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George Cremaschi works as a composer, performer, teacher and organizer. Using mostly contrabass and electronics, and working with free improvisation and a wide variety of non-idiomatic compositional approaches and techniques, his work attempts to dissolve the boundaries between music, sound art and noise, and extend their existing language, vocabulary and discourse.
He has worked with, and composed for, a long list of distinguished improvisers, dancers and choreographers, installation artists, poets, filmmakers, folk musicians, theater groups, orchestras, rock bands and pop divas. Some of his current projects include the bands KRK (w/Matthew Ostrowski), Rohr Rohr (w/dieb13 and Gino Robair), Los Amargados (w/Petr Vrba), Lambs Gamble (w/Fritz Welch and Eric Boros), and a trio with Lê Quan Ninh and Frédéric Blondy. He is also the co-founder and director of Pražský Improvizační Orchestr (PIO), a 15-member group working with conducted and free improvisation, and graphic scores.
As an interpreter, he has performed works by many composers including Andriessen, Braxton, Cage, Cardew, Feldman, Mingus, Oliveros, Penderecki, Tenney, Xenakis, etc, and has appeared on over 40 recordings on the Apestaartje, Beak Doctor, Black Saint, Emanem, Evander, Evolving Ear, Leo, Music & Arts, Nine Winds, Rastascan and 482 Music labels. Born in New York where he studied music and composition, he lived for many years in California and currently lives in Prague, Czech Republic.
Composer and bassoonist Katherine Young creates acoustic and electro-acoustic music that has been described by the New York Times as “raw, wailing, coloristic,” and New Music Box has noted “her visceral approach to sound; her organic use of repetition, structure, and pacing; her attentiveness to the smallest details of timbre; her adventurousness in using instruments in unexpected ways.” Talea Ensemble, Flux Quartet, the String Orchestra of Brooklyn, Spektral Quartet, Till by Turning, and others have performed her music, and Katherine has documented her work on numerous recordings. Her 2009 solo bassoon release garnered praise in The Wire (“Bassoon colossus”) and Downbeat (“seriously bold leaps for the bassoon”). About her 2012 release with her quartet Pretty Monsters, All About Jazz stated: “one of the most intriguing ensemble debuts in recent memory, a sonically audacious record documenting the development of a bold young artist whose arresting improvisations are as remarkable as her engaging compositions.”