Chad Kouri and Ben LaMar Gay
Ben Willis, Paige Alice Naylor, Caroline Jesalva, and Derek Worthington
Chad Kouri and Ben LaMar Gay present an evening of sound and color. Ben LaMar Gay is a composer who moves sound, color, and space components through folkloric filters producing brilliant electro-acoustic collages. Chad Kouri is a Chicago-based working artist, musician, and storyteller interested in the healing powers of color, sound, and abstraction.
We welcome Ben Willis’ bright presence back to the Improvised Music Series after his move to Osaka, Japan in 2025. He will be joined by violinist, improviser, and curator Caroline Jesalva, experimental vocalist, sound artist, technologist, and educator Paige Alice Naylor, and composer, improviser, and SuperCollider electronicist Derek Worthington.
8:30 pm: Willis / Worthington / Naylor / Jesalva
9:30 pm: Chad Kouri & Ben LaMar Gay
$15 / $10 w/ Student ID
About The Artists
Chad Kouri is a Chicago-based working artist, musician, and storyteller interested in the healing powers of color, sound, and abstraction. His mixed-race identity is mirrored by his multidisciplinary studio practice, which broadly focuses on color theory, visual communication, improvisation, radical joy, social justice, and community empowerment, as well as Chicago’s monumental history of resistance music, jazz, and the avant-garde. Using a wide range of skills and strategies, Kouri reminds us to stay curious and make time for play, rest, and introspection, giving us more bandwidth for personal exploration, grounding, acceptance, and empowerment.
Ben LaMar Gay is a composer who moves sound, color, and space components through folkloric filters producing brilliant electro-acoustic collages. An explorer of many mediums who has been called a “visionary musician” by The New York Times, Gay has found a form of creative expression that begins with improvisation and expands beyond the limits of any single genre. He has been a member of the Association of the Advancement of Creative Musicians since 2010. With more than twenty years in vibrant experimental music scenes, his talents have earned him residencies globally. He is a highly sought-after collaborator by some of the most influential artists of today.
Ben Willis is a bassist based in Osaka, JP. His practice is focused on collaborative trans-idiomatic improvisation. He often collaborates with dancers, multi-media artists, and technologists. He moved to Osaka from the midwest US in fall of 2025, and he has performed with noise artists, ambient and hip hop musicians, and butoh dancers across the Kansai region. With the experimental bassist Flagio, co-hosts the monthly collaborative inter-arts session, Alt-Classic Studies, at Environment 0g. He studied classical and jazz bass performance with Richard Davis, Diana Gannett, and Robert Hurst. He maintains musical roots in Detroit and Chicago, and in 2026, his Chicago-based improvising string quartet, heroes, interlopers, release their debut album, Gotta Do More. http://heroesinterlopers.com
Caroline Jesalva is a Chicago-based violinist, improviser, and curator. She studied music at the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston, MA where she developed a practice centered on contemporary, improvised and experimental music composition and performance. Her music continually concerns the experimentation and intermingling of violin and vox, finding an expressive home in many disciplines, including experimental theater, dance, songwriting, puppetry, performance art, classical music, and free jazz.
Paige Alice Naylor is a Chicago-based experimental vocalist, sound artist, technologist and educator. Through sound-making and performance, she investigates the dissolution of time and the breakdown of language with electronically processed voice, tape loops, handmade electronics, field recordings, text scores, poetry, and repetitive, layered production. Her direct and interpersonal approach creates live sonic environments which feel vulnerable and intimate. paigenaylor.art
Derek Worthington’s work integrates elements of jazz, electronic music, art music, and free and directed improvisation. His composing practice combines experimental jazz with polytempic structures. As an improviser, he uses a constantly evolving live processing system built in SuperCollider, focusing on improvisations with acoustic musicians.