Homeroom presents

Comfort Music +

a live music + performance series, every Thursday in April at Comfort Station.

Thursday April 20th 7pm doors, 7:30pm show

$ suggested donation

Comfort Station
2579 N Milwaukee Ave, Chicago, IL

posters by Dmitry Samarov

Jackson/Bishop/Shelton/Samarov

Keefe Jackson - reeds
Jeb Bishop - trombone
Aram Shelton - reeds
Dmitry Samarov - reading

Artist Bios

Keefe Jackson, saxophonist/clarinetist/improvisor/composer, arrived in Chicago in 2001 from his native Fayettevile, Arkansas. He performs regularly in the U.S. and in Europe with many musicians. Bill Meyer (Chicago Reader): "...the impeccable logic of his lines and the richness of his tone leave you wanting more... Jackson's high-register squiggles and coarsely voiced, rippling runs push the limits of the tenor's tonal envelope." Frank van Herk, de Volkskrant (Amsterdam): "[Jackson] has an old-fashioned, warm-woolly sound, and a feeling for melodic lines that take their time in unfolding." He has been mentioned in the DownBeat Critics Poll in the Rising Star Tenor Saxophone category. Recordings are available on Delmark and Clean Feed Records. keefejackson.com

Jeb Bishop was born in Raleigh, North Carolina during the Cuban missile crisis. He began playing the trombone at the age of 10, under the tutelage of Cora Grasser. Other influential teachers during junior high and high school included Jeanne Nelson, Eric Carlson, Richard Fecteau, Greg Cox, and James Cozart. In late 1995, Bishop joined the Vandermark 5 as one of its founding members, and remained with the band through the end of 2004. During this period he also became associated with many other groups, including the Peter Brötzmann Chicago Tentet, School Days, Ken Vandermark's Territory Band, and his own Jeb Bishop Trio, and became a very frequent participant in ad hoc and free-improvised concerts in Chicago. Bishop has made dozens of recordings with many different groups, has toured North America and Europe many times, and maintains a busy performing schedule. jebbishop.com

Aram Shelton is an improviser and composer who performs on saxophone, clarinets, and live electronics. He plays with a distinct, harmonically rich sound and develops musical thoughts through constant motion, tonal shifts and complex sounds alongside clear melodic and rhythmic constructs. His vocabulary utilizes the range of extended techniques including multiphonics and harmonics, circular breathing, wind sounds and an exploration of the outer ranges of the instrument. He focuses on creative music grounded in and influenced by the rich history of avant-jazz and free improvisation. He's been a member of the creative music communities in Chicago, the San Francisco Bay Area, Copenhagen and Budapest. aramshelton.com

Dmitry Samarov paints and writes in Chicago, Illinois. dmitrysamarov.com

Homeroom presents

Comfort Music +

a live music + performance series, every Thursday in April at Comfort Station.

Thursday April 13th 7pm doors, 7:30pm show

$ suggested donation

Comfort Station
2579 N Milwaukee Ave, Chicago, IL

Juliana Castro Duperly/Jasmine Mendoza

Juliana Castro Duperly - sound and video
Jasmine Mendoza - movement

Artist Bios

Juliana Castro Duperly is a video artist and live video performer who understands video and written text as agents of construction and de-construction of meaning. The plasticity of both media allows her to create aesthetics that veil and unveil a poetry that, like video in real time, resides in the execution. Constantly collaborating with sound artists and musicians, her work has been shown in Sónar Bogotá, Mutek.co, Festival Domo Lleno, and most recently in Ars Electronica.

Jasmine Lupe Mendoza is a performance artist, choreographer, and activist based in Chicago. Their wide-ranging practice is informed by improvisation, sound, installation, and video. Jasmine’s work has been presented in Chicago, New Mexico, and New Orleans, and they have held residences at the Banff Centre, Links Hall, The Arts Club of Chicago, Acre, and MoMAZoZo.

Homeroom Presents:

Comfort Music +

a live music + performance series, every Thursday in April at Comfort Station.

$ suggested donation

Comfort Station
2579 N Milwaukee Ave, Chicago, IL

Thursday, April 6th

7pm doors, 7:30pm show

Mallory Qiu's Choo-Choo-Choo-Choo Station

Featuring Kyriakos Apostolidis, Gordon Fung, J Jiang, Che Pai, Mallory Yanhan Qiu, and Yezhou Zheng 

Cho-Cho-Cho-Choo Station is a site-specific performance responding to the history of comfort station as the transition station between train and bus at the edge of the city of Chicago and now changed to the form of an art venue which naturally bears the culture and history throughout time. 

