
KOTM Presents Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Glacier
KOTM performs Tom Baker’s “Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Glacier”, alongside Neil Welch’s “no, house on fire, no”, and Ewa Trębacz’s “Winter After Times of Fire”.
KOTM performs Tom Baker’s “Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Glacier”, alongside Neil Welch’s “no, house on fire, no”, and Ewa Trębacz’s “Winter After Times of Fire”.
Kin of the Moon returns from their Denver collaboration with Nebula Ensemble with two new works in hand. All works will be performed by Kin of the Moon.
Kin of the Moon (Heather Bentley, viola; Kaley Lane Eaton, voice; and Leanna Keith, flutes) is “an experimental chamber troupe with an ear for the eclectic. A power trio with classical roots and sprawling musical tastes, their intimate performances blend classical music with sonic ritual, dissolving genre and erasing boundaries between performer and audience.” – Maggie Molloy, Second Inversion. Just back from a residency in Denver at the Metropolitan State University, KOTM will share new works by Sarah Perske of Nebula Ensemble (“The Lack of Anchors”) and Leanna Keith (“Built to Last”). Perske’s piece deals with the emotional states of Panic, Anxiety, and being unmoored, while finding solace in a twelve tone waltz. Keith’s trio is an unhinged ode to Late Capitalism in three movements.
Kin of the Moon will be joined by guitarist Tom Baker in a final all-acoustic improvisation.
Join Nebula Ensemble and Seattle-based trio Kin of the Moon (flute, voice, and viola) at Metropolitan State University Denver on March 1st at 7:30pm. This collaboration brings to life three brand new works: Sarah Perske's new piece to be performed by Kin of the Moon, Leanna Keith's "Built to Last" played by Nebula Ensemble, and a final improvisation involving all players. You won't want to miss the magical timbres and textures created with this blend of strings, winds, and voice, along with the brilliant musicianship of Kin of the Moon!
Red Pants Collective, made up of father/daughter duo James Falzone and Giordana Falzone, join forces with chamber ensemble Kin of the Moon, featuring Kaley Lane Eaton, Heather Bentley, and Leanna Keith, for an evening of improvised movement and sound. Joining the ensembles will be movement artist Hannah Rice.
Red Pants Collective
James Falzone: clarinet, penny whistle, piano, shruti box
Giordana Falzone: movement
Kin of the Moon
Kaley Lane Eaton: banjo and voice
Heather Bentley: viola
Leanna Keith: flutes
Special Guest
Hannah Rice: movement
August 8th at 8pm
Chapel Performance Space at the Good Shepherd Center
Two Seattle bands with deep ties to the city’s new and experimental music scenes, Tom Baker Quartet and Kin of the Moon, will present an evening of acoustic, improvised music to explore the mystical resonances of the Chapel Performance Space.
Short sets by each band will be followed by a third set with all seven performers: Heather Bentley (viola), Kaley Lane Eaton (banjo), Leanna Keith (flute), Tom Baker (acoustic guitar and dobro), Jesse Canterbury (clarinets), Brian Cobb (acoustic bass), Greg Campbell (percussion).
Over the last year or so, Kin of the Moon composers Heather Bentley, Kaley Lane Eaton, and Leanna Keith have been alchemizing projects near and dear to their hearts. On Monday, April 29 they will perform each other’s works in a one night only performance at Nickerson Hall in Queen Anne with the sponsorship of their good friends at Common Tone Arts. Kin of the Moon will perform a segment of Leanna’s chamber piece Rice, Blood, Sugar - an exploration of her relationship to the Mandarin language through a slightly cracked auditory lens. Kaley’s piece Delicate Balance is a meditation on the tenuous ecological environment of the Galapagos Island, grown out of insights and visions she had during and after a recent visit. The ensemble will also perform Kaley's Comedy of Air which involves a man vs. bear encounter, pondering our rightful or wrongful place in the wild. Heather’s Sunflower is a musical pathworking that calls for collective liberation by way of a twisty journey through a sonic alphabet. This night’s performance is a rare opportunity to hear a strictly in-house Kin of the Moon show.
Avante-garde classical composer, freak-folk singer-songwriter and postmodern jazz interloper Kaley Lane Eaton performs her sophomore album, Lookout, live with an all-star orchestra of Seattle’s most beloved genre-bending musicians.
For artists like Kaley Lane Eaton who paint outside the lines, there are seemingly endless boxes to check, but few name-brand comparisons. Joni Mitchell, Björk, Kate Bush, Laurie Anderson.
On her latest album Lookout, Eaton regularly makes pressure-testing trips from the vast cosmos down to the particular details of home in the Pacific Northwest. In her words, “It’s a behemoth.” From the ever-expanding space of jazz cymbals, flute, and harp, down to the folksy pluck of her banjo — a prized recent acquisition — and the grounding chords of her great-great-great grandmother’s piano, which shipped up the Missouri River to the family homestead in Montana.
