About the performers:
Jaap Blonk (born 1953 in Woerden, Netherlands) is a self-taught composer, performer, poet and visual artist. His unfinished studies in mathematics and musicology mainly created a penchant for activities in a Dada vein, as did several unsuccessful jobs in offices and other well-organized systems. In the early 1980s he discovered the power and flexibility of his voice, and set out on a long-term research of phonetics and the possibilities of the human voice.
At present, he has developed into a specialist in the creation and performance of sound poetry and a unique vocal improviser, supported by a powerful and uninhibited stage presence. He has performed and taught around the world, on all continents. With the use of live electronics and sometimes projection of visuals the scope and range of his concerts has acquired a considerable extension.
Blonk’s recorded / published output comprises some 75 titles: CDs, vinyl, cassettes and books. From his sound poetry scores he developed an independent body of visual work, also supported by his renewed interest in mathematical procedures. It has been exhibited in various countries, and selections have been collected in books by publishers in Germany, Ireland, Canada, the United States, Sweden and Brazil.
The Schanzer/Speach Duo consists of Jeffrey Schanzer, composer/guitarist and Bernadette Speach, composer/pianist. Their collaborative works combine the intuition and spontaneity of improvisation with the structure of formal composition. The Duo had its premiere performance in October 1986 at Experimental Intermedia Foundation, New York City. Since that time, they have performed in New York at Roulette, St. Ann's Church, the Knitting Factory, The Stone and Dia Center for the Arts, and in Newark, Hartford, Buffalo, Chicago, Boulder, San Francisco, Seattle, Puerto Rico, Gent and Liege, Belgium, and Cologne and Herne, Germany. Dualities, the Duo's first CD, was released on the Mode/Avant label in January 1992 and was picked as one of the top 10 recordings of 1992 by Robert Hicks in Jazziz magazine. The Duo has had works written for it by Lester Bowie, Kitty Brazelton, Michael Colquhoun, Fred Ho, Joseph Jarman, Oliver Lake, Tania León, Fred Lonberg-Holm, Betsy McClelland, William Ortiz, Wadada Leo Smith and Steven Swartz. Artists who have performed with the Duo include Lester Bowie, Thomas Buckner, Michael Colquhoun, Barbara Held, Joseph Jarman, Oliver Lake, Joelle Leandre, Fred Ho, Fred Lonberg-Holm, Myra Melford, David Pleasant, Bobby Previte, Alva Rogers, Ned Rothenberg, Wadada Leo Smith, Warren Smith, Libby Van Cleve and Jack Vees.
Schanzer also appears with his group The Jeffrey Schanzer Ensemble, which has brought together musicians such as Leroy Jenkins, Bobby Previte and Ned Rothenberg. His No More In Thrall, commemorating the 50th anniversary of the liberation of the Nazi concentration camp at Buchenwald where his father was a prisoner, performed by the Sirius String Quartet with percussionist Kevin Norton, was released on the Composers Recording Inc. (CRI) label. Speach's activities as a composer have included performances of Within, for piano and orchestra, by Ursula Oppens and the Brooklyn Philharmonic, and Les Ondes pour Quartre, premiered by the Arditti String Quartet in Darmstadt, Germany. In and Out of Love – after Liaisons and Send in the Clowns from A Little Night Music, was premiered by Anthony de Mare, pianist and Artistic Director of “Liaisons: Re-imagining Sondheim from the Piano”, at the Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center, which commissioned the work. More recently Embrace the Universe (2001) for Orchestra, Chorus (SATB) and soloists: Mezzo-Soprano, Viola, Piano, with text: "Hymn to Matter" from The Divine Milieu by Pierre Teilhard de Chardin was premiered in 2016 at the Teatro Petruzzelli, Bari, Italy. Her latest project, the opera The Little Rock Nine, a collaboration with librettist Thulani Davis, tells the story of nine students, ages 14 and 15, who integrated Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas in 1957-58.
