Modular Synthesizer and Percussion Duo

Organizer: Kari Watson & Romane Bouffioux

Percussionist Romane Bouffioux & Composer/Performer Kari Watson play a duo set from 15:30-16:30 in OS Showcase

Kari Watson: twinning für zwei Violinen und LED-Lichter (2025)

Kari Watson: For Jen Torrence für Percussion, Elektronik und Video (2024/25)

Kelley Sheehan: Neues Werk für Percussion solo / New Work for Percussion solo (2025)
Uraufführung / World Premiere

Sarah Saviet (Violine / Violin)
Maya Bennardo (Violine / Violin)
Jennifer Torrence (Percussion)
Kari Watson (Electronic Devices)
Luana Borges (Video)

Tickets: https://ztix.de/hp/events/26883/info

July 21st, 2025 | 1:00 PM | Goodson Chapel-Recital Hall

Axiom Brass plays Alloys on a program at the DC Trombone Workshop

Singing in Kate In’s CLEAT choir piece Drop Lift Fly

BIM BOM STUDIOS - 5/28

BOND CHAPEL - 5/29 w/ Zach Good & Zach Moore

LIVE STUDIO SESSION AT MIDNIGHT TEA - 5/30

Yarn Wire premiers SYNTHETICS - a commission for their currents series at Roulette in NYC on May 21st, 2025.

FLORASONICS installation opening event at the Lincoln Park Conservatory of Laura Ortman’s new work, spatialized in collaboration with Kari Watson via Experimental Sound Studio.

Solo Modular Synth Set at Cutelab NYC

8pm DM for address in Brooklyn, NY.

NOTAFLOF

Sunday, April 13th at 2pm, Kari Watson and Laura Ortman will discuss working collaboratively within the realm of spatial audio at ESS, with examples pulled from Laura’s upcoming Florasonics program at the Lincoln Park Conservatory.

Solo set at Constellation in Chicago, opening for Jules Reidy at Constellation, Chicago.

Tickets: https://wl.seetickets.us/event/jules-reidy-with-kari-watson/628898?afflky=ConstellationChicago

Doors: 8:00PM | Show: 8:30PM

Altarpiece H. af K. by Eric Wubbels featuring Katherine Young, Dana Jessen, and Ben Roidl-Ward, Kari Watson

Altarpiece H. af K. is a study in the acoustics of complex sounds. Drawing inspiration from the radically abstract visual language of the visionary early 20th-century Swedish artist Hilma af Klint, the piece unfolds in a 25-minute wave of saturated resonance.

The supergroup of bassoonists Katherine Young, Dana Jessen, and Ben Roidl-Ward made their trio debut in May 2023 at Chicago’s Elastic Arts with an original evening-length work called Tendrils. Each considered a pioneer in the field of contemporary, experimental, electronic, and improvised music, their collective artistic output has significantly expanded the range and sonic possibilities of their instrument. Collectively, they have presented hundreds of performances and world premieres at international music festivals and concert series spanning prestigious concert halls to local community art spaces. Members of the ensemble hold teaching positions at Emory University, Oberlin College and Conservatory, and the University of Illinois.

There will be an opening set from composer and and synthesist Kari Watson.

The Grossman Ensemble Premiers OSCILLATIONS with Kari Watson performing synthesizers and electronics on the premier of their work for Grossman Ensemble under conductor David Fulmer.

Axiom brass performs Alloys live on WFMT Radio!

Watson & Kleijn Duo plays the ELASTRO Series at Elastic Arts.

Watson performs Annea Lockwood’s Spirit Catchers in a quartet with Annea Lockwood, Stephan Moore, and Senem Pirler.

An album release/listening party with a performance by the Watson and Kleijn Duo at Tusk, Chicago.

if/then - a modular piece for cello and octophonic electronics, is premiered by Eduard Teregulov at Concordia College on the CIRCUIT721 concert series.

Premier of six chimeras for three performers and electronics at the Line Upon Line Winter Composers Festival, January 11th at 7pm.

Sawyer Edition releases enclosures, an album featuring some of Watson’s composed concert music from the last 3 years. Composer’s notes on the album are below:

enclosures addresses issues of space, place, reverberation and resonance across five pieces. An exercise in scale, each piece is a portal: a biome, containing its own environment, weather, sense of time. Featuring juxtaposed convolution reverbs that transport an ensemble through real and imaginary spaces, beatings between Just Intonation and Equal Temperament, a triptych of environmental portraits, an exercise in the musicalized resonance of the harp’s pedal mechanism, and finally, an exploration of precarious sounds and sonic expiration, these works are attempts at worldbuilding that conserve intimacy—each piece a sonic imprint, a palimpsest of both positive and negative space, a constellation of both event and aftermath.

Solo set on the opening night of the Line Upon Line Winter Composers Festival at CRASHBOX in Austin, TX.

A set of modular synthesizer music specifically designed for the CLEAT spatial speaker array at Elastic Arts. Bill includes solo performances by Hanna Elliot and Gabi Kinlock.

TETHER - for three modular synthesizers, dancer and live projections will be performed at Epiphany Center for the Arts.

a solo set for spatialized modular synth, recorded voice, and tape at CLARA.

at cutelab, a spatial audio set of modular synthesizer and electric guitar

https://cutelab.nyc/

A movement film comprised of three acts, where each dancer choreographs a piece dedicated to a part of their body that they’ve neglected or overlooked. The title ‘Touch of Recession’ interprets the Portuguese translation of the word ‘curfew’ (toque de recolher). The text in the film studies the embodiment of restriction, regulation and impediment. The visual language is crafted from hand-processed super-8 film, and the score features a modular synth composition by Kari Watson, performed in a quadraphonic speaker array at the Bond Chapel in Chicago, Illinois.

credits
Movement & Photography by Haley Dennis, Kristen Bernier, Lua Borges
Hand-processed & Edited by Lua Borges
Score by Kari Watson
Scan by Nicki CoyleTouch of Recession, 8mm, 7 min    2023

September 5 Thursday 

Bennardo | Watson & Kleijn 

Maya Bennardo violin solo

Kari Watson & Katinka Kleijn, duo for cello & electronics

Maya Bennardo is a founding member of the violin/viola duo andPlay and member of the internationally acclaimed Mivos Quartet. She also performs new and traditional repertoire for violin and piano with pianist Karl Larson in their Bennardo/Larson Duo. Kari Watson and Katinka Kleijn bring together a wide range of sounds, merging acoustic, analog, and digital sound sources and exploring extended aspects of improvisation such as physicality, attunement, and embodiment. By combining cello, modular eurorack synthesizer, Max MSP, and handheld electronics, the two create tactile performance environments for their audiences.

A duo quadraphonic set for modular synthesizer and electric guitar at Midnight Tea in downtown Chicago’s Fine Arts Building.

RSVP:

https://www.eventbrite.com/e/kari-watson-alec-goldfarb-live-studio-session-tickets-980329541047?aff=oddtdtcreator

Composers Now is collaborating with Chicago composers and ensembles to host the fifteenth edition of Dialogues, a program launched in 2015 designed to bring together audiences and composers through conversation and live performances. Co-hosted by Composers Now Founder/Artistic Director Tania León and Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM) Executive Director Coco Elysees, this event features compositions by Edward Wilkerson Jr, Sophie McMillan-Myers, and Kari Watson played by members of the AACM, Ensemble Dal Niente,and the Grossman Ensemble. Free and open to the public. Reception to follow.

Dialogues #15 August 17, 2024 @ 3 PM, Piano Forte - Chicago, IL 60605.