BETH CUSTER & STEPHEN KENT have formed an eclectic yet accessible musical ensemble that integrates original compositions, improvisations, and world folk musics. Custer's Bb, alto, and bass clarinets, Indonesian and South American flutes, toy and homemade instruments, combine with Kent's didgeridoo, percussion, and guitar, making unusual and inexhaustible aural delights: Middle Eastern raps, Raga blues, Scottish trance-dances, post-Cage duets.
Beth Custer is best known for her work as performer/composer with the Club Foot Orchestra who perform live original soundtracks to old silent films. their recent release on heyday records, "Metropolis," is receiving raves internationally.
Custer is the founder of the clarinet quintet Clarinet Thing and has performed and/or recorded with numerous Bay Area ensembles including Connie Champagne, Penelope Houston, Kamikaze Ground Crew & Speed the Parting Guest. She is also known for her work with many theatre groups including Elbows Akimbo, Overtone Theatre, Bindlestiff Productions, Soon 3, and the Berkeley Shakespeare Festival. She recently completed a month-long tour of Czechoslovakia where she performed as a solo improviser and in collaboration with SF and Czech artists. Custer was Artist in Residence at the Headlands Center for the Arts in 1991.
Stephen Kent was born in England but has a varied cultural background having lived in East Africa, Australia, and Spain. He is a composer and multi-instrumentalist, his principal instrument being the didgeridoo, a traditional Australian Aboriginal ancient instrument extant for 40,000 years. Stephen has worked with many music groups, circuses, and dance companies, and with the internationally acclaimed world music group, Lights in a Fat City. With LIAFC he played in many festivals including WOMAD, Leipzig & Zurich Jazz Festivals, New Music America, The Winnipeg Folk Festival, and New York International Festival of the Arts. Currently residing in the Bay Area, Stephen is composing for and collaborating with many local musicians including Kronos Quartet, Joseph Brinkman and the Conspiracy of Equals, D'Cuckoo, and Barbara Imhoff.