Claire Rousay (solo) / Michael Foster and Ted Byrnes (duo)

Claire Rousay

Percussionist Claire Rousay (San Antonio, Texas), doesn’t play jazz, but her improvisations do express a consciousness of the relationship between self and surroundings. Her work explores queerness, human relationships, and self-perception through the use of physical objects and their potential for expressing new sounds.

Recently, Rousay has performed with Alex Cunningham, Brandon Lopez, Carol Genetti, Ingebrigt Haker-Flaten (The Thing), Ken Vandermark, and many others, and has toured extensively across North America, booking 220 dates in 2017 alone. In 2018 she participated in the Sonic Transmissions Festival and NMASS Festival as well as performing at venues such as the Tobin Center for Performing Arts, Casa del Popolo, and Issue Project Room.

Also, her work has received support from the Foundation for Contemporary Arts, and 2019 shows Rousay participating in various residencies and concert series performances at places such as Experimental Sound Studio, Elastic Arts, and RhizomeDC.

 

Michael Foster

Michael Foster (NYC) is a saxophonist and multi-instrumentalist working in the fields of free improvisation, noise, free jazz, graphic & video notation, performance art, and other forms of largely esoteric music. Foster utilizes extensive instrumental preparations, augmenting his saxophone with amplification, found objects, balloons, drum heads, vibrators, tapes, and various samples as a method of subverting the instrument’s traditional function.

In addition to his work as a performer, Foster is also active as a curator throughout New York City, co-founding Queer Trash, a curatorial collective focusing on providing visibility to LGBTQIA+ performers engaged in experimental performance practices. In 2018, Queer Trash was the Suzanne Fiol Curatorial Fellow for Issue Project Room, producing a year’s worth of performances that ranged from harsh noise to fashion.

In addition to his numerous projects, Michael Foster often collaborates with Marina Rosenfeld, Weasel Walter, Han Bennink, Joe McPhee, William Parker, Mette Rasmussen, and many others.

 

Ted Byrnes

Ted Byrnes is a drummer/percussionist living in Los Angeles. An alumnus of the Berklee College of Music in Boston, MA, he comes from a jazz background and has since made his home in the worlds of free improvisation, new music, electro-acoustic music, and noise.

Ted primarily works in ad hoc improvisational settings, but has standing improvisational groups including: a group with John Wiese, a duo with Jeff Parker, a duo with Chris Cooper (AQH), a duo with Charlie Mumma, a duo with Sam McKinlay, a duo with William Hutson, a trio with Jacob Wick and Michael Foster, among others. Additionally, Ted has played in duo/trio/or ensemble settings with: Mazen Kerbaj, Matt Weston, Ingebrigt Haker Flaten, Charlemagne Palestine, Alfred 23 Harth, Arrington de Dionyso, Jaap Blonk, Torsten Muller, Kim Myhr, Jim Denley, Lloyd Honeybrook, Chris Schlarb, Mike Watt, Paul Masvidal, the LAFMS (including Smegma, Airway, Ace Farren Ford’s Artificial Art Ensemble, Rick and Joe Potts, Fredrik Nilsen, Tom Recchion, Vetza, etc), Sissy Spacek (the band), Maher Shalal Hash Baz, and more.

Ted’s recorded output oscillates between heavily acoustic music and harsh noise while keeping a similar approach. For a thorough overview of recordings, please visit the Discography page.

Ted has also collaborated with / worked for a variety of visual artists: he has accompanied a Doug Aitken “happening”, scored and performed percussion for an Emily Mast performance, collaborated with Olivia Booth to play her glass artworks, collaborated with Dani Tull on a sound performance, performed with John Knuth and Bret Nicely at an installation in an empty pool, and has performed for FLUXUS artist Jeff Perkins on multiple occasions for his projector/light installations.

Currently, Ted is delving further into the possibilities and realities of solo drumset performance in addition to continuing to work with his existing projects.