2001 Artist Support Program

Born in Ghana, the son of a traditional healer, Obo Addy grew up around the drumming and vocal music of Ghana’s Ga people. Along with his brothers, Yacoub and Mustapha, Obo formed a dynamic group, which quickly rose to the top of Ghana’s booming music scene in the mid-1960’s. After touring Africa, Europe, Australia, and Asia with Oboade, the Addy brothers eventually toured the United States to critical acclaim in the 1970’s.

After the ensemble dispersed, Obo Addy formed the nucleus of a drumming network in Portland that spread throughout the Pacific Northwest. Splitting his energies between a traditional project called Okoropong and an Afro-jazz group called Kudrudu, Obo kept busy over the years training musicians for his band and teaching students.

Obo brought to the Northwest a steady stream of Ghanian drummers and dancers to support his efforts, and they have enriched the cultural landscape immeasurably as they spread out through the region. Obo has recorded numerous albums and in 1996 was honored with a National Heritage Fellowship award by the National Endowment for the Arts. He also collaborated with noted jazz musician Julian Priester to create and premiere “Confluence” a new composition commissioned by Jack Straw. He was one of the African immigrant artists whose music was featured in Safarini, a music album developed and produced by Jack Straw and Rakumi Arts International to promote the work of African immigrant artists. Two of Obo Addy’s songs are included on Safarini – Amedzro and Oshi. “Oshi” means “pound your foot to the beat” and is a pop arrangement of traditional Ga music. This song is an excellent example of how Obo adapts drum rhythms into guitar, bass and horn lines. The Safarini compact disc was released by Smithsonian Folkways Recordings in 2000.

Obo Addy’s greatest contribution was perhaps his teaching of Ghanian music. He has adapted traditional Ghanian instruction techniques to the restlessness of American children and the structures of the school year. He has also adapted traditional patterns to new instruments and encourages young musicians to create their own music.

After a long battle with liver cancer, Addy died on September 13, 2012.

Artist Support Program 2001

Composer in Residence 1999 : Composed original work “Confluence” together with trombonist Julian Priester, combining complex African polyrhythmic patterns with contemporary melodic and harmonic concepts derived from jazz.

Circus Contraption was a one ring circus committed to the preservation, enrichment, and evolution of the circus and variety arts. Music is an integral part of the Circus Contraption experience, and the troupe worked toward blurring the lines between the musicians and physical performers in the creative process. The band was led by music director and ringmaster Armitage Shanks.

Artist Support Program 2001: Recording and production of the CD Gallimaufry

Grey Filastine composes music that brings together seemingly unrelated audio elements, live percussion, electronic sound & field recording, into a cohesive musical framework.

Artist Support Program 2001: Recording the acoustic component of his work for a CD release.

Richard Gibbons (1932-2023) was a fiction and non fiction writer and storyteller based in Seattle. He edited for newspapers and magazines, wrote articles for The New Republic and Washington Magazine, and co-wrote and illustrated a volume of folk tales called Tejocote published by Mexico’s Editorial Novaro. Dick also wrote stories for Ellery Queen and songs recorded by Tom Paxton.  He chaired two poetry critique groups.

Artist Support Program 2001: Recording the sound track to an epic poem and video piece called Prairie, a personal narrative of his grandfather’s childhood on the Illinois frontier (1855-1868).

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

Inspired by her experience in the Big Apple, Cynthia Mullis plays saxophone with East Coast flair and West Coast sensibility. After moving to New York City in 1993 to study with the legendary saxophonist Jimmy Heath, she immersed herself in the NYC jazz scene, paying dues and performing with world-class musicians.

From 1994-2000 she was a member of the all-women big band Diva in NYC. With Diva, she toured extensively across the United States and Europe, backing such artists as Diane Schuur, Joe Williams and Dave Brubeck, and performing at the Blue Note, Birdland, the Kennedy Center, and jazz festivals in Berlin, Montreal, and Switzerland. Cynthia can be heard on two of Diva’s CDs, Leave It to Diva and I Believe in You.

Since moving to Seattle in 2000, Cynthia has continued to perform with a notable list of musicians, as well as record two CDs as a leader, Inside Job and Analog Honking Device. Cynthia was also featured on SWOJO’s recording Meeting of the Waters, and performed with SWOJO at the Lima, Peru Jazz Festival in 2007. Cynthia holds a Master of Arts in Jazz Performance from Queens College in NYC and a Bachelor of Music Performance degree from the University of Northern Colorado.

