Tuesday August 6 * 7pm * $10-25 * TICKETS
Glissonic, an instrument builder in Budapest, makes a new instrument called the glissotar. As part of their loaner program, Samuel Burt will be showing off this sax-like microtonal instrument. The glissotar is shaped like a soprano saxophone, but, instead of keys and holes, it has one long slot. Pitch is controlled by a magnetic ribbon that covers the slot. The instrument is loud and bright, allowing the musician to escape the bounds of discrete pitch steps. It can slide, bounce, chirp, and warble. Audience questions are invited!
Samuel Burt (glissotar) is a composer, clarinet player, electronic musician, and instrument builder. He is an organizer of the High Zero Festival and a curator at the Red Room in Baltimore. He builds saxophones and programs software and synthesizer firmware.
Alma Laprida (trumpet marine) is a composer, improviser, performer, and installation builder who plays trumpet marine, field recordings, and synthesizers. Her work has appeared in Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Chile, Italy, Mexico, and the United States. She plays in Hypnotized Chickens, the Bureau of Sensory Affairs, and has a duo with Mike Kuhl.
Paul Neidhardt (percussion) is a Maryland percussionist, drum instructor, and dance accompanist. He plays in the percussion ensemble Umbilicus and hosts the monthly Volunteers' Collective improvisation workshop at the Red Room. He is an organizer of the High Zero Festival and a curator at the Red Room in Baltimore.
Shelly Purdy (percussion) is a contemporary musician and teaching artist in Maryland. She performs in Umbilicus, the Inverse Square Trio, and the Compositions. She is an organizer of the High Zero Festival and a curator at the Red Room in Baltimore.
Judith Berkson is a mezzo-soprano, pianist and composer living in Los Angeles, California.
She studied voice with Lucy Shelton and composition with Joe Maneri at the New England Conservatory. She received her MA in composition from Wesleyan University and a doctorate in performance and composition at California Institute of the Arts.
She has collaborated with Kronos Quartet, Wet Ink, Yarn/Wire and City Opera and has presented work at Picasso Museum Malaga, Roulette, Le Poisson Rouge, Joe’s Pub, The Stone, Barbès and the 92 Street Y. She has received a Six Points Fellowship, a Jerome Foundation grant, Meet The Composer grant, New Music USA funding and support from the New York Foundation for the Arts. Her solo album “Oylam” (ECM Records) was called “Standards and Schubert and liturgical music, swing and chilly silences, a beautiful Satie-like piece to open and close the record” by Ben Ratliff of the New York Times.
Her latest work, the chamber opera Partial Memories premiered at the NODO Festival in Ostrava, Czechia in June 2022. It was dedicated to forgotten female artists Janet Sobel and Mary Gartside and featured the Ostravská Banda.
As a 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 the Wasteland Music and Populist Records.