from Chicago
Kim Alpert combines analog and digital technologies, movement, music, and interactivity, to create sculptural and performance-based video systems. Kim's visual practice centers on humanism with inquisitions into psychology and spirituality - understanding and translating the impact of visual language to create meaning.
Kim uses digital and analog techniques, feedback, and found footage to weave dream tapestries both recorded and improvised. A significant part of Kim’s performed work is in collaboration with improvisational musicians, blending pre-rendered content with live visualizations. Kim performs in collaborative and cross-discipline works such as Mike Reed’s Flesh and Bone, Ken Vandermark’s Momentum, The Instigation Orchestra, and with her project Scan Lines.
Mikel Patrick Avery
Josh Berman is an internationally recognized cornetist and composer. He has led the acclaimed Old Idea, Josh Berman and his Gang, and his own trio. In addition to being an indispensable contributor to Chicago’s jazz and improvised music scene, Berman has been a concert presenter with fellow Chicagoan Mike Reed, producing hundreds of shows over the past 20 years. Berman’s work has been critically acclaimed in the New York times, Chicago Tribune, JazzTimes, and DownBeat, among others. HIs recordings can be found on Chicago’s legendary Delmark Records and more recently on Austin’s Astral Spirits Records
Haley Fohr (b. Dec 16 1988) is a vocalist, composer and singer-songwriter based in Chicago, Illinois. Her musical endeavors focus around our human condition, and her 10-year career as Circuit des Yeux has grown into one of America’s most successful efforts to connect the personal to the universal.
She is most distinctly identified by her 4-octave voice and unique style of 12-string guitar. Her mysterious “Jackie Lynn” project landed her on the cover of Wire Magazine in August of 2016. Her recent works include an Original Soundtrack for Charles Bryant’s silent film Salomé (1923), commissioned by Opera North, and her critically acclaimed 2021 album -io, released on Matador Records.
Rob Frye plays woodwinds, percussion, and synthesizers in Chicago-based bands Bitchin Bajas, Jackie Lynn, and CAVE (Drag City), tours internationally, and has recorded with Ben Lamar Gay (International Anthem), Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith (Western Vinyl), and Circuit des Yeux (Thrill Jockey) among others. Since 2010, his project Flux Bikes has held solar-powered workshops, annual bike tours, and performances. In the field of jazz and improvised music, he collaborates often in Chicago and participated in the second edition of The Bridge, a trans-Atlantic network of creative music linking France and Chicago in May 2019; and Close To There, an artistic exchange allying Salvador, Bahia and Chicago through Comfort Station and Projeto Ativa in February 2020.
Ben LaMar Gay is a composer, multi-instrumentalist, singer, poet, and patently eclectic polymath who Afropunk has called “strikingly original,” Pitchfork has called “uncategorizable,” and Jeff Parker has called "hands down, one of my favorite musicians on the planet today.” He channels a radical array of sound, color, and space through the universal language of folklore; but despite the widely attributed genius of his work, his artistic approach and general demeanor are characterized by an endearing humbleness and warm humanity.
Bassist, composer, and improviser Anton Hatwich has lived in Chicago since 2003. He was born and raised in Rockford, IL, growing up in a musical family. Anton moved to Iowa City, IA in 1995 and lived there until 2002, earning a Bachelor of Music degree from the University of Iowa. After graduation Hatwich taught for two years as Visiting Artist in Music at Cornell College in Mt. Vernon, IA. At the UI he studied bass with Dr. Diana Gannett, jazz and improvisation with John Rapson, and also gained valuable experience playing with the school's renown Center for New Music, under the direction of David Gompper. Outside of class, Anton was active in the local music scene. Of particular lasting importance was his work with clarinettist, saxophonist, and composer Robert Paredes, with whom Anton took first steps in the world of free improvisation.
In late 2002 Hatwich started spending large amounts of time amongst Chicago's improvised music community, hanging out all night with his new friends at concerts and bars, and crashing on his brother's couch. One thing led to another, and by spring of 2003 he was playing so much in Chicago that it made sense to move there. Since that time he has played in endlessly varied groups of (mostly) improvising musicians, with some combinations sticking around longer than others. A partial list of his collaborators includes Frank Rosaly, Keefe Jackson, Aram Shelton, Nick Mazzarella, Russ Johnson, Tim Daisy, Jason Stein, Fred Lonberg-Holm, Josh Berman, and Paul Giallorenzo. With the bands that lasted, Anton has recorded a number of critically acclaimed albums and toured nationally and internationally. He has appeared at a handful of the major jazz festivals, including the Chicago Jazz Festival, the Monterey Jazz Festival, the Ring Ring Festival in Belgrade, the Umbrella Festival, and the Ulrichsberger Kaleidophon Festival in Austria. In addition to his performance work, Anton maintains a small private teaching studio.
Lia Kohl is a cellist, composer, and sound artist based in Chicago. Her wide-ranging practice includes solo composition and performance, installation, improvisation, and collaboration.
She tours nationally and internationally, working in theater, jazz, rock, and experimental contexts. Her work centers curiosity and patience, an exploration of the mundane and profound possibilities of sound.
Damon Locks is a Chicago-based visual artist, educator, vocalist/musician. He attended the Art Institute of Chicago where he received his BFA in fine arts. Since 2014 he has been working with the Prisons and Neighborhood Arts Project at Stateville Correctional Center teaching art. He is a recipient of the Helen Coburn Meier and Tim Meier Achievement Award in the Arts and the 2016 MAKER Grant. He operated as an Artist Mentor in the Chicago Artist Coalition program FIELD/WORK. In 2017 he became a Soros Justice Media Fellow. In 2019, he became a 3Arts Awardee. He recently completed 4years as an artist in residence as a part of the Museum of Contemporary Arts’ SPACE Program, introducing civically engaged art into the curriculum at Sarah E. Goode STEM Academy High School. In the spring of 2022, he taught his first semester in the Sound Department on improvisation at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Damon leads the Black Monument Ensemble and is a founding member of the band The Eternals.
Steve Marquette (b.1987, BM DePaul 2010) is a guitarist, improviser and organizer based out of Chicago, IL. Over the past decade he has become an integral part of the city's storied and vibrant improvised music community touring the United States and Europe in ensembles of his own (The Few with Macie Stewart and Charlie Kirchen, Kobra Quartet, Instigation Orchestra, Ibises) and as a member of Ken Vandermark's Marker among other projects. In addition to his work as a musician, he is also a founder and lead organizer of the biannual Instigation Festival - which brings together performers from Chicago and New Orleans for a week of interdisciplinary collaboration in each city. In 2022 he was selected by the Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events as an Esteemed Artist for his work with the Instigation Festival.
