Tuesday, July 7, 2020 at 7pm CT
Acorn Series curated by Nomi Epstein:

7:00pm - Lucie Vítková (New York)
7:30pm - Christine Burke (Iowa City)
8:00pm - Laura Steenberge (Santa Cruz)
8:30pm - Laura Cetilia (Providence)
9:00pm - Lauren Sarah Hayes (Tempe)

Proceeds will be donated to: The Center for Afrofuturist Studies, BTFA Collective, BLM Phx Metro, Hip Hop for Change.

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-7:00pm Lucie Vítková (Brussels)
www.vitkovalucie.com

Lucie Vítková is a composer, improviser and performer (accordion, hichiriki, synthesizer, voice and tap dance) from the Czech Republic, living in New York. During her studies of composition at Janáček Academy of Music and Performing Arts in Brno (CZ), she has been a visiting scholar at Royal Conservatory in The Hague (NL), California Institute of the Arts in Valencia (USA), Universität der Künste in Berlin (D), Columbia University in New York (USA) and at the New York University. Her compositions focus on sonification (compositions based on abstract models derived from physical objects), while in her improvisation practice she explores characteristics of discrete spaces through the interaction between sound and movement. In her recent work, she is interested in the social-political aspects of music in relation to everyday life and in reusing trash to build sonic costumes. She has been nominated on 2017 Herb Alpert Awards in Arts in category of Music, was commissioned by the Roulette Intermedium in 2017 and has become a Roulette resident artist in 2018. She has put together two ensembles – NYC Constellation Ensemble (focused on music behavior) and OPERA Ensemble (for singing instrumentalists). During the 2017 Mentor/Protégé Residency in Tokyo (JP), she studied hichiriki with Hitomi Nakamura and has been a member of the Columbia University Gagaku Ensemble. As an accordion player, she collaborated with New York based TAK Ensemble, S.E.M. ensemble, String Noise, Du.0, Argento Ensemble, CU Raaga, Ghost Ensemble and Wet Ink.

7:30pm Christine Burke (Iowa City)
www.burkechristine.com

Christine is a composer from Iowa City, IA, whose music has recently been performed by Wolftone, Dog Star Orchestra, Density512, and ETHEL. Past collaborations include projects with and performances by the Southland Ensemble, Koehne Quartet at Wien Modern, a.pe.ri.od.ic, Alarm Will Sound at the Mizzou International Compsers Festival, the Chicago Civic Orchestra Fellows, JACK Quartet, Talea Ensemble, Heavy Air, The Living Earth Show, NOW Ensemble, and Kamraton Ensemble.

Christine earned a Master's Degree from the University of Iowa, where she studied with Nomi Epstein, Josh Levine, and Larry Fritts (composition) and Maurita Murphy Marx and Jorge Montilla Moreno (clarinet). She was previously a student of David Stock (composition) and Jack Howell (clarinet) at Duquesne University. She currently resides in Iowa, where she composes for and performs with a group of friends under the name "The Christine Burke Ensemble".

8:00pm Laura Steenberge (Santa Cruz)
laurasteenbergeportfolio.com

Laura Steenberge is a performer and composer based in California. A multi-instrumentalist, vocalist and public speaker, she makes use of the voice, viola da gamba, piano, harmonica, tuning forks, paper, objects and movement to create solo performances, chamber music and site-specific intermedia works. In recent years, Steenberge has focused her studies on the interaction of music and language in mythology and in medieval Byzantine and Gregorian chant as part of a broader investigation of nonsense, the boundaries of knowledge and the long view of history. Recent projects include the Imaginary Music Radio Hour (NTS.com), Harmonica Fables (Nueni Recs), and Byzantine Rites, a series of pieces created for unique locations including Joshua Tree National Park, Automata Los Angeles, the Baldwin Hills Scenic Overlook, and St. Mary at Hill church in London. She currently lives in the Santa Cruz Mountains, transcribing medieval chant and serving as president of Indexical, a non-profit experimental music organization.

8:30pm Laura Cetilia (Providence)
http://laura.cetilia.org/

Providence-based cellist and electronic musician Laura Cetilia is a performer, composer, educator, and presenter. As a daughter of mixed heritage (second generation Mexican-American), she is at home with in-betweeness, moving with ease through genres and practices as she did with cultures and languages growing up on the Eastside of Los Angeles. As a composer, her music has been described as “unorthodox loveliness” by the Boston Globe and and her solo album, “Used, Broken, and Unwanted” was hailed as “alternately penetrating and atmospheric” in Sequenza 21. Her compositions have been played by ensembles such as Mivos Quartet, Splinter Reeds, Dog Star Orchestra, a.pe.ri.od.ic, Verdant Vibes, LCollective, The Furies, and violinist Erik Carlson. The Grove Dictionary of American Music describes her electroacoustic duo Mem1 as a “complex cybernetic entity” that “understands its music as a feedback loop between the past and present.” Mem1 has held artist residencies and toured extensively throughout the U.S. and Europe. In the performer/ composer collective Ordinary Affects she has collaborated with, commissioned and premiered works by esteemed composers such as Alvin Lucier, Christian Wolff, Michael Pisaro, Jürg Frey, and Eva-Maria Houben. She completed her M.A. in Experimental Music Composition at Wesleyan University in May 2020 and will continue her studies at Cornell. Last but not least, she is a proud mother of one.

Lauren Sarah Hayes, photo by Tobias Feltus

9pm Lauren Sarah Hayes (Tempe)
www.laurensarahhayes.com @elleesaich

Lauren Sarah Hayes is a Scottish musician and sound artist based in Arizona who builds and performs with hybrid analogue/digital instruments. She is a “positively ferocious improvisor” (Cycling ‘74), her music refusing to sit nicely between free improv, experimental pop, techno, and noise. Over the last decade she has developed and honed a deliberately challenging and unpredictable performance system that explores the relationships between bodies, sound, environments, and technology. The Wire described her most recent album MANIPULATION (pan y rosas discos) as “skittering melodies and clip-clopping rhythms suggesting a mischievous intelligence emerging from this web of wires”. She is a member of the New BBC Radiophonic Workshop and Assistant Professor of Sound Studies at Arizona State University, where she heads up the research group Practice and Research in Enactive Sonic Art.

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Created by Experimental Sound Studio (ESS) as shelter-in-place orders swept the United States, The Quarantine Concerts (TQC) is a collaborative streaming concert platform aimed at bringing numerous communities together while simultaneously helping financially support artists.

The goal is not to replace the live concert experience, but to offer an alternative format for artists to express themselves, explore and experiment in this rapidly evolving online space, and for audiences to gather and support the art they love. In these efforts, TQC presents nightly events for artists across disciplines, creating a reliable and ongoing hub for new expressions and entertainment.

TQC: Acorn Series