Bonnie Jones at Non-Event
Non-Event is pleased to present a double bill featuring improvised sets by Noeplace (Nomi Epstein, piano and Laura Cetilia, cello) along with a duo by Bonnie Jones and Liew Niyomkarn.
About the artists:
The music of Boston-based composer/improviser/curator Nomi Epstein centers around her interest in sonic fragility, where structure arises out of textural subtleties. Her works have been performed throughout the US and Europe working with ensembles such as SurPlus, ICE, Wet Ink, Mivos Quartet, Wild Rumpus, Dedalus, Southland, and counter)induction. In 2020, she released her first solo composer album, sounds, on New Focus Recordings including performances by Reinier van Houdt and for Collect/Project, and her “collections for Juliet” was released in a compilation album by Juliet Fraser on the HCR label. Her most recent portrait album of three chamber works, shades, with Apartment House/Vibrant Matter was released on Another Timbre in February 2024. An active practitioner and advocate of experimental music, she is the founder/director of the critically acclaimed, experimental music ensemble a•pe•ri•od•ic, in which she also performs. Her curatorial work includes large scale festivals including the Chicago-area 2012 centennial John Cage Festival, the 2014 Chicago Wandelweiser Festival, the 2017 Galina Ustvolskaya Festival, as well as experimental music concerts in the US and abroad involving guest composers from across the globe. She continues to research, write, and lecture on post-Cagean, notated, experimental music. Epstein currently serves as Associate Professor of Composition at Berklee College of Music.
As a daughter of mixed heritage, Mexican-American cellist, Laura Cetilia is at home with in-betweenness, straddling multiple worlds as cellist / composer / educator / artist while working within acoustic / electronic / traditional / experimental sound practices. Her compositions have been described as “unorthodox loveliness” (Boston Globe) and hailed as “alternately penetrating and atmospheric” (Sequenza 21). Her works have been performed by TAK Ensemble, loadbang, Mivos Quartet, Splinter Reeds, Dog Star Orchestra, a.pe.ri.od.ic, LCollective, and others. The Grove Dictionary of American Music describes her electroacoustic duo Mem1 (established in 2003 with Mark Cetilia, electronics/ modular synth) as a “complex cybernetic entity” that “understands its music as a feedback loop between the past and present.” And in the performer / composer collective Ordinary Affects she has collaborated with, commissioned and premiered works by composers such as Alvin Lucier, Christian Wolff, Michael Pisaro, Jürg Frey, Eva-Maria Houben, and Magnus Granberg. Laura is currently pursuing her DMA in Music Composition at Cornell University and is also a proud mother of one.
Bonnie Jones is a Korean-American improvising musician, poet, and performer working with electronic sound and text. She performs solo and in numerous collaborative music, film, and visual art projects. Bonnie was a founding member of the Transmodern Festival and CHELA Gallery and is currently a member of the High Zero Festival collective. In 2010, along with Suzanne Thorpe she co-founded TECHNE, an organization that develops anti-racist, feminist workshops that center on technology-focused art making, improvisation, and community collaboration. She has received commissions from the London ICA and Walters Art Museum and has presented her work extensively at institutions in the US, Mexico, Europe and Asia. Bonnie was a 2018 recipient of the Foundation for Contemporary Arts Grants to Artists Award. Born in South Korea she was raised on a dairy farm in New Jersey, and currently resides in Baltimore, Maryland and Providence RI on the lands of the Susquehannock, Piscataway, Algonquian, and Narragansett.
Liew Niyomkarn is a sound artist and musician with a background in experimental sound practice and performance. Her work primarily explores echoes and sustained sounds achieved through acoustic instruments and Supercollider; a coding language employed to craft various tuning systems. She integrates field recordings to capture the essence of time and everyday routines, immersing herself in the sounds of the wilderness, archival recordings, and the ambient music culture. These elements are amalgamated with her sonic palette and the intrinsic properties of sound, such as spatial characteristics, feedback loops, and the manipulation of extended decays and harmonics. She presents her work through live performances and sound installations in numerous places such as QO-2, Bozar, Cafe Oto, Rewire Festival, Sonic Acts, and many more. She holds an MFA in Sound Experimental Practice from CalArts.
