THE PAUL DRESHER ENSEMBLE Looking West to the East Tour Program Winter 1995

CHANNELS PASSING- Paul Dresher, 1981-82, this arrangement 1993, for violin, clarinet, two electronic percussion, and two electronic keyboards.

DISAPPOINTMENT LAKE - John Adams, 1992 originally composed for computer and electronics, arranged for live performance by Paul Dresher

DOUBLE IKAT - 2nd Movement, Paul Dresher, 1988-90 for violin, piano and percussion

RUEN PAIR - Carl Stone, 1993-94, world premier* for violin, clarinet, 2 keyboards, electronic marimba, electronic drums

Intermission

QIN 2000 - Bun Ching Lam 1994, world premier* for violin, bassoon, electronic mallets and drums, piano/electronic keyboard, and electric guitar

COYOTE BUILDS NORTH AMERICA - John Luther Adams, 1990 for two percussionists and live computer (originally for four percussionists)

INNER OPENINGS - Paul Hanson, 1993 for bassoon and live electronics

DIN OF INIQUITY - Paul Dresher, 1994, world premier* for violin, bassoon, keyboard, electronic percussion, electronic drums and electric guitar

KOLE KAT KRUSH - Jay Cloidt, 1989 for violin, bassoon, percussion and two keyboards (originally for string quartet and tape)

(PLEASE NOTE: THE FOLLOWING CREDIT MUST APPEAR) *The Commissioning of Ruen Pair, Qin 2000 and Din of Iniquity was made possible by a grant from the Meet The Composer/Reader's Digest Commissioning Program, in partnership with the National Endowment for the Arts and the Lila Wallace-Reader's Digest Fund.

ARTISTS: Phil Aaberg - piano and electronic keyboards Craig Fry - violin Paul Hanson - bassoon and clarinet Amy Knoles - electronic percussion Gene Reffkin - electronic percussion Paul Dresher - electric guitar and keyboard Gregory Kuhn - sound engineer Melissa Weaver - stage and lighting design, production manager

A catalogue of audio and video recordings of works by Paul Dresher and the Paul Dresher Ensemble is available by writing to MINMAX MUSIC, 2236 Sixth St. Berkeley, CA 94710

PROGRAM NOTES

Artistic Director's Statement

This repertoire of this ensemble has two defining ideas, one technical and one musical. I have long wished to create a chamber music context which combines and integrates, in a profound way, traditional acoustic instruments with the rapidly evolving resources of contemporary music technology. My goal in this is not to explore the technology for its own sake but rather to approach the technology as the next step in the evolution of the resources from which composers may draw their sounds and compositional procedures, much like the invention of valves for brass instruments in the 19th century or the "discovery" of percussion instruments in the early and mid 20th century added to the musical resources for all composers.

The musical inspiration for LOOKING WEST TO THE EAST, comes from the core of my own artistic development and one which I share with many other composers, particularly those from the West Coast of the United States. Perhaps it has been our great distance from the cultural axis of Europe, or the cultural mix which included many immigrants from Japan and China, or some legacy or remnant of the "Wild West", but beginning in the 1930's, an adventuresome group of composers on the West Coast, including Henry Cowell, John Cage, Harry Partch and Lou Harrison, began to compose works which for the first time in "western" (i.e. European/American) music seriously acknowledged and took inspiration from the art and philosophy of the cultures of Asia and the Pacific Rim. For them, the "Far East" for the European was really in the neighborhood, the "Near West." While almost taken for granted because of today's polyglot musical language, this was a revolutionary act and it gave all subsequent composers a new freedom to choose from the whole world of sound.

Notes on the Compositions:

CHANNELS PASSING- Paul Dresher (1981-82, this arrangement 1993) for violin, clarinet, two electronic percussionists, and two electronic keyboards. Channels Passing was originally composed in 1981 for flute, oboe, clarinet, trumpet, trombone, violin and cello. When the current version of my Ensemble was formed, I decided that I would transcribe this early work for the electro-acoustic resources of this group, allowing me to explore in new ways the basic questions I was investigating when the work was originally conceived. The title is a reference to the psycho acoustic phenomena known as "channeling" or "streaming" (with which much of the work, particularly sections 1 and 3, is concerned) in which the listener breaks up what may be a single melodic entity (or an overlapping of two melodies in a single register) into two or more groups, usually based on register, timbre, and rhythm. My interest in this and much of my understanding of this phenomena owes a great debt to composer/teacher Robert Erickson and his own study/composition LOOPS.