There are no electronic instruments to be found here, but many trees. The sequoia on the hillside, aspens quaking, cedar, and Jeffrey pine.
With her experience in electronic music, Eaton’s choice to exclude digital instruments from the palette is immediately felt. It’s not that technology doesn’t exist here. It’s a conscious focus on human beings with time-tested tools. Ancient technology.
Eaton composes with the full command of her four music degrees and classical training, but there’s an American-ness that can’t be shaken on Lookout. A sorrow, wildness, and expansiveness, not of the European classical tradition, but of jazz, blues and folk. Kaley Lane Eaton is all of these things and more. And none of them precisely.
Eaton (on vocals, banjo, and piano), is joined on this live performance of Lookout by Chris Icasiano (drums), Kayce Guthmiller (voice and viola), Moe Weisner (bass), Samantha Boshnack (trumpet), Heather Bentley (viola), Leanna Keith (flute), Neil Welch (saxophone), Rian Souleles (guitar, bouzouki, and baglama), Lily Press (harp), Simon Linn-Gerstein (cello), Alina To (violin), Maria Scherer-Wilson (cello), and Aleida Gehrels (viola), Ray Larsen (trumpet).
Kin of the Moon is joined by Seattle improvising masterminds Raymond Larsen (trumpet) and Evan Woodle (drums) for some solstice sun magic.
Kin of the Moon and Shadow Girls Cult team up for a liquid light shadow puppetry event with new music from Dominic Matthews, Kaley Lane Eaton, and Heather Bentley
Aaron Michael Butler plays new music for the electric vibraphone by local composers/improvisers/heroines Kin of the Moon (Heather Bentley, Kaley Lane Eaton, and Leanna Keith).
Opener Erin Jorgensen will play a set of dreamy narcotic pop for electric five octave marimba and voice.
Sponsored in part by a generous grant from 4Culture
Kin of the Moon teams up with gong artist Stephanie Wood to present new works and psychedelic improvisations.
Kin of the Moon returns to the Chapel Performance Space to perform two works inspired by the natural world: "delicate balance," an ode to the fragility of the ecosystem on the Galapagos Islands by Kaley Lane Eaton, and "Ichneumonidae," a song cycle about insects by Heather Bentley. They’re joined by gong/percussion artist Stephanie Wood for an exploration of the Ganzfeld concept in improvisation.
We finally get to share a bill with our buddies Neil Welch and Chris Icasiano and their out-of-this-world band, Bad Luck. So of course the evening needs to be called BAD MOON. Thanks to Earshot Jazz and Clockout Lounge for hosting us! https://www.earshot.org/event/bad-luck-kin-of-the-moon/
New works, deep-rooted collaborations.
Where: Monk Space, 4414 W 2nd St, Los Angeles, CA 90004
When: 3:30pm, Sunday May 29th, 2022
Four premieres of works for flute, viola, cello, harp, & vox.
Commissioned by Kin of the Moon & Strange Interlude
Pieces include a brand new commission by Kaley Lane Eaton, a new graphic score by Leanna Keith, "Groundhog Night" by Boston-based John Morrison and the Los Angeles premiere of "Lemur Meets Panda" by composer Jessi Harvey (complete with costumes and sound effects ;)
2022 productions:
March 5, 2022, Chapel Performance Space
Sponsored in part by Nonsequitur
KOTM will be streaming on Facebook Live surrounded by Heather's magnificent garden. For this performance, we are returning to nature and performing Atmokinesis (written by Kaley and Heather), Orcas (by Kaley, with the recorded sounds of mother Tahlequah mourning her calf), and Hildegard von Trap - an electro-acoustic reimagination of O ignis Spiritus paracliti.
Watch on https://www.facebook.com/kinofthemoonseattle/live_videos/
Want a recap of what this music might be like? Check out our recording of Atmokinesis:
We hope to be at future NMG events. For now, you can watch our 2019 performance of the piece at the NMG-Online event (details coming soon).
Kin of the Moon is delighted to have been invited to this year’s New Music Gathering in Portland, OR!
We’ll be presenting Kaley Lane Eaton’s FUNERAL SENTENCES FOR DAMAGED CELLS, featuring NYC soprano Chelsea Feltman. Our timeslot is 10am on Saturday, June 20th. We would love to see our PNW new music family there!
Some words from Kaley about the piece:
FUNERAL SENTENCES FOR DAMAGED CELLS is a multi-movement work that tells the story of my own family’s journey through multiple generational traumas and how that relates to our current societal predicament. The birth of my great-great-aunt in an insane asylum; the orphaning of my great-grandparents; tumultuous migration to the American west; my grandfather’s tragic experience in a concentration camp; my mother’s untimely death; and the current situation of the living generations of my family, caught in a limbo on this continent they did not rightfully inherit, faced with the disintegration of the American dream. How can the singing voice be a metaphor for epigenetic transmission of trauma and information? How does the evolution of language contribute to our ability to express these traumas? How can digital technology interact with the voice to grip audiences into these stories?
