2007 Artist Support Program

Songwriter Linda Allen is one of those rare performers who combine story and song into a rich and generous flow. She sings the songs that tell of the lives and the work, the hopes and the dreams of people everywhere. Her songs are rooted in tradition and honed by years of commitment to an art that both informs and transforms. She has released ten original recordings, two Northwest songbook collections, and a songbook of original songs. In addition, she is a Certified Clinical Musician and has founded two choirs whose purpose is to sing at the bedside of those who are seriously ill or dying.

Allen has worked with the Washington Women’s History Project, the Washington Centennial Commission (as Washington’s Resident Songwriter), the Washington Women’s History Consortium, the Inquiring Mind program of Humanities Washington, the Cultural Enrichment and Folklife Programs of the State Arts Commission and the Folklife in the Schools program. She has toured extensively throughout the US and beyond. She’s served on the national executive board of Local 1000 of the American Federation of Musicians, and helped establish two community folk centers. She’s published two collections of Washington songs and has traveled to numerous schools, museums and libraries with workshops and concerts on Washington’s history. In 2006 she visited Israel and Palestine and later completed a recording of children’s songs for use in the Peacebuilders program in Bethlehem. She offers a multi-media presentation based on her experience called Pilgrimage: Journey to the Heart of Israel and Palestine.

Linda received her Doctor of Ministry degree with a dissertation called The Bridge Between the Earth and Sky: The Spirituality of Voice. Ordained as an interfaith minister in 2006, Linda frequently teaches workshops and offers keynote addresses at conferences, seeking to empower others to find their physical and creative voices.

Artist Support Program 2007 : Recorded Peacebuilding Songs for the Middle East

Randal Bays is an American born, Irish style fiddler and guitarist who brings power and passion to the old tradition. He’s well known on both sides of the Atlantic for his fiery fiddling and his devotion to the traditional style of playing. He has a special love for the fiddle traditions of Counties Clare and Galway, where he’s spent many a night playing tunes with the masters of that intricate music. Randal has recorded and toured in the US, Ireland and Europe with such musicians as Martin Hayes, James Keane and Daithí Sproule (Fingal), James Kelly and many more. In 2021 he received the Irish Artist in America Achievement Award from O’Flaherty Irish Music in Texas. Randal lives in the Seattle area and is the Artistic Director of Cascadia Irish Music Week. As Fiddler Magazine says, “Randal Bays is one of the finest Irish fiddlers one could ever hope to hear.”

Randal is also famed as a fingerstyle guitarist. He recorded two seminal albums with Irish fiddler Martin Hayes in the early ’90s (Martin Hayes and Under the Moon) and later contributed two tracks to the Masters of the Irish Guitar CD on Shanachie Records. In 2012 Randal finally released his first album of solo guitar work, Oyster Light.

Watch: Randal Bays live at Jack Straw with Susan Waters and Clint Dye

Artist Support Program 2023: Recordings of live ‘house show’ style performances of Irish music.

Artist Support Program 2014: Record an album of the traditional Irish style music that’s been played and created in the Pacific NW over the last few decades.

Artist Support Program 2007: Record new compositions based on traditional American folk music, Irish and Celtic music.

Gust Burns composes performances of music. Drawing on his experience as a pianist, contemporary art practices, and 20th century composition, Burns’ works blur differentiations between performance, score, recording, and text.

Burns earned an MFA in music/sound from Bard College, and is a graduate student at the University of Washington, Seattle.

New Media Gallery 2008-09 (with Melanie Noel): Felt

Artist Support Program 2007 : Recorded an album of structured improvisations for 10 musicians.

Lora Chiorah-Dye was raised first in a traditional home and then at a mission in Zimbabwe. She first came to the United States in the 1970’s to join her then husband, Dumisani Maraire.

Teaching her three children the marimba and mbira music of Zimbabwe, Lora began to create the nucleus of a musical ensemble. In 1980 she formed the Sukutai Marimba and Dance Ensemble to celebrate the heritage of Zimbabwe’s Shona people and to provide an opportunity for teaching music and dance to Americans.

