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Ben Richter / The Early / Rachel Beetz

Sunday February 4 * 7pm * TICKETS

Composer-accordionist Ben Richter’s just-intonation accordion solo Laramidia creates an alien tonal landscape alternating among timbral fluctuations, melody and drone, and gradual resolution of shimmering, pulsing microtonal intervals. Inspired by nonhuman consciousness, Ben’s music orients toward new orders of magnitude in musical parameters to auralize the vast and infinitesimal timescales we do not experience in everyday life. Portions of Laramidia are featured on new 2CD Aurogeny (December 2023, Infrequent Seams), the follow-up to 2017’s Panthalassa: Dream Music of the Once and Future Ocean, hailed by Stephen Smoliar (The Rehearsal Studio) as “likely to offer a profound impact on the very nature of listening.” Ben is also the Artistic & Executive Director of Ghost Ensemble and music/sound curator of UMass-Amherst’s Futuring Lab, holds a Performer-Composer DMA from CalArts, and has collaborated with Loadbang, Middle Ear Project, SEM Ensemble, Nomi Epstein, Carmina Escobar, Jeonghyeon Joo, Phill Niblock, Pauline Oliveros, Michael Pisaro, and David Rothenberg.


The Early is Alex Lewis (guitars and synthesizers) and Jake Nussbaum (drums and electronics). Somewhere in the textural grandeur of post-rock, the communicational intimacy of jazz improvisation, the patient grooves of minimalism, and Philadelphia. Our latest album Impatient is  available from Ruination Record Co.

Composer, flutist, and improviser, Rachel Beetz explores presence through sound and listening. Her works recreate physical atmospheres based on her deep listening adventures in the wild, exploring hidden worlds of nature and machines. Combining experimental field recordings and electronically modified flutes, her works examine community, environmentalism, and women’s work through sound, textiles, and lighting. Her projects have been featured in concert halls and galleries in Australia, Iceland, India, the United Kingdom, and the United States. You can hear her on Orenda, Blue Griffin, iikki, Neuma, and Populist record labels. She is currently a co-director of wasteLAnd music and Populist Records.

Earlier Event: February 4
Workshop: Brain Full of Bees
Later Event: February 5
Natural Dye Workshop