1996 Artist Support Program

Donald Fels is a visual artist and writer. For the past twenty-five years he has followed the trade in commodities around the world. People have always exchanged goods, and in the process have forever swapped stories, traded hopes and ideas. He is currently at work on a graphic non-fiction book, Placing Color, which looks at the rather incredible history of the mordant alum. His book Water’s Edge, about a year he spent as artist in residence at a decommissioned steel plant in Southern Italy, is being readied for publication.

2011 Writers Program

2001/02 New Media Gallery: Plywood and Memory

Artist Support Program 1996

Fear No Music promotes music education through the high quality public performance of modern and contemporary classical music, and by offering groundbreaking youth mentorship in composition. Comprised of some of Oregon’s most talented performers, this flexible chamber music ensemble promotes living composers and introduces audiences to new music being made both locally and globally with its uniquely relevant Annual Concert Series. The group educates and trains the next generation of young composers by way of the Young Composers Project. As a public advocate for global peace and equity, Fear No Music leverages its platforms for healing, activism and social justice.

Artist Support Program 1996

Ela Lamblin is a sculptor and musician.

In 1989, at the age of sixteen, he was awarded a scholarship to attend the Atlanta College of Art. He graduated with a BFA in sculpture in 1993. While at ACA Ela began experimenting with combining sound with form to create musical sculptures, a process that has resulted in more than forty large-scale musical instruments to date. From college onward, Ela’s art has encompassed sculpture, music, film, and movement in live performance. Ela’s artistic horizons continue to expand as he erases the lines between disciplines to create multi-faceted works that now include design and fabrication of public art, architectural design and planning, numerous recordings, short films and scores.

In addition to Lelavision’s performance work, Lamblin has received two commissions for permanent public sculpture – Whirl Piece (2006, Yesler Terrace Community Center, Seattle, WA) and Welcome to the Wheel World (2008, Beacon Hill International School, Seattle, WA). He has also produced five CDs of music on his invented musical sculptures, the first of which, Sculptaural, was recorded through Jack Straw’s Artist Support Program (1996). Others include Raga to the River, classical Indian Raga in the Dhrupad tradition (2000), and Long Period Events, engineered by Grammy nominated record producer, Tucker Martine (2005). Lamblin received the Artist Fellowship in music from Artist Trust in 2004.

Artist Support Program 2000: Recorded his album Tone Pond

Artist Support Program 1996: Recorded Sculptaural, his first musical sculpture album

Gregg Loughridge is a performance artist who has been exploring ways that new media (e.g. digital imagery, video and audio, 3D animation) can revitalize and augment live theatrical performances.

Artist Support Program 2001: Sound track for two musical scenes from a new theatre/new media piece entitled Falling Women, Lost Boys (or the Death of Peter Pan).

Artist Support Program 1996

David Russo is a filmmaker and artist based in Seattle. His film artworks Pan With Us (2003) and Populi (2002) both premiered at the Sundance Film Festival and have appeared in dozens of other festivals around the world, including Clermont-Ferrand, Telluride Film Festival, SXSW, and the San Francisco International Film Festival, among many others. Populi has been installed as a permanent media artwork at Qwest Field in Seattle. I Am (Not) Van Gogh, an environmental animation set amongst the crowds at the Bumbershoot Arts Festival, premiered at the 2005 Bumbershoot festival. Russo has received many awards and acknowledgements, including a Genius Award from The Stranger and recognition as one of Filmmaker Magazine’s 25 New Faces of Independent Film 2003.

Artist Support Program 1996

Three-time Latin Grammy nominee Jovino Santos Neto, a master pianist, composer and arranger, is among the top Brazilian musicians working today. His personal style is a creative blend of energetic grooves, deep harmonies, telepathic improvisation, lyrical melodies and great ensemble playing, always inspired and informed by the colorful richness of Brazilian music. His compositions include samba, choro, baião, xote, forró, marcha and many more styles, rooted in centuries-old musical tradition while pointing to new and adventurous harmonic languages.

Since moving to the US from his native Rio de Janeiro in 1993, Jovino Santos Neto has continued to tour the world and to record prolifically. He has recorded multiple CDs with his Seattle-based Quinteto, including Canto do Rio, nominated for a Latin Grammy in 2004. In 2006 Adventure Music released Roda Carioca with an all-Brazilian lineup including Joyce, Hermeto Pascoal and several other notable musicians and long time colleagues, earning him a second Latin Grammy nomination. In 2007, after receiving a special commission from Brazil’s Petrobras, Jovino composed and recorded Alma do Nordeste, a musical journey translating the essence of Northeastern Brazil into melodies, rhythms and improvisations – connecting regional, universal, imaginary and real stories. In 2008 he released a piano duo with Weber Iago, Live at Caramoor, also nominated for a Latin Grammy award in 2009. In 2010 Veja o Som (See the Sound) was released, a double disc collection of duos with musicians such as Bill Frisell, Joe Locke, Paquito d’Rivera, Anat Cohen, João Donato, Airto Moreira, Joyce, Paula Morelenbaum and Monica Salmaso, among others. In 2011 Adventure Music released Corrente (Current) featuring his Quinteto performing all new original music. Jovino’s newest recording is Guris, tribute to Hermeto Pascoal done as a piano duo with the brilliant Brazilian pianist André Mehmari, scheduled to be released in June 2017 on Adventure Music.