With sixteen performers ranging in age from 12 to 50, they perform a variety of music. Lora and Sukutai are noted both for their performance ability and their dynamic stage shows, but most importantly for the work Lora does in training young people.

Sukutai is one of the region’s oldest African music ensembles. Its members have performed widely to critical acclaim, including several tours of Europe, Asia and the Americas.

Three songs by Lora Chiorah-Dye and Sukutai were featured in Safarini, a music album developed and produced by Jack Straw and Rakumi Arts International to promote the work of African immigrant artists. Chemtengure, a traditonal Shona melody, Mwari Komborera/God Bless Africa (known to many as the “African National Anthem”) and Nyoka Musango. Nyoka Musango (“Snake in the Grass”) is a traditional song based on a common expression of the Shona which means that you have to watch out for snakes. Many Shona songs are based on proverbs and have more than one possible meaning. They can be translated to whatever meaning suits the situation. The Safarini compact disc was released by Smithsonian Folkways Recordings in 2000.

Lora Chiorah-Dye was also one of the resident artists of Jack Straw Artist Support Program in 2007, when she recorded original songs in contemporary Zimbabwean style and new arrangements of traditional Zimbabwean songs.

Artist Support Program 2007 : Record original songs in contemporary Zimbabwean style and new arrangements of traditional Zimbabwean songs

Dennis Rea’s guitar playing and composing blends modern jazz, creative rock, experimental music, and world musical traditions. Over the years he has led or been a key contributor to such innovative groups as Moraine, LAND, Iron Kim Style, Stackpole, Savant, Earthstar, and Tempered Steel. He has performed and/or recorded with many prominent creative musicians including acclaimed French composer Hector Zazou, Dutch jazz legend Han Bennink, trombone virtuoso Stuart Dempster, and godfather of Chinese rock Cui Jian, as well as members of King Crimson, Hawkwind, Soundgarden, Santana, Ministry, and the Sun Ra Arkestra. Past performances include NEARfest, WOMAD, Beijing International Jazz Festival, Sichuan-China International TV Festival, MuzEnergo Tour of Russia, Ustuu Huree Festival (Tuva), Voice of Nomads Festival (Buryatia), Baja Prog (Mexico), Bumbershoot, Northwest Folklife Festival, Earshot Jazz Festival, Seattle Art Museum, and Seattle Asian Art Museum. He has collaborated with many of the most important figures in contemporary Chinese music and was one of the first Western musicians to record an album for the state-owned China Record Company. He has appeared on roughly 40 releases to date.

Artist Support Program 2016: Record Giant Steppes, an album of experimental music inspired by the music of Central Asia.

Artist Support Program 2007: Views from Chicheng Precipice, an album of original compositions drawing from contemporary adaptations of traditional East Asian music.

Artist Support Program 1995: Seattle Improvised Music Festival

David Schmader is the author of the solo plays Straight and Letter to Axl, which he’s performed in Seattle and across the U.S. He’s also an associate editor of The Stranger, the Seattle newsweekly for which he’s written the pop culture-and-politics column “Last Days” since 1998. In his spare time, he’s the world’s foremost authority on the brilliant horribleness of the 1995 film Showgirls, touring his live, annotated screening “Showgirls with David Schmader” to film fests across the country and providing the commentary track to MGM’s special edition Showgirls DVD in 2003. A film of Schmader’s play Straight is available at Netflix and places like that.

Artist Support Program 2007: Radio essays focusing on three individuals and how music is a part of their life.

1998 Writers Program

Taking its inspiration from the exquisite rugged natural beauty of the Pacific Northwest, the Saint Helens String Quartet embraces a sense of musical adventure, exploring an often uncharted sonic territory in which contemporary classical music intersects with genres including jazz, pop, rock, folk and world music. Called the “Saint Helens adventurous four” by the Seattle Weekly, the group makes a practice of commissioning and performing works by 20th century composers.

Artist Support Program 2007: American Dreams, an album of contemporary works by composers Kenneth Benshoof, Laura Kaminsky, Janice Giteck, Gabriela Lena Frank, and Peter Schickele.

