Breaking the Sound: Aram Shelton + Philip White, Jessie Marino, Blood Wedding (Chuck Johnson + Danishta Rivero)

Breaking the Sound is a diverse and bi-coastal offering of contemporary musics featuring electro free jazz from Aram Shelton and Philip White, experimental performance/chamber music from Jessie Marino and the sonic architecture of Danishta Rivero and Chuck Johnson’s Blood Wedding.
Aram Shelton is an avant jazz saxophonist, clarinetist, improviser and composer. Originally from southeast Florida, Shelton currently lives in Oakland, California. In Oakland the groups Ton Trio II, Stratic, and Marches represent his music. He is connected to Chicago (where he lived from 1999 to 2005) through his Quartet, the cooperative sextet Fast Citizens (Delmark), and Jason Adasiewicz’ Rolldown (Cuneiform). His writing and playing is grounded in and influenced by the rich history of avant-jazz and free improvisation in America and Europe since the 1950s and has been documented through more than a dozen albums since 2003. aramshelton.com
The music of composer, performer and improviser Philip White is known for its ecstatic intensity and expressive sonic palette. Working with an array of homemade electronics at the intersection of noise, jazz and contemporary concert music, White exploits the tension between rigorous, closed electronic systems and the urgency of human compulsion. An active collaborator, Philip performs regularly with R WE WHO R WE (with composer Ted Hearne), Colonic Youth (with James Ilgenfritz, Dan Blake and Kevin Shea), thenumber46 (with Suzanne Thorpe), Taylor Levine, Chris Pitsiokos and dancer/choreographer Nora Chipamuire Philip has been an artist in residence at Electronic Music Foundation, Harvestworks, High Concept Labs and the Rensing Center and received grants from New Music USA, the Jerome Foundation. He has lectured at Wesleyan University, University of Chicago, University of South Carolina and the College of Charleston. He received his BA in Music from the College of Charleston and an MFA in Electronic and Recorded Media from Mills College. prwhite.net
Jessie Marino is a composer/performer from New York. Her current work explores the virtuosity of common activities, ritual absurdities in classical performance practices, and the musical capabilities of humor. These works of composed theater rigorously score out sound, physical movements, lighting and staging and place them within highly organized musical forms. In 2006 Jessie was awarded the Stamas Family Scholarship from Lincoln Center and has recently received awards from The Mary Cary New Music Fund, The Headlands Foundation, MATA Festival, Meet the Composer, and the New York Foundation for the Arts. In 2008 she founded the composer-performer collective On Structure, and as a cellist is a performing member of Ensemble Pamplemousse and the Wet Ink Ensemble (NYC). Jessie holds degrees in Cello Performance and Composition from Manhattan School of Music and Wesleyan University. She currently resides in the Bay Area where she is working towards her DMA in Composition in a place that resembles a country club . jessiemarino.com
Blood Wedding is the duo project of Danishta Rivero (vocals, processing) and Chuck Johnson (steel guitar, modular synthesizer.) Danishta Rivero is a musician and sound artist based in San Francisco. She is a vocalist, and also performs on the Hydrophonium, a water-based electro-acoustic percussion instrument she created. Chuck Johnson is a composer and musician residing in Oakland, CA. He approaches his work with an ear towards the faults and instabilities that reveal latent beauty, and with a focus on guitar, experimental electronics, and “folk minimalist” composition.