Shaky Paw is Jared Yackiw, an electronic artist and live performer from Rochester, New York. His sets use a controller and FX, with hands-on moves and tight edits. The sound leans into a funky industrial groove with clear shape and pacing. Jared holds master’s degrees in music theory and music composition. He also spent years playing saxophone in classical and free-improv settings, which informs how he thinks about form, harmony, and space. Touchstones include Gesaffelstein, Purity Ring, and Mr. Oizo. The aim is direct and physical music that stays a little off center, built for a room rather than a playlist.

American composer Evan Fein was born in Cleveland, Ohio and currently serves on the faculty of The Juilliard School.

Composer, performer, and music professor at University of the Pacific. info@andrewconklin.net

Splinter Reeds is the Bay Area’s first reed quintet, composed of five talented and innovative musicians whose reeds vibrate primarily to the sounds of the 20th and 21st Century. Splinter is committed to presenting top tier performances of today’s best new music, demonstrating the vast possibilities of the reed quintet, with an emphasis on commissioning new works, collaborating with fellow musicians and artists, and educating the next generation of musicians and music enthusiasts.

What is a reed quintet? The first reed quintet – Calefax – was formed in the 1980s in Amsterdam; the configuration has since developed into a vibrant and growing chamber music genre. Think of it as an evolutionary detour from your traditional “wind quintet,” with the advantages of a more closely related instrumental family. Subtract a flute and a horn, add a bass clarinet and saxophone. If you did the math correctly, you are left with a uniquely virtuosic and dynamic instrumentation: oboe (Kyle Bruckmann), clarinet (Bill Kalinkos), saxophone (David Wegehaupt), bass clarinet (Jeff Anderle), and bassoon (Dana Jessen).

Emma Logan (b. 1990) strives to write music that is emotionally compelling through the use of gesture, experimentation, and subtle storytelling.  She has written for a variety of events including theater, concerts, student recitals, and dance productions.  Her piece "Short Stories" for solo guitar received an honorable mention in the 2016 MACRO Composers Competition. Emma's passion for contemporary music drives her to continue collaborating with fellow composers and performers to bring new music to life. Recent collaborations include a song cycle commissioned by soprano Jill Morgan Brenner and a new piece written for the Fog City Guitar Duo for their upcoming tour. Upcoming collaborations include a commission from Ensemble for These Times and a new piece for Areon Flutes in collaboration with the Guerrilla Composers Guild. Her work has been performed in venues such as Constellation in Chicago, IL, the Center for New Music in San Francisco, CA, and the San Francisco Conservatory of Music.

Emma studied with David Garner at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music (MM) and with Andrew Waggoner, Daniel S. Godfrey, and Nicholas Scherzinger at Syracuse University (BM).

Brien Henderson's body of work reflects his love for medieval, Renaissance, and modern classical music, with influences such as Johannes Ockeghem, Cristóbal de Morales, J. S. Bach, and Igor Stravinsky. His music eschews meter in favor of prose-like rhythms as it attempts to disorient the listener by placing the familiar against the foreign. 

He first developed and matured as a saxophonist, and now holds a PhD in music composition from the University at Buffalo. Before Buffalo, he earned Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in music composition at San Francisco State University. His Missa Trencadís, for SATB choir and ensemble, premiered at June in Buffalo (2019), exemplifies his neo-Renaissance and trencadís styles, both developed during his doctoral work. His music has been performed by Court-Circuit, Ensemble Dal Niente, the Hausmann String Quartet, Ensemble Linea, Ensemble Signal, Slee Sinfonietta, and Sotto Voce Vocal Collective. In 2016, double bassist Megan McDevitt commissioned Brien's Confession for solo double bass, which she premiered at the University of Michigan in 2017.

Brien Henderson is following