Artist Support Program 2001 : Recorded her jazz album Inside Job

John Osebold AKA Jose Bold is a Seattle-based musician. His musical Spidermann made a splash in New York in March and last month he received a Genius Award from The Stranger. Meanwhile, Osebold continues to perform with his band, Awesome and pumps out copious volumes of new work, including Seateeth, an experimental piece of theater ostensibly about a literary reading.

Watch: John Osebold/Jose Bold live at Jack Straw

Artist Support Program 2001: Recorded some songs including Magic Mouth

Maureen Whiting is a choreographer, dancer, and mathematician based in Oakland, California. Her work was supported in Seattle for over 20 years by On the Boards, Seattle University, Velocity Dance and ACT Theatre where she also developed “Ramayana” with nationally acclaimed directors. She taught dance at Seattle University’s Theatre Department for 3 years and has taught many workshops on improvisation and the creative process. As well as theatre work she has done installations in hotel rooms, outside in a military fort, and in galleries. Beyond the West Coast she performed her work in New York, Philadelphia, Alaska, and Europe. Company work expands to site specific pieces and films. Maureen created film and video projects for Seattle’s Northwest Film Forum and released a short as part of Seattle Women in Film in 2007. Maureen grew up a ballet dancer and trained in improvisation with Stephanie Skura (while dancing in her company) and Joan Skinner among others. She graduated with a degree in Mathematics in 1989 from Smith College and currently teaches mathematics.

Artist Support Program 2001: “And there was concrete skin for your face,” a dance, sound, and video work with Robert Campbell

Rulon Brown is a musician and visual artist who creates for stage, gallery and new media. Rulon’s recent work includes a avant-rock CD; a solo album made while traveling North and Central America; multi-media and art installation inspired by the RESTLESS American Dream; an art puzzle with each piece embedded with hidden music and film; a documentary film about the cultural limits of Mormon musical worship; a CD of world-rhythm improv to 19th Century Christian hymns; headlining the Nicaragua International Jazz Festival; and a U.S. State Department sponsored artist residency at a cultural institute in Granada, Nicaragua.

Artist Support Program 2001 (as Nate Brown): Recorded his album Based on Actual Events

Pianist/Vocalist/Composer Dawn Clement has established herself as one of the most sought-after musicians working today. With her joyful presence, consummate technique, and distinctive sound, Clement has gained the attention and respect of musicians, critics, and fans through the US and abroad. “In all this world of jazz, there are very few individual voices, no matter what the instrument, but Dawn has come up with a voice that’s unique . . . ” says legendary jazz trombonist Julian Priester.

Dawn holds a Bachelor of Music from Cornish College of the Arts and a Master of Fine Arts in Music Composition from Vermont College of Fine Arts. In 2018, Dawn relocated from the Pacific Northwest to Denver, Colorado to take on the role of Assistant Professor and Area Coordinator of the Jazz and American Improvised Music Department at Metropolitan State University of Denver. Dawn maintains a rigorous teaching and performing schedule while balancing the ever-fluctuating dance of parenting, composing, and supporting her local art scene.

Artist Support Program 2001: Produced The Rubin-Clement Piano Dialogues with Amy Rubin

Amy Rubin, pianist and composer, has written and performed music in all genres – for the concert stage, jazz ensemble, film, television and theater, both in the U.S. and abroad. Her fearless eclecticism and desire to embrace all music regardless of style have brought her recent awards including the Washington State Artist Trust Fellowship, the King County Special Projects Award, the 2005 Jack Straw Artist Support Award and commission funds from the Seattle Arts Commission.

In summer 1999, Hallelujah Games, an all-Rubin CD, was released on the Mode label. Music from her sextet, “La Loba” was danced to by the Dayton Contemporary Dance Company in their national tour 2003-2004 of the Flight Project. Rubin’s most recent CD Like Ships That Pass… presents a retrospective of the last few year’s live performances of her solo piano pieces, chamber pieces, and a work for piano and chamber orchestra by that title.

As educator, Rubin ran the Musicianship Program at SUNY at Stony Brook, was an Assistant Professor at Fairleigh Dickinson University in New Jersey where she directed all musical activities on campus, and was a Visiting Professor and the Cornish College of the Arts in Seattle.

Rubin now lives in Seattle where she composes, performs, teaches, lectures and collaborates.

Artist Support Program 2005: Produce a series of radio portraits of pianists working in many different styles of music around the country.