We are hoping to reschedule for fall of 2020, but at the moment, we currently do not have dates planned for fall concerts.
World Premieres of new work by Massachusetts composer John Howell Morrison and East Tennessee composer William Wright (“Find Me in the Dark”).
To Be Alive
by
Gregory OrrTo be alive: not just the carcass
But the spark.
That's crudely put, but…
If we're not supposed to dance,
Why all this music?From Concerning the Book That Is the Body Of the Beloved (Copper Canyon Press, 2005)
KOTM collaborators improvise new music to nature inspired dances by choreographer Karin Stevens.
Kin of the Moon appears at Racer Sessions for a low-gravity, low-tech, extra long version of musics derived from Ewa Trebacz’s “Winter After Times of Fire”. Thanks to Haley Freedlund and Cafe Racer for hosting our musical experiments and excursions. At Cafe Racer: 5828 Roosevelt Way NE in Seattle. No cover.
New commission, “No house on fire, no.” by Seattle saxophonist/composer Neil Welch, with Abbey Blackwell, bass. KOTM encores composer Ewa Trębacz’s “Winter After Times of Fire.” KOTM will also premiere Leanna Keith and Em Piro’s interactive work “imagination is an act of rebellion”. This project is made possible, in part, by a generous grant from King County’s 4Culture.
Artist statement from Neil Welch:
No house on fire, no. for improvising quintet explores phonetic text painting and my reflections on physical landscape. Through this piece, I attempted to channel the collaborative spirit of Kin of the Moon—a virtuosic ensemble committed to engaging in creative dialogue with one another. Throughout this piece you will hear breathing, undulating wind currents, unified melodic passages and solos for each member of the ensemble. The work was composed from late 2017 through early 2019. After initially completing the piece in late 2018, I was inspired to re-compose major sections after a journey through the mountains and valleys of New Zealand. While in country in early December, 2018 I traveled to a remote location in the central South island. With a crew of traveling companions I walked among tall, dry grass waist high that rolled unbroken over hill after hill throughout a 2 day journey. As the wind picked up the grass would take on new forms, winding and coursing in every direction around me. In these long days a new vision of this composition began to take form in my mind.
The work is segmented into four sections (Introduction, I, II, III) and is intended to progress between sections without pause. All instrumentalists use extended techniques to create undulating sounds of air and wind through various means, such as: fingers sliding on the keyboard with plastic picks, flute and saxophone blowing directly into their instruments without engaging pitch, bows sliding on the body of the instrument, amplified bow swirls and pulls, feet and hands brushing against the floor, clothing, or instrument. The work is dominated on the whole by graphic score language I developed for the piece, however many selections are also notated in pitch. These notated passages are often dichotomous in their pitch content, blending tempered and non-tempered tuning. No house on fire, no. is a work that must be sonically sculpted by each member of ensemble in order to bring the composition to completion.
No house on fire, no. includes musical themes that use non-pitched breathing through phonetic text painting. The rhythms and phrasing are taken from the poem Drawn Together, by Joan Naviyuk Kane. The poem is reinterpreted throughout the duration of the composition. —Neil Welch
Drawn Together
Shot through with white, error—
A dream of birds of prey returned
Dropping glyptics, baskets.
Last night’s lopped moon
Couldn’t put into words
The ink around it.
Split and cleft,
I no longer weaken into sleep.
I no longer ash,
Ache. No carrion bird
Blown into the city,
No house on fire, no.
—Joan Naviyuk Kane
Stuttgart based ultra soprano Emily Thorner joins Kin of the Moon for World Premieres of Kaley Lane Eaton’s FUNERAL SENTENCES FOR DAMAGED CELLS and Leanna Keith’s Concerto for Tea Ceremony. Keith’s Crow for Taiko drum, viola, vibraphone, and voice also receives its premiere at the Chapel Performance Space.
A New Phase -- with Ewa Trebacz
This program explores three ways of improvising: by responding to pre-recorded sound, to a graphic score and forgotten sounds, and to the moving imagery of an original film.
World Premiere of Ewa Trebacz's Winter After Times of Fire, a surround sound collage of improvisations from the Fort Worden Cistern and Bunkers, Satsop Nuclear Power Plant, Thomson Hall at the UW and the Missionaries Church in Krakow, Poland. In live performance, the work features improvised responses to the audio collage. Commissioned by Kin of the Moon through a grant from King County's 4Culture. EWA TRĘBACZ is a Polish-American composer living in Seattle. Her works range from purely instrumental compositions, to compositions with computer realized sound with live performance, to sound tracks for animated films, to experimental stereoscopic video. Her current artistic explorations are oriented towards immersive media. She often uses space as a catalyst for improvisation, working through Ambisonic recording sessions in acoustically inspiring spaces. Graduating from the UW's Center for Digital Arts and Experimental Media (DXARTS) with a Ph.D. in 2010, Ewa currently works at DXARTS as a Research Scientist and teaches courses related to digital sound and immersive media.
