INTERNATIONAL POWER TRIO
Hans Koch, reeds
Florian Stoffner, guitar
Sam Pluta, computer

LOCAL LUMINARIES
Liz Meredith, viola
Simone Baron, accordion
Samuel Burt, bass clarinet

doors at 8pm | show at 8:30

Hans Koch, one of High Zero Festival’s favorite reed players, returns to Baltimore with Florian Stoffner for a night of inventive misuse of traditional instruments. They will be playing a trio with local synthetic sound wizard Sam Pluta.

Hans Koch has quit his career as a recognized classical clarinetist to become one of the most innovative improvising reed-players in Europe. He has been working with everyone from Cecil Taylor to Fred Frith since the eighties.

As a composer he has shaped the sound of Koch-Schütz-Studer since the beginning as well as working for radio-plays and film. Since the nineties he has been working with electronics as an extension of the saxes/clarinets as well as with sampling/sequencing/Laptop. As a reed-player he is always working on his very own vocabulary and sound, which makes him a very unique voice on the actual scene.

Flo Stoffner is unmistakable and unique in his way of playing the guitar. A deconstruction of guitar playing, which has been called “a kind of autopsy of the guitar sound”. Solo or in collaboration with musicians such as Paul Lovens, Rudi Mahall, Albert Cirera, Lionel Friedli, Jason Kahn, John Butcher, Chris Corsano or Hans Koch, but also the spoken-word artist Anna Frey, he has become one of the outstanding figures of the European improvisation scene.

As forward-looking as he is backward-looking, he holds the banner of instant composing high and proves again and again how lively, surprising and up to date the tradition of free improvisation is today.

photo credit: Cristina Marx (Florian, left).

Sam Pluta is a composer, electronics performer, and sound artist. Though his work has a wide breadth, his central focus is on using the computer as a performance instrument capable of sharing the stage with groups ranging from new music ensembles to world-class improvisers. By creating musical systems of shared agency, Pluta’s vibrant sonic universe focuses on the visceral interaction of instrumental performers with reactive computerized sound worlds. He has worked with Wet Ink Ensemble, Peter Evans Ensemble, Rocket Science, and PANG, and his performances and production can be found on over 50 albums of new music and jazz.

Simone Baron is a polyglot pianist, accordionist, improviser and composer whose work “ego-less, genre agnostic and without expectations” (JazzTimes) engages curiously and charismatically with a broad spectrum of idioms. Educated at Oberlin and Tel Aviv University and joyfully de-educated at festivals and performances across Europe and the Americas, Simone has won grants, fellowships and residencies from Chamber Music America, South Arts, Maryland State Arts Council, the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities, the Hambidge Center, Sacatar Foundation, iPark, Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, Strathmore Foundation, ArtOMI, UMD, Avaloch Farm, the Banff Centre, and Spectrum Toronto. In 2016 Simone founded Arco Belo, a diasporic chamber music ensemble. Simone is a Victoria Artist and plays a Poeta XB Accordion, and is a founding member of the Boulanger Initiative. simonebaron.com

Samuel Burt is known around Baltimore for his openness to experimentation with combinations of awkward things. He plays clarinet, bass clarinet, daxophone, trombloon, modular synthesizer, custom software, and more. He also composes and teaches music.

Liz Meredith is a violist, improviser and composer from Baltimore, MD. Her music explores intersections between acoustic chamber music, instrumental improvisation, electro-acoustic composition, and ambient music. Liz’s recordings include 3 solo albums, The Disposition of Vibrant Forms, a 5 LP set in collaboration with John Somers, and various solo and collaborative works on cassette. Her most recent solo albums Repro – Ext (Hard Return) & Repro (s P L e e N C o F F i N) have received critical acclaim from publications such as Tiny Mix Tapes, Vital Weekly, ATTN Magazine, and the Sound Projector.  In addition to performing her own music, Liz has premiered new works by emerging composers, and has also contributed her sound to recordings by a wide range of artists. Liz’s performance record is fittingly diverse.  She has performed at rock clubs, D.I.Y. spaces, art galleries, chamber music venues, music festivals, and academic conferences throughout the United States.  Career highlights include performances at Signal Flow Festival, Mills College; High Zero Festival (Baltimore, MD); several performances at the Baltimore Museum of Art; The Walters Art Museum (Baltimore, MD); and The Stone (New York City, NY). Liz holds a Bachelors Degree in Viola Performance & Film Music from Berklee College of Music (Boston, MA) and a Masters of Arts Degree in Music Composition from Mills College (Oakland, CA).  She has studied music composition with Fred Frith and viola performance with Hank Dutt of Kronos Quartet.

Event location:

Red Room at Normals Books and Records