The work took its original form in the Fall of 1981 and winter of 1982 as a result of a commission from Nancy Karp and Dancers for their work PASSING BY. The work was conceived to function both in choreographic and purely musical contexts and the nature of Nancy's and my interaction concerned primarily the number of sections, their general lengths and tempos, and to a certain extent the density and activity in each section.

DISAPPOINTMENT LAKE - John Adams 1992 for live electronic ensemble, arranged for live performance by Paul Dresher

Disappointment Lake is one of a set of purely electronic works composed for the Nonesuch CD, Hoodoo Zephyr, which was released in the Fall of 1993. John explains that as a whole, the set of works has a very tangential relationship to desert landscapes.

Mr. Dresher assisted John in the mixing and editing of the recording and received his permission to transcribe Disappointment Lake for live performance with his ensemble. This was a particularly difficult process because while composing it, John was not in any way conceiving of the work as one which would ever be performed live. Mr. Dresher writes "I have always been a great admirer of John's work and I was honored to be able to assist him on the production of his CD. I am grateful that he trusted me enough to allow me to attempt this transcription."

RUEN PAIR - CARL STONE for computer, violin, clarinet, electronic mallet instrument, electronic drums and two electric keyboards

Ruen Pair was composed in the summer of 1993 and was commissioned by the Paul Dresher Ensemble.

The work was written using computer techniques to generate a score for the ensemble, wherein a short piece of 18th-Century music served as the starting point for a variety of operations. I took the original score and subjected it to a variety of transformations, mostly in the domain of pitch and rhythm, which were used to create both the "human" and the computer parts.

DOUBLE IKAT Part Two - Paul Dresher 1988-90 for violin, piano and percussion

For several years, percussionist William Winant had been asking me to write a piece for a trio of Bay Area musicians he was working with, but while interested in theory, I was preoccupied with my work in music theater and it wasn't until I saw the Trio perform Lou Harrison's Varied Trio at his 70th birthday concert that I was truly inspired to create a work for William, David Abel and Julie Steinberg.

The opportunity came in 1988 when I was commissioned by choreographer Brenda Way and her company ODC San Francisco to compose a score for their new work, Loose the Thread, whose imagery was based on material drawn from the lives of the people in the Bloomsbury Group. I took the opportunity to compose a work for both the dance and the trio. The version that resulted took its form largely from the dance and so in 1989, I took the material from that work and recomposed and edited it into an entirely different form, strictly as a concert work.

The title refers to a style of weaving common in South East Asia in which both the threads of the warp and weave are dyed to create the pattern or image. For me, the title thus relates to the interrelationships of the three instruments and to the title of the choreographic work from which it sprang. I wish to thank Brenda Way for creating much of the atmosphere which infuses the work; Lou Harrison for providing the inspiration to create my most blatantly lyrical work to date; and Willie, Julie, and David for working closely with me throughout the composition, rehearsal, revision of the piece. The last section of Part Two of the work is an homage to North Indian sitarist Nikhil Banerjee, one of the finest musicians of this century, who died at far too early an age in 1986.

QIN 2000 - Bun Ching Lam (1994) for violin, bassoon, piano, guitar, electronic mallets and drums, and electronic keyboard

Qin 2000 comments on the world we are living in today. The accessibility to information, and to the musics of all cultures due to the progress of technology makes this a most exciting time for me. In this piece I try to examine my own relationship to the fast growing music technology, with which one can make, clone and manipulate sound as in no other time before. On one hand I am attracted to and fascinated by this technology; on the other, skeptical. Bearing in mind Chuang Tzu's motto "use but not be used by things.," I attempt to resolve in myself the dichotomy of the "natural" and the "synthetic;" the "acoustic" and the "amplified."

Qin 2000 is about transformation, at times gradual, at others abrupt. It begins in a chamber music setting with violin, bassoon, and a grand piano, all western instruments that have evolved through the past centuries. Then enters the electric guitar, an instrument of our time, belonging to a different tradition. As the piece goes on, the acoustic space also changes from the natural hall to amplified sound through loudspeakers. By and by, other synthetic sounds occur and threaten to take over. Finally, the composition ends with a duet between electric guitar and qin, one of the oldest Chinese instruments. Its sound is sampled and played on a Kurzweill 2000, a state-of-the-art keyboard, on top of a shifting harmonic background produced on violin, bassoon, and electric vibraphone, with the aid of various electronic devices.