Artist Support Program 2001: Produced The Rubin-Clement Piano Dialogues with Dawn Clement

Artist Support Program 2000

Pamela Moore Dionne has published award-winning poetry, short fiction, and nonfiction in a number of publications, including Shenandoah, Pontoon, Snow Monkey, Vox Populi, Avatar Review, Author Magazine, and others. She founded the online art & literature journal Literary Salt, and served as its managing director.

In 1998, Pam was awarded a Centrum residency and an Artist Trust Gap Grant for her poetry. In 2001 she received the Jack Straw Artist’s Support Grant to record a CD of her Sabina Spielrein Ghazal series with composer Jim Knodle and pianist Lynette Westendorf. Her visual art has been published in Switched on Gutenberg and Raven Chronicles and presented in one-woman shows in the Seattle area.

She was the original founder of Discovery Bay Games, which in its heyday distributed product in 40 countries and 10 different languages.

She graduated from Goddard College on July 15, 2018 with an MFA in Creative Writing.

Watch: Jim Knodle, Pamela Moore Dionne, and Lynette Westendorf live at Jack Straw

Artist Support Program 2001: Recorded Keeping the Devil Out: Poems and Music for Sabina Spielrein, in collaboration with jazz musician Jim Knodle

1999 Writers Program

Bill Jarcho has been an animation director / creative director; creating shorts, station ID’s, commercials, and videos for Nickelodeon, MTV, ABC Saturday Morning TV, and the Committee for Children, to name a few. He has directed episodes of Eddie Murphy’s animated series “The PJ’s” on Fox TV and created and performed giant puppets and puppet shows for Zambini Brothers, drawn cartoons for the local newspaper and CfC, as well as been the director of The Conscious Cartoons International Animation Festival. He has won numerous awards for his commercial work and independent animated shorts, which have played at Animation festivals throughout the world and too many times on my computer. He has also written and created puppet shows (several of which received grants from the Henson foundation), which he’s performed for thousands of kids at elementary schools, libraries, and festivals throughout the Pacific NW. He has also been seen dressed as a cowboy riding a giant chicken on occasion.

Artist Support Program 2001

Brian Lawlor is a composer, multi-instrumentalist, conductor, and teacher residing amidst the scenic street trash of Jersey City Heights.

Artist Support Program 2001: Produce recordings of solo piano compositions and improvisations

Sasa Mlakar is a singer, composer, poet and movement artist whose work seeks to explore the relationship between those disciplines.

Artist Support Program 2001

Jeffrey Moidel’s song cycle Neruda Love Sonnets received “First Place for the Nation: USA” representing Washington State in the International Ravel Composition Competition held in Bergamo, Italy in 2015 and was advanced to the Semi-Finals. His song, “And now you’re mine . . .” was singled out by the NATS Art Song Composition Award panel of judges and given the award of “Stand-Out Song,” the first song ever to receive such mention in the ASCA competition’s history, since they created the category specifically to honor this song.

The Paul Taylor Dance Company and the Aspen Dance Connection have featured his compositions with Jeff at the piano. Jeff has performed throughout the United States, Europe and South America as a piano soloist and collaborative pianist

A graduate of the Mannes College of Music in New York City, Jeff has been a vocal coach and instructor for Seattle Opera’s Young Artist Program, the Aspen Music Festival, and other music schools and festivals. He was an Assistant Professor at Cornish College of the Arts in Seattle. Jeff believes it is important for children to develop an early appreciation for the arts and has written six children’s musicals and other concert works for young audiences.

Artist Support Program 2020: The New Colossus: A new musical setting of the poem engraved on the Statue of Liberty, for voice and piano.

Artist Support Program 2001

Olga Sanchez Saltveit is Artistic Director Emerita for Milagro, the Pacific Northwest’s premier Latinx arts & culture organization, following her service as the company’s Artistic Director from 2003-2015. She is an actor, director, devisor, and arts activist, whose work has been seen throughout the US and in Peru, Venezuela, Honduras, and Cuba. Olga served as co-artistic director of the People’s Playhouse in New York City, artistic director of Seattle Teatro Latino, and co-founder of La Casa de Artes, a Seattle-based non-profit organization dedicated to celebrating the beauty of Latinx arts and cultural heritage. Her ¡O ROMEO! received a Portland Drama Critics’ DRAMMY award for Outstanding Achievement in Devised Work, and her Como Agua para Chocolate (Like Water for Chocolate) was nominated for several BroadwayWorld awards, including Best Direction. Olga served on the Executive Committee and the Diversity Task Force on the TCG (Theatre Communications Group) board of directors. She serves on the Advisory Committee of the Latinx Theatre Commons, in partnership with HowlRound Theatre Commons, Emerson College. Associations and affiliations include: Actors Equity Association, SAG-AFTRA, Society of Stage Directors and Choreographers, and the Association for Theatre in Higher Education. B.A., Theatre, Hunter College, C.U.N.Y.; M.A., Human / Bicultural Development, Pacific Oaks College; Ph.D., Theatre Arts, University of Oregon.

