Robert Dick - flute
Stephen Haluska - harp
James Ilgenfritz - contrabass

"A flutist whose technical resources and imagination seem limitless." — The New York Times"

"Dick held the audience in rapt attention with his spellbinding virtuosity" — Washington Post"

Robert Dick is a flutist, composer, teacher, inventor, and author. World renowned as the leader in contemporary music for flute, Robert Dick embodies the ideal of the Renaissance artist. With equally deep roots in classical music old and new and in free improvisation and new jazz, he has established himself as an artist who has not only mastered, but redefined the instrument. In 2014, the National Flute Association honored Robert Dick with its Lifetime Achievement Award. https://robertdick.net/

Cleveland-based improviser, harpist, and composer, Stephan Haluska draws from the instrument’s unique textural, percussive, physical, and kinetic qualities. Viewing the harp as a frequently misunderstood and underrepresented instrument in contemporary music, he often rejects conventional modes of playing in favor of finding new ways to expand his sound palette. Stephan plays with an advanced vocabulary of extended techniques and preparations, which explore the use of various tools, materials, gadgetry, and household objects, interweaving elements of found sound, collage, sound art, and movement into his artistic practice. Since 2021, Stephan leads Cleveland Uncommon Sound Project (CUSP) as Managing Director. CUSP is dedicated to strengthening the artistic engagement of the Northeast Ohio community by championing the creation and performance of new and experimental music through concert programming and other events ...

Fred Moten - text, voice
Brandon López - contrabass

The work of each of these powerfully creative & exceptionally perceptive artists concerns itself with navigating the ascending reign of long-institutionalized madness while simultaneously keeping humanity and sanity intact. Poet and theorist Fred Moten joins bassist Brandon Lopez in a powerful and searching dialog of voice, text, and bass, where Moten's incisive spoken word and Lopez's deeply expressive playing fuse into an evocative exploration of Black cultural production, resistance, and creative solidarity.

Inimitable poet, cultural theorist, author, 2020 MacArthur Fellow, Fred Moten creates new conceptual spaces that accommodate emergent forms of Black cultural production, aesthetics, and social life. Moten is a professor of performance studies and comparative literature at New York University, concerned with social movement, aesthetic experiment, and Black study. He is also a United States Artists Rockefeller Fellow and was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Moten's writing and wording are characterized by a refined opacity and a musicality that is inspired by jazz and goes to the limit of noise: "what it is I want to say is subordinate to the sound, subordinate to a kind of feeling, a content that only that sound can provide". His books include In the Break: The Aesthetics of the Black Radical Tradition, the trilogy Consent Not To Be A Single Being, The Undercommons: Fugitive Planning & Black Study and All Incomplete, co-authored with Stefano Harney, as well as numerous poetry collections ...

Dave Rempis - saxophones
Jason Adasiewicz - vibraphone
Chris Corsano - drums, percussion

This trio, comprised of three prolific journeymen improvisers whose work has been recognized across the globe, is a band of down-to-earth, hard-working musicians, whose focus and dedication to the music is exceptional. That's not to say that these three don't have a combined CV that straddles a who's who list of contemporary music across multiple scenes. But their ethos is one that emanates from their midwestern locale – a heads down approach to collaborative work.

The trio first came together at Chicago's Hungry Brain during a month-long Thursday residency that Rempis organized in September 2024. Corsano's recent relocation to Chicago was an overdue opportunity for them to collaborate again, after regular work with the quartet From Wolves to Whales alongside Nate Wooley and Pascal Niggenkemper in the mid-teens. And Adasiewicz's recent return to the music following a multi-year hiatus has meant he's at the top of the list for any new groups Rempis puts together, after many years of work together earlier in their careers. That first Hungry Brain concert proved too compelling to leave as a one-off. So they organized several more hits in Chicago and Milwaukee in the winter of 2025, out of which sprang their recorded debut Dial Up on Rempis' Aerophonic Records imprint, to be released in December 2025.

On the record, you get instantly wrapped into the sinews of the band's shared aesthetic. There's no ego here, simply a collaborative ethos that powers the music forward. While that's a noted feature of the Chicago improvised music scene historically, it's also one that Corsano has embraced in his own work for decades ...