At this week’s Improvised Music Series we welcome incredible Chicago tuba player Beth McDonald for a full night of sounds in celebration of her birthday! There will be two sets, two trios. First up we’ll hear from guitarist Andrew Clinkman and audio/visual artist Kim Alpert as they mingle with Beth’s dirging tuba and electronics. Closing out the night will be McDonald with her frequent collaborator Ken Vandermark and pianist Mabel Kwan. Both sets will highlight McDonald’s incredibly unique approach to tuba, both as a singular voice and versatile collaborator. Music at 8:30pm!
$15 / $10 w/ Student ID - Tickets Available at the Door
Artist Bios
Beth McDonald is a classically trained tuba player gone awry. She performs mostly as an improviser on tuba with electronics processing, but her improvisational practice also extends into printmaking on both textiles and paper. Her current musical collaborations include Edition Redux (Vandermark/Finnegan/Dessel), Three Grebes (Hand/Turner), and Where Were We (Dessel/Damon).
Media Artist Kim Alpert builds work that echos inquisitions into psychology and spirituality through time-based collage. The output can be found as video, poetry, movement, music, and interactivity, to create sculptural and performance-based systems. Kim's visual practice centers on humanism in understanding the complexities and simplistics of experience.
Andrew Clinkman is a guitarist and improviser who has been an active member of the creative music community in Chicago since 2013 performing in the groups Spirits Having Fun, Marker, and Moontype as well as many small impromptu groupings. He has also been a curator of the Option Series at Experimental Sound Studio since 2015.
Pianist Mabel Kwan is fascinated by sounds, contradictions, and our perception of what is familiar or strange. She is a founding member of Ensemble Dal Niente, Restroy, Mega Laverne and Shirley, Fifth Season, and Honestly Same. A native of Austin, Texas, her interest in art and music began at an early age when she started accompanying her father on lieder, arias, and Chinese folk songs. Mabel is a 2017 3Arts Awardee, 2018 High Concept Labs Artist, and 2020 City of Chicago Esteemed Artist.
Ken Vandermark is an avant-garde composer, improviser, saxophonist/clarinetist, curator, writer; and was awarded a MacArthur Fellowship in music 1999. He moved to Chicago from Boston in 1989 and has worked continuously from the early 1990s onward, both as a performer and organizer in North America, Europe, Latin America, Japan, and Ethiopia, recording in a large array of contexts, with many internationally renowned musicians.