18th SEATTLE IMPROVISED MUSIC FESTIVAL
ARTKOAMIA
Stuart Dempster, Renko Ishida, Virginia Paquette & William O. Smith
Saturday, February 22 · Polestar Music Gallery
1412 18th Ave. at E Union · 8 PM · $5-15 sliding scale suggested donation
Artists Renko Ishida and Virginia Paquette will join musicians Stuart Dempster and William O. Smith in the première of ARTKOAMIA [pron. 'art-ko-ah-MEE-ah'] a music and artist collective. The artists will engage in visual improvisations and respond to musical conversations and gestures just as the musicians will similarly converse while responding to the visuals as well as each other. Improvisational paintings will, like the music, be created in the moment working in the spirit of process.
Revisiting her artistic path, Renko Ishida, a.k.a. Suiren, has created visuals with ROOM in Seattle and elsewhere in the Northwest; Deep Listening Band in Newfoundland; and Cathedral Band in Australia. Recent exhibitions also include collaborations with composer/performer Stuart Dempster. Engaged in visual improvisation with sound and movement, Renko opens up to infinite possibilities for spontaneous visual expression that arouses a sense of curiosity and wonderment.
An M.F.A. graduate in painting from the University of Washington, Virginia Paquette has worked and exhibited internationally. She continues to explore more processes and media, and currently works in public art. Attracted early to the gesture and improvisation of abstract expressionism and performance art, Paquette has continued to explore this work, most recently in performance installations in collaboration with musician and composer William O. Smith.
Stuart Dempster is a trombone legend. He came to the University of Washington in 1968 to join William O. Smith and the Contemporary Group. As a leader in the development of trombone technique and performance, he published The Modern Trombone in 1979. He has recorded with Anomalous, Columbia (Sony), Nonesuch, and Sparkling Beatnik, and also on New Albion, where his In the Abbey of St. Clement VI and Cistern Chapel recordings have become cult classics. He is a founding member of both Deep Listening Band and the music-dance improv project ROOM.
A native of California, William O. Smith moved to Seattle in 1966 and formed the UW Contemporary Group that he co-directed with Stuart Dempster until his retirement from the University in 1997. Active as a clarinetist, composer, and improviser of both jazz and non-jazz music, he has concertized widely and made numerous recordings. The most recent is Solo Music (Ravenna Editions). He is widely recognized as a pioneer in the exploration of extended clarinet techniques, and for over 40 years of collaborations with jazz pianist Dave Brubeck.
18th Seattle Improvised Music Festival
