March 24th SZALON: A Tribute to Manfred Fischbeck

1.    Brigitta Herrmann presents her dance/poetry piece “The Forgotten Generation” inspired by Manfred Fischbeck’s Heritage Project and Sabine Bode's The Forgotten Generation: War-children break their silence, from her home in Philadelphia, PA

2.    Alice Leng (cello) and Nozomi Takashima (pianist) will perform Élégie, Op. 24, by Gabriel Fauré, from the Salon

3.    Paul Butler (clarinet), Ken Ulansey (sax) and Ron Kravitz (percussion) perform Traveling Again inspired by a work they performed with Group Motion Dance Company, from the Salon in Philadelphia

4.    Curt Haworth, Loren Groenendaal, and Julius Masri will perform at the Salon in Philly a music and dance improvisation. 

5.    Mezzo-soprano Maren Montalbano and guitarist Thomas Schuttenhelm will perform several original songs they each have written, from the Salon

6.    Violinist Elizabeth Kaderabek will perform Vocalise by Sergie Rachmaninoff with Andrea Clearfield, piano, from the Salon

7.    Lyons and Tigers (Darcy Lyons and dancers) perform from the Salon an excerpt of UNKNOWNS, a multimedia piece featuring sculptures by Ivia Sky Yavelow, music by Jesse Sparhawk, and contemporary dance by Shannon Lynn Brooks, Leanne Grieger, and Michele Tantoco

8.    Peter Price and Megan Bridge (Fidget) will be joined by dancer Lesya Popil to perform an improvisation with dance and electronic music, from Andrea's Salon

9.    Kevin Augustine will perform 2 excerpts from BODY CONCERT dance/puppet solo inspired by Japanese Butoh, from the Salon

10. Singer-songwriter Marion Halliday will share some of her latest bluegrass and bourbon-infused inspired creations, from the Salon

11.Carlos Zerpa will present “A Blanket of Words”, an animated documentary film, part of the anthology A Piece of Peace, from his home studio in Caracas, Venezuela

Brigitta Herrmann

Brigitta Herrmann was born in Weimar, Germany (formerly East Germany), where she received her schooling during and after the Second World War. Growing up in a household of musicians lead to early involvement with performance in dance, music and theater at the Deutsches National Theater in Weimar, Germany. She is a Performer, Choreographer, Instructor, Lecturer and Workshop Facilitator with over fifty years of extensive experience in building community through dance/movement and performance.  Her teaching, performing and creating dance art establish her as a leading force in the arena of dance improvisation and choreography.  Her artistic work was recognized by the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts. Anchored in the Mary Wigman tradition of dance, her work expresses her cross-cultural roots.  Her passion and commitment to awareness practices and transformation are reflected in her work. The work that she will perform this evening is inspired by Manfred Fischbeck’s Heritage Project and by the book of Sabine Bode “Die Vergessene Generation: Kriegskinder Brechen ihr Schweigen” (The forgotten generation: war-children break their silence). 

http://brigittaherrmanndance.com

Video:

Alice Leng and Nozomi Takashima

Alice Yuntong Leng, age 15, has been playing cello since grade two, and is currently studying with Amy Barston. Growing up in Princeton, New Jersey, she performed annually at a charity concert for her local autism school. In her early years of cello, she performed at Carnegie hall in 2019 and 2023 and won the gold medal in the Russian Chamber Music Foundation in 2020. She just recently performed Kol Nidre at the Congregation Ohev Shalom in Pennsylvania as a soloist during Yom Kippur, and is proud of being part of the top orchestra at her school, which will make a performance tour to Europe with her fellow musicians and the Orchestra in May. On the flip side, Alice is an expert at learning and exploring new languages, she is fluent in English and Mandarin, whilst studying Latin and Japanese at her school, and can speak some French that can help her order a baguette. She loves literature, and reading poetry, especially from Ancient China’s Tang Dynasty, which has a perfect flow and tone similar and as mesmerizing as music! In the very near future, she plans to learn the Erhu, and teach her two cats Momo and Candy to enjoy the sound of the cello as much as she does.

