The Cross-Bay In Between Festivals Mini-Festival of Maximalism

The Cross-Bay In Between Festivals Mini-Festival of Maximalism

[presented by 23five in association with Zoo, Kitsch Gallery, & mysterious productions]

March 8

Zoo, Oakland

Yan Jun solo

Bérangère Maximin, solo

Bob Ostertag & Fred Frith duo

Svetlana Voronina solo

March 9

Kitsch Gallery, San Francisco

Yan Jun solo

Bérangère Maximin, solo

Ryan Tallman & Fred Frith duo

Bob Ostertag & Jeffrey Zeigler duo

This one-off “festival” has been put together to honor two first time visitors to the Bay Area, distinguished poet and sound artist Yan Jun (from Beijing), one of the driving forces of the Chinese underground music scene for almost 20 years, and the astonishing Bérangère Maximin, sound magician from Paris (via the island of Réunion). They will be sharing the stage with Fred Frith and Bob Ostertag, sonic inventors and pioneers who need little introduction; Svetlana Voronina, an energetic instigator of local musical insurgencies; Jeffrey Zeigler, cello star with Kronos Quartet; and Ryan Tallman, who has been redefining the theremin in truly exciting ways. Sandwiched between the Other Minds Festival and Signal Flow (Mills College Music Department’s graduate showcase) the two-day event will make this a memorable week for new and experimental music.

Born in Lanzhou in 1973, Yan Jun is an improviser, sound artist and poet currently based in Beijing. After gaining a B.A. in Chinese Literature, he founded Sub Jam / Kwanyin Records, and has been a vocal supporter of the Chinese underground scene. His live performances use various feedback devices, and he also makes sound works using field recordings and related sound artefacts. Yan Jun has performed internationally, and is a member of the Far East Network, with Otomo Yoshihide, Ryu Hankil, and Yuen Cheewai. His visit to the USA is made possible by a 2011 residency award from the Asian Culture Council.

Bérangère Maximin spent her childhood in the remote French colonial island of Reunion in the Indian Ocean and moved to France at the age of fifteen. Performing first as a singer, she later studied electro-acoustic music with the composer Denis Dufour at the Perpignan Conservatory. Her first professional experiences occurred in Paris, and in 2002 she moved there permanently. As a composer, she is most interested in preserving the spirit of live music in the studio, a passion passed on to her from her friends —guitarists and singers in rock and world music bands. Working out of her own Home Sweet Home studio, she shoots sounds in a dark silent room, records soundscapes, plays with sampling and digital effects, performs on a variety of objects, and sings. After the release of her debut album "Tant Que Les Heures Passent" (As Long As The Hours Go By) on Tzadik Records in September 2008, Bérangère  performed her solo concert (Stuck in a Nasty Little Film) for the first time that fall, in Paris and New York. This series of pieces for live voice and electronics continues to develop on the road, in numerous festivals and musical events.  “..a keen sense of detail and subtle sense of surprise…one of the most personal and passionate new voices in electro-acoustic music.”   John Zorn

Historian, journalist, composer, Bob Ostertag's work cannot easily be summarized or pigeon-holed. He has published more than twenty CDs of music, two movies, two DVDs, and several books. His writings on contemporary politics have been published on every continent and in many languages. Electronic instruments of his own design are at the cutting edge of both music and video performance technology. He has performed at music, film, and multi-media festivals around the globe. His radically diverse collaborators range from the Kronos Quartet to tranny cabaret legend Justin Bond, from Québecois filmmaker Pierre Hébert to dyke punk rocker Lynn Breedlove.  His next book is about labor organizing in Nevada. 

Fred Frith is a songwriter, composer, improviser, and multi-instrumentalist best known for the reinvention of the electric guitar that began with Guitar Solos in 1974. He learned his craft as both improviser and composer playing in rock bands, notably Henry Cow, and creating music in the recording studio. Much of his compositional output has been commissioned by choreographers and filmmakers, but his work has also been performed by Ensemble Modern, Hieronymus Firebrain, Arditti Quartet, Ground Zero, Robert Wyatt, Bang on a Can All Stars, Concerto Köln, and Rova Sax Quartet, among many others. He continues to perform internationally, most recently with Lotte Anker, Evelyn Glennie, Chris Cutler, John Zorn, Eye to Ear (a septet performing selections from his film music) and his latest band, Cosa Brava, whose first CD—Ragged Atlas—was recently released to critical acclaim on the Intakt label. Fred is the subject of Nicolas Humbert and Werner Penzels’ award-winning documentary film Step Across the Border.

Ryan Gregory Tallman (b. 1977) is a sonic artist from Fresno, CA. Tallman’s primary compositional focus is the manipulation and exploitation of the inherent resonant frequencies of acoustic spaces—rendering his much of his work site-specific and experiential. As a graduate from the Master of Fine Arts program in Electronic Music and Recording Arts at Mills College, Tallman studied under Fred Frith, Pauline Oliveros, Maggie Payne, and Roscoe Mitchell. He has released recordings through Petcord, Isolationism Records, Subspine Records, Planetarium Records, and is releasing a new recording through Important Records' brand new cassette imprint, Cassauna, in 2011.

http://fightsmonstersnoise.blogspot.com/

http://ryangregorytallman.bandcamp.com/

http://soundcloud.com/ryan-gregory-tallman

www.myspace.com/ryangregorytallman

Lana Voronina is also Granny Zebra (hostess, hype girl, improviser, artist), and WRONGDISCO (modular member band for strange and dance oriented electronica). Lana has a website dot com.  Granny Zebra has a soundcloud page: http://soundcloud.com/grannyzebra  

Jeffrey Zeigler is the cellist of the Kronos Quartet. As a member of this celebrated ensemble he has performed and recorded with a vast array of artists, among them Tom Waits, Norah Jones, Philip Glass, Billy Childs and Asha Bhosle. Over the years he has also premiered works by many prominent composers including John Adams, Terry Riley and Henryk Gorecki. Jeffrey Zeigler can be heard on recording on the Nonesuch, Deutsche Grammophon, Blue Note and Tzadik labels as well as on the film soundtrack for Darren Aronofsky’s film, The Fountain.