My friend, poet and multimedia artist Samantha Schaefer has been sending me voice memos of vocal improvisations. I have taken these memos and reimagined them as fixed media works.

Sam's Song 1: Hi

Hello!

I graduated in 2013 from Western Michigan University with degrees in trumpet and voice performance. I studied opera for two months in Austria the summer before graduation and fell even more in love with it (especially arias from the 20th century). I generally sing and play classical music, although I'm very interested in jazz, blues, folk, R&B, and new music. I've taken composition classes and a beginning electronic music class and immensely enjoyed them both.

I have written information that goes along with each track, if you're interested.

I love music more than anything and adore & appreciate all types of it. 

Some of my favorite artists/bands include: The Grateful Dead, Radiohead, Pink Floyd, Phish, Genesis, The Beatles, Ween, Neil Young, The Bad Plus, Bela Fleck and the Flecktones, Soul Coughing, John Lennon, Cream, Fiona Apple, Janis Joplin, Wynton Marsalis, Led Zeppelin, Frank Zappa, John Scofield, Norah Jones, Snarky Puppy, Umphrey's McGee, The Doors, Rage Against the Machine, Barbara Bonney, Greensky Bluegrass, Primus, Jimi Hendrix, The Talking Heads, Aoife O'Donovan, Erykah Badu,Medeski Martin & Wood, Steely Dan, and King Crimson.

Some of my favorite composers include: Igor Stravinsky, Richard Strauss, Gian Carlo Menotti, Alban Berg, Paul Hindemith, Claudio Monteverdi, Richard Wagner, Samuel Barber, Dominick Argento, George Frideric Handel, Ludwig van Beethoven, Eric Whitacre, William Bolcom, Leonard Bernstein, György Ligeti, and Sergei Prokofiev.

Cassandra Kaczor is a pianist-composer currently working in Chicago, Illinois. She has been formally trained in piano (18 years) and composition (5 years). She has had the pleasure of performing in well-known venues such as Severence Hall’s Reinberger Chamber Hall, in her native city of Cleveland, Ohio, the Academie International de Musique de Colombes in Colombes, France and Miller Auditorium in Kalamazoo, Michigan.

When she is not doing music-things, Kaczor enjoys practicing the martial art of Muay Thai, songwriting, long runs on Lake Michigan, ogling strangers' dogs while out walking, good drinks, good company, and chronically overthinking as much as possible.