This 90-minute piece takes the audience on a journey to different connections with ghosts in different times and spaces. J Jiang’s captivating reading text guides the audience through the experience. Mallory Yanhan Qiu, Che Pai, and Gordon Fung use movement, sound, live projection, and objects to immerse the audience in a world of imagination and wonder. The journey reaches its climax on the outdoor lawn, where Kyriakos Apostolidis and Yezhou Zheng create a mesmerizing visual experience through live video projection and physical movement. 

Artist Bios

Mallory Yanhan Qiu
Mallory Yanhan Qiu(b. 2000, Chongqing, China) is a Chicago-based artist and curator who deeply passionate about live sound performance, sonic studies, body movement, poetry, and digital visuals. She draws inspiration from physical sensations and biological movements, aiming to flip the familiar and discover memory-laden places that coexist both near and far. Qiu holds a BFA in Sound and Performance from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. She has performed at Compound Yellow, Epiphany Center for the Arts, Elastic Arts, Mana Contemporary, {} () {} ∆ ‡ | () {} Nonation Art Lab, Research House for Asian Art, SAIC, and Tritriangle. 

WEBSITE: https://www.mallory-qiu.com
IG: @qiumallory

J Jiang
J Jiang (b. 2000, Shanghai, China) is a multidisciplinary artist based in Chicago and Shanghai. She is pursuing BFA at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.
Jiang uses art to live through boringness in a singular reality. She degrades objects to their literal contents by visible, invisible, and locations, then reassembles them to construct an alternative and possible reality which is legitimate in materiality but out of the shared experience. Imagining the uncontrollable subject, boringness is replaced by an awareness of the existential crisis and the agency to misbehave. 
IG: @theashesofmymind

Che Pai
Che Pai (b. 1988; Taipei, Taiwan) is a multidisciplinary artist whose inspiration comes from studies in literature, slow cinema, and the physical theatre of Tai Chi. Through these practices, his awareness is fully opened; internal sensations of the body hence flow like water. The photographs, movements, and moving images serve as mediums through which the inner state resonates with happenstances.
Che holds an MA degree in Literature from National Taiwan University, and since then he embraces collaboration with artists. He had been working with award-winning director Hsin Yin Sung as a researcher, organizing shows for Ta-Chao Production as the leading performer, and programming educational events at the National Center of Photography and Images in Taiwan.

WEBSITE: https://paichejeff.wixsite.com/chepai/single-project
IG: @chechepai

Gordon Fung 
Gordon Fung (b. 1988, San Francisco) is a transdisciplinary artist who primarily works with experimental film/video, noise music, multi-/new media performances, DIY electronics, digital art, programming, and installations. His works highlight unconventional executions like noises, lo-fi presentations, and glitches. Such aesthetics confronts the viewers’ understanding, perspective, and point of view through a more philosophical, if not esoteric, investigation.
To expand the possibilities of artistic idioms, he intertwines both analog and digital technologies—also to signify the co-existence of mundane and spiritual worlds. By overloading software and hardware, he collapses the two worlds to expand the audience’s perception of reality. As a break-maker, he employs circuit-bending to regain consumers’ sense of agency through artistic means. His involvement in media archeology strives to unearth unexplored potentials of obsolete equipment and to revive them to artistic life.
Informed by his multivalent aesthetics, he forms the collective //sense at SAIC to showcase time-based artists’ works through performances, workshops, and seminars. By curating experimental performances, he fosters a collaborative common ground for sound/video/performance/electronic artists to create gesamtkunstwerk through synergy.
As a runaway composer in contemporary music, his compositions have been performed in Canada, China, Croatia, Denmark, Germany, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, Russia, Singapore, South Korea, Spain, Taiwan, and the USA.

WEBSITE: https://gordondfung.wordpress.com/ 
IG: @gordon.d.fung

Yezhou Zheng
WEBSITE: https://vimeo.com/user84890550
IG: @zhengyezhou_

Kyriakos Apostolidis
Kyriakos Apostolidis (b.1991) is a performance artist  from Greece. Exploring the term Morphoplastic, Apostolidis's art research deals with the concept of living sculpture in performance art. How the body is able to render symbolic forms of human existence through its movement plasticity, by activating the expressive potentials of the so-called “body intelligence”.
Apostolidis graduated from the School of Visual and Applied Arts at Aristotle University in Thessaloniki (2017), and also studied at the Facultad de Bellas Artes, Universidad de Granada (2014). Currently, he is pursuing his MFA in Performance at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, with the support of Alexis Minotis's endowment scholarship "In Memory of Katina Paxinos", administered by the National Bank Cultural Foundation (MIET).
IG: @kyriakos_apostolidis

BLANK BOX:
Ben Zucker’s Our Everfraction

New work for multimedia ensemble presented in a live performance at Elastic Arts.

