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| Bruce Ackley | Tania Chen |
Matches
Over two nights, Rova members will team up with long-time associates and first-time co-conspirators to present 4 sets of duo performances. Hear the Rovas work outside their ‘comfort’ zones to investigate new possibilities with their fellow travelers.
Sunday, March 22:
Larry Ochs, with Jordan Glenn, drums
Bruce Ackley, with Tania Chen, piano, keyboards, electronics + objects
Ochs-Glenn Duo
Jordan Glenn spent his formative years in Oregon drawing cartoons, taking dance classes from his aunt, and putting on plays with his sisters. As he got older he began making movies with his friends and studying jazz, classical, and rock music. In 2003 Glenn received a bachelor’s degree in Jazz Studies from the University of Oregon. In 2006 he relocated to the Bay Area, received a masters degree from Mills College and since has worked closely with Fred Frith, William Winant, Zeena Parkins, Roscoe Mitchell, Ben Goldberg, Todd Sickafoose, John Schott, Dominique Leone, Aaron Novik, Darren Johnston, Aram Shelton, Cory Wright, Lisa Mezzacappa, Karl Evangelista, Michael Coleman and the bands Jack O’ The Clock, Arts & Sciences, 20 Minute Loop, Beep!, tUnE-yArDs, and the Oakland Active Orchestra. He also leads and conducts the project Mindless Thing, a collaboration with poet/free-jazzer/sage Jim Ryan, as well as the long standing trio Wiener Kids and the ten piece expansion, The Wiener Kids Family Band.
In his thirty-plus years in Rova, Larry Ochs has created roughly two dozen compositions for saxophone quartet as well as other pieces for Rova in extended ensembles, many of which are recorded, and some of which were commissioned by Chamber Music America/Doris Duke Foundation and Meet the Composer. He has been acting executive director of Rova:Arts since 1987. In addition Ochs currently composes for and leads Larry Ochs Sax & Drumming Core (with Scott Amendola, Don Robinson, Satoko Fujii, and Natsuki Tamura [Stone Shift, CD]) and Kihnoua with vocalist Dohee Lee, Scott Amendola and special guests [the Sybil’s Whisper, 2012 CD]). He is performing in collective bands: Ochs-Robinson Duo (new CD just out.); East-West Ensemble (with Didier Petit, Sylvain Kassap, Miya Masaoka, Xu Fengxia), Jones Jones (with Mark Dresser and Vladimir Tarasov), Maybe Monday (with Masaoka and Fred Frith), Shelton-Ochs Quartet (with Aram Shelton, Kjell Nordeson and Mark Dresser).
Bruce Ackley with Tania Chen, piano, keyboards, electronics + objects
Tania Chen is a pianist, experimental musician, free improviser and sound artist, working with pianos, keyboards, found objects, toys and vintage and lo-fi electronics.
She studied piano with John Tilbury during her Master’s degree in Performance studies at Goldsmiths College, University of London. She has performed the music of John Cage, Earle Brown, Schoenberg, Webern, Satie, Scriabin, Andrew Poppy, Michael Parsons and Chris Newman in the UK, Europe, USA and Japan. She is equally known for her passion for free improvisation, performing alongside and collaborating with musicians that include Steve Beresford, John Edwards, Lol Coxhill, Alan Tomlinson, Roger Turner, John Butcher, Rhodri Davies and Terry Day. Earlier this year, Tania has been touring John Cage’s Indeterminacy with Steve Beresford and the comedian, writer and performer Stewart Lee. Most recently, she has been nominated for the Royal Philharmonic Society RPS Award.
Bruce Ackley began playing saxophone in 1970 and formed his first improvising trio that year in Detroit, relocating to the Bay Area in 1971. Throughout the 1970s he was involved with the emerging improvisation scene in San Francisco. During this period Ackley began playing with Ochs and Raskin, leading to the formation of Rova in the fall of 1977. Since then he has performed and recorded with John Zorn, Eugene Chadbourne, and Henry Kaiser in Twins; with trombone-electronics wizard J.A. Deane and drummer Joseph Sabella in Planet X; and with koto player Miya Masaoka, bassist Stefano Scodanibbio, and the brilliant cellist Rohan de Saram. In 1996 Ackley formed Actual Size to perform his original compositions, recording The Hearing with Joey Baron and Greg Cohen. He is currently working almost exclusively with Rova, focusing more on writing material for the quartet, and considering future projects with other musicians.