Jen Baker and David Samas perform new works that have been years in the making in their collaboration.  The First Nations' Ley - Concerto for Multiphonic Trombone is a  9 - site cycle that tells the story of a song for peace and freedom (voiced for multiphonic trombone, invented instruments, and extended vocal techniques) as it travels through the seven major vortices (energetically dense places) in the US along the First Nations' Ley, extending east-west across the northern part of the country from the monastery at Shellburn Falls, to Mt. Shasta and on to Mona Kea.  Overture for Steel Plate and Multiphonic Trombone is the first composition we're aware of that uses strictly multiphonics on the trombone with a duo instrument, and Music for Three Worlds, a graphic score using specific textural and melodic relationships to convey three distinct levels of reality.

Ley lines are the circuitry of the geomagnetic field, or meridians, encompassing the earth.  Similar to the nervous system of the human body, these meridians carry information and energy specific to each particular line.  They all pass through various sacred sites, major cities, fault lines, lakes or springs, volcanoes, and mountain ridges.  The quality of energy along any segment of a ley line is most directly affected by other locations and events occurring on it.  The aboriginals of Australia know them as song lines because shamans use them to pass information over great distances in the form of a song.

BIOS:

Jen Baker projects her trombone into the far reaches of the conceivable, redefining the role of the performer in creative music. Since earning her degrees from Oberlin Conservatory and Mills College, she has premiered and/or commissioned dozens of new works in various chamber groups and for solo trombone.  As a touring soloist, she performs Lyrical Vibrations, her unique blend of composition and improvisation based on multiphonics.  Her first CD, Blue Dreams (2008, Dilapidated Barns) is a collection of these pieces. She has recently performed with TILT Brass in Chris Jonas' Garden for the Intermedia Art festival in Santa Fe NM, and with Pauline Oliveros and Stuart Dempster (Deep Listening Band) for a digital simulation of the very first Deep Listening recording (done in a cistern) at EMPAC, Albany NY. As an improviser, she has performed/recorded with Fred Frith, Cecil Taylor, Dafna Naphtali, Joelle Leandre, Nate Wooley, and Damon Smith, and was featured on the soundtrack to Werner Herzog's Oscar-nominated Encounters at the End of the World.  She played in the final performance of the Merce Cunningham Dance Company at the Park Avenue Armory (NYC), and as a founding member of both Bang on a Can's Asphalt Orchestra and the musical, Beowulf, A Thousand Years of Baggage, has toured on both coasts and internationally.  She performs regularly in the New York City area with a host of classical and new music ensembles, enjoying a variety of classical, multimedia, and avant-garde music. www.baker7jenz.com