I would like to thank Pauline Oliveros for the use of her K-2000 which has been a tremendous help in the realization of this composition.

COYOTE BUILDS NORTH AMERICA - John Luther Adams 1990 for two percussionists and live computer (originally for four percussionists)

The two percussion works are drawn from Coyote Builds North America - a larger music/storytelling work, created in collaboration with writer Barry Lopez, and based on traditional Native American stories about Old Man Coyote.

I have a deep love for Native American musics and cultures, and have lived for many years in places where those traditions are very much alive. I do not borrow directly from those sources. Still, I hope this music in some way evokes the energy and spirit of Native American drumming and dancing, and echoes the resonances of the landscapes I have called home.

Coyote is a trickster, a creator, a seducer and a fool. He is the subject of countless stories of indigenous peoples throughout North America. He is also an archetypal figure of universal meaning and appeal, who appears in various guises in storytelling traditions the world over. Whether as Monkey, Spider, Fox Hare Harlequin, Hermes, Raven or Coyote, he is a universal expression and reflection of what it is to be human.

In the words of a Pawnee song: We are here on this earth a tribe anybody

INNER OPENINGS - Paul Hanson - 1993 for bassoon and live electronics

A work for solo bassoon and live electronics. Mr. Hanson probably has the distinction of being the only electric bassoonist active today. He is unique in that he has adapted the bassoon to many different playing techniques not usually associated with this most classical of instruments, such as jazz, klezmer, electronic music and rock and roll. In this work, he integrates his specialized techniques with electronic manipulation of his sound to create a very personal and distinctive sound world.

DIN OF INIQUITY - PAUL DRESHER, 1994, for violin, bassoon, electric guitar, electronic keyboards, electronic drum set and Mallet Kat MIDI Mallet Controller.

This is the first time I have used the guitar (acoustic or electric) in any purely chamber music composition. In fact, this is the first time I have written a purely instrumental ensemble work utilizing electronics of any sort. (All my previous uses of electronics in performance have been in music theater, dance or solo performance context). While I have always considered myself much better at guitar than at keyboards, I have consistently shied away from using the electric guitar in a chamber music work because the guitar almost always seems stand out sonically as being from a completely different world than the other acoustic instruments. In this composition, I am trying to get the instruments to all meet each other something like half way.

While the aggressive surface of the composition seems to make the work resist an easy assimilation into the Asian-influenced context of this program (for which it was created), in fact the modal and harmonic language of the piece is an exploration of a particular mode I encountered in my studies of North Indian classical music. For those with an analytical bent, mode contains 7 tones and utilizes flatted 2nd, 3rd, 6th and 7th degrees, a sharped 4th degree and a natural 5th. What intrigues me about the way the North Indians use this scale is that by de-emphasizing the 5th degree, the whole sense of tonal center seems to shift to either the flat 6th or 2nd degree, even while maintaining a constant "tonic" drone.

I am not trying to evoke the particular "rasa" (roughly something like color or mood) associated with this family of ragas. I would no doubt do this poorly in comparison. Rather I am simply exploring a phenomena which probably only manifests itself to listeners so trained to seek tonal centers based on the interval of a perfect 5th. When I asked my sitar teacher Nikhil Banerjee, who spoke perfect English, about this apparent (to me) shifting phenomena, he simply did not understand what I was talking about, much less hearing.

KOLE KAT KRUSH - JAY CLOIDT, 1989 for violin, bassoon, percussion and two keyboards (originally for string quartet and tape)

"Kole Kat Krush" was commissioned in 1989 by the Kronos Quartet. It was originally written for string quartet with electronic processing and tape, and was intended as an encore piece for Kronos, as an addition or alternative to the Jimi Hendrix tunes they often play as curtain calls. For the Looking West To The East Tour, we have rearranged the piece for violin, bassoon, electronic keyboards, electric guitar and drums (which replace the electronic drums on tape in the original version)

I often tour with the Kronos as their sound engineer, and have heard Kole Kat Krush performed all over the U.S., Europe, Australia, and Japan (as well as in performances in high schools in the U.S.) Kole Kat Krush is full of quotes from various pop and classical styles. Since the piece is deliberately humorous, it has been particularly interesting to see the difference in response from concert halls to clubs, and from country to country.

