Join us for an online presentation via Twitch or YouTube Saturday, October 16th of 2021!

4:00pm Alec Toku Whiting is a composer, improviser, and multi-instrumentalist based in Boston, Massachusetts. Primarily a koto player, his improvisatory approach is rooted in his experiences studying modern music for the instrument while growing up in Yokohama, Japan. His technique foregrounds the manipulation of timbre and its relationship to physical gesture. As a composer Alec’s work results from the investigation and synthesis of abstract formal processes and intuitive structures in pursuit of a multiplicitous musical event. His music has been performed in the United States, France, Spain, and Australia and he has collaborated with musicians including Mark Fell, the Mivos Quartet, Wendy Eisenberg, Lina Tullgren, and Ted Reichman.

4:20pm Cedar Choppers is the project of composers Andrew Stoltz, Travis Weller, and Brent Fariss. With origins in concerts produced by Austin New Music Co-op, their collaboration is a departure from the one-composer-per-piece approach and occupies the muddy borders between composition, improv, production and performance: sounds from instruments new and old, traditional and custom-made, woven into a fabric of compositional ambient Americana.

4:40pm Gabby Wen was born in 1995 in Toisan, Canton, raised in Shenzhen, and currently lives in Oakland, CA, Gabby Wen is an electroacoustic music composer and improviser, working with synthesizers, electronics, guqin, field recordings, and miscellaneous instruments and objects to create captivating auditory experiences and narratives. Gabby works towards bringing aesthetics and musical traditions that are valuable but overlooked to the forefront of the improvised music scene. Their works include solo and collaborative live improvisation performances and fixed-media electroacoustic compositions, fueled by spontaneity and uncertainty, reflecting introspective experiences and their relationship to their upbringing, memories, desires, and surroundings.