Nick Zoulek
Casey Foubert
Ben Willis
Nick Zoulek, Ben Willis, and Casey Foubert will each perform a brief solo set, and then the three artists will play as a trio. Then, there will be an open improvised jam — bring your instrument! Jammers get in free.
8:30 Nick Zoulek, Ben Willis, and Casey Foubert
9:30 Open jam, bring your instrument! All welcome!
$15 / $10 w/ Student ID - Tickets Available at the Door
$FREE for people joining the jam!
About the artists
Casey Foubert is a multi- instrumentalist, singer-songwriter, producer, and engineer currently living in the greater Chicago area. He has toured, recorded, or otherwise collaborated with Sufjan Stevens, The Shins, Lucius, Gabriel Kahane, Richard Swift, David Bazan, S. Carey, Damien Jurado, and others.
Ben Willis:
I am a musician and artist from the midwest United States. I play bass and write music with saajtak and Lovely Socialite.
Using improvisation as a path into interdisciplinary collaboration, I have spent much of my career making work with dancers, visual artists, writers. I have been able to work with many inspiring artists, from the legendary dancer Sally Gross, to Guggenheim Fellow Pope.L, to transgressive novelist Kathe Koja - with whom, over the 7 years I lived in Detroit, I worked on numerous immersive theatre works.
My collaboration with dancers has given me a concept of motion that inspired me to teach myself to animate. Working primarily in frame-by-frame animation combined with mixed media elements, I've now worked as an animator, director, and editor on numerous projects. In 2024, my music video for the band Throwaway's ""Kyubabe"" screened in competition at the 62nd Ann Arbor Film Festival, and won the Best Michigan Filmmaker award. In fall of 2019, I presented my animations in a 10-city tour of Japan with Throwaway.
I also teach workshops on improvisation, and advise artists in the creation of new work. I've produced recordings with Teiku (577 Records) and Michael Malis with Virago (Made Now Music). While most of my musical composition is done as a collaborative performer within my ensembles, I do sometimes write works for other musicians. Notably, I have been fortunate to write solo pieces for the pianist Sonya Belaya and percussionist Chris Sies.
My solo project subatlantic songs is a theatrical performance for solo amplified double bass and voice. It has been in performative development since 2015, taking shape through gradual distillation of improvised material and staging limitations, including an imposing egret mask sculpted by Ann Arbor artist Mary Perrin. Performances include Cleveland's Re:Sound Festival, and Detroit's Strange Beautiful Music.
Nick Zoulek is at the forefront of performer/composers who are expanding the reach of the saxophone. A musician of “pure mindfulness and talent” (PopMatters), he builds entire worlds out of breath, brass, reeds, and his unbounded imagination. His intuitive playing and commanding technique have earned him admirers from across the musical spectrum.
Based in Chicago, Zoulek has been described as a “no-holds barred engine of avant-garde exploration” (Portland Press Herald). His artistic practice encompasses solo andchamber music, visual media, audio production, and sound design. He has premieredmore than 100 works for saxophone, including pieces by Martin Bresnick, Shelley Washington, Ted Hearne, Emma O’Halloran, and Aaron Kernis. His films have screened at festivals in England, Canada, Serbia, Italy, India, Africa, and around the United States, earning numerous awards.
Although he is a sought-after interpreter of other composers’ music, Zoulek’s own recordings offer the purest view of his artistry. His acclaimed solo debut, Rushing Past Willow, explores an astonishing range of sounds and techniques for alto, tenor and bass saxophones: singing tones, circular breathing, vocalizations, squawks, clicks, hums, multiphonics, ghostly timbres, and more. Reviewing Rushing Past Willow in The Wall Street Journal, Allan Kozinn wrote, “Zoulek's performance, on saxophones in every range, is stunningly virtuosic, whatever the genre. Circular breathing yields rapidly undulating, swirling figures that seem unstoppable. Overblowing produces...fascinating chordal figures, as well as evocations of electronic timbres and feedback. None of that would matter much…if [Zoulek] were a less imaginative composer.” Zoulek created videos to accompany several of the album’s tracks, with dancers from the Wild Space Dance Company performing in the Midwestern landscapes that have inspired much of his work.
His second album, Enter Branch, scheduled for release in 2025 on Better Company Records, expands his compositional language and spotlights collaboration, a vital part of his artistic identity. Trading between bass, tenor, alto, and acoustically-altered saxophones, he has invited friends from diverse musical worlds to guest on several tracks, including singer S. Carey from Bon Iver, spoken-word artist J. Ivy, Nathalie Joachim, members Eighth Blackbird, Field Report, classical soprano Amy Petrongelli, and ~Nois. The result explodes prismatically in listeners’ ears through an array of unconventional miking and mixing techniques that Zoulek has developed through his multimedia work. The result is captivatingly biological – more human than machine, yet only possible through technological ingenuity.
After earning an undergraduate degree at the University of Wisconsin (Whitewater), Zoulek relocated to Paris, France, where he studied technique with master saxophonist Jean-Michel Goury and improvisation with legendary bassist Jöelle Léandre. He subsequently returned to the United States received his DMA in Contemporary Music Performance from Bowling Green State University with a concentration in Digital Media, studying with contemporary saxophone legend, Dr. John Sampen.
Zoulek is active as a media composer, working with Rockstar Games, Found Format Films, the License Lab, and Legs of Steel ski films. He has served as the Music Director of Wild Space Dance Company and has created scores for the Madison Ballet, HYPERlocal, and others. In addition, the success of his visual media work has led to a thriving practice as a photographer and videographer for hire under the rubric of nzmedia, creating music/performance videos and documenting concerts for other artists."