Mnemosyne Quartet is a Kansas City-based ensemble dedicated to multimedia collaboration, commissioning composers, and developing a distinctive language of crafted improvisation inspired by the environments with which they perform. Whether performing in a concert hall, bar, outdoor plaza, or elevator, Mnemosyne considers their venue an integral part of the concert experience. The quartet's atypical instrumentation of bass clarinet, alto saxophone, baritone saxophone, and electronics yields a unique stylistic palette that provokes creativity within the ensemble and their collaborators. By embodying electronics as an equal member of the quartet, a distinguishing feature of Mnemosyne includes the integration of old and new technologies fused with live performance. Mnemosyne's mission is to guide listeners toward peaceful contemplation and introspection by both heightening their awareness of the auditory environments within their daily lives and by transporting them to remote destinations.
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Mnemosyne Quartet was formed in summer 2014 and gave their first performance at the inaugural Art in the Loop Foundation’s Downtown Kansas City Street Art/Placemaking Pilot Project at Oppenstein Park. Just recently, Mnemosyne performed for the opening of Adam Cvijanovic’s American Montage at the Kemper Museum of Art in Kansas City. Other notable performances include Anomalous City, a collaboration with Zach Shemon of the Prism Quartet at Prairie Logic and Analog Drift, a cross-disciplinary performance at ArtSounds—a collaboration between the UMKC Conservatory of Music and Dance and the Kansas City Art Institute. Mnemosyne Quartet consists of Eli Hougland, Michael Miller, Russell Thorpe, and Ted King-Smith.

Seth Andrew Davis (b. 1994) is a performer, composer, improvisor, & electronic musician from the Kansas City area. Davis is involved in many different genres including, jazz, rock, classical, electronic, electro-acoustic, and free improvisation. Davis graduated from the University of Missouri-Kansas City Conservatory of Music and Dance in Kansas City, Mo. in 2019 with a BM in Music Composition. Davis has studied with Jim Mobberley, Paul Rudy, Zhou Long, Chen Yi, Mara Gibson and Michael Miller.

Davis’s music has been performed in the United States, Malaysia, and Indonesia. Davis has had his work performed at various conferences and festivals including the New York City Electro-Acoustic Music Festival, Kansas City Performing Media Festival, NASA Regional IV Conference, Electronic Music Midwest, Exchange of Midwest Collegiate Composers, the International Navy Saxophone Symposium and has had pieces premiered by Mnemosyne Quartet, Project C4, Dionysus, Second Nature Ensemble. Chi Him Chik, Sputter Box, & loadbang. 

As an artist, Davis works closely with performers and collaborators to create pieces, installations, and works that are unique to that partnership. Davis is an avid collaborator, having worked with choreographers, video artists, animators, playwrights etc. Davis’s artistic influences run the gamut from popular music, free-jazz, hip-hop, electronic music, film, literature, visual art, contemporary culture and from this Davis wishes to blur the lines between genres, composer and performer, and various artistic mediums. Davis has released his electronic music under the pseudonyms The Gods Hate Kansas, Mr Sandman, and Ghost In The Machine. Davis is also a founding member of Second Nature, a free jazz/new music/math-rock ensemble, BetaMax, Re-Animator, and is a guitarist in the new music ensemble Project C4. Davis is also an active concert organizer in the Kansas City music scene as the Vice President of KcEMA (Kansas City Electronic Music Alliance) and as the Production Coordinator of newEar Contemporary Chamber Ensemble. In 2020, Davis co-founded Mother Brain Records with saxophonist & composer Michael Eaton. Mother Brain Records is a Midwest based label focused on releasing the works of artists in the experimental & improvised music scenes.

I have been producing, shooting, and editing videos, ever since I was 12 years old. I have borrowed my style of shooting and editing from various movies and utilize them to present my short film/documentary/event work in the most professional way possible. I currently attend the Fashion Institute of Technology (FIT) as a Film Major and intend to pursue a career in the video production industry after I graduate.

A native of Taiwan, Yu-Fang Chen is the Assistant Professor of Music Performance – Violin at Ball State University in Muncie, Indiana. She received her Doctoral of Musical Arts degrees on both violin and viola performance from the University of Missouri-Kansas City in 2013. As a sought-after performer and pedagogy, Chen has been invited to teach and perform at various music festivals, including the Sunflower Music Festival and the Heartland Chamber Music Academy in U.S.A, the InterHarmony International Music Festival in Italy, and Thailand International Composition Festival in Salaya, Thailand.

Chen has won numerous awards and competitions and her career as a performing artist is extensive. Her international performing career has taken her to countries on five continents, and she continues to perform as a guest musician internationally with various concert artists, chamber ensembles, and orchestras. Her engagements as concerto soloist include works by Beethoven, Bach, Mozart, Mendelssohn, Walton, and Tchaikovsky and performances with Kansas City Civic Orchestra, Washburn Symphonic and String Orchestra, and the Philharmonia of Kansas City, etc.

From 2015-2017, Chen served as an Assistant Professor of Violin and Viola at Washburn University in Topeka. Additionally, She was a member of the Indianapolis Symphony, the Kansas City Symphony, the Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra, the Des Moines Symphony Orchestra and the Academy of Taiwan. After moving to Indiana, she frequently performs with Indianapolis Chamber Orchestra, Fort Wayne Symphony, and Muncie Symphony as a violinist and/or a violist. 

As an enthusiastic promoter and performer for contemporary music, Chen has commissioned, premiered, and recorded many solo and chamber pieces composed by living composers. Her recording can be found on ABLAZE records.

旅美小、中提琴家陳玉芳，現為鮑爾州立大學小提琴助理教授。2005年於國立台北藝術大學取得學、碩士學位後，獲獎學金赴美國密蘇里大學（堪薩斯分校）攻讀博士，並於2013年取得小、中提琴雙博士學位。曾師事陳任遠、李淑德、譚正、吳孟平、蘇顯達、 Benny Kim 、Jackie Lee、及Scott Lee 教授。並接受許多小、中提琴家之指導，包括 Joseph Silverstein、Tanya Grindaenko、Ida Kavafian、Anne Akiko Meyers、Donald McInnes、陳則言 Brian Chen、Nathan Cole等。
 
陳玉芳在旅美期間多次贏得比賽以及獎助學金的肯定，並且受邀演出協奏曲。 此外，她致力於獨奏、室內樂、樂團等不同形式的演出，其演奏曲目範疇廣泛。除了古典音樂之外，近年來更致力於及現代音樂的推廣與演奏。目前已有多位作曲家為陳玉芳譜寫小、中提琴獨奏及室內樂曲，並由她首演以及錄製CD。
 
陳玉芳演出的足跡遍及歐、亞、澳、非、美各大洲。除此之外，她更致力於教學，以培養新一代音樂演奏及教育家為志，多次受邀於音樂院及音樂節授予大師班。先後任職於威斯康辛州麥迪遜市內樂團、愛荷華州狄蒙交響樂團、堪薩斯城交響樂、以及印第安納波利斯交響樂團。2015-2017年間，於堪薩斯州華盛本大學擔任小、中提琴助理教授。

Chamber Cartel is an adventurous band of musicians seeking to propagate the avant-garde, experimental and New Music in and around the South east. We performed 12 concerts in our first season from which highlights include  - Crippled Symmetry, For Philip Guston, Why Patterns?, Inuksuit, songbirdsongs, Dressur, an entire John Cage festival, and Cobra to name a few. 

James is a composer, improviser, writer, and photographer.

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