Meridian Music presents a new electro-acoustic trio featuring Morgan Craft (Italy), electric guitar and electronics, Marshall Trammell, percussion and Zachary Watkins, electronics.

This debut performance will explore:
- Improvisation as everyday life
- Music in a world beyond the speed of light
- A new (black) American avant-garde
- Inspiration as the one true currency
- The revolution will be spiritual
- The creative process as source of future energies

This debut collaboration will highlight the trio's mutual concerns via an improvised performance setting. These spectacular musicians aspire to bring folks together for an inspired evening that will engage our diverse community with a spectrum of ideas and experiences.
 
Morgan Craft (Electric Guitar / Improvisation) was raised in New Brighton, Minnesota. After moving to New York in 1994 Craft played with Butch Morris, Talib Kweli, Pete Cosey, Ikue Mori, Meshell Ndegeocello, Anton Fig, Beans, Muzz Skillings, Greg Osby, Rhodri Davies, Johnny Kemp, Marc Ribot, Christian Marclay, Simon H. Fell, Nona Hendryx, Carl Hancock Rux, Daniel Carter, Vernon Reid, Greg Tate.
 
Venues include: Brooklyn Academy of Music, Knitting Factory, Tonic, Joe's Pub, Brooklyn Bridge Anchorage, Central Park Summerstage, CBGB's, etc. International shows include: Jazz Em Agosto Festival- Portugal, Queen Elizabeth Hall- London, Transmusicales Festival- Rennes, France, DNK Club- Amsterdam, Clandestino Festival- Sweden, etc.
 
As a writer and theorist, Craft’s work has appeared in The Wire, Point of Departure, Perfect Sound Forever, and ‘A Power Stronger Than Itself’ by George E. Lewis (University of Chicago Press).  Since 2004 he has lived in Italy where his primary focus has been as an improvising solo electric guitarist.  2011 saw the release of his eighth solo album entitled “A Cycle Of Seven”, on his Circle of Light label.
www.roughamericana.com
 
Marshall Trammell (Percussion / Composition) Raised in Oahu, Hawaii, Marshall Trammell's utilizes a Multi-Aesthetic approach to Improvisation as a framework for his development as a percussionist. His other projects include: (film) Decolonizing the Imagination: An Arts Practicum; (curation) Heavy Discipline: Duos and Interviews Music Series, The Displacement Project and Orbits: an cognitive embodiment video project; (research) Oakland Tenderness Project, a mutual aid, alternative currency and participatory research pilot project; and (composition) TTM-H, a Creative Music trio and RotorCraft: a Solo Project.
www.mutualaidproject.com
 
Zachary James Watkins (Electronics / Composition) has received commissions from Cornish College, Microscores, Beam Foundation, Somnubutone Radio Series, sfSoundGroup and the Seattle Chamber Players. Zachary has participated in numerous festivals most recently the 14th Annual 23Five Activating the Medium Festival and the 12th Annual SFEMF. He is a co-organizer of the Annual Music For People and Thingamajigs Festival. His 2006 composition Suite for String Quartet was awarded the Paul Merritt Henry Prize for Composition and has been performed in numerous festivals and is currently published by TouchRadio UK. His multi-media work entitled Country Western premiered in 2007 as part of the Meridian Gallery’s Composers in Performance Series and received grants from the American Music Center and the Foundation for Contemporary Arts. An excerpt of this piece is published on the compilation “The Harmonic Series” along side Pauline Oliveros, Ellen Fullman and Charles Curtis among others. Zachary received a Subito Grant to assist in the production of the evening length composition: Movable, written for piano in just intonation and a newly invented piano extension called the “Piano Monster” built in collaboration with NYC artist Ranjit Bhatnagar.
www.zacharyjameswatkins.com