“A subtle pageant for invisible energies, incorporating light projections, movement, sounding objects, and radio transmission, exploring entanglements and interactions of materialisms and compassions.”

Blank Box is a new and ongoing program by Homeroom to commission original multimedia work that is collaborative and performative, encouraging artists of multiple platforms and media to think, work, and create using structured improvisation. Blank Box presents work by artists working in contemporary experimental time-based arts, including sound/music, video/projections, dance/movement, theater/lighting/scenery, puppetry/sculpture, and other performance-based and installation arts.

Thursday, February 2, 2023 at Elastic Arts

8:30 PM Film Screening

9:30 PM Performance

Avreeyal Ra’s Dreamstuff

Ed Wilkerson - reeds/oud
Jim Baker - piano/electronics
Peter Maunu - guitar
Jason Roebke - bass
Avreeayl Ra - drums & percussion

preceded by

Film screening of "TUNING into the moment" a 40-minute film featuring Avreeayl RA by Rhizomes Films and Homeroom.

Tickets are $15 and available at the door

Every Tuesday in February 2022, Homeroom Residency featured local master drummer and spontaneous composer Avreeayl RA and his group Dream Stuff live at Elastic Arts.

With footage from this residency, taken from the multi camera live stream and close recorded microphones, plus additional voiceovers from Avreeayl and archival content woven in by Mexico City-based Rhizomes Films, we are pleased to screen, TUNING into the moment, 2022 (40 min)

Sunday, December 11, 2022 at Elastic Arts

6:00 PM Reception
6:30 PM Film Screening

Film premiere and reception for "TUNING into the moment" a 40-minute film featuring Avreeayl RA by Rhizomes Films and Homeroom.

$20 suggested donation or pay what you can.

All proceeds support the next iteration of Residency artist program in March 2023.

Every Tuesday in February 2022, Homeroom Residency featured local master drummer and spontaneous composer Avreeayl RA and his group Dream Stuff live at Elastic Arts.

With footage from this residency, taken from the multi camera live stream and close recorded microphones, plus additional voiceovers from Avreeayl and archival content woven in by Mexico City-based Rhizomes Films, we are pleased to screen, TUNING into the moment, 2022 (40 min)

Lit & Luz Presents: Arte + Sonoro + Poesia
Doors: September 9, 2022 5:30 PM
Online Scheduled Ticket Price: ADVANCED: $10.00

A Bilingual Poetry and Music Performance Presented by Homeroom and MAKE/Lit & Luz

Rocío Cerón - reading
Krista Franklin - reading
Bill MacKay - guitar
Paul Giallorenzo - piano/electronics

Mexican poet and performance artist Rocío Cerón has performed for audiences across the world. Often accompanied by musicians, as well as visual effects, Rocío brings new life to poetry readings with her unique vocal stylings. She is the author of multiple award-winning poetry collections and when not touring, teaches creative writing in Mexico City.

Krista Franklin is a Chicago-based visual artist, poet, and book maker whose exhibition Solo(s) opens at the DePaul Art Museum on September 8th.

Rocío and Krista were paired as collaborators for the 2021-22 Lit & Luz Festival Cohort and created a long poem, which they performed together. At this show, Krista and Rocío will be renuinited to perform their collaborative work, along with individual pieces.

They will be accompanied by pianist Paul Giallorenzo and guitarist and poet Bill MacKay. This program will also serve as a release event for Bill's recently published bilingual collection of poems, Movie House / Cine de sala.

· Proof of vaccination required for entry.
· Door staff will check ID and vaccination card.
· Masks are strongly recommended to be worn while indoors.
· Tickets are non-refundable and non-exchangeable

Purchase Tickets: https://www.etix.com/ticket/servlet/s/38198822

The gallery exhibition of Ten x Ten 2020/2 at the Chicago Art Department closes next Friday, August 26th with a FREE book debut and live performance from 6-9 PM. Join us to explore ten original artworks and compositions created in partnership with Chicago Composers Orchestra and Spudnik Press.