Support Alice here:

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLh7QJyq_C5y4djMIlW8KOOa1ZMN6VGYaX

Nozomi Takashima has worked as a collaborative pianist for the Curtis Quartet, Guarneri Quartet and members of the Philadelphia Orchestra at the New School of Music, Temple University, and the Curtis Institute for over 30 years. She studied Piano Accompanying with Vladimir Sokoloff and chamber music with Felix Galamir and Karen Tuttle at the Curtis Institute. She is presently semi-retired and enjoys traveling and cooking.

Video:

Paul Butler, Ken Ulansey, and Ron Kravitz

Paul Butler is a spirited musician, passionate teacher and gifted improvisor whose music can be heard throughout the world both in live performance and on numerous recordings.
Paul has performed in concert with Grammy Award-winning cellist David Darling, most notably at the International Cello Festival in Montreal, Canada.  He has collaborated with David on the recordings Balance, In Tune, and Open Window, and on the soundtrack for the Knosis film, The Song of the Stars.
Paul can be heard with the trio, Bridges And Poems, with guitarist Robert Weinstein and percussionist John Marshall, on the score for the PBS documentary “Peter Matthiessen: No Boundaries” and on the Paula Josa-Jones work “Ride”, a theatrical performance work for horses, dancers and riders that explores the sensuous and archetypal bond between horse and human through a powerful mix of music, dance, and aerial ballet.
In 1999, Paul and the Hot House Trio (with Eric Henry, tuba, Jim Smith, tenor guitar and vocals) were selected Jazz Ambassadors to the Middle East by the U.S. State Department and the Department of Cultural Exchange.  As Jazz Ambassadors, they performed and taught in Syria, Jordan, Qatar, Bahrain, Morocco, and Tunisia.
Paul’s music can also be heard on Gothic Storm, a music library for the film industry.
Paul earned a Bachelor of Music in Music Education degree from Mansfield University and is a certified Music For People teacher, leading workshops in music improvisation for self - expression and is committed to sharing his passion for music with children of all ages. Paul was a member of the inaugural team of Teaching Artist for Play On Philly!, an amazing program started in Philadelphia by Stanford Thompson, modeled after the El Sistema program in Venezuela, for young people of inner cities worldwide. Paul has been invited to perform and be a Teaching Artist at the Clazz International Music Festival in Arcidosso, Tuscany, Italy.

Ken Ulansey, Penn Council for the Arts winner, plays alto and soprano sax, penny whistle and clarinet. He is a musical chameleon, having played contemporary classical music with Relache—premiering new works by Philip Glass, Robert Ashley, among many others— jazz with his own award-winning band, Latin, Brazilian and folk music with most of the area’s and even the nation’s leading songwriters. Besides leading his own wedding band that specializes in swing, motown, klezmer, latin, pop, zydeco and oldies, Ken has toured extensively in Europe and the States, and has played on nearly three hundred recordings, and worked in collaboration with dancers, film-makers, poets and story-tellers.

Ron Kravitz was raised in Bradley Beach NJ. His mom recognized her shy little boy liked to sing around the house.  Because he was resistant to the idea of taking formal voice lessons with her teacher, she cleverly disguised a trip to the drugstore to pick up a toothbrush, by then saying “Oh, we now need to go next-door to pick up my sheet music, it won’t take long." Ron writes: “When Mr. Greer saw me, he gushed by saying “Oh, I've heard so much about you, Ronnie! Please come over to the piano and join me." That “chance" introduction is where it all began.” Ron was introduced to Group Motion with Manfred Fischbeck and Brigitta Herrmann in 1983 and was introduced to Music for People in 1988. There, cellist David Darling informed him that “There are no wrong notes”!  This connection eventually led Ron to a new life changing instrument that was born in the year 2000 in Switzerland, called the Hang. Many years later up until today, both Group Motion and Music for People are very much still alive within!  On a weekly basis, in his Wyndmoor home, Ron facilitates Music in the Moment Community Improvisation Gatherings, Vocal Groove Explorations and hosts West African Drum Classes.

