Matt Kiroff
Tyler Spuzzillo
Jacob Fawcett
Ausberto Acevedo
Keefe Jackson
Kiroff/Spuzzillo Duo (Cleveland) will perform a round robin of improvised, micro-tonal songs infused with free jazz and electronics. Tyler Spuzzillo will perform on fretless bass and Matthew Kiroff will perform on a microtonally altered Wurlitzer electric piano; the micro-tones are achieved by filing down the tines. The vocal styles lie somewhere between Jandek, Cat Power and Neutral Milk Hotel, a wholly unique, eccentric mutation of forms.
Jacob Little Cloud Fawcett (Lac Courte Oreilles Band of Ojibwe) is a Chicago based drummer and composer who blends aspects of jazz and traditional Native American music in order to create original compositions that accurately reflect Indigenous culture and experience. He will be joined by fellow Chicago improvisors, Keefe Jackson and Ausberto Acevedo. This will be their first time collaborating on stage.
8:30 pm - Matt Kiroff / Tyler Spuzzillo duo
9:30 pm - Fawcett/Jackson/Acevedo Trio
$15 / $10 w/ Student ID -
Tickets Available at the Door
About The Artists
Matthew Kiroff earned his Bachelor's and Master's degrees at The Cleveland Institute of Music, where he studied composition with Eugene O'Brien and Donald Erb. He later earned a Doctorate from Cornell University studying composition with Karel Husa and jazz with Karlton Hester.
His dissertation, a spectrographic analysis of the music of Cecil Taylor and The Art Ensemble of Chicago, was published in Jazz Forschung, Graz, Austria. His quintet "Ombre" was performed at The International Society of Contemporary Music's World Music Days, Warsaw, Poland, by Jane Manning and her ensemble. He has received awards and grants from The ASCAP foundation, The Ford and Cleveland Foundations, The Bascom Little Fund, The Ohio Arts Council, and The Foundation for Contemporary Arts.
His current ensemble "The Pith and Root of Sleep,” which he has directed since 1997, is an amalgam of free jazz, improvised avant garde classical music, folk idioms, improvised modern dance, performance art, installation art and site-specific art.
Currently he teaches at The Cleveland Institute of Art, as well as maintaining a private teaching studio of 30 piano students. He lives in Cleveland Heights with his cat, Princess Nico, and his wife, Sheung-Ping Lai.
Tyler Spuzzillo studied music education and voice at Austin Peay State University and Guitar Performance at the University of Akron. He is an active performer in the Cleveland area traversing many genres including classical music, free jazz and various popular music forms. He is a prolific composer having had created many songs of great depth and variety. He currently teaches for the Akron public school system and for Royalton .