On the evening of Saturday, August 17, we are proudly hosting intermedia artist/multi-instrumentalist Cecilia Suhr (OH), saxophonist/improviser Danny Kamins (TX), multi-instrumentalist/improviser Gerard Cox (CMH), and percussionist/experimental electronic musician Aaron Putnam (CMH). Doors 8:30pm (note later time), show begins around 9:00pm. Performance will take place at the Old First Presbyterian Church (1101 Bryden Rd.). $8.00 online, $10 at the door.
About the artists:
Cecilia Suhr is an intermedia artist and researcher, multi-instrumentalist (violin/cello/voice/piano/bamboo flute), multimedia composer, interaction designer, painter, author, and improviser. She has received numerous awards in the fields of music, visual art, interactive media, and academic research. Her improvisational performance on the violin, cello, piano, and bamboo flute, as well as her voice, often interact with live electronics, video, or fixed media, transcending the boundaries between audience and performer, vision and sound, motion and stasis, digital and analog, and seen and unseen reality. Sometimes her performances become audience participatory works, honoring unity and group bonding while enhancing the intimate and embodied experience of her live performances. To date, she has used interactive techniques like color tracking, face tracking, and sound drawing in her intermedia performance works to create a distinctive audio-visual experience. In addition to the art installation and camera installation, she meticulously plans human-centered interactions. Her creative process results in a distinctive fusion of multiple media, including installation, video, performance art, and improvisation in an electro-acoustic musical style, which serves as the foundation for all the other media.
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, 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, Susan Alcorn, Thomas Helton, Adam Goodwin, Vinny Golia, Antonio Borghini, David Leon, Jeb Bishop, Sandy Ewen, Damon Smith, Luke Stewart, Michal Dymny, Natan Kryszk, Paulina Owczarek, Wiktoria Zakubowska and NewMusic groups Le Train Bleu, Loop 38, and Transitory Sound and Movement Collective.
Gerard Cox is a pianist, trumpeter, and percussionist from Columbus with a keen interest in musical surrealism and the percussive nature of the piano. Born to a piano teacher Mom and a jazz saxophone hobbyist father, clear “rockstar” inclinations were shown at age 8 in an appearance as J.S. Bach at an OMTA music festival and at 10 as Billy Idol in a look-a-like contest for the national pop/rock magazine Star Hits. Cox developed a love for jazz in high school on through college, studying both jazz piano and B3 organ. While initially taken with the straight-ahead jazz of Art Blakey and Clifford Brown, he followed John Coltrane’s discography into his later period music and this proved to be the gateway for a fascination with free jazz and all kinds of other outsider/experimental music.