ron@musicinthemoment.com
Musicinthemoment.com
Shrutibox.com
Phila-Area-Community-Drum-Music-Vocal-Improv-Gathering
Phila-area-Vocal-Groove-Improvisations
African-Drum-Class-in-Wyndmoor
Musicforpeople.org
Groupmotion.org
Flutehaven.com

Paul, Ken and Ron will perform “Traveling Again”. They performed many times with Manfred Fischbeck’s Group Motion Dance Company. One of the performance pieces was a dance called “The Traveling” with dancers and musicians. This is an improvisation today based on that profound shared experience of many years ago.

Curt Haworth, Loren Groenendaal, and Julius Masri 

Curt Haworth, Loren Groenendaal, and Julius Masri have been working and improvising together in various creations for more than a decade. Curt Haworth has been improvising since his days in Santa Cruz CA in the 1980s, and enjoys creating works, structures and free environments. Curt lived and worked in New York City for twenty years before moving to Philadelphia in 2009 and is currently a Professor at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia. 

Loren Groenendaal (they/them) is a founding member, current resident artist, and board member of Mascher Space Cooperative. They are a (co)founding member, curator, and teacher for many ventures including The H-O-T Series, The Impermanent Society of Philadelphia, Dissolving Doors, and Philadelphia Compositional Improvisation lab, Philadelphia Contact Improvisation in Philadelphia, and Philadelphia Underscore. 

Julius Masri is a Philadelphia based multi-instrumentalist, performer and composer for the city’s dance community at large. His music focuses on improvisatory methods and syncretic/ linguistic/ somatic exchanges within various musical languages. 

Links:

https://curthaworth.wixsite.com/movement
https://www.juliusmasri.com/merch
https://www.lorenteachesmovement.com/

Video:

Maren Montalbano and Thomas Schuttenhelm

A graduate of both New England Conservatory of Music and Tufts University, mezzo Maren Montalbano can be heard on four GRAMMY Award-winning albums: Born (2023), Lansing McLoskey’s Zealot Canticles (2019), Gavin Bryars’ The Fifth Century (2018), and John Adams’ On the Transmigration of Souls (2005). Among her 30+ commercial recordings are Douglas Cuomo’s opera Arjuna’s Dilemma, Gavin Bryars’ A Native Hill, Edie Hill’s Evolutionary Spirits, and her debut solo album, Sea Tangle: Songs from the North. Her performances have been praised as “wonderful” and “suave and sensuous” by the Philadelphia Inquirer. Ms. Montalbano has been a guest artist with Claire Chase, the Folger Consort, Lyric Fest, Choral Arts Philadelphia, Mendelssohn Chorus of Philadelphia, Network for New Music, Lancaster Symphony Orchestra, Tempesta di Mare, and Piffaro, the Renaissance Band. During the pandemic, she turned to the digital world; she wrote, produced, and premiered a one-woman show called The Bodice Ripper Project as an interactive digital performance at the Philadelphia Fringe Festival, and began recording (in her own closet!) for films and commercial albums. In the 2023-24 season, Ms. Montalbano continues to walk the line between the digital and live worlds, from internationally-acclaimed staged performances using hybrid live electronics (Ted Hearne’s Farming) to creating and selling digital collectibles on the new online platform StageYo. Ms. Montalbano lives in New Jersey and sings professionally throughout a wide geographic area with Opera Philadelphia, Trio Eos, and The Crossing. 

