WEST
OAKLAND
SOUND
SERIES
UPCOMING
SUN APRIL 26 - MONICA SCOTT: HOMMAGES TO JANÁČEK AND KURTÀG
SUN MAY 10 - MICHAEL SCHUMACHER (NYC) / ANNA HOMLER + JEFF SCHWARTZ (LA)
SUN MAY 17 - NEIL ROLNICK (NYC) / PLONSEY SCHEME (EC)
SUN MAY 24 - XOPHER DAVIDSON / DIANE GRUBBE + MEERENAI SHIM
SUN MAY 31 - SFSOUND: POLANSKY, SATIE + CLAIR, DAMBLY, INGALLS
a weekly new music and experimental sound series every sunday
presented by new performance traditions and sfSound
dresher ensemble studio :: 2201 poplar street, oakland california
ample parking! please park perpendicular when past the trees on poplar
$10-$25 sliding scale (cash & venmo accepted at door - order advance here)
concerts start promptly at 7:15
:: late arrivals follow instructions on door to get buzzed in ::
APRIL 26 2026 7:15pm
HOMMAGES TO JANÁČEK AND KURTÀG
MONICA SCOTT + KATE STENBERG + LINDA GREEN + HADLEY MCCARROLL + KYMRY ESAINKO
Subtle colors, quiet nuances and intense communication - György Kurtág and Leos Janáček's music for pianos and strings will draw you into a magical world where every sound, every gesture conjures up memories or heightens awareness of the present.
Cellist and composer MONICA SCOTT has transcribed Janáček's piano work The Overgrown Path for violin, viola and cello, inspired by the unique way the composer transforms melodies through harmonic experimentation, and how he treats rhythms drawn from speech patterns and nature. Interspersed with the 10 short pieces in that series, are György Kurtág's exquisite miniatures Signs, Games and Messages - in versions for piano four hands, two pianos and string trio.
The trio is: violinist KATE STENBERG, who has appeared numerous times at the Dresher Studio, most recently in a commission by Pamela Z, alongside Sarah Cahill; violist LINDA GREEN, whose career spans teaching music in OUSD, performing with the Oakland Symphony and many other local orchestras, and frequent chamber music collaborations throughout the Bay Area; cellist MONICA SCOTT - who is a member of sfSound, oakland reductionist orchestra and duo martha & monica - all of whom perform often at the Dresher Studios and West Oakland Sound Series. Pianist HADLEY MCCARROLL (of martha & monica and sfSound) is joined by KYMRY ESAINKO - another pianist well known to Bay Area audiences - for the works by Kurtág and his transcriptions of Machaut and Bach.
The program also includes two short works, Hommages to Janáček and Kurtàg, composed by Monica Scott.
MAY 10 2026 7:15pm
MICHAEL J. SCHUMACHER presents various “immersive/dispersive” fixed media works, composed in New Your for his portable 8 channel system and adapted for Dresher Studio's multi-channel Meyer sound system. Utilizing a radically inclusive palette of sounds, the pieces wrap the audience in webs of potential associations, making listening as vital to the creation of meaning as the act of composing itself.
Performance and visual artist ANNA HOMLER and bassist JEFF SCHWARTZ have collaborated since 2016, working as a duo and in groups with Michael Intriere, David Javelosa, Carole Kim, Jorge Martin, Mason Moy, Charles Sharp, Breeze Smith, and Biliana Voutchkova, appearing at Beyond Baroque, Highways, Open Gate, SASSAS, Soundwaves, 2220 Arts & Archives, Vernacular, Villa Aurora, and in the Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions Endurance festival. Coming from diverse creative realms, they find a meeting point through their shared love of improvisation, exploring the evocative power of voice, contrabass, and unexpected sound sources.
MAY 17 2026 7:15pm
NEIL ROLNICK performs So Many Me's, with choreographer and dancer ALEX OLIVA (and her 8 foot ladder). measuring ... selling ... falling apart ... acting out ... surrender ... Neil also performs the score to Barbara Hammer's 1990 experimental film Sanctus, featuring a host of x-ray skeletons playing trumpets, drinking, shaking hands, shaving, putting on lipstick, all to the live mashup of Sanctus movements from masses by Machaut, Bach, Beethoven & Verdi.
“Plonsey Scheme” has nothing to do with finding suckers to invest in this “music” thing which promises to be such a hot commodity, with the fraudster paying off older investors with the funds provided by the younger ones -- but as we get older it is admittedly a little more like it: what experiences, revelations and revolutions can we promise you?
MANTRA PLONSEY writes the words while DAN PLONSEY writes the music, but it comes together for the first (and last) time during performance. The music is written to accommodate improvisations utilizing various constraints, miniature compositions within compositions, fragments of songs from Eastern Europe and Northern El Cerrito. The band includes bagpipes virtuoso Matthew Welch (also accordion and Balinese suling), clarinet/saxophone/flutist Cory Wright (also trombone), guitarist Tomek Sinclair, and Mic Gendreau on turntables, electronics and percussion (and perhaps clarinet). Mantra sings and speaks, Dan plays reeds, brass, melodica, and bits of cheap percussion. And Kattt Atchley provides a backdrop of projected tableaux of dolls among art: in movement along with their lighting on a system of turntables and lazy susans. Plonsey Scheme is eery, majestic, lost, mysterious, ceremonial, and more/less than just there.
