Sunday, January 29, 2006 @ 7PM	Sorceress of the New Piano: The Artistry of Margaret Leng Tan
Sunday, February 12, 2006 @ 7PM	TransMagiNations
Sunday, February 19, 2006 @ 7PM	stillness / explosion
Thursday, February 23, 2006 @ 7:30PM	The Guitar in the Gulag
Saturday, May 13, 2006 @ 7:30PM	[haar/haar] CANCELLED
Sunday, June 11, 2006 @ 7PM	Cumulus

Sunday, January 29, 2006 @ 7PM

The 2006 Northwest Asian American Film Festival with Cornish College of the Arts, Washington Composers Forum, and Jack Straw Productions present

Sorceress of the New Piano: The Artistry of Margaret Leng Tan

a screening of the documentary by Evans Chan, with a rare performance by Margaret Leng Tan

Poncho Theater, 710 East Roy (E Roy and Harvard), Seattle

Tickets: $15 general, $10 WCF members/seniors, $7.50 Cornish students, www.brownpapertickets.com, 1-800-838-3006, or at door

Live performance and film screening, followed by a reception with Margaret Leng Tan. This event opens the 2006 Washington Composers Forum’s Transport series of performances by international and local artists. Margaret Leng Tan, returning to perform in Seattle after 30 years, is an internationally celebrated artist renowned for her performances of American and Asian music that transcend the piano's conventional boundaries. A leading performer of John Cage's music, her program will include Cage’s Bacchanale (1938), written at Cornish. Evans Chan’s documentary highlights Tan as the world’s first professional toy pianist. The evening opens with toy piano music originally composed by Trimpin for his Klavier Nonette project presented at Jack Straw Productions, and accompanied by video created by Northwest filmmakers ForeignAmerican Pictures, as part of Washington Composers Forum's Interval series. Film Festival Information: http://www.nwaaff.org.



Sunday, February 12, 2006 @ 7PM

Jack Straw Productions and Washington Composers Forum
with Consolidated Works present

TransMagiNations

Karen Bentley Pollick, violin  /  Ivan Sokolov, piano

Consolidated Works, 500 Boren Ave N (Republican and Boren), S. Lake Union area of Seattle

Tickets: $15 general, $10 seniors, students, WCF, JSP, and Consolidated Works members, www.brownpapertickets.com, 1-800-838-3006, or at door

This country-spanning program features premieres by Rome Prize winner Charles Norman Mason, Dorothy Hindman, winner of the Nancy van de Vate International Composition Prize for Opera, and Ivan Sokolov, and works by Peter Blauvelt, Jorge Sosa, Patrick Stoyanovich, and Luca Vanneschi, chosen from calls for scores. 

Karen Bentley Pollick pursues a unique career as a violinist, violist, conductor and pianist. She has performed as a soloist throughout the capitals of Europe, Asia, the United States, Canada, and Russia. A champion of contemporary music, Ms. Pollick has toured with the New York Philharmonic, Mikhail Baryshnikov's White Oak Dance Project, and the Bolshoi Ballet.

Ivan Sokolov has performed as a soloist throughout the former Soviet Union and Europe. He is a regular participant in contemporary music festivals in Russia and abroad, including at the Alternativa, Moscow Autumn, December Nights festivals, the Schleswig-Holstein festival, Almeida Festival London, the Copenhagen Culture festival and others.



Sunday, February 19, 2006 @ 7PM

Jack Straw Productions and Washington Composers Forum,
with Consolidated Works present

stillness / explosion

Tom Swafford, violin, with Doublends Vert, Cipher, Drumolin, Lake Washington Woodwind Quintet, Beth Fleenor, Tiffany Lin

Co-sponsored by the Office of Arts & Cultural Affairs, City of Seattle

The evening features a combustible program of new works by the area’s most active improvisers led by violinist Tom Swafford, and ends with a blowout performance by all hands. The after event includes music by DJ Tamara.



