Improvisers Pool with koto, pipa, gamelan and more

Improvisers Pool

featuring artists and instruments from Asia and NYC

MIYAMA MCQUEEN-TOKITA, koto & bass koto (from Tokyo)

JASON KAO HWANG, violin/viola (NYC)

SUN LI, pipa (NYC, from Beijing)

BIANCA GANNON, gamelan gongs & xylophone (from Melbourne)

KEN FILIANO, bass (NYC)

ANDREW DRURY, percussion (NYC)

“With soup this good you don’t even need the music to be this good!”

MIYAMA MCQUEEN-TOKITA is one of the leading young lights on the Tokyo contemporary scene. Performing contemporary works, improvisation and original music, she regularly plays with such artists as Naoki Kita (vln), Tetsu Saitoh (cb), Bruce Huebner (shakuhachi), Masao Tajima (cb) and Keiki Midorikawa (vc). She is a graduate with a Masters in music from the Tokyo University of the Arts, and is a 2018 grantee for the Asian Cultural Council New York Fellowship. Miyama is based in Tokyo, Japan.

BIANCA GANNON is a musician-composer and curator from Ireland, based in Melbourne. On piano, gamelan, and loop pedal, Bianca brings together her training in classical composition, improvised music, and Indonesian gamelan to create a chiaroscuro of otherworldly resonances and trance-like dissonances.

SUN LI performs with Music from China and Jason Kao Hwang's Burning Bridge. She graduated from the Shenyang Music Conservatory where she studied pipa and was a member of the Central Song and Dance Ensemble in Beijing. She has performed with Music From China since 2002. Her recent appearances include the Princeton Symphony Orchestra, New Brunswick Symphony Orchestra, and 2013 Lincoln Center Festival.

JASON KAO HWANG (info to come)

KEN FILIANO performs throughout the world, playing and recording with leading artists in jazz, spontaneous improvisation, classical, world/ethnic, and interdisciplinary performance, fusing the rich traditions of the double bass with his own seemingly limitless inventiveness. Critics have called him a “creative virtuoso,” a “master of technique” … “a paradigm of that type of artist. . . who can play anything in any context and make it work, simply because he puts the music first and leaves peripheral considerations behind.”

ANDREW DRURY is a drummer/composer and organizer who has performed in 30 countries and on 70 recordings who All About Jazz recently called “one of the most adventurous drummer/percussionists in creative music today, and a dedicated humanitarian.” A long-time student of the legendary drummer Ed Blackwell, he leads ensembles of various sizes and collaborates with a wide range of artists.

door opens, soup on 6:30

music starts 7:00

292 Lefferts Ave. Brooklyn, NY

2/5 to Sterling St. (1 minute walk)

B/Q to Prospect Park (10+ walk)

BYOB (feel free to bring food or drink to share)

suggested donation $20

www.soupandsound.org

www.continuumculture.org

upcoming Soup & Sounds

May 22 Aruán Ortiz Trio

May 28 Walter Thompson Soundpainting

June 1 & 2 Special 2 Day Soup & Sound Around Brooklyn mini-fest @ Flatlands Reformed Church: Ghanain dance workshop w/ master dancer Kwabena Boateng, NYC Film Premiere of "We Are One!" w/ director talk, Jazz performance by blood drum spirit (royal hartigan, David Bindman, Art Hirahara, Wes Brown)

June 15 Soup & Sound Around Brooklyn @ the Living Gallery LGBQIA+ Multi-Media Teen Anti-Prom on the Saturday before NYC HS graduation

July 20 Jay Rodriguez plays solo vallenatos and more on Colombian Independence Day

December 13 Hamid Drake

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Soup & Sound is a program of Continuum Culture & Arts, Inc. a non-profit 501(C)(3) organization.