Jovino’s compositions have been performed by the Seattle Symphony, NDR Big Band in Hamburg and by numerous jazz and chamber music groups. Jovino gives lectures, clinics and master classes worldwide on a variety of musical topics. He’s received commissions by the Cheswatyr Foundation, IAJE, ASCAP, CMA/Doris Duke Foundation, Jack Straw Cultural Center, the City of Seattle, 4Culture, Artist Trust and Meet the Composer. He has been artist in residence at some of the most prestigious music schools in the world. In 2012 he was inducted into the Seattle Jazz Hall of Fame and in 2011, 2012, 2015 and 2018 the Jovino Santos Neto Quinteto won as Best Northwest Acoustic Group in the Golden Ear Awards by Earshot Jazz. He also was awarded an Artist Trust Fellowship in Music in 2012.
He is currently working on writing his musical memoirs, to be published in the near future.

Currently, Jovino leads his Seattle-based Quinteto and teaches piano and composition at Cornish College of the Arts. He can also be heard around the world as a piano soloist, working with symphony orchestras, jazz big bands, chamber music groups, and in collaboration with musicians such as his mentor Hermeto Pascoal, Bill Frisell, Paquito d’Rivera, Airto Moreira, Claudio Roditi, David Sanchez, Joe Locke, Marco Granados and many more.

Composer in Residence 1999 : Composed a new work named “Vagalumes” for New York-based new music collective, Musicians Accord, as part of the VirtualConcert project, a national residency project that explores creative uses of the Internet in the composition of music.

Artist Support Program 1996

Seattle Kokon Taiko is a performing group based in the local Seattle Japanese American community. SKT traces its roots to the Seattle Taiko Group, which formed in April 1980 following a dynamic performance by Ondekoza at the Seattle Cherry Blossom Festival. In 1987, three members left STG to form Kokon Taiko Ensemble and focus on smaller, more musical performance pieces. In 1992, these two groups merged to form Seattle Kokon Taiko.

The group’s influences include: Seiichi Tanaka and San Francisco Taiko Dojo, San Jose Taiko, Kinnara Taiko, and Katari Taiko. Later influences include Uzume Taiko, Kenny Endo and Kodo. Over the years, they have performed at schools, arts festivals, street fairs, community programs, corporate events and in concert throughout Washington and Oregon. They are currently based out of the International District of Seattle.

Seattle Kokon Taiko was part of Jack Straw’s Traditional Artist Support Program.

Artist Support Program 1996: Recorded their album Quiet No More

The Vela Luka Croatian Dance Ensemble, founded in 1975, perform music and dance of Croatia and the United States.  Anacortes, home of the Vela Luka Croatian Dance Ensemble, is located on Fidalgo Island in the Northwest corner of Washington State.  One-quarter of the residents of this unique community are descended from immigrants from another fishing village:  Vela Luka, on the Island of Korčula, Croatia.  The performers in Vela Luka represent four generations of Croatian Americans who have introduced their culture’s extraordinary choreography, music, and instruments to people all over the world.  Forming a cross-cultural link between the Puget Sound region and Croatia, the company strives to preserve Croatian folkways and culture for generations to come.

The Ruže Dalmatinke Orchestra, a Seattle-based, professional ensemble, specializes in the music of Croatia and Bosnia.  The group was founded by two sisters, Binki Franulović Spahi and Alma Franulović Plancich, who immigrated with their family to the United States after World War II from their native town of Vela Luka on the island of Korčula, Dalmatia in Croatia.

Artist Support Program 1996

For the 1996 Jack Straw Artist Support Program, musician Joseph Zajonc and poet/storyteller Janet Wallace collaborated on the project Noseman: A Twin Absorbed, a narrative about a man with a cauliflower nose, which is actually his undeveloped twin from the womb. “The initial situation is that his twin is directly between him and the world, because physically it is placed there,” says Zajonc. “He has to figure out how to separate from his twin and come to terms with being able to connect with other people without this in between them.”

Artist Support Program 1996: Noseman: A Twin Absorbed