For me, the piece in its present incarnation is even more amusing than before: a quasi-pop tune in 3/4 time played by an electronic ensemble imitating a string quartet imitating a rock band.

Composer and Performer Biographies:

PAUL DRESHER - Composer and musician on guitar, keyboard and electronics

Paul Dresher is a composer pursuing musical interests in many media, including experimental opera and music theater, chamber and orchestral compositions, live instrumental electric music performances and electro-acoustic taped scores for theater, dance, video, radio and film. His performances utilize progressive contemporary music technology and the theatrical works use the resources of experimental theater to examine diverse issues in contemporary American culture.

As Artistic Director of the Paul Dresher Ensemble, he has guided the creation of the "American Trilogy", a set of music theater works which address different facets of American culture, in collaboration with writer/performer Rinde Eckert. The trilogy began with SLOW FIRE (1985-88), developed with POWER FAILURE (1988-89) and was completed in 1990 with PIONEER, a collaboration that includes visual artist Terry Allen, actress Jo Harvey Allen, tenor John Duykers and director Robert Woodruff. In March of 1993, Dresher and Eckert premiered their latest collaboration, AWED BEHAVIOR, in San Francisco and subsequently toured the work extensively in the United States. Currently in progress is OCHO RIOS, a new music theater work with playwright Eric Overmyer which will premier in 1995. Since 1987, he has created four works with choreographer Margie Jenkins. Their most recent work, THE GATES, was premiered at Jacob's Pillow in 1993 and opened the 1994 Serious Fun Festival at Lincoln Center. In October 1993, Dresher premiered his new "electric chamber band" on a five city tour of Japan as part of Festival Interlink. This ensemble performs the works of a broad range of contemporary composers utilizing a hybrid orchestration which combines both acoustic and electronic instrumentation. His commissions have included works for the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, Spoleto Festival USA, Kronos String Quartet, the San Francisco Symphony, Walker Arts Center, Margaret Jenkins Dance Company, and the American Music Theater Festival. He has collaborated with directors Robert Woodruff, George Coates, Richard E.T. White and Tom O'Horgan. He has performed or had his works performed throughout the U.S., Canada, and Europe. Venues have included the Munich State Opera, the New York Philharmonic, the Festival d'Automne in Paris, the Brooklyn Academy of Music's Next Wave Festival, the Minnesota Opera, and New Music America.

Recordings of his solo performance and chamber works have been released on the Lovely Music, Music and Arts, Starkland, O.O Discs and New Albion labels. Most recently, New Albion released DARK BLUE CIRCUMSTANCE, which contains both chamber and electronic works. OPPOSITES ATTRACT, his collaboration with multi-woodwind performer Ned Rothenberg, was released by New World Records in 1991 and Minmax Music released SLOW FIRE in 1992.

Born in Los Angeles in 1951, Dresher received his BA in Music from U.C. Berkeley and his M.A. in Composition from U.C. San Diego where he studied with Robert Erickson, Roger Reynolds, Pauline Oliveros and Bernard Rands. He has had a long time interest in the music of Asia and Africa, studying Ghanian drumming with C.K. and Kobla Ladzekpo, Hindustani classical music with Nikhil Banerjee as well as Balinese and Javanese music.

BUN CHING LAM - composer

Bun-Ching Lam was born in Macau in 1954, and received her early musical training as a pianist. She has studied at the Chinese University of Hong Kong; the University of Redlands, California; and received her Ph.D. in Music Composition from the University of California, San Diego. Teachers include David Gwilt, Barney Childs, Bernard Rands, Robert Erickson, Pauline Oliveros and Roger Reynolds.

She has received grants and awards including the Lili Boulanger Award (93), Rome Prize (91), New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship (91), Isadora Duncan Award (90), Meet the Composer (89 & 92), the National Endowment for the Arts (88-90), Highest Honor of the Shanghai International Composers Competition (87), King County Arts Commission (87), and the Seattle Arts Commission (87). Lam has also received numerous commissions for new work, including the American Dance Festival, the New York Bang on a Can Festival, Composer's Forum for Ursula Oppens & the Arditti String Quartet, Macau Cultural Institute, and the Hong Kong Chinese Orchestra.

JOHN ADAMS - Composer

A New England native, John Adams was born in Massachusetts and grew up in New England. Throughout his teens he was strongly influenced by the cultural and intellectual traditions of the Boston area, particularly the Boston Symphony Orchestra and Harvard College from which he graduated magna cum laude in 1969.

