An evening of quietly intense composition and improvisation.

Catherine Lee — A diverse musician, Canadian oboist Dr. Catherine Lee performs extensively as a solo, chamber, and orchestral musician on oboe, oboe d’amore, and English horn, in settings from classical to contemporary to free improvisation. She has performed in a wide variety of venues, including the Sound Symposium (St. Johns, NFLD), Performers Voice Symposium (Singapore), Risk/Reward Festival and the Improvisation Summit of Portland (Portland, OR), Music by the Sea (Bamfield, BC), Le centre d'arts Orford, and the Banff Center for the Arts. Catherine has played in the oboe sections of many ensembles, including Les Grands Ballets Canadiens de Montréal, Oregon Symphony, Oregon Ballet Theatre, Portland Opera, and Montreal Chamber Orchestra, and was a tenured member of Orchestre symphonique de Longueuil from 2003 to 2008. Catherine has also performed in ensembles led by improvisers John Gruntfest, Gino Robair, and Tatsuya Nakatani. She holds a Doctor of Music in Oboe Performance from McGill University and is a member of the music faculty at Western Oregon, Willamette, and George Fox Universities. In 2013 she released the solo CD “Social Sounds,” featuring works by Canadian composers for oboe, oboe d’amore, and English horn. In 2015, she released “Five Shapes: Improvisations for Oboe d’Amore and Percussion” with percussionist Matt Hannafin. www.catherinemlee.com

John C. Savage — Flutist, saxophonist, composer, improviser, and educator John C. Savage has been compared to Rahsaan Roland Kirk, Jean-Pierre Rampal, Herbie Mann, Noah Howard, Ian Anderson, and Colin Stetson. Known equally as “a thoughtful and rigorous improviser” and “a badass, knock-down-drag-out force to be reckoned with” (Willamette Week), Savage lived in New York City for almost a decade, performing and recording with, among others, Billy Fox (“The Uncle Wiggly Suite”) the avant world-jazz duo Cartridge (“The Black Heron and the Spoonbill”), The Brooklyn Qawwali Party (eponymous release), and the Andrew Hill Big Band (“A Beautiful Day”). Savage continues to be a sought-after soloist and collaborator on both coasts, working with a wide variety of artists including the NYC-based Kitsune Ensemble (“The Kaidan Suite” and “Amanogawa”), Point to Line (with flutist Lisa Bost-Sandberg), composer-drummer Ken Ollis (with whom he’s released “Demolition Duo” and “Senses Sharpened” on PJCE Records), and the poetry and music duo Thick In The Throat, Honey (“Love Letters We Never Sent”). His CD of solo flute compositions and improvisations, “A Moment in Mythica,” is available on Teal Creek Music. Savage has received honors and awards from New York University, the Atlantic Center for the Arts, the Oregon Arts Commission, and the Portland-based Regional Arts and Culture Council. He holds a Ph.D. from New York University in flute performance, and currently teaches flute and saxophone at Reed College in Portland, Oregon. www.johncsavage.com

Matt Hannafin — Matt Hannafin is a New York–born, Portland-based percussionist active in contemporary percussion, free improvisation, and Iranian classical and traditional music. His teachers included Persian tar and tombak master Kavous Shirzadian, percussionists Jamey Haddad and Glen Velez, composer La Monte Young, and Indian vocal legend Pandit Pran Nath. Active as a solo performer, he’s also played with a wide range of collaborators, including trumpeter Nate Wooley, shakuhachi master Jeffrey Lependorf, Sun Ra altoist Marshall Allen, oboist Catherine Lee, sound artist Loren Chasse, multi-instrumentalist Omar Faruk Tekbilek, electronics players Tom Hamilton and Brian Moran, dancers Tere Mathern and Kat Macmillan, the Golden Retriever Chamber Ensemble, and chamber group 45th Parallel. He’s appeared at venues and festivals around the USA, from the United Nations General Assembly Hall and the Miami Iranian Cultural Festival to the Salem World Beat Festival and the late, lamented CBGB’s. He’s released more than 20 recordings, including the Lee/Hannafin Duo’s recent “Five Shapes: Improvisations for Oboe d’Amore and Percussion.” www.matthannafin.com/Music.php

Loren Chasse — Loren Chasse is a musician, sound artist, field recordist, and teacher. He has been called "one of the most important international artists working in the areas of environment and sound." Formerly based in San Francisco, he relocated to Portland in 2010, where he has performed solo and as a duo with percussionist Matt Hannafin. Chasse has also been composing for the past five seasons for Portland's TopShake Dance Company, and recently designed sound for an installation by choreographer Katherine Longstreth at the White Box gallery in downtown Portland. Chasse’s most recent recordings include “Characters at the Water Margin,” published last year by the Belgian label Unfathomless, “The Animals and their Shadows,” published this year on the Russian label Semperflorens, and "The Sodden Floor," also out this year on local cassette label Notice Recordings. http://lorenchasse.blogspot.com/p/loren-chasse.html

Branic Howard — Branic Howard is a composer engaged with sound and how place is inscribed with meaning through its negotiations with its sonic surrounding. Whether writing for acoustic ensembles, electronic media, or dealing with recorded sound, his focus is on the specific aural situation of that place or the internal “space” of the music. He studied with Daniel S. Godfrey and Andrew Waggoner at Syracuse University and with Margaret Schedel and Daniel Weymouth at Stony Brook University, where he is completing a PhD in Composition. He has participated in master-classes with Mark Applebaum, Lukas Ligeti, Ensemble Nordlys, and Fireworks Ensemble, among others. Recently, his music has been performed by cellist Caroline Stinson and pianists José Menor and Michael Smith. Howard performs as an improvisor with electronics and computer, is a member of NYC-based multi-disciplinary performance group Space We Make, and runs Open Field Recording, an on-location mobile recording business. Most recently, his work incorporates short-distance FM radio transmissions into site-specific sound installation, and explores the representation of urban soundscapes through nature recording.

Program: 

- 7:30pm - Branic Howard, solo sound art / electronics

- 8:20pm - Loren Chasse, solo sound art

- 9:10 - Catherine Lee (oboe), John C. Savage (flute), and Matt Hannafin (percussion) perform John Cage’s “Ryoanji”

- 9:30 - Catherine Lee + Matt Hannafin Duo, improvisations

$5 to $15 sliding scale admission

All audience members will receive a copy of Catherine Lee & Matt Hannafin’s recent duo CD “Five Shapes: Improvisations for Oboe d’Amore and Percussion”