Kevin Shea Adams was born in Fairfax, CA and currently lives in Oakland, CA where he works as a freelance graphic artist. He is currently finishing his MFA at Mills College in the Electronic Music and Recording Arts program where he has studied with Chris Brown, Les Stuck, Fred Frith and Zeena Parkins. A long time guitarist, recording engineer and electronic musician, Kevin was first introduced to computer programming and interactive musical systems at the Center for New Music and Audio Technologies (CNMAT) where he studied with Ali Momeni, Edmund Campion and David Wessel while completing his undergraduate degree in Philosophy at UC Berkeley. Jen Boyd spends her free time collecting microscopic recordings of trees, plants, and other audible organic matter; and creating layered compositions in real-time with the use of a portable mixer. She captures natural sounds as they unfold. Working with contact microphones and a flash recorder, Boyd constructs stereo soundscapes to give depth to the delicate sounds of trees and plants alike. Jen has a BFA in music technology from CalArts and is currently working on her masters in electronic music at Mills College. While at Mills Boyd plans to explore the depths of natural sound and their presentation as art in the form of live performance and sound installations.
Jen is currently exploring various means of releasing her recorded works of natural sounds and plans to continue to build an archive of Phonographies and contact recordings.
Zina von BozzayA composer from San Francisco, California, Zina von Bozzay’s works have been performed around the United States and in England. She attended School of the Arts, the Tanglewood Institute, and the Oberlin Conservatory of Music, where she graduated with Honors in 2004. She has also composed with the American Composer's Forum, Midwest Composer's Symposium, England-based quintet Uncloistered (commission), and private study with several renowned composers including Carlos Sanchez-Gutierrez, Tom Lopez, Jeffrey Mumford, and Zeena Parkins. She has traveled extensively and studied music from Japan, Central America, Mexico, Cuba, and the Balkans, with extended ethnomusicological research projects in Argentina and Hungary. She has worked for KQED Radio and KITKA Women’s Vocal Ensemble, and has been an active performer in classical, new music, and folk music ensembles for fifteen years. Bozzay is currently working on her Master's in Composition at Mills College. She is particularly interested in duets and small ensembles (instrumental and vocal), a cappella music and textless vocal music, integration of elements from various musical influences, and musique concrète. As a wave in the musical ocean, she aims to continue in rich traditions with a contemporary world-view, making honest, creative, and thought-provoking music that will be engaging and enjoyable. When not composing she studies Eastern European folk singing, modern/jazz/blues dance, and Spanish, French, and Hungarian languages, and enjoys cooking, friendship, and sunshine. Aili Chu is a Chinese descendant who was born and raised in Seoul, Korea. Her compositional style is influenced by her Chinese and Korean heritage on the one hand, and club dance music on the other.
Between 1998 and 2004 Aili worked as a professional club dj. She likes to mix/remix different styles of music (house, trance, techno, and progressive) to uplift the clubbers. She has mainly played at clubs in the San Francisco Bay Area (most notably at Club 1015 and Boss750). She has also been featured as guest dj at 94.9 KYLD, XTC Radio, and AfterhoursDJs.
Aili received her BA degree in Electronic Music from Mills College in Oakland, California, where she is currently completing her MFA degree in Electronic Music and Recording Media.