Links:

Website: www.marenmontalbano.com
Instagram: www.instagram.com/supermaren
Tips: www.venmo.com/mezzomaren

Thomas Schuttenhelm is an American composer and guitarist whose compositions exhibit an exquisite craft and richness of style and are celebrated by many leading artists in contemporary music. His music uses pre-texts and embodied programs to celebrate in allusions to the musical, literary, poetic, visual, and theatrical influences that resonate throughout and his compositions are commonly the result of collaborations with authors, poets, actors and artists. He is a Fulbright Fellow (London / Cardiff); British Music Studies Fellow (UT Austin); Edison Fellow at the Sound Archive (British Library), and presented and lectured at many universities and colleges throughout the U.S. and abroad. He has collaborated and composed works for the Hartford Symphony (Intermix Series), the Hartford Independent Chamber Orchestra, Lexington Philharmonic, Chorosynthesis, the Adaskin String Trio, the New American Mandolin Ensemble, Duo Montagnard, Duo Orfeo, the Alturas Duo, the Kaleidos World Music Duo, Tempo del Fuoco, Volkan Orhon, Paul Bisaccia, the Leonard-Smith Duo (including Grammy award winning guitarist Doug Smith), and banjarist Michael Nix. His piano music was featured on the PBS (WGBY- Springfield, WGBH-Boston) special "The Great American Piano." His chamber music cycle Quincunx (the word used for the pattern for five found on a pair of dice), a reimagining of Debussy’s late sonata cycle with the guitar as the center-piece, and featuring: Jiji (guitar), Danbi Um (violin), Gabriele Leite (guitar), Nick Revel of PUBLIQuartet (viola), Trevor Babb (guitar), Tom Kraines of the Daedalus Quartet (cello), Jordan Dodson (guitar), and Robert Black of Bang-On-A-Can All-Stars (bass) will be released on Frameworks Records in April 2024. He lives in Philadelphia where he is the Artistic Director at Network for New Music. 

Link: https://www.schuttenhelmmusic.com/

Videos:

Elizabeth Kaderabek and Andrea Clearfield

Elizabeth Kaderabek grew up in a musical family, as the oldest child of Philadelphia Orchestra principal trumpet Frank Kaderabek's 5 children, and began studying the violin at age 6 with the famous concertmaster and teacher Mischa Mischakoff. In high school she had hoped to go into medicine, but wound up studying philosophy for one semester before returning to Philadelphia and enrolling at the Philadelphia Musical Academy as a student of William De Pasquale. Liz loves to travel, and has been all over the world, mostly through her music. In 1984&5 she was the concertmaster of the Spoleto Festival, both in South Carolina and Italy. For 10 years, she was a member of the New York City Opera National Co., the last 3 as concertmaster, and spent 3 months of each year bringing opera to small college towns across the United States. In 2015 she was in China with Orchestra 2001, a contemporary music ensemble based at Swarthmore College, performing several premiers, including Andrew Rudin's solo violin work Canapés. The past 26 years she has spent her summers in Santa Fe, New Mexico as a member of the Santa Fe Opera, which has spawned a love of camping, hiking, and mountain-biking. Santa Fe is also were she developed her passion for yoga, a wonderful antidote to the physical demands of the violin. 

In Philadelphia she is the assistant principal second violinist with the Chamber Orchestra, a first violinist with the Pennsylvania Ballet and Opera Company, as well as a regular substitute with the Philadelphia Orchestra. She and developmental psychologist Dr. Michael Tucker have a 19 year old son Nicholas, and dog Luna. Liz also became a realtor during the pandemic.

Creating deep emotive musical languages that build cultural and artistic bridges, the music of Andrea Clearfield is performed widely in the U.S. and abroad. She has written over 170 works for opera, chorus, orchestra, chamber ensemble, dance and multimedia collaborations, exploring subjects ranging from freedom and oppression to ancient cultures, environmental sustainability, health and healing, gender and technology. Among her works are 17 large-scale cantatas including one for The Philadelphia Orchestra in collaboration with storyteller and writer Charlotte Blake Alston. She was awarded a Pew Center International Residency Award, a Pew Fellowship in the Arts, two Independence Foundation and Leeway Foundation Fellowships, and Fellowships at the Rockefeller Foundation’s Bellagio Center, American Academy in Rome, Yaddo, MacDowell and Copland House among others. She served on the composition faculty at The University of the Arts from 1986-2011. Active as a pianist, she played keyboards with the Relâche Ensemble for 25 years and held the honor of performing with the Court of the Dalai Lama. Clearfield has served on the Board of the Recording Academy/Grammy's Philadelphia Chapter and currently serves on the Executive Board of Wildflower Composers, amplifying voices of young female, transgender, nonbinary, and genderqueer composers. Passionate about building community around the arts, she is also founder, curator and host of the Philadelphia SALON, featuring contemporary, classical, jazz, folk, electronic, dance and world music since 1986.  She is represented by Black Tea Music.

