Claire's Continuum

Allison Burik is a saxophonist, clarinetist, improviser, and composer based in Montreal, Quebec. Her music seeks to explore differing worlds of sonic possibilities through her many projects. Burik is an internationally known artist, having performed in festivals, residencies, and concerts in places as far reaching as France, South Korea, Canada, and the US. Though originally from Kansas City, Burik moved to Boston to receive her Bachelors Degree in Performance (2016) at Berklee College of Music, and her Master’s degree in Contemporary Improvisation at the New England Conservatory (2020). Over the years Burik has studied with notable musicians including George Garzone, Joe Morris, Ingrid Laubrock, Ran Blake, Carla Kilhstedt, Anthony Coleman, Frank Tiberi, Bobby Watson, Jaleel Shaw, Shannon LeClaire, and Tia Fuller. Currently, Burik is an active member of the jazz and experimental music scenes in Montreal, and can be found at festivals and concerts throughout the region.

Magdalena Abrego is a Cambridge-based guitarist. Utilizing the languages of free jazz and experimental rock, Magdalena’s music confronts issues of musical tradition through genre-bending improvisation. Her most recent release is Seven, an album of nine duo compositions written for combinations of alto saxophones, bass clarinet, voice, electric guitar, and electronics. Magdalena maintains an active performance schedule spanning North America and Europe, performing at venues such as Jordan Hall, Roulette Intermedium, Bimhuis, and the Banff Centre for the Arts.

Carla Kihlstedt is a composer/improviser/songwriter, a singer/violinist, a producer and an educator. She enjoys writing large-scale collaborative and cross-disciplinary pieces that pull from her many influences and explore a single idea from many angles — sets of songs about the ocean, about dreams, about imaginary creatures, about quarantine; a set of pieces recanting the advent of the Industrial Revolution; a set of rock songs created via erasure poetry. 

Carla is on the faculty of the Contemporary Improvisation Department of the New England Conservatory and the MFA in Composition program at the Vermont College of Fine Arts. She lives on Cape Cod, MA with her partner and their two kids. She is a member of the Climate Reality Leadership Corps. Her band, Rabbit Rabbit Radio, releases a song on the first day of every month to their subscribers at RabbitRabbitRadio.Bandcamp.com.

When he first picked up the electric bass, Johnnie Gilmore knew he’d found his calling. It didn’t take him long to find his voice on the instrument (think Paul McCartney’s melodicism, Stevie Wonder’s hard-edged harmony, and Victor Wooten’s technical showmanship thrown in a blender), honing his repertoire as a subway busker in his native Boston. Since moving to Los Angeles in 2018, Johnnie has released two albums and toured the country as a solo artist, while also continuing to work as a sideman and session bassist.

Taylor Simone Harvey is a singer, songwriter, producer, and loop artist with a career spanning over 10 years. Taylor was born and raised in Los Angeles, but she moved to New York to study jazz music at Columbia University. It was there she released her first project, Songs from The Front Yard, with the hit single “Greedy.” After graduation, Taylor joined with Jett Carter to form Jazze Belle, a duo pushing the boundaries of soul music. Together, they released a project Go to Bed Standing Up with their hit single “Possibly”. They were able to open up for Jamila Woods, and later Noname and Topaz Jones at the Celebrate Brooklyn! Concert series.

Now, Taylor has relocated to Los Angeles, where she wrote, produced, and performed her latest project The Privilege of Memory last summer. In it, she discusses the ephemerality of own memory and its connection to her identity. Taylor is now working on Keep the Channel Open, a living project she began December 2019 where she releases older demos, rehearsals, and whatever comes out of her creative process. Through this, she endeavors to be as transparent and honest with her music as she can. Her next full length album Everybody’s On Stage is slated to be released in the fall.

Jackie Soro (she/they) is a Philadelphia-based artist, performer, and teacher. Her onstage work centers largely in the feminist performance art sphere, in collaboration with local artists and theater companies to create both original ensemble works and solo performances. Her recent projects include Ninth Planet Theater Company’s collaborative film project honey honey, Killjoys Kastle: A Lesbian Feminist Haunted House (Icebox Project Space), The Bearded Ladies Cabaret‘s original musical Contradict This! A Birthday Funeral for Heroes (LaMama Experimental Theater), and The Arden Theater Company’s Barrymore Award-winning production of Fun Home (Joan). Offstage, Jackie creates jewelry and fiber art under the moniker @glamatronix, writes zines and comics, and coaches young adults in music and performance with Girls Rock Philly.

New York-based pianist, composer, arranger and educator, Caili O’Doherty, is known for integrating structures of language in both her compositions and her approach to improvisation. Her recent music focuses on the celebration, preservation, and expansion upon the achievements of jazz’s unsung women heroes.  O’Doherty holds a Bachelor of Music in performance from Berklee College of Music (BM ’13) and a Master of Music in performance from Aaron Copland School of Music at Queens College (MM ’19).  She has received national awards for piano performance and composition from the ASCAP Foundation and Downbeat Magazine. Praised by All About Jazz for its “exquisitely forged, dramatic and darkly hued pieces”, O’Doherty’s debut release Padme (2015) uses lyrics to give the melodies a