Thursday, February 23, 2006 @ 7:30PM

DoubleSharp, Jack Straw Productions, and Washington Composers Forum with Consolidated Works present

The Guitar in the Gulag

Oleg Timofeyev, Russian seven-string guitar

Oleg Timofeyev performs on the Russian seven-string guitar, an instrument condemned by the Bolsheviks after 1917. The guitar’s greatest 20th Century champion, Matvei Pavlov-Azancheev, smuggled his provocative music out of the gulag in letters to friends. Timofeyev will feature his works, and music chosen from a call for scores.

Performing early music on original instruments brought Oleg Timofeyev to the U.S., and his recordings include the groundbreaking The Golden Age of the Russian Guitar. He has concertized throughout the U.S. and Europe, and has prepared recordings for release with his group Talisman. A Fulbright scholar, Timofeyev taught historical performance practice in Moscow. The after event includes music performed by Russian bards Leonid Pozen and Sergei Zrazhevski on vocals, guitars and bayan, and Russian refreshments.



Saturday, May 13, 2006 @ 7:30PM CANCELLED

Because of technical difficulties at the venue, the solo piano concert with Tomoko Mukaiyama on Saturday, May 13, has been cancelled.  However, she is still scheduled to perform a concert with the highly-acclaimed and adventurous Seattle Chamber Players on Sunday, May 14, at the Nordstrom Recital Hall at 7pm.  For more information about this performance, go to http://www.seattlechamberplayers.org. 
 

Seattle Chamber Players, Nonsequitur, Jack Straw Productions, and Washington Composers Forum with Consolidated Works present

[haar/haar]

Tomoko Mukaiyama, piano

Consolidated Works, 500 Boren Ave N (Republican and Boren), S. Lake Union area of Seattle

Tickets: $15 general, $10 seniors, students, WCF, JSP, and Consolidated Works members, www.brownpapertickets.com, 1-800-838-3006, or at door

Information: www.washingtoncomposers.org, www.conworks.org or http://nseq.blogspot.com

"A really punishing performance by Mukaiyama.” - Wire

“…the glamorous but strong young Japanese pianist Tomoko Mukaiyama nearly reduced the piano to scrap metal and kindling…” - The Globe and Mail

This electric performer will present a work entitled “hair/hair” which includes improvisation, video, and electronics, with a collage of musical excerpts by J.S. Bach, Conlon Nancarrow, Wolfgang Rihm, Ludwig van Beethoven, Maurice Ravel, Somei Satoh, and Robert Schumann.

Tomoko Mukaiyama’s unique approach to the piano in which she employs her voice and body has inspired prominent composers. Winner of the International Gaudeamus Prize and the Muramatsu Prize, she has performed with the Ensemble Modern, London Sinfonietta, and the Ensemble Intercontemporain, and has collaborated with cinematographers, architects, and dancers.

On Saturday, May 13, 2006 @ 3PM at Consolidated Works, Tomoko Mukaiyama will give a masterclass open to the public on new modes of performance, including elements of film, music, and dance. For more information contact Consolidated Works. Tomoko Mukaiyama will also perform with the Seattle Chamber Players on Sunday, May 14, 2006 @ 7PM at Illsley Ball Nordstrom Recital Hall at Benaroya Hall.

Sunday, June 11, 2006 @ 7PM

Jack Straw Productions and Washington Composers Forum,
with Consolidated Works present

Cumulus

Meridian Ensemble

This new group of acclaimed Seattle musicians will play late-period quartets by grand masters Toru Takemitsu and Sir Peter Maxwell Davies, world premieres by Marc Jurcisin and Tom Baker featuring cello and voice, and an astrological quartet by Philadelphia composer Eve Goldhirsh. With music by turns dense and luminous, the program includes soprano Emily Greenleaf and guest performers.

Meridian Ensemble is made up of Jesse Canterbury, clarinets, Julie Ives, piano, Mary Riles, cello, and Eric Rynes, violin. Graduates of Oberlin, Cornish College of the Arts, and the University of Washington, members have studied with such important new music performers as Irvine Arditti, Maryvonne Le Dizés, William O. Smith and François Houle.