Violist/composer Heather Bentley's new graphic score Amage #2 begins the program and is followed by Daniel Husser's stunning new film Synthetic Evolution depicting urban and natural landscapes in juxtaposition.
Kin of the Moon musicians Heather Bentley, Leanna Keith, and Kaley Lane Eaton utilize acoustic and electronic sounds to craft improvised sound worlds.
Kin of the Moon presents the electroacoustic opera lily [bloom in my darkness] (music by Kaley Lane Eaton, libretto by felicia klingenberg and choreography by Karin Stevens Dance) alongside the immersive multimedia work LUNG (co-conceived by Eaton and Karin Stevens). Together these pieces explore issues of migration, connection, and finding one’s voice.
Performers:
Kin of the Moon (Heather Bentley, viola; Leanna Keith, flutes; Kaley Lane Eaton, voice and electronics; and guest Rachel Yoder, clarinets)
Strange Interlude (Lily Press, harp, and Simon Linn-Gerstein, cello)
Karin Stevens, choreography, movement
Amelia Love Clearheart, movement
KSD will present Kaley Lane Eaton's 2017 opera lily [bloom in my darkness] alongside a new work LUNG for 6 loudspeakers, musicians, and dancers, an intense exploration of finding voice, finding community, and finding freedom.
Tickets available for purchase on Brown Paper Tickets: https://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/3565165.
Join Kin of the Moon in an evening of guided improvisations. Bring your instrument, voices, or resonant rocks. Improvisers of all levels encouraged to attend.
Gallery 1412
Seattle, WA
KOTM commissions a new work from Chicago composer Renée Baker: Tyaga: Divine Life Suite. With guests Gretchen Nicole, cello, and Greg Campbell, percussion and horn. Some of it is written down. Some of it is improvised. All of it is magic. Renée is in residence in Seattle for a week and will also present her original recorded film scores (with films) at the Seattle Public LIbrary main branch on Wednesday, June 14 at 6:30 pm.
Donation $5 - $15 sliding scale
Kin of the Moon and Karin Stevens Dance present Atmokinesis at the Seattle International Dance Festival.
At-mo-ki-ne-sis | noun | the psychic ability to influence the weather. Atmokinesis is a collaboration with SuperCollider composer Kaley Eaton, Violist/composer/improviser Heather Bentley and Flutist/improviser Leanna Keith and serves as an opportunity as a chance to explore the five elements of Earth, Water, Fire, Air and Aether. It is a musical alchemical experiment involving live improvisation of acoustic instruments, pre-recorded sounds, real-time audio synthesis and digital signal processing written in SuperCollider.
Adding to the alchemical magic is Karin Stevens - re-imagining the elements through movement.
Tickets may be purchased here.
A unique music program featuring film scores by award-winning composer Renee' Baker. The night will feature scores for "Body and Soul" (1925) by Oscar Micheaux and the Baker's film "Dinner: Race, Greed, Abuse and the Priority of Social Justice" (2017).
As an artist with a vision of racial unity, Baker's music brings people together. Her wide-ranging portfolio covers films from the 1920s to the present, rescored with her original music. As the director of Chicago Modern Orchestra Project music, Renee' moves fluidly through narrative and experimental films. She unites aficionados of classical and avant garde music, early film lovers, and people who want to see and hear more inclusivity in cinema and music. Along the way, Baker welcomes in new audiences by inspiring us to have new and more compelling conversations about how we can challenge stereotypes while writing people of color and women into histories that often excluded them.
Library events and programs are free and everyone is welcome. Registration is not required.
Kin of the Moon is excited to offer the first of a series of ongoing monthly all-who-are-gathered sonic participation rituals. Since this is the beginning, the theme for the first happening will be the essence of all sentient things: breathing. We have some breath improvisations and we'll move on from there to inviting actual vocalizations and then employing instruments, whether they be Officially Approved Instruments or just Artifacts of This World That Make Sound. KOTM will offer structures for the series of pieces that we will create together. Please bring sound making objects! Or just your resonating body!
New dance-inspired music from Kin of the Moon alternating with music/dance improvisations from clarinetist/improviser Beth Fleenor and dancer/choreographer Karin Stevens.
Kin of the Moon presents: Atmokinesis a Kin of the Moon collaborative, Only the Words Themselves Mean What They Say by Kate Soper, and Eve Beglarian's Robin Redbreast.