Pleiades is our monthly series that features womxn and non-binary musicians/improvisors and this month we’ll have two sets to open the night followed by an open jam! Starting the night out we’ll have a trio from Erica Miller, Sam Scranton, and Cooper Diers. We’ll then have a solo set from Nina Dante where she’ll be presenting a piece based around feild recordings from her current PNW home along with voice. If you’d like to participate in the open jam (any femme / non-binary folks), please email pleiades@elasticarts.org

Artist Bios

Nina Dante is a vocalist, folk harpist, composer, researcher, amateur naturalist, writer, and teacher. Her current work and artistic practices are rooted in the animate landscape of the Pacific Northwest; and are dedicated to deepening her relationship with her local wilderness. Her work as an experimental musician is guided by the continual unearthing of the voice’s extended abilities, and curiosity about the voice’s role in human expression and interaction-with-world throughout time. She is co-founder of the new music ensemble Fonema Consort. In her social media project, The Snake Said to the River, she performs folk and historical music, recites stories and poems, and provides offerings on mysticism, plant identification, folkways, and history.

Erica Miller (she/they) is a cellist, improvisor, composer, producer, sound artist, and educator based in Chicago. She creates music that embodies a relationship between natural and artificial sound, meditation and consciousness, listening and attention. Their work is a wide ranging exploration of sonic landscapes, interweaving extended cello techniques, prepared instrumentation, drones, field recordings, samples, electronic effects, and MIDI. Erica has performed and recorded with artists including Lykanthea, Tim Daisy, aperiodic, and Manual Cinema. She has performed at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, Edgar Miller Legacy, Garfield Park Conservatory, Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, Epiphany Center for the Arts, Constellation Chicago, and has been featured on The Wire Magazine.

Sam Scranton – “I am a composer/performer/artist based in Chicago. I improvise and record music with percussion and electronics. I make evening-length tear-jerker conceptual ceremonies. I make installations with friends that take the form of guided tours, psychedelic waiting rooms, and swarming sonic creatures. I have presented work nationally and internationally at festivals, conferences, and performance series such as the Darmstadt Ferienkurse, Indexical, Composit, NUNC! 3, New Music Gathering, Frequency Festival, the International Conference on Music and Minimalism, Outer Ear Festival, and Omaha Under the Radar. My music has been broadcast on BBC Radio 3, Borealis Festival Radio Space, WFMT, and released by Parlour Tapes+. I play music in bands: Honestly Same (with Zach Good, Mabel Kwan, Lia Kohl, Zach Moore), Beautifulish (with Katherine Young), Physique (with Neil Quigley), with records released on Amalgam and Shinkoyo Artists Pool.”

Cooper Diers is a sound and visual artist based in Wisconsin, having established relationships with some of Chicago’s contemporary improvising music scene. Self taught on several instruments, Diers was drawn to avant-garde tendencies at an early age and has focused primarily on clarinets and instrument preparations to realize a conceptual approach that incorporates dada and fluxus values, sound collage, and improvising as a means to achieve what Diers refers to as “intuitive psycho-acoustic phenomenon”. Diers has several recordings available through the Future Fern Records digital imprint on bandcamp and has collaborated with a number of Chicago and Wisconsin based painters, artists and musicians. Diers created a sound installation that accompanied the 26’ x 8’ painting “Our Seas” by Erica Jane Huntzinger, presented at the University of Oshkosh Priebe Gallery and Vagabond Gallery in Manitowoc. As an artist in residence at Sheboygan North High school, Diers worked with students and faculty to facilitate projects that involved the experience of synesthesia and connecting visual arts with music and sound. Diers’ visual and audio work can be found at instagram.com/cooperdiers

$15 – Tickets Available at the Door

Official Website

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Tags: Chicago, Cooper Diers, Elastic Arts, Erica Miller. Sam Scranton, Logan Square, Nina Dante, Pleiades Series