Alex Chechileis a composer, improviser, and interdisciplinary media artist whose performances explicitly employ the implicit relationship between human physiology and the act of musical creation through the use of homemade biofeedback systems. These systems allow the physiological and cognitive experience of the creative process to effect how the music is sounded. He has played in a variety of ensembles ranging from new music to noise, Javanese gamelan, West African Drumming, and is one of the founding members of Pauline Oliveros' Tintinnabulate ensemble. Alex received an MFA at Rensselaer in Troy, NY, and a B.A. in Composition and Theory at Tufts University. His oeuvre includes numerous compositions for acoustic chamber ensembles, electro-acoustic pieces, installations, videos, stop-motion animation, and has been shown in festivals both stateside and abroad. For more information, see www.alexchechile.com. Tomás DiazWith experience in all facets of the arts including dance, theatre, studio art, and music, Tomás ventures to coalesce his knowledge into one unified expression of creativity that translates his experiences of the world around him. In dealing with conceptual issues such as form-content relationships, intentionality of the artist, social constructs in the media and in the self, and intelligent thought-based art, Tomás strives for a sincere approach in his work and takes great care in his idea realizing. As a graduate of the internationally known fine arts institution, The School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and as a current Graduate student at the experimental center of the Bay Area, Mills College, Tomás hopes to continue to explore his ideas through all the available resources surrounding him. If you wish to work with Tomás in any way, feel free to email him at tdiaz@mills.edu. Kristen Erickson is a second year graduate student in Electronic Music at Mills College. She was born in Stuart, Florida and has since lived in Tallahassee, Oakland, Berlin, and San Francisco. She has recorded and toured extensively with Adult Rodeo, Blectum from Blechdom, Barnwave and Eugene Chadbourne. She is also known as Kevin Blechdom. Karl Evangelista music explores the sonic capabilities of the guitar in a multi-traditional context, melding spontaneous music with a cross-idiomatic sensibility. He has lately concentrated on the development of a new performance practice for steel-string acoustic and electric guitars, drawing on the instruments' facility for extended timbres and percussive techniques. Having completed his self-constructed major at UC Berkeley, Karl is pursuing the MFA in Music Performance and Literature at Mills College. His studies have included work with numerous creative musicians of note, including Myra Melford, Roscoe Mitchell, Ted Moore, and Zeena Parkins. Among the Bay Area musicians with whom he has shared the stage, the guitarist has performed with Sarah Wilson, Gary Johnson, Charles Ferris, Marie Abe, Lisa Mezacappa, John-Carlos Perea, Francis Wong, and several of his peers at Mills. Karl is also a practicing musicologist, currently pursuing research on the Blue Notes--a mixed-race, apartheid-era group of South African creative musicians. These studies have lead to the genesis of a conceptual amalgamation of Karl's Filipino background and multinational free improvisation. Jordan Glenn has played in various musical settings including orchestras, jazz big bands and combos, punk, rock and pop bands, improv groups and solo. Since moving to the Bay Area, he has been lucky enough to cross pathes with Fred Frith, William Winant, Zeena Parkins, Molissa Fenley, Anantha Krishnan and Aram Shelton, among many others. In his home town of Eugene OR he performed with the bands the Visible Men, Scrambled Ape, Mood Area 52 and Los Mex Pistols Del Norte, as well as with composer/arranger Maria Schneider and composer John Zorn. He also writes and leads his own band, Wiener Kids. Jason Hoopes Jason Hoopes was born in the Pacific Northwest. He has been a practicing musician for 17 years. He is a bassist. His musical experiences span Rock and Metal, Hip-Hip and Jazz, Western-Classical and Contemporary Avant-Garde. He improvises with dancers and many diverse, talented musicians for who he has the highest respect. He records music with Ed Macan’s Hermetic Science. He performs with the local progressive band The Atomic Bomb Audition. He does not enjoy writing his own biography. He has experience in Shakespearean theater. He is an anarchist. He independently studies western occult philosophy and alchemy. He is a writer. He is married to his best friend of over 13 years. Without her, he is not convinced he would be here. He is not an anarchist. Of all weather elements, he enjoys wind the most.*Jason would like to thank his family, especially his partner Carly McLane, his teachers and all his friends and colleagues for their incredible strength, support and inspiration. An extra special thanks goes to all the performers in tonight’s composition and to Daniel Schmidt for his wisdom, knowledge and patience.
Cole Ingraham is in his first year of the MFA in Electronic Music here at Mills. He holds a BM in Music Composition from University of the Pacific and written a number of acoustic and electronic works including various audio/visual installations. He has studied at the Internationales Musikinstitut Darmstadt, Germany in 2006, and the Ecoles D'art Americaines De Fontainebleau, France in 2007. Brian B. James is an artist based in San Francisco.
. This is not a typo.
Chris Konovaliv
Chris Konovaliv, a Michigan native, relocated to the Bay Area in 2004. After many years working in the recording industry, he commenced his studies at Mills College, working primarily with field recordings. He has subsequently realigned his focus towards interactive sound installation. With his work, Konovaliv explores physicality and its interaction with the participant. He places importance on the detachment of the viewer from the artists’ history, preconceptions, and biases, with the goal being that the spectator no longer has to reprocess the information presented in order for it to become their own. Konovaliv earned a BFA in Performang Arts & Technology from the University of Michigan and is a 2008 MFA candidate in Electronic Music and Recorded Media.