Closing party live performance featuring quintet Origin Brass:

Joel Cantoran, trumpet
Sean Whitworth, trumpet
Momoko Hasselbring Seko, french horn
Colin Murasek, trombone
Akshat Jain, tuba

We are proud to present a gallery exhibition at Chicago Art Department of  Ten x Ten 2020/2, the sixth iteration of the artist-musician collaboration, in partnership with Chicago Composers Orchestra and Spudnik Press. All ten compositions were performed and recorded by Chicago Composers Orchestra between 2020 and 2022, and all (but one) screen prints were printed at Spudnik Press. Ten x Ten is a dialogue between visual artists and musicians exploring visual and auditory interaction. By challenging artists to conceptualize their work across media, Ten x Ten asks participants to stretch and expand their creative process. Through producing a limited edition compilation and public presentation of the resulting artworks, Ten x Ten documents, celebrates, and promotes Chicago’s artistic community. A suite of an art book, 12″ vinyl record, and digital download are available for pre-sale, and individual prints are available as well. 

Participating Artists (visual artists listed first, composers second)

• Alexandra Antoine with David Keller

• Azadeh Gholizadeh with Randall West

• Susan Giles with Amy Wurtz

• Katherine Lampert with Brian Baxter

• Rodrigo Lara Zendejas with Luis Fernando Amaya

• Carlos Matallana with Ben LaMar Gay

• Jessie Mott with Trevor Watkin

• Michelle Nordmeyer with Andrew McManus

• Yoonshin Park with Jonathan Hannau

• Selina Trepp with Janice Misurell-Mitchell
  
  

2nd Friday Opening – July 8, 6-10pm, featuring the ten screen prints and a listening station to hear the music

Duration – July 8-Aug 26 (with visits by appointment on weekdays, 12-6pm)

Closing Party – August 26 featuring a live performance and book debut

Saturday, June 4th, 2022

Ten x Ten 2020/2

Nature | Human

St James Cathedral, 7:30pm CT

Music performed by Chicago Composers Orchestra
and Beyond This Point 

premiering works by: 

Brian Baxter + Katherine Lampert
Luis Fernando Amaya + Rodrigo Lara Zendejas

Purchase tickets here.

In 2021-2022, the sixth iteration of Ten x Ten is partially supported by a grant from the Illinois Arts Council Agency.

Sunday May 22nd @ Elastic Arts

3429 W Diversey Ave 2nd Fl, Chicago IL

8pm doors, 8:30pm show, $15

Blank Box:
New Dimensions in Sense-uality

Composition for multimedia ensemble

Sara Zalek - movement
Hyun Kim - movement
Sam Lewis - lighting/tech
Tselanie Townsend - video projections
Paul Giallorenzo - piano/electronics/composition/direction
Macie Stewart - violin
Hunter Diamond - reeds/percussion

Blank Box is a new and ongoing initiative by Homeroom to commission new multimedia work that is collaborative and performative. One of the goals is to encourage artists of all platforms and media to think, work, and collaborate with the ease and spontaneity of improvising musicians. Conceived by composer/pianist Paul Giallorenzo, this is the first original program that he brought to Homeroom since joining them as their first Artistic Director in 2019.

New Dimensions in Sense-uality is a work by composer Paul Giallorenzo that uses contemporary methods of avant jazz/new music composition/arranging/conducting of improvisation-laden music, extended into a multimedia, collaborative "ensemble" framework. This piece is set in abstract installation environments of video and dynamic lighting collaborated with music and dance/movement, utilizing a compositional framework that includes graphic scores, written music, musical and visual motifs and cues, and verbal instructions.

Originally intended to be presented live in a black box theatre, New Dimensions in Sense-uality was created in 2020/2021 for the streaming medium as a composition for "live abstract cinema". At the onset of the pandemic, Homeroom continued its work to maintain programming and engagement throughout the lockdown. Like so many others, we adapted to the (re)new(ed) medium of streaming, and conceived of this project as a film as much as a documented performance. As we found new ways to participate in art and interaction, we came to the realization that during this time, and still into the present, we are all broadcasters and we are all filmmakers.

This piece premiered in 2021, recorded with a 5 piece ensemble and streamed. This piece is now being revisited and reinterpreted with a larger ensemble and will be performed as originally intended - live - at Elastic Arts on May 22nd 2022.