Over the last few years, sfSound has been presenting concerts of experimental music from the 60's and 70's avant garde alongside current music from the composition and improvisation scenes of today. For this event, they have taken the same approach with music from Germany and Austria. Helmut Lachenmann's Dal niente (Interiur III) predates the "lowercase" improv scene by 30 years, while Olga Neuwirth's Fondementa is inspired by recent trends in electronic music. The concert concludes with Karlheinz Stockhausen's KURZWELLEN, which specifies amplified instruments, live electronics, and shortwave radios in an semi-structured graphic score.

Performers include: Christopher Froh (percussion and shortwave radio), Matt Ingalls (clarinet and bass clarinet), John Ingle (baritone and tenor saxophone, and shortwave radio), Christopher Jones (electronics), and Monica Scott (cello, and shortwave radio).

Christopher Froh is a percussionist principally committed to influencing and expanding the repertoire through commissions and premieres. He began his training as a fellow with the National Symphony Orchestra, continued at the Eastman School of Music with percussionist John Beck, then moved to Japan to study and perform with marimba pioneer and composer, Keiko Abe. He received his Bachelor's and Master's degrees at the University of Michigan with percussionist Michael Udow and marimbist Julie Spencer. He is currently on the faculty at the University of California, Davis.

Froh is a former founding director of the Ann Arbor-based new music group and series, Brave New Works. Currently, he is a core member of the San Francisco Contemporary Music Players, the Empyrean Ensemble, sfSoundGroup, and principal percussionist with the San Francisco Chamber Orchestra. As a guest artist, he has performed with a broad array of ensembles including Alarm Will Sound, the Honolulu Symphony and Gamelan Sekar Jaya. Solo festival appearances include performances at the Festival Nuovi Spazi Musicali, Music@Menlo, Festival of New American Music, Pacific Rim Festival, and Other Minds Festival.

Froh continues his close ties to Japan, touring with marimbist Mayumi Hama and as a soloist with Keiko Abe and the Galaxy Percussion Group. He has performed regularly at the Percussive Arts Society International Convention and appeared as the solo percussionist for the Berkeley Repertory Theater's production of Aeschylus' The Oresteia. He is recorded as a soloist on the Albany, Equilibrium, and innova labels.

Matt Ingalls, clarinetist, composer, improviser, and computer musician is the founder and co-producer of sfSound. He holds degrees in music composition from The University of Texas at Austin and Mills College. Matt has lived in Oakland since 1994.

John Ingle is a saxophonist, composer, and improviser originally from Memphis, TN and now resides and works in San Francisco. His music is informed and influenced by contemporary concert music, improvised music, electronic music, jazz, various Asian folk music traditions, and the blues and gospel of his native Southeast US. He collaborates with electronics innovator Laetitia Sonami, and in duo with NYC-based composer/dulcimerist Dan Joseph and is a founding member of the sfSoundGroup. John's solo saxophone music emphasizes multiphonics, vocal harmonics and subtle control of extended saxophone techniques, while his chamber music explores such musical parameters as spiral time, linear pulse, and non-linear harmony, and indulges in both simple resonance as well as complex timbre and auditory sleights-of-hand.

Christopher Jones is a composer, pianist and conductor based in San Francisco. He has received commissions from the Koussevitzky Foundation and the Amercian Composers Forum, and has performed at venues including the Darmstadt Ferienkurse, the Ictus International Composition Seminar in Brussels, Merkin Hall in New York and the Milwaukee Art Museum. Christopher has given many premieres and enjoys working closely with composers. He brings his interests in composition, performance and improvisation together in his work as pianist, conductor and co- director of the innovative new music group, sfSound.

Christopher completed a doctorate in composition at Stanford University, where he studied with Brian Ferneyhough and Jonathan Harvey, and also earned degrees in composition from the University of Calgary, studying with Allan Gordon Bell, and in piano performance from Indiana University and the New England Conservatory, studying with Evelyne Brancart and Patricia Zander.

Monica Scott, cellist, has performed throughout the United States, in almost every European country, Argentina, Canada and South Korea, engaging audiences with her energetic, eloquent playing. Her wide stylistic range and interests span the classical repertoire through avant-garde and improvised music. Currently she is active with sfSound, and with her duo martha & monica with pianist Hadley McCarroll - they will be releasing their first CD on September 26, 2009. Monica holds degrees from the Oberlin Conservatory of Music and the Sweelinck Conservatorium Amsterdam. A devoted teacher, Monica serves on the faculties of the San Francisco Conservatory of Music Preparatory Department, The Crowden School, and College Preparatory School, as well as maintaining an active private studio in Oakland.

See photos from the concert.