WEST
OAKLAND
SOUND
SERIES
UPCOMING
SUN AUG 2 - NW EXPERIMENTAL GUITAR ORCHESTRA (seattle) / LORIN BENEDICT + CASEY TESSIER
SUN AUG 9 - JEAN CARLA RODEA W/ BRUCKMANN, L-HOLM, NISHI / AINE NAKAMURA W/ INGALLS
SUN AUG 16 - NATHAN CLEVENGER / FORNAX LINTEUM
SUN AUG 23 - WEST OAKLAND TAPE MUSIC FESTIVAL
SUN AUG 30 - DOMI + KAITLIN MCSWEENEY + K. FRANCIS MESSER / KEN UENO + MATT 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
$20 (FREE for students/seniors/underemployed)
cash & venmo accepted at door - order advance here
concerts start promptly at 7:15
:: late arrivals follow instructions on door to get buzzed in ::
August 2 2026 7:15pm
$20 click here to purchase advance tickets online
(FREE for students/seniors/underemployed)
THE NORTHWEST EXPERIMENTAL GUITAR ORCHESTRA is a Seattle-based ensemble of musicians from diverse performative backgrounds. They perform new works that explore alternative methods of scoring, conducting, and technology integration, favoring methods that avoid traditional Western music notation, making participation accessible to everyone, regardless of background, training, or education. They will perform a suite of three compositions inspired by particle physics. All movements are guided without a live conductor, each using a different form of audio or visual technological guidance.
LORIN BENEDICT is a California-based improvising vocalist (scat singer, essentially), who operates in the fields of jazz and jazz-adjacent music. He specializes in small group improvisations (solo, duo, trio), in which structured forms are addressed in a manifestly loose and playful way.
CASEY TESSIER is a professional tap dance artist and award-winning percussionist from Albuquerque, New Mexico. Based in the San Francisco Bay Area, she has devoted her life to honoring, sharing, and advancing percussive dance as an instrumental medium for representation, communication, and inspiration.
August 9 2026 7:15pm
$20 click here to purchase advance tickets online
(FREE for students/seniors/underemployed)
JEAN CARLA RODEA (voice/electronics) brings an electroacoustic quartet featuring KYLE BRUCKMANN (oboe), KANOKO NISHI-SMITH (koto), and FRED LONBERG-HOLM (cello). The ensemble explores spontaneous composition and collective improvisation in response to Rodea’s sound design and scores. Drawing from each musician’s extensive background in free improvisation and experimentalism, the evening unfolds as an unpredictable multilogue.
AINE NAKAMURA presents a collaborative performance of voice and body with local clarinetist and computer musician MATT INGALLS. Aine Nakamura often writes words and considers shapes as if her throat is a membrane and each body part is a shape, phenomenon among worldly phenomena, in relations. Through collaborations, she develops her approach to attunement, spaces and listening.
August 16 2026 7:15pm
$20 click here to purchase advance tickets online
(FREE for students/seniors/underemployed)
Oakland musicians NATHAN CLEVENGER, JORDAN GLENN, and CORY WRIGHT share a long and entwined history of collaboration across various projects, including Wiener Kids, Ashen Cleric, and Fellow Hominids. Formed in 2021, the trio has released 3 albums and initiated a series of collaborations with guests artists, including Kasey Knudsen, Crystal Pascucci, Phillip Greenlief, Marié Abe, and Safa Shokrai. Working from, between, and against Clevenger’s compositional frames and utilizing the multi-instrumental flexibility of each player, the trio (and guests) weaves between non-idiomatic improvisation and often gnomic composed material, with focus on spaciousness and timbral detail. For tonight’s performance, the trio is joined by vocalist DANISHTA RIVERO and trumpeter ARI BROWN.
FORNAX LINTEUM is a free improv trio consisting of ANDREW JORON (theremin), JOSEPH DEE BRADSHAW (guitar), and JANEL WAGNER (voice). Andrew Joron is a theremin player who has performed in a variety of experimental and jazz ensembles, including the duo Fornax Linteum, the free-improv quartet Ouroborous, and Evidence Trio. Joseph Dee Bradshaw is a guitarist and improviser based in Oakland. Janel Wagner is a classically trained vocalist and a multi-instrumentalist rooted in jazz and folk traditions.
August 23 2026 7:15pm
$20 click here to purchase advance tickets online
(FREE for students/seniors/underemployed)
THE SAN FRANCISCO TAPE MUSIC COLLECTIVE presents their summer east bay festival of fixed media works projected live over a 16-channel Meyer Sound System. Featuring a wide range of works by international composers and collective members. Classic musique concrète pieces will be presented alongside newly created acousmatic compositions.
PROGRAM
to be announced shortly
August 30 2026 7:15pm
$20 click here to purchase advance tickets online
(FREE for students/seniors/underemployed)
DOMI, KAITLIN MCSWEENEY, and K. FRANCIS MESSER are an experimental trio blending electro-acoustic composition and improvisation with prepared drums, scrap metal, cello, movement, voice, amplifiers, and salvaged resonant objects. Out of a receptive summoning, distinct voices emerge and impress upon each other, moving with and in contrast, inter-penetrating and gravitating towards a common orbit of evolving conditions. The trio welcomes sonic feedback as a fourth collaborator with elements of ritualistic repetition and deep listening.
For over a decade, the duo of KEN UENO (vocals) and MATT INGALLS (clarinet) has presented their unique arsenal of extended techniques for an experience that defies classical expectations of sounds that can be made on voice and clarinet. Composer/vocalist/sound artist Ueno is a recipient of the Rome Prize and the Berlin Prize and currently a Professor at UC Berkeley. He sings overtones, multi-band multiphonics, sub-tones, and throat sings. Oakland-based Ingalls' clarinet technique includes circular-breathing, multiphonics, various breath effects, and a unique hybrid-timbre polyphonic effect.