Greg Campbell performs, composes, teaches, and writes about music. With artists and groups such as Bill Smith, Stuart Dempster, Michael Bisio, Wally Shoup, Wayne Horvitz, Ray Holman, Ali Birra, the Tom Baker Quartet, the Affinity Ensemble, Brainstun, the Young Composers Collective, Seattle EXperimental Opera, and Akoma, among others, he has played improvised and composed music on drumset, percussion, French horn, and the drums of the Asante people of Ghana. He has studied performance with Dave Holland, Bob Moses,Tom Collier, Marc Seales, Michael Crusoe, Koo Nimo, Wataru Shinjo, and others. He holds a doctorate in percussion performance from the University of Washington and a masters degree in jazz studies from the New England Conservatory. Excerpts from his dissertation on the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM) will be used in a Columbia University course on contemporary improvised music and will also appear in the journal “American Music.”

Artist Support Program 2007: Percussion ensemble album featuring various metal found objects and instruments.

Anna Homler is a vocal, visual and performance artist based in Los Angeles. She has performed and exhibited her work in venues around the world. With a sensibility that is both ancient and post-modern, Homler sings in an improvised melodic language. Her work explores alternative means of communication and the poetics of ordinary things. She creates perceptual interventions by using language as music and objects as instruments.

Since 1982 she has collaborated in America with composer/musicians Steve Moshier, David Moss, Ethan James, Steve Roden, and Steve Peters; and in Europe, with the Voices of Kwahn, Steve Beresford, Peter Kowald, Frank Schulte, Richard Sanderson, Geert Waegeman, and Sylvia Hallett, among others.

Homler has performed at well-known venues throughout the United States and Europe, including appearances at P.S. 122, the Kitchen, Dixon Place, and The Poetry Project at St. Mark’s Church in New York; Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions (L.A.C.E.); Supraclub in Prague; Klarinsky in Bratislava, Slovakia; Ketty Dó in Bologna, Italy; the Stadgarten and the Loft in Köln, Germany; and the Melkweg and Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam. She has participated in such international festivals as Sonic Disturbance at the Cleveland Public Theare; New Music America in Montreal; the Tegentonen Festival at the Paradiso in Amsterdam; Milanopoesia in Milan; Primavera Jazz Festival in Sardinia; The International Treffen Innovatier Musikerinnen in Aachen; Het Vertel Festival in Ghent, Belgium; Voices Festival in Innsbruck, Austria; Spoken Word Festival in Brussels, Belgium; Dissidentent Festival in Rotterdam, Holland; the Moers Festival in Moers, Germany;  the Festival International des Musiques Actuelle in Nancy, France; Musique Actuelle in Victoriaville, Quebec; Musik Triennale Köln, Köln, Germany; and the LMC Festival, the Purcell Room, South Bank, London.

Highlighting Homler’s work is the performance/installation project PHARMACIA POETICA, which examines the symbolic and tonal qualities of words and objects. The installation has traveled nationwide as part of the exhibition, 40 Years of California Assemblage, and has also been shown at Gracie Mansion in New York; the Center for Contemporary Arts in Santa Fe and Nonsequitur Music Gallery in Albuquerque, New Mexico; Gallery 400 in Chicago Illinois; the Melkfabriek in Den Bosch, Holland; and at Gallery Oko in Amsterdam.

From 1994 to 1995 the PHARMACIA POETICA was part of the traveling exhibition Outside the Frame: Performance and the Object, a survey of performance art in the United States from 1950 to the present. It was also exhibited at Karbon in Zurich, Switzerland; as part of the Santa Monica Festival, Santa Monica, California; and at Gerlesborgsskolan, Gerlesborg Sweden.