Zach Kurth-Nelson(b. 1986) is currently a graduate student pursuing an M.A. in Composition at Mills College, where he has studied composition with Maggi Payne. Originally from Minnesota, he received his B.A. in composition from Minnesota State University Moorhead in 2006, studying composition there with Henry Gwiazda. He is also a vocalist, and has been recorded singing Psalmus XXIII by Noah Creshevsky on the CD To Know or Not to Know, released on Tzadik. He likes raspberry jam.
Travis Margain:Mr. Margain, who is rarely seen dancing in his own compositions, is a one of a kind choreographer typically fusing influences such as Jazz, Modern, Classical Ballet, Afro-Cuban, Latin, and Hip-hop into his works. Having danced internationally and locally, his experience is a vast gamut of possibilities. He is currently working on the development of a center for the arts that would include a multicultural aspect to the center in educational presentations of dance, art, and music along with offering training in his specific specialties of dance. Revered as an artistic genius by many of his colleagues and mentors, Mr. Margain has lead the artistic direction for a multitude of masterpieces involving the body and its potential as an instrument aiding in the creation of art. Not only his strict devotion to work ethic and follow through, but also his passion for his work speaks volumes about his creative mind and its elegant presence in the visual arts. If you wish to work with Mr. Margain or to contract his services, feel free to contact Tomás Diaz at tdiaz@mills.edu.
Severiano Martinez (b.1979) began pursuing music at 19 in while studying archeology in Madrid, Spain. From 2000-2003 he attended the Oberlin Conservatory of Music. While in school, he co-founded the Shinkoyo Arts Collective and released his first album, Clocks and Psandas. From 2004-05 he toured N. America with Skeletons, and has recently completed his fifth US tour with Sejayno. Severiano has performed works at Labor Gras (Berlin), PS1 Contemporary Art Center, Roulette, (NYC) REDCAT (Los Angeles), The Cleveland Museum of Art, The Mattress Factory (Pittsburgh) and South by Southwest (Austin). Current projects include musical collaborations with Mario Diaz De Leon (Tzadik) and a multimedia piece based on the Tarot with Zeljko McMullen (Shinkoyo).
Chad McKinney and Curtis McKinney
were born on April 11th, 1983.
Favorite horror movies: Night of the Living Dead/Night of the Hunter/Der Golem
Favorite animals: octopi/squids/sharks/bears/and many types of dinosaurs
Favorite books: Necronomicon/Necronomicon II
Favorite bat species: Nycteridae/ Rhinolophidae/Glow-in-the-dark Sneaky Bat
As a MFA student in Electronic Music and Recording Media at Mills College Luke Selden engages in psycho-acoustic research into the cognitive processes from which arise our social mind and shared reality, in order to make manifest the inextricable connection between the individual and collective experience of temporality; that is to say, life and the meaning thereof.
