Tuesday April 15 * doors at 7, music at 7:30 * $15-25 * TICKETS
Huda Asfour, PhD | Oud, Vocals, Composition | Palestine - Huda believes in the necessity of transcending borders in both life and music. A polymath with works in the fields of music, biomedical engineering, signal and image processing, and social work. She is a natural storyteller whose music, through the tenderness of her oud and the lyricism of her compositions, challenges taboos and stereotypes. An exceptional improviser who has over the years collaborated with artists spanning countries from the USA to China.
Since the establishment of her first band with Tamer Abu Ghazaleh in 2003, Huda has released two studio albums; ‘Mars, (2011) ’ةحـــــــــــــــيارو ياـــــــــــــــج , funded by The Culture Resource and ’Kouni (2018) ,’يـــــــــــنوـــــــــــك , supported by a grant from the Arab Fund for Arts and Culture. Over the past 10 years, she has collaborated and performed with artists across the globe. She is the co-founder of the DC Palestinian Film and Arts Festival and Mashriq Maghreb, LLC. In March of 2019, she was nominated for the Aga Khan Music Awards for the Performance category. She is currently developing improvisation curricula for conducted improvisations supported by a grant from Mophradat arts funding organization.
In addition to her work in music, Dr. Asfour is also a Biomedical Engineer with over 10 years of research and teaching experience.
Emily Rach Beisel is a Chicago-based improviser, composer, educator, curator, and woodwind specialist whose work is celebrated for its visceral intensity and innovative blend of techniques. Beisel’s 2023 solo album, Particle of Organs, has been described as “heavy stuff, sounds retrieved from the deeper places - the underworlds, the lightless subterranea… a raw, abrasive, oppressive, and thrilling journey (A Jazz Noise).” Beisel's music centers on the bass clarinet and incorporates voice, electronics, extended techniques, and other wind instruments creating a complex and nuanced soundscape in which the origins of sounds are often obscured.
Beisel performs regularly in Chicago and has toured throughout the US and Canada. Recent performances include Baltimore’s High Zero Festival, Cleveland Uncommon Sound Festival, SIU’s Outside the Box festival, Iowa City’s Feed Me Weird Things, Chicago’s Ear Taxi Festival and the Molten Plains Festival based in Denton, TX. Recent tours include a 2023 East Coast and 2024 Midwest tour together with drummer Bill Harris and a Texas tour with Austin-based percussionist Lisa Cameron. Beisel is also honored to be a 2024 3Arts Awardee in Music and a recipient of a New Music USA grant in 2023.
Danny Kamins is an improvising saxophonist based out of Houston, TX. His current musical endeavors include playing in the Houston based groups Relative Dissonance, CARL, El Mantis, and Etched in the Eye as well as directing the jazz program at Rice University. He has also been booking shows in Houston that specialize in experimental/avant-garde music since 2016. Musicians he has presented include Peter Brotzmann, Jaime Branch, Claire Rousay, Michael Foster, Chris Pitsiokos, Brandon Lopez, Lisa Cameron, Illicit Relationship, and Gaute Granli. In addition, he maintains a studio of private saxophone students from the Houston and Cypress, TX areas. He holds his B.M. in Jazz Saxophone Performance from Oberlin Conservatory, and is a graduate of Houston’s High School for the Performing and Visual Arts.Musicians he has performed/recorded with include Tatsuya Nakatani, Alvin Fielder, Ra Kalam Bob Moses, Aaron Gonzalez, Stefan Gonzalez, Susan Alcorn, Thomas Helton, Lisa Cameron, Adam Goodwin, Vinny Golia, Antonio Borghini, David Leon, Jeb Bishop, Sandy Ewen, Damon Smith, Luke Stewart, Kamila Drabek, Marc Edwards, Natan Kryszk, Paulina Owczarek, Wiktoria Zakubowska and NewMusic groups Le Train Bleu, Loop 38, and Transitory Sound and Movement Collective. “Kamins’ ‘cyclical’ style is filled with guttural multiphonics, piercing altissimo, and lightning fast runs that span the entire register of the saxophone.” -Juan Olivo, Byline Houston “Danny Kamins is awesome!” -Ruth Underwood