www.andreaclearfield.com

Lyons and Tigers

Darcy Lyons (Lyons and Tigers) was born and raised in Santa Fe, New Mexico. She received a B.F.A in dance from California Institute of the Arts (CalArts) in 2010 and has since been living, working, performing, and creating dance work in Philadelphia. Darcy has choreographed many dance works for the stage, dance films, and dance installations. Most recently she produced UNKNOWNS, a full evening length work in the 2023 Philadelphia Fringe Festival. She also produced two versions of Proceed with Caution in the 2019 and 2018 Philadelphia Fringe Festival. Other self-produced shows include Pendulum in April 2018 and Askew in June 2017, Bricolage in March 2017, Patchworks in May 2016, and WALLS: a multimedia dance installation for the 2015 Philly Fringe Festival. She produced MAEI MAEI AEIM at The Iron Factory in January 2014, an experimental improvisational performance with cellist Steve DiGregorio. Additionally, she has shown her work in several performance series in Philadelphia and New York, including SHARE at The Iron Factory, Performance Garage Open House, Group Motion’s Spiel Uhr series, Inhale performance series, and WAX Works in Brooklyn. She has been a guest artist with Group Motion Dance Company, and was a consistent participant of the Group Motion Monday Night Improv Lab from 2010-2017. She worked as the office manager for Group Motion for several years. She was lucky to have Manfred Fischbeck as an incredible mentor. From 2010-2014, she was a company member of Sutie Madison’s Band of Artists. She has also worked with choreographers Lora Allen and Lacy James. She is a certified GYROTONIC® and Pilates instructor and a GYROKINESIS® Apprentice.

lyonsandtigers.org click donate!
Instagram: @dlyonstigers
Facebook Page: facebook.com/lyonsandtigers

Ivia Sky Yavelow is an artist and curator based in central New Jersey. Her works range from small drawings to large installations, and are made with both found and fine art materials.Starting with process based creation and inspired by cycles of creation & destruction, clarity & confusion, her works ask: "What does not knowing look like?". Yavelow graduated from Bard College in 2014 and also studied at the New York Studio School. She has exhibited in the Philadelphia area since 2010.

iviaskyyavelow.com
Instagram: @iviasky 

Jesse Sparhawk is a Philadelphia based multi-instrumentalist, composer, and improviser whose primary instruments include lever harp, guitars, and electric bass. He studied harp with principal harpist of the New York Philharmonic, Myor Rosen and Eastman School of Music’s Kathleen Bride as a teen and performed at Carnegie Hall at the age of 15. He has nearly 100 recording credits to his name performing various instruments with many artists and bands. He has toured the US and Europe with several singer-songwriters, bands, ensembles, and as a solo artist. He can be heard performing on original soundtracks for the independent films "Tarnation" (2003), "The King" (2005), "Home Front" (2006), and the alternate soundtrack to the 1970 Czech New Wave film, “Valerie and her Week of Wonders,” performed by the psych-folk ensemble The Valerie Project (Drag City Records, 2007). Sparhawk's instrumental acoustic guitar composition, titled "Light Cycle / Tetrahedra," was released in 2006 on Tompkins Square Records’ Imaginational Anthem Volume II compilation alongside other notable guitarists including Jack Rose, Michael Chapman, and Robbie Basho. Settled in the Chestnut Hill neighborhood of Philadelphia, Sparhawk is currently most active with the groups Joey Sweeney and The Neon Grease, Settled Arrows, Erik Ruin’s Ominous Cloud Ensemble, and On The Water.

jessesparhawk.bandcamp.com

Instagram: @sparhawkian 

Dancers tonight are:

