - guitar
Hans Koch - reeds
Sam Pluta - electronics
Flo Stoffner - Unmistakable and unique is his way of playing the guitar. Deconstruction of guitar playing, which has been called "a kind of autopsy of the guitar sound".Solo or in collaboration with musicians such as Paul Lovens, Rudi Mahall, Alfred Zimmerlin, David Meier, Albert Cirera, Lionel Friedli, Jason Kahn, John Butcher, Chris Corsano or Hans Koch, but also the spoken-word artist Anna Frey, he has become one of the outstanding figures of the Swiss improvisation scene. As forward-looking as he is backward-looking, he holds the banner of instant composing high and proves again and again how lively, surprising and up to date the tradition of free improvisation is today.
After retiring from a classical career as an orchestral musician, Hans Koch made a name for himself as one of the most innovative improvising woodwind players in Europe. Since the eighties, he has worked with many greats such as Cecil Taylor and Fred Frith in addition to his regular collaboration with Martin Schütz. As a composer, he shaped the independent sound of the internationally renowned trio “Koch-Schütz-Studer” from the very beginning and composed music for radio plays and films. Since the nineties, he has expanded the sounds of his instruments with electronics, sampling and computers. As a woodwind player, he has developed a very independent style, which has made him one of the most original wind players on the current scene. Koch has received various scholarships, work grants, composition commissions and awards, e.g. the Culture Prize of the City of Biel in 1986 and the Cantonal Bernese Music Prize and the Bernese Film Music Prize in 2002. He has participated in numerous international projects, including the Globe Unity Orchestra, the “Cecil Taylor European Big Band”, the “Barry Guy New Orchestra” and the “Ensemble d`Improvisateurs Européens”. The discography of his own recordings or recordings made with his participation comprises over 30 titles. The list of his radio play and film scores is also extensive, including for the multi-award-winning feature film “Höhenfeuer” by Fredi M. Murer (including a Golden Leopard at the Locarno Film Festival in 1985).
Sam Pluta is a composer, electronics performer, and sound artist. Though his work has a wide breadth, his central focus is on using the computer as a performance instrument capable of sharing the stage with groups ranging from new music ensembles to world-class improvisers. By creating musical systems of shared agency, Pluta’s vibrant sonic universe focuses on the visceral interaction of instrumental performers with reactive computerized sound worlds. He has worked with Wet Ink Ensemble, Peter Evans Ensemble, Evan Parker Electro-Acoustic Ensemble, and PANG, and his performances and production can be found on over 50 albums of new music and jazz.
Simone Baron is a polyglot pianist, accordionist, improviser and composer whose work “ego-less, genre agnostic and without expectations” (JazzTimes) engages curiously and charismatically with a broad spectrum of idioms. Educated at Oberlin and Tel Aviv University and joyfully de-educated at festivals and performances across Europe and the Americas, Simonehas won grants, fellowships, commissions and residencies from Chamber Music America, South Arts, the Hambidge Center, Sacatar Foundation, Strathmore, Marble House Project, Avaloch Farm, the Banff Centre, and Spectrum Toronto to name a few. In 2016 Simone founded Arco Belo, a diasporic chamber music ensemble that has toured nationally. Simone is a Victoria Artist and plays a Poeta XB Accordion, and is a founding member of the Boulanger Initiative.
Trumpeter/Composer Dave Ballou can be heard in a variety of settings; from solo trumpet improvisations to large ensembles. His recordings can be found on the Steeplechase, CleanFeed and pfMentum record labels. Ballou has performed or recorded with Rabih Abou-Kahlil, Steely Dan, Michael Formanek, Mary Halvorson, Woody Herman, Andrew Hill, John Hollenbeck, Sheila Jordan, Oliver Lake, Dave Liebman, Dewey Redman, Maria Schneider and Gunther Schuller. His compositions have been performed and recorded by the Meridian Arts Ensemble, Trumpeter Jon Nelson, French hornist Adam Unsworth, Saxophonist Ellery Eskelin and the TILT Brass Ensemble. Ballou is a Professor of Music at Towson University and is the founding director of Murray Jazz Residency.
Adi Meyerson is a New York-based bassist and composer. She is fortunate to have studied with Master Musicians such as Ron Carter, Reggie Workman, Bob Cranshaw, Miguel Zenon, Jim McNeely, Dave Leibman, and many others. Since Moving to New York in 2012, she has played as a side woman with many greats such as Charli Persip, Bria Skonberg, Joel Frahm, Svetlana & the NY collective and others around the NYC area in highly renown venues as well as all over the US. Meyerson is a Member of the Pop Chamber orchestra “Little Kruta” and has recoded and performed with them on Jimmy Fallon, and for Major artists like Faozia and Ingrid Andress. As a Bandleader and Composer, Meyerson has successfully made an impact on the NYC scene and earned her title as an up and coming young talent. Meyerson is a recipient of the 2020 NYC Women’s Fund for Media, Music and Theatre by the City of New York Mayor’s Office of Media and Entertainment in association with The New York Foundation for the Arts & Chamber Music America’s 2024 Performance Plus Grant. "Intuitive and perspicacious…. displays a musical maturity that belies her newcomer status.” -Downbeat Magazine
Krissy Bergmark is a tabla player, percussionist, improviser, and educator who centers her creative work on bringing tabla to new genres and cross-genres through composition and performance with a grounded understanding of the traditions of the instrument. Bergmark has received commissions and grants through the Cedar Commissions, the Jerome Foundation, the Metropolitan Regional Arts Council, and the Minnesota State Arts Board for her tabla studies and compositions for tabla, percussion, and strings. She attended the International Workshop in Jazz and Creative Music at Banff Center for Arts and Creativity in 2018, and Silkroad Ensemble’s Global Musician Workshop in 2016. Krissy has shared stages with artists like Vijay Iyer, Ingrid Jensen, and Tyshawn Sorey, as well as Abigail Washburn and Charlie Parr, and a variety of other artists in Minneapolis, Saint Paul, Chicago, and New York. As a cohort member of Mutual Mentorship for Musicians, Krissy premiered What is It Time For? with duo commission partner Tara Kannangara in June of 2023. Her current solo project, titled Body of Water, explores the juncture of epigenetic inheritance and body memories through sound, visuals, and physical sensation to tell the story of her family and present-day manifestations of its history in her life. Her debut album, an in-studio improvised work entitled Everything's Glacial Shine, is set to be released in early 2024.