Andy StrainTrombonist Andy Strain moved to the Bay Area two years ago to work on an MFA at Mills College in Oakland. There, he has focused on combining his studies with Fred Frith in free improvisation and modern dance with Shelley Senter to create his own brand of performance. In addition to his work as a solo trombonist, he collaborates regularly with Bay Area dancers, recording artists, and bands. Until his move to the west coast, Andy lived for five years in southwest Germany. There he studied classical trombone and played in various orchestras and chamber ensembles such as the Sudwestdeutsche Philharmonie in Konstanz. In 2004, Andy served as principal Trombonist in la Orquesta Sinfonica de la UANL in Monterrey Mexico. Liz Sexe is a first year M.F.A. Choreography and Performance candidate. She received her B.A. in biology and dance at St. Olaf College in Northfield, MN. There she had the opportunity to dance in an improvisational group and the St. Olaf Dance Company. She was a dancer in the 2006 cast of Swing a Club: Facing Cancer, an interdisciplinary movement work. In 2007 Liz worked with Lorry May and performed in St. Olaf’s reconstruction of Anna Sokolow’s work Dreams. She also choreographed for James McKeel’s original opera Love Sonnets of a Hoodlum. Collaborative community project “farmwork” has been a source of inspiration for Liz over the past few years. It is a summer project that connects various artists from across the United States (www.farmwork.org). Currently, Liz dances with Mills Repertory Company. Ryan Gregory Tallman (b. 1977) is an electronic composer, sound artist, and improviser. Born and raised in California’s noxious Central Valley, Tallman’s primary compositional focus is the manipulation and exploitation of the inherent resonant frequencies of acoustic spaces—rendering his work site specific and experiential. As a candidate for the Master of Fine Arts in Electronic Music and Recording Arts program at Mills College, Tallman has studied under Pauline Oliveros, Maggi Payne, Chris Brown, Roscoe Mitchell, and Zeena Parkins. With his minimal aesthetic and several CD releases in worldwide circulation, Tallman is poised to be composing and working within the same circles as some of his main influences including Maryanne Amacher, Rhys Chatham, and Glenn Branca. Ryan lives with his wife Emily and two Siamese cats in Oakland, CA, and abhors writing in the third person. Suzanne Thorpe is a electro-acoustic flautist, searching for instances of intimacy and understanding through exchanges of sonic signals. Thorpe enjoys working within the peripheral consciousness, exposing coexisting perspectives and concurrent realities via composition, performance and installation. Thorpe performs both acoustically and electronically, extending her instrument with an ever-evolving set-up of analogue and real-time software components.
A founding member of the band Mercury Rev, Thorpe works with J Mascis (Dinosaur Jr.), and is a member of The Wounded Knees, The Forest For the Trees and the flute/feedback duo thenumber46. As an improviser Thorpe has most recently appeared at the 11th annual Activating the Medium Festival, performing under Zbigniew Karkowski. She has also worked with Chris Cogburn, Rob Cambre, David Dove, Annette Krebs, Maggie Nicols, Liz Tomme, Bhob Rainey, Miya Masaoka, Pauline Oliveros, Mike Bullock and Gino Robair in improvised performance settings. While completing her MFA at Mills College in Recording and Electronic Media, Thorpe has maintained positions as Curator of Special Events for the Schenectady Museum and Planetarium, and Director of Electronic Music for the San Francisco Waldorf High School, San Francisco, CA.
Lavinia Vago is in her second semester here at Mills College as a dance major. This environment allows her to experiment with different aspects of dance, such as choreography, improvisation and collaborations with musicians. She is from Milan, Italy, where she studied and performed different dance styles for the past three years. Philip White In 2003 Philip received his BA in Music from the College of Charleston with a double emphasis in composition and jazz performance. There he was awarded departmental honors and the outstanding music student award as well as frequently performing and premiering works on the Piccolo Spoleto Jazz Series. Shortly thereafter, he developed an interest in computer-based music and sound leading to many multi-media projects including Variations on a Dream, a fifteen movement suite in collaboration with film artist Kevin Taylor which was featured on the Seattle-based television program The American Avant-Garde and Quid Pro Quo, a collaborative effort with Matt Smithson, Daniel Offinger and Kevin Hackler that won an honorable mention in Stash DVD magazine. In 2005 Philip co-founded the New Music Collective, a non-profit organization deliriously promoting and producing new music and art in the Southeast. In October of that same year he curated A Separate Reality, a group multimedia art show culminating in his 35 minute work Contractions for choir and electronics performed in complete darkness. In addition to his work as a composer, Philip's installations can be seen and heard in and around the Southeast and California including his spot as a featured artist in the Redux New Media Festival and upcoming shows in Berlin. In the summer of 2007 Philip toured the United States with electro acoustic flutist Suzanne Thorpe in thenumber46, a duo exploring psycho-acoustic and visual phenomena through acoustic manipulation of feedback and light. Recent performances include appearances at the Red Room in Baltimore with Charity Chan and The Stone in NYC with thenumber46. Currently he is working on the score for Carl Jane's upcoming feature based on the myth of Icarus. Additional work includes numerous film score commissions, his own experimental films, recording and production credits. In 2006 Philip moved to California to pursue his MFA at Mills College where he has studied with Chris Brown, Hilda Paredes, and James Fei.