Artist Support Program 2001: Audio support for Tierra Sin Mal, an original play written and performed by Rose Cano.

Clarinetist and composer William O. Smith died in 2020 after a long and fruitful career, ranging from playing – as Bill Smith – with Dave Brubeck to performing and composing his own pioneering modern classical work. Bill was a longtime friend of Jack Straw and produced a number of projects here, including his 2001 album Solo Music. This New York Times obituary contains a more in-depth overview of his life and career.

Artist Support Program 2008

Artist Support Program 2001

Flutist Paul Taub has been a leading performer of chamber and contemporary music in the Northwest US since his arrival in Seattle in 1979. Professor of Music at Cornish College of the Arts, he is a founding member and Executive Director of the Seattle Chamber Players. Very active in musical projects with former republics of the Soviet Union, Paul has toured in Russia four times and has also performed in Greece, France, Estonia, Poland, Ukraine, Costa Rica, and at universities and colleges all over the United States and Canada. His teachers include Marcel Moyse, Samuel Baron, Michel Debost, and Robert Aitken. Paul has given premieres of works by composers such as Henry Brant, Janice Giteck, George Crumb, and many more. His program of ten commissioned solo pieces was presented at Benaroya Hall in May, 1999. Oo-ee, the CD of this repertoire, is available on the Periplum label. He is a member of the Board of Directors of the National Flute Association.

Artist Support Program 2016: Produce recordings of five new commissioned chamber works by emerging and established Seattle composers.

Artist Support Program 2001 (with Taneko Ensemble)

Artist Support Program 1999: Record Oo-ee, a collection of new works for solo bass flute, alto flute, C flute or piccolo commissioned from ten composers representing a broad spectrum of ages, musical styles, and ethnic backgrounds.

Artist Support Program 1995

Jon Tulchin is a sound artist/improvisor and archeologist who has collaborated live or on recordings with artists such as Michael Northam, Francisco Lopez, Jeph Jerman, Mike Shannon, Steve Barsotti, Jacob Koller, Lori Ohtani, and Dale Lloyd. Jon works with contact mics, found objects, field recordings, invented acoustic & electric instruments, and turntables. Jon is interested in examining the projection of sound through wood, metals, and air. His use of the microphone along with amplification is similar to the use of a microscope, zooming in on sounds/vibrations which would normally be undetected by the human ear.

Artist Support Program 2001

Rik Wright is a true musical chameleon, adapting to a wide spectrum of influences. Listeners will discern a jazz foundation, a solid infrastructure of rock, and binding it all a voice so original that it cannot be called either. As one who grew up with Jeff Beck on one shoulder and Jim Hall on the other, Wright bears the mark of a generation that burned bridges between genres. When an injury stopped him from gigging altogether, he re-evaluated his craft and, for the first time in a decades-long career, began making music purely for its own sake. If he was ever to get back in the game, he knew it would have to be on his own terms.

The result of this paradigm shift was the assembly of Rik Wright’s Fundamental Forces, which became the primary stage for its leader’s compositions. As a collective they interchange jazz-oriented freedoms and rock band rigor, a rare combination. Yet their music goes beyond the mere fusions such a characterization implies. Over the next two years, an organic, groove-oriented style emerged as Wright imprinted his compositional voice across a songbook of robust themes and improvisations. Thus, the seeds of their debut recording were germinated.

Like the forces driving them, fundamental too are the tunes themselves. The band invites appreciation at every turn, and a whole new crop of listeners became aware of this with the release of their second album, entitled Red. Red expanded the Fundamental Forces universe with an even deeper feel and texture. That the album hit #1 on the CMJ jazz chart was no small testament to the integrity of Wright’s vision. And the success continued with the following two albums. Altogether, Rik Wright’s Fundamental Forces has placed four full-length recordings in the Top 10 of the Roots Music and CMJ Jazz radio charts.

Artist Support Program 2001: Recorded his album Isomorphism