Homler’s music first became known in the 1980s with her Breadwoman cassette (High Performance Audio), a collaboration with Steve Moshier. Her debut album, Dó Ya Sá di Dó (amf), was released in 1992. In 1994 she was featured on Sugarconnection: Alien cake (No Man’s Land) and in 1995 on Macaronic Sines (Lowlands), a collaboration with Geert Waegeman and Pavel Fajt. In the mid-1990s, she released two albums with the Voices of Kwahn in the United Kingdom: Silver Bowl Transmission (North/South) and Peninsular Enclosure (Swarf Finger). In 1997 a recording of her live performance with Waegeman and Fajt was released as Corne de Vache (Victo). House of Hands (ND) was released in 2000, and in 2005, Kelpland Serenades (pfMENTUM) with Steuart Liebig, and Piewacket (PNT) with Stephanie Payne. Her duo-project with Sylvia Hallett, The Many Moods of Bread and Shed (Orchestra Pit Recording Co.) was released in 2012. On Here & Here & Here (ptMENTUM-2014) she performs as part of the Michael Vlatkovich quintet.

Artist Support Program 2007 (with Elizabeth Falconer)

Wayne Horvitz is a composer, pianist and electronic musician who has performed extensively throughout Europe, Asia, Australia, and North America. He is the leader of the Gravitas Quartet, Sweeter Than the Day, Zony Mash, The Four plus One Ensemble and co-founder of the New York Composers Orchestra. He has performed and collaborated with Bill Frisell, Butch Morris, John Zorn, George Lewis, Robin Holcomb, Fred Frith, Julian Priester, Michael Shrieve and Carla Bley, among others. Commissioners include the NEA, Meet the Composer, Kronos String Quartet, Seattle Chamber Players, BAM, and Earshot Jazz.

Wayne has composed a song cycle for soprano voice, piano and electronics named Smokestack Arias in 2o02, commissioned by Jack Straw Productions through Meet The Composer’s Commissioning Music/USA program, inspired by the 1916 labor uprising and resultant deaths, now known as the Everett Massacre. Each song assumes the perspective of a different woman affected by the uprising and the deaths of the slain protesters, giving a personal account of a seminal event in the history of the labor movement in the Pacific Northwest. The text was written by Robin Holcomb.

Wayne has been the recipient of numerous awards including two MAP grants and the NEA American Masterpiece award. Recent compositions include The Heartsong of Charging Elk based on the novel by James Welch and 55: Music and Dance in Concrete: a site-specific collaboration with dancer Yukio Suzuki and video artist Yohei Saito. He is the music programmer for The Royal Room, a performance venue in Seattle, Washington, and a professor of composition at the Cornish College of the Arts.

Artist Support Program 2020: Recording of new compositions and improvisations for piano and amplified piano with electronic processing.

Composer in Residence 2012 : Composed Smokestrack Arias, a song cycle for soprano voice, piano and electronics, with lyrics by Robin Holcomb, through the national Meet the Composer program.

Jen Mills has an MFA in ceramics from the Cranbrook Academy of Art and a BA in religion from the University of Puget Sound. She creates video, sculpture and installations that alter the sense of time, filtering memory and experience. Her sculptural objects blur the line between function and memory, giving clues for an undetermined or mysterious use.

Artist Support Program 2007: Record and mix sounds for video installation exploring the power of solace and healing that will be sited in various locations at Harborview Medical Center in Seattle.

Michael Owcharuk is a Seattle based composer, pianist, and accordionist. His great love for all music compels him to work in many genres: jazz, new music, rock, Slavic folk, modern chamber/orchestral, and music for theater, dance, and film. Michael co-directs the Seattle Jazz Composers Ensemble, leads The Michael Owcharuk Trio, is a member of Crystal Beth and the Boom Boom Band, and performs and collaborates with a diverse community of local musicians and artists.

Michael has received support for his music from 4Culture, Seattle Office of Arts & Culture, and Jack Straw Cultural Center. He and his music have been featured on/by NPR, KEXP, KBCS, SIFF, Bumbershoot, Earshot Jazz, The Bushwick Bookclub Seattle, 14/48: The World’s Quickest Theater Festival, Book-It Repertory Theater, Balagan Theater, the Seattle Rock Orchestra, and by many others.

