An evening of 3 short sets: Amanda Chaudhary (electronics) , Zachary Watkins (guitar and electronics), followed with a duo with Thea Farhadian (violin & electronics) with Silvia Matheus (electronics). Three 25-minute sets by three musicians/composers based in the Bay Area.
Amanda Chaudhary opens the evening with her blend of experimental electronic sounds with jazz, funk, and other idiomatic styles, with her visualy intriguing performance. Following is Zachary Watkins, composer-performer performs a set for solo electronics with his many influences including just intonation and “high vibration resonance.” Thea Farhadian and Silvia Matheus will present their 3rd performance in this new collaboration – working with structured and free improvisations, the duo integrates noise based material to tonal music, with real time processing. Three 25-minute sets by three musicians/composers based in the Bay Area.
Amanda Chaudhary is a composer, bandleader, electronic musician, jazz keyboardist, and visual/sound artist. She blends experimental electronic sounds with jazz, funk, dance music and other idiomatic styles into her visually captivating performances. Her gaze, her custom software synths, her modular synthesizers, keyboards, kids’ toys, and all manner of folk instruments combine to confound and awaken the heretofore undiscovered sensibilities of her audiences. She has performed, recorded, or collaborated with such diverse artists as Amy X Neuburg, G Calvin Weston, Jamaaladeen Tacuma, Rent Romus, Tom Djll, Jerry King, Thollem McDonas, Moe Staiano, Vacuum Tree Head, and David Wessel. Chaudhary is also a photographer, fashion model, designer of technology for creativity, and operates the foremost blog on cats and synthesizers, CatSynth along with its associated video channel CatSynth TV, where she discusses music, art, culture, and of course, cats.
amandachaudhary.bandcamp.com
CatSynth.tv
Zachary James Watkins studied composition with Janice Giteck, Jarrad Powell, Robin Holcomb and Jovino Santos Neto at Cornish College. In 2006, Zachary received an MFA in Electronic Music and Recording Media from Mills College where he studied with Chris Brown, Fred Frith, Alvin Curran and Pauline Oliveros. Zachary has received commissions from The Empyrean Ensemble, Splinter Reeds, The Switch Ensemble, Density512, sfsound, The Living Earth Show, Kronos Quartet and the Seattle Chamber Players among others. His 2006 composition “Suite for String Quartet” was awarded the Paul Merritt Henry Prize for Composition and has subsequently been performed at the Labs 25th Anniversary Celebration, the Labor Sonor Series at Kule in Berlin Germany and in Seattle Wa, as part of the 2nd Annual Town Hall New Music Marathon featuring violist Eyvind Kang. Zachary has performed in numerous festivals across the United States, Mexico and Europe and his band Black Spirituals opened for pioneering Minimal Metal band Earth during their 2015 European tour. In 2008, Zachary premiered a new multi-media work entitled “Country Western” as part of the Meridian Gallery’s Composers in Performance Series that received grants from the The American Music Center and The Foundation for Contemporary Arts. An excerpt of this piece is published on a compilation album entitled ”The Harmonic Series‚” along side Pauline Oliveros, Ellen Fullman, Theresa Wong Charles Curtis and Duane Pitre among others. Zachary completed Documentado / Undocumentado a multimedia interactive book in collaboration with Guillermo Gómez Peña, Gustavo Vasquez, Jennifer Gonzalez and Felicia Rice. His sound art work entitled Third Floor::Designed Obsolescence, “spoke as a metaphor for the breakdown of the dream of technology and the myth of our society’s permanence,” review by Susan Noyes Platt in the Summer 05 issue of ARTLIES. Zachary releases music on the labels Sige, Cassauna, Confront (UK), The Tapeworm and Touch (UK). Novembre Magazine (DE), ITCH (ZA), Walrus Press and the New York Miniature Ensemble have published his writings and scores. Zachary has been an artist-in-resident at the Espy Foundation, Djerassi the Headlands Center for The Arts and the Amant Foundation Siena, Itay.
https://www.zacharyjameswatkins.com/
Thea Farhadian (violin & electronics) and Silvia Matheus (electronics) respond to current states of uncertainty and loss by locating a musical language to express elements of indeterminacy and emptiness. Their dynamic work integrates random sources with real-time processing, combining textured-based material, tonality, and microtonality.
Thea Farhadian is a violinist/composer whose projects include solo violin and interactive electronics, acoustic improvisation, solo laptop, radio art, and video. Her work has been seen internationally at venues that include the Issue Project Room, Downtown Music Gallery, Alternative Museum in New York City, Galerie Mario Mazolli and Sowieso in Berlin, the Room Series, and Center for New Music in San Francisco, the Center for Experimental Art and the Aram Kachaturyan Museum in Yerevan, Armenia, and International Women’s Electroacoustic Listening Room Project at Bimhaus in Amsterdam.
https://on.soundcloud.com/zWPzbH2PkPYJtCcX6
In the early eighties, Silvia Matheus constructed music scores/controllers using glass etched with conductive paint, which interfaced with electronic instruments, with the score serving as a controller.
As a composer, Ms. Matheus focuses on fixed media and interactive live performances involving computers, electronics, and instrumental ensembles. Her artistic endeavors often entail collaboration with visual artists and performers utilizing computers and electronics in acting, filming, dancing, visuals, and multi-kinetic art sculptures. She earned her Master of Fine Arts in Electronic Music and Recording Media from Mills College, Oakland, California, and participated in classes and seminars on interactive music and performance at UC Berkeley’s Center for New Music and Audio Technologies (CNMAT) under the guidance of David Wessel. Ms. Matheus’s most influential teacher was Hans Koellreutter in São Paulo, Brazil, where she received her initial musical training.
As an independent composer, her works have been performed nationally and internationally, with selections showcased at various prestigious events such as the International Computer Music Conference (ICMC) in Hong Kong, Canada, Japan, Cuba, Denmark, and New York; IESA in the USA; the Brazilian Symposium for Computer Music; the KISS Symposium in the USA, Belgium, and Germany; and C60 in Berlin. She was granted a composition grant to work at DIEM – Danish Electronic Music Studios in the late nineties. Silvia has also contributed reviews to the Computer Music journal (MIT Press).
Her multimedia piece “Hands,” a Taiji-choreographed performance for piano with video and electronics, was performed in Münster and Cologne, Germany, as well as in New York and San Francisco, USA, as part of “Handscapes,” a multi-media piano project organized by Jennifer Hymer. Additionally, for many years, she has taught radio drama production and post-production for youth. Her other area of interest and work is art documentation. She freelances as a camera operator and editor, collaborating with local theaters in the San Francisco Bay Area. She performs with Thomas Miley in a duo called Analogous. Analogous’ music focuses on blending various styles to create rich and dense sound textures.
Her pieces can be found on Silvia A. Matheus’s Soundcloud, Bandcamp and the ICMC 2006 CD.