Shannon Lynn Brooks

Michele Tantoco

shalynbro.com (Instagram: @shalynbro)

Leanne Grieger (Instagram: @leenleenleen)

Megan Bridge and Peter Price

Fidget (Megan Bridge & Peter Price) creates & performs experimental works of music and dance. Founded in 2008, Fidget is a platform for the work of Bridge (choreographer) and Price (composer/video art), who have created more than twenty original works that involve live performance, sound, and visual design. With a home base in Philadelphia, the company has toured nationally in the US and internationally in Austria, Bulgaria, Colombia, France, Georgia, Germany, Macedonia, Poland, South Africa, and Switzerland. Fidget maintains an artist workspace and event space in Kensington, Philadelphia. In addition to being the co-director of Fidget and an internationally touring dancer and choreographer, Megan Bridge is also a dance educator, currently teaching in the dance departments at Temple University and Bryn Mawr College. Peter Price is also a media theorist and in that capacity has lectured in New York, London, Berlin, Vienna, Zurich, Basel, and elsewhere.

www.thefidget.org/donate
www.thefidget.org
Instagram: @thefidget_space
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/fidgetspace

Lesya Popil was a dancer with Group Motion Dance Company. She graduated with an MFA in Dance Performance from the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee. She is also a licensed Clinical Social Worker certified in Trauma Focused Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for children and adolescents.

Kevin Augustine

Kevin Augustine is the Director and Creator of Lone Wolf Tribe, a NY based puppet company.

As the eponymous lone wolf, Augustine writes, directs & performs alongside the foam-rubber puppets he makes.

With a mission to Investigate, Challenge & Spellbind, LWT uses simple magic and poetic brutality to create gutsy, original theatre about our collective human story.

https://www.lonewolftribe.com/donate
https://www.instagram.com/lonewolftribe/
https://www.facebook.com/LoneWolfTribe

Video:

Marion Halliday

Marion Halliday, a native Kentuckian now splitting her time between Louisville, Kentucky and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, is proud purveyor of her own special blend of bluegrass and bourbon-infused, original, women-powered, Americana. While she has been a professional singer for many years, Marion only began focusing on songwriting in the last 5 years.  She released her debut solo album Rings Around Saturn on July 1, 2019 and in its first month, both the album and Marion (as artist) were ranked #3 on the US/International Folk DJ charts.  Marion also had two songs in the top ten folk releases in her launch month.  Even though released late year, the album also landed in the official listing of top-50 most played albums on Folk radio for 2019 at #41. Marion has appeared solo or in one of her bands (Trickster Sister; The Weeping Pints) at venues and festivals throughout the US, as well as Scotland and Mexico.

Bluegrass and Bourbon-Infused Original Women-Powered Americana (Marion’s Website) + founding member of Tangled Humans

Website:  www.marionhalliday.com
Youtube:  https://www.youtube.com/@marionhallidaymusic
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Trickstersister/
Instagram: http://instagram.com/marionhalliday_trickstersister
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/0uJKRR9AS5tfawjXGDqmLD

Videos:

Carlos Zerpa

Based in Caracas, Venezuela, Carlos Zerpa is a founding member of MECHA, an award-winning interdisciplinary cooperative with whom he develops and produces impact-driven storytelling projects from a socially aware, critical, and transgressive point of view. He is the Co-founder of RIMA (www.rima.network), a digital platform aiming to connect Global South's emerging artists with opportunities for international mobility and financing. In addition he is Co-founder and teacher in ENGRAPO, an independent public education project that introduces youth to visual communication as a tool to understand and transform their reality. He has participated in various international artist residencies such as Koneen Saatio (2022), ProHelvetia (2022), La Maison des Auteurs (2022) and Sacatar Institute (2021). Alumni of Berlinale Talents (2022), the Global Cultural Relationships Platform (2021), the Global Cultural Relationships Platform (2021), IsLab (2020), Sundance Collab (2020), Bridging the Gap (2019) and winner of ApaLab Pitch competition (2019).

www.mecha.pro
www.instagram.com/mechacoop