Artist Support Program 2014: Record original compositions, including a string quartet and several pieces written for performances with the Bushwick Book Club Seattle.

Artist Support Program 2011 (with Seattle Jazz Composers Ensemble): SJCE Volume 1, an album of music composed for the 17-piece big band Seattle Jazz Composers Ensemble.

Artist Support Program 2007: Produce an album of original music for jazz sextet.

Christopher Roberts is a composer and musician who draws from the classical, jazz, and Pacific Rim musical traditions. He studied music in New York at the Juilliard School, where he earned master’s and doctoral degrees in both composition and double bass. Following the focus and intensity of the conservatory environment, he shouldered his bass and went to live in Papua New Guinea on a quest to understand natural prosody in music. He then traveled to Taiwan on a Fulbright grant to study the Chinese classical qin, which inadvertently led to research of the island’s aboriginal music. He taught composition, theory, and double bass for a number of years at Soochow University in Taipei and is now the music program director at Whatcom Community College in Bellingham.

Artist Support Program 2007: Trio for Deep Voices, contemporary chamber pieces for three double basses.

Tim Root is a composer, performer and improviser based in Seattle, Washington. His work is unabashedly experimental and a focused attempt to move music from behind the stands and towards theatre. In 1985 he was a founding member of San Diego’s Sledgehammer Theatre, a relationship that continues to the present with the Sledgehammer’s recent commissioning of A/wake (2005), Chiang Kai Chek (2006) and Beckett3 (2007) for which he received generous support from Meet the Composer Inc. for a series of lectures and workshop demonstrations surrounding the San Diego premier. This production also featured Mr. Root’s “Speaker Puppets” – large moving clusters and pendulums of speaker elements used to distribute the recorded score throughout the venue. Excerpts from his scores “Stitches (for ensemble)” and “Shoes-UI-Teeth (for percussion)” from Beckett3 will receive live performances at the Seattle Composer Salon in 2007. He leads ensemble performances of his work under the moniker “Tim Root’s Handy Metal Mart.” He holds a BA in Music Composition from UC San Diego where he studied with Bob Erickson, John Silber and Jimmy Cheatham, and an MFA in Electronic Music and Recording Media from Mills College in Oakland, California, where he studied with Anthony Braxton, Alvin Curran and Chris Brown.

Artist Support Program 2007: “Music for Impossible Instruments,” a suite of solo instrumentalists collaborating with sound designers, foley artists, and other audio artists.

Tom Varner is internationally known as one of the top living pioneers of jazz/improvised/new music on the French horn and as an inventive, witty, and passionate composer for his different ensembles, which have featured, over the years, such players as Steve Wilson, Tony Malaby, Lee Konitz, Mark Feldman, Kenny Barron, Cameron Brown, Billy Hart, Tom Rainey, and Matt Wilson.  Tom’s recent Seattle nonet project, Nine Surprises, was released in 2014.  Tom has been awarded residencies at the MacDowell and Blue Mountain arts colonies and grants from the NEA, Doris Duke Foundation/Chamber Music America, and the Jack Straw Center. Tom has 14 recordings as a leader and plays on over 70 others, such as with Steve Lacy and John Zorn.

After living in New York City for 26 years, Tom moved with his family to Seattle in fall 2005.  Since his move, he has played at the Vancouver, Earshot, and Bumbershoot festivals, the Good Shepherd Center, the Seattle Art Museum, and at the Royal Room and Tula’s as a leader and sideman alongside many Seattle greats such as Mark Taylor, Hans Teuber, Wayne Horvitz, Kate Olson, Neil Welch, Thomas Marriott, and Jim Knapp. Tom is also an Associate Professor of Music at Cornish College of the Arts.

Artist Support Program 2019: A meditative sound collaboration with the “Sound Vespers” Mixed Ensemble, featuring four field recording artists, five trumpets, French horn, trombone, and percussion.

Artist Support Program 2012: Nine Surprises, a new original work for an improvising nine-piece ensemble.

Artist Support Program 2007: Heaven and Hell, an album of classical chamber and jazz compositions for double-quintet featuring French horn.