Moving to San Francisco, in 1971, Adams became active in the West Coast experimental music tradition both as a composer and a producer of concerts. First working at the San Francisco Conservatory for Music and then with the San Francisco Symphony, he was responsible for introducing major works of the American and European avant garde to Californian audiences. Along with Edo de Waart, Adams created the "New and Unusual Music" series for the San Francisco symphony, an annual festival of contemporary music concerts that became a model for similar programs in other cities around the United States.

Through recordings, television and frequent live performances of his music, Adams at the age of forty five has become one of the best known of living composers. A recent survey by the American Symphony Orchestra League found Adams to be the most performed living composer of concert music. Works such as Shaker Loops, Harmonium, Harmonielehre, Grand Pianola Music, The Wound-Dresser, Fearful Symmetries and El Dorado have appeared frequently on the programs of most of the world's great orchestras.

In 1987 Adams' first opera, Nixon in China, with a libretto by Alice Goodman and staging by Peter Sellars opened at the Houston Grand Opera to a wildly divided critical response. Since then Nixon in China has become the most performed new American opera of our time, having gone on to productions in Paris, Frankfurt, Helsinki, Brooklyn, Adelaide, Amsterdam, Edinburgh and elsewhere. Nixon in China won both an Emmy and a Grammy award its first year. The Death of Klinghoffer, Adams's second opera, also with Goodman and Sellars, based on the 1985 hijacking of the Italian cruise ship Achille Lauro by Palestinian terrorists, began rehearsals in Belgium during the height of the Gulf War. Upon its premiere in Brussels it became subject of instant controversy.

John Adams leads a double life as a composer and conductor. In the past two seasons he has directed subscription concerts with, among others, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Cleveland Orchestra, the Royal Philharmonic, the Minnesota Orchestra, the Saint Paul chamber Orchestra and the San Francisco Symphony.

JOHN LUTHER ADAMS - Composer

"No, not that John Adams. This one is from Alaska and his music is appropriately icy, distant and spacious." -John Schafer-New Sounds-National Public Radio

John Luther Adams has been called by Lou Harrison "one of the few important young American composers". His works have been heard on concerts, records, radio, television and films throughout the world.

Adams studied composition with James Tenney and Leonard Stein at the California Institute of the Arts. He has received numerous commissions, awards and fellowships - from the National endowment for the Arts, Meet the Composer, the Lila Wallace Arts Partners Program, the Rockefeller Foundation, the American Music Center and the Alaska State Council on the Arts, among others.

Adams has served as composer-in-residence and timpanist with the Fairbanks Symphony and Arctic Chamber Orchestra, as music director for public radio station KUAC-FM, and composer-in-residence at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. He now devotes himself entirely to composing.

The Far Country of Sleep, a new compact disc of Adams' music, has just been released by New Albion Records. Recently, he premiered Earth and the great Weather, a sonic geography of the Arctic, featuring his ensemble of musicians and Alaskan Eskimo and Indian performers. Currently, he is at work on Crow and Weasel - a new collaboration with writer Barry Lopez - to be produced by the Sundance Institute and the Children's Theatre Company.

An active environmentalist, Adams worked for several years, as executive director of the Northern Alaska Environmental Center. He has traveled extensively throughout the far north, recording natural sounds for his Alaska Soundscape Project.

About his work, he says: "My music has always been profoundly influenced by the natural world and a strong sense of place. Through deep and sustained listening to the subtle resonances of the northern soundscape, I hope to explore the territory of 'sonic geography'-that region between place and culture...between environment and imagination."

CARL STONE - Composer

Carl Stone was hailed by the Village Voice as "one of the best composers working in the country today." He was born in Los Angeles where he continues to live. he studied composition at the California Institute of the Arts with Morton Subotnick and James Tenney. He has composed electro-acoustic music exclusively since 1972. His works have been performed in the U.S., Canada, Europe, Asia, Australia, South America and the Near East.

His most recent concert tour in Japan included concert, radio and television appearances. Recent performances in the Southern California area have been under the auspices of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, UCLA and LACE. A winner of numerous awards for his compositions, including the Freeman Award for the work Hop Ken, Carl Stone is also the recipient of a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts for his radiophonic composition Se Jong. In 1984 he was commissioned to compose a new work premiered as part of the Olympic Arts Festival.

His music was recently selected by the dancer/choreographer Bill T. Jones for the production 1-2-3. In 1989 he resided for 6 months in Japan under a grant from the Asian Cultural Council and in that same year, the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles commissioned a new work, Thonburi as part of the radio series "Territory of Art". In 1990 he was commissioned to create music for a 60-minute program for ZDF Television in West Germany entitled Made in Hollywood. In 1991 he received separate commissions from Michiko Akao (She Gol Jib, for traditional Japanese flute and electronics), Sumire Yoshihara (for percussionist and electronics) and Sony PCL (Recurring Cosmos, for High Definition video and electronics).

Recordings of his music can be found on CBS Sony, Toshiba-EMI, EAM Discs, Wizard Records, the New Underground label, and Music & Arts Programs of America.

His music has been used by numerous choreographers including Bill T. Jones, Ping Chong, Katsuko Orita Loretta Livingston and Blondell Cummings. Collaborations include those with Yuji Takahashi, Setsuko Yamada, Kazue Sawai, Aki Takahashi Michiko Akao, Rudy Perez, Stelarc, Z'ev, Bruce and Norman Yonemoto, Tosha Meisho, Hae Kyung Lee, Hikashu, Mineko Grimmer and Teckon.

PAUL HANSON - Woodwinds and composer

Paul Hanson is a Bay Area native who is gaining international recognition as a progressive modern bassoonist, composer, and woodwinds instrumentalist. His repertoire includes jazz, rhythm and blues, Eastern European folk music, contemporary classical, and electronic music. He has mastered the bassoon using many different playing techniques not usually associated with this classical instrument.

The Last Romantics, his first compact disc recording as a lead artist, was released in Japan by Midi Records in 1993. It received Best Jazz Recording for January 1994 from Audiophile Magazine. His second compact disc, tentatively titled Astro Boy Blues, also on the Midi label, will be released in February 1995.

Paul has performed with David Garabaldi, The Paul Dresher Ensemble, The Klezmorim, Kotoja, Phil Aaberg, Tom Coster, Otis Clay, Chamber Music West, and as a soloist with the Napa Symphony Orchestra. He has also toured extensively in Europe, Japan, and the United States. His major festival performances include the Leverkuzen Jazz Festival, Berlin Jazz Festival, Cambridge Folk Festival-England, Monterey Jazz Festival, Monterey Blues Festival, and the Interlink Festival in Japan.

PHIL AABERG - Keyboard After touring with Elvin Bishop, John Hiatt, Peter Gabriel and others, he began doing solo concerts of his own music and has recorded four albums on the Windham Hill label and one for the Nature Company. He was a member the East Bay New Music Ensemble where he premiered Dresher's This Same Temple and has participated in the Marlboro Chamber Music Festival in Vermont. A native of Montana, Aaberg has an A.B. in Music from Harvard University and has studied with Margaret Ott, Leon Kirchner, Louise Vosgerchian and Kenneth Drake.

AMY KNOLES - Electronic percussion

Amy Knoles is one of the foremost percussionists of the new music world. She tours globally, performing interactive computer music as a soloist and with Morton Subotnick, Tod Machover, Basso Bongo, The Paul Dresher Ensemble and the California E.A.R. Unit. Most recently recording the music of Edgar Varese with Ensemble Modern of Frankfurt produced by Frank Zappa to be released on Barking Pumpkin. She has been touring extensively with a program of solo computer assisted electronic drums and the KAT. MIDI Mallet Instrument. She has commissioned a repertoire of pieces that thoroughly explore the diversity of today's new music world. Composers have written pieces for her that involve live interaction with computer, laser beams triggering MIDI computer sequences and theatrical performance

She performs regularly with the Los Angeles Philharmonic New Music Group, The Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival, The Cyber Arts Festival, and the Ojai Festival. She has recorded on New Albion, Nonesuch, C.B.S., R.C.A.., Relativity, and Crystal Records.

CRAIG FRY - Violin A native of Arizona, Craig received a compulsory introduction to the violin at age four. Following one year of music studies at Arizona State University, he began an exploration of music outside the classical tradition and moved to California in 1981. He performed, recorded and toured through 1984 with Cartoon, an instrumental rock band, fashioned after the art-rock ensembles of Europe's "Rock in Opposition" cooperative. He has since recorded and performed improvisational and electronically-processed violin with PFS and the Janus Ensemble. His studies of the classical tradition were resumed with Daniel Kobialka and Lazlo Varga at San Francisco State University from 1984 through 1988.

Craig has performed frequently with several Northern California orchestras, including the Monterey County Symphony and as concertmaster of the San Francisco Choral Society Orchestra. He has been a member of the Berkeley Symphony Orchestra, performing under the baton of Kent Nagano since 1986, and recently toured the United States with the Western Opera theater production of La Boheme.

Craig also performs regularly with several Bay Area world-music and jazz groups: Sirba (which draws from the musical traditions of Klezmer, the Yiddish theater, the Middle-East and jazz), the Oberon Folk Ensemble, the Speakeasy String Quartet (specializing in the music of Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong, Bix Beiderbecke, Sydney Bechet and other legends of the 20's and 30's) and the Bay Area Jazz Composer's Orchestra.

GENE REFFKIN - Electric Percussion Mr Reffkin has performed with contemporary and classical music ensembles in New England, New York, and California. After receiving a B.A. in music from New York University, he moved to the San Francisco area, where he has played with new music groups as well as many country & western , blues and rock bands. He has been a core member of the Paul Dresher Ensemble since its inception in 1984. He is the percussionist for Dresher's "American Trilogy", comprised of Slow Fire, Power Failure and Pioneer. Other works with Dresher include Was Are/Will Be and Awed Behavior.

He has performed with the Margaret Jenkins Dance company in The Gates, Age of Unrest, Shelf Life, and Home, as well as with the Wendy Rogers Dance Company, and the ODC-San Francisco in Secret House and Tamina. In 1984 he performed in the George Coates Performance Works production, See Hear and in 1990 with Phillip Glass in Aid & Comfort Benefit at the Greek Theater in Berkeley, CA. He continues to play regularly with lesser known Bay Area Performers.

JAY CLOIDT - Composer

Jay Cloidt was born in 1949. He received his BA in Music from the University of Nebraska and his MFA in Electronic Music and the Performing Media from Mills College.

He has worked as a composer and sound designer for many San Francisco Bay Area companies. As a sound designer, Cloidt worked on two productions with director Robert Woodruff at the La Jolla Playhouse: Figaro Gets a Divorce, and The Tempest. His work on the Paul Dresher Ensemble's Slow Fire won a Bay Area Critics Circle Award, and he received an Isadora Duncan Award in 1989 with Rinde Eckert for the sound design of Eckert's Dry Land Divine. He tours frequently as a sound engineer for Kronos Quartet.

As a composer he has worked with many San Francisco groups, starting with the late Ed Mock's group and including the Margaret Jenkins Dance Company, the Gary Palmer Dance Company, ODC-San Francisco, and the Kronos Quartet.

Recent projects include commissions from Kronos for Kole Kat Krush and Exploded View, a work for live performance using digital sampling electronics featuring Mr. Cloidt and the quartet. His piece Light Fall will be released in 1994 on the Inial Group CD Views from the Perfect City: New Electronic Music from North America.

GREGORY KUHN- sound engineer

Gregory Kuhn, Sound Engineer, has a BA in music from Swarthmore College and graduate music theory studies from Combs College of Music. An independent engineer and designer since 1987 for theater, multimedia, dance, experimental and contemporary music performances, this is his second project with the Paul Dresher Ensemble. He has designed for Isadora Duncan Award performances by Joe Goode Performance group, June Watanabe and Remy Charlip. More recently he is working with City of Tribes fourth world music label, a development project on the TC Electric M5000 audio sound processor, had his design for Kokoro performed at San Francisco's Noh Space and New York's Japan Society, and designed for Zakir Hussain as part of the San Francisco Percussion Festival.

MELISSA WEAVER - Production Director and Lighting Designer

Ms. Weaver has worked as Production Manager for the Paul Dresher Ensemble since 1987 and for the George Coates Performance Works from 1981-1986. Recently she co-directed the gardening of thomas D. by Rinde Eckert, directed Rinde Eckert in DRY LAND DIVINE, a solo performance which premiered at Cal Performances and was presented at DTW in New York; and John Duykers in Henze's EL CIMARRON which received the L.A. Times Beckmesser Award in 1983 for best contemporary performance. Ms. Weaver and Mr. Duykers recently formed AGaPe Performance Group to develop new works.