Maria Elena Silva

photo: Jessica Caillero

animals & giraffes

Tim Daisy

photo: Peter Gannushkin

Kim Nucci

This week’s Improvised Music Series features Maria Elena Silva performing an intense, improvisation-heavy, deconstructed interpretation of her most recent work with Erez Dessel (piano), Tyler Wagoner (bass), and Scott Dean Taylor (drums). For the second set, Phillip Greenlief and writer Claudia La Rocco unfurl animals & giraffes, an ever-changing ensemble dedicated to interdisciplinary improvisation. For this night only, Greenlief and La Rocco are joined by drummer and composer Tim Daisy and composer, technologist, and multi-instrumentalist Kim Nucci.

$15 / $10 w/ Student ID - Tickets Available at the Door

Artist Bios

Pushing past the submissive qualities of her debut, Maria Elena Silva captures a deep and deliberate poignancy in her newest music. Temperate motifs aside, a freer, wilder intensity permeates these pieces that lean heavily on improvisation, while Silva still manages to show her roots in both rock n’ roll and the romantic. The fabric of the songs give palpable hints to her experimental aspirations that make borderline frantic use of the world-class instrumentalists at her disposal.

This no holds barred approach results in Silva's most modern recorded statement to date, the 2023 “Dulce”; her studio band featuring the legendary guitarist Marc Ribot and percussionist Stephen Hodges - reunited for the first time since the pair were part of Tom Waits' seminal "Rain Dogs" in 1985. Live in Chicago, Silva performs a more deconstructed set, featuring pianist Erez Dessel and bassist Tyler Wagoner. Silva maintains longtime collaborator Scott Dean Taylor, who has developed a singular vocabulary when playing with Silva and dispenses all manner of obligatory drummer-isms. A sonic ascetic, he plays only what her songs require.

Musician/composer Phillip Greenlief and writer Claudia La Rocco created animals & giraffes after meeting at Headlands Center for the Arts during their 2013 residencies. An ever-changing ensemble dedicated to interdisciplinary improvisation, a&g has performed at such venues as The Lab (SF), Pieter (LA), The Chocolate Factory (NYC), Reed College (Portland), Amalgam Presents at Café Mustache (Chicago), and the Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art. In 2017-2018, a&g was ensemble in residence at the Center for New Music, hosting monthly happy hours with musicians, visual artists, writers, and dancers.

Since his emergence on the west coast in the late 1970s, saxophonist/composer Phillip Greenlief (b. 1959, Los Angeles) has achieved international acclaim for his recordings and performances with musicians and composers in the post-jazz continuum as well as new music innovators and virtuosic improvisers. He has performed with Wadada Leo Smith, Meredith Monk, Rashaun Mitchell + Silas Riener, and They Might Be Giants. Albums include two LANTSKAP LOGIC TRIO releases (w/ Evelyn Davis and Fred Frith), THAT OVERT DESIRE OF OBJECT with Joelle Leandre, ALL AT ONCE with FPR (Frank Gratkowski and Jon Raskin), and OH THAT MONSTER with LA punk pioneers Thelonious Monster. Recent residencies have included the Banff Center for Art and Creativity, Neue Muzik Koln, and Headlands Center for the Arts. His critical writing has been published in Artforum, Open Space (SFMOMA), Sound American, and Signal to Noise. Claudia La Rocco’s publications include DRIVE BY (Smooth Friend); CERTAIN THINGS (Afternoon Editions); QUARTET (Ugly Duckling Presse); THE BEST MOST USELESS DRESS (Badlands Unlimited); and PETIT CADEAU (The Chocolate Factory; print, digital, and live editions).

Claudia La Rocco edited I DON'T POEM: AN ANTHOLOGY OF PAINTERS (Off the Park Press) and DANCERS, BUILDINGS AND PEOPLE IN THE STREETS, the catalogue for Danspace Projectʼs PLATFORM 2015, for which she was guest curator. Her lectures and performances have been presented by The Walker Art Center, The Kitchen, The Whitney Museum of American Art, Melbourne’s Dancehouse, et al. Grants and residencies include the Kenneth Rainin Foundation, Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, Andy Warhol Foundation Arts Writers Grant, Contemporary Art Stavanger, and Headlands Center for the Arts. La Rocco was a critic and reporter for The New York Times from 2005-2015, editorial director of Open Space from 2016-2021, and edits The Back Room at Small Press Traffic.

Tim Daisy is an American drummer and composer working in the fields of improvised and composed music. Since moving to Chicago in 1997 he has performed, recorded, and toured with many national and international improvised musicians and ensembles, including Dave Rempis, Ken Vandermark, Jeb Bishop, Mars Williams, Steve Swell, Jaimie Branch, Katherine Young, Fred Lonberg-Holm, James Falzone, Russ Johnson, Kyle Bruckmann, Katinka Kleijn, Elizabeth Harnik, Christof Kurzmann, Ikue Mori, Rafael Toral, Mikolaj Trzaska, Per Ake Holmlander, Darren Johnston, Havard Wiik, Jason Stein, and Michael Zerang. In 2011 he received the New Music America Composers Assistance Award and in 2011, 2012, and 2017 the ASCAP Plus Award from the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers. He has recorded over one hundred and thirty albums as a sideman or leader for labels including Relay (which he owns and operates), Not Two, Clean Feed, Astral Spirits, Aerophonic, Audiographic, Sonorus, Trost, Utech, New World, and Okka Disk.

Kim Nucci is an Oakland/Chicago-based multimedia artist, composer / improviser, and technologist, performing on saxophones, electronics, voice, and live projection. Nucci's research interests explore the pedestrian cybernetic body, critically examining our relationship with technology and with our instruments. Their performance practice is invested in ritualism and trance states in improvisation. They hold an MFA in Electronic Music and Recording Media, and an MA in Music Composition from Mills College, and a BA in Visual Arts and Music Composition from Bennington College. They have been presented by SFMOMA, Gray Area, Oberlin College, Elastic Arts, BabyCastles, CCRMA (Stanford), ODC Theatre, Incline Gallery, The Jazzschool, The Center for New Music (C4NM), Dub Club LA at the Echoplex, and many DIY spaces across the US. Nucci is the Technical Director of Driven Arts Collective (DAC), head of ACRE Residency's sound department, and an Organizer with Center for Concrete and Abstract Machines in Chicago. They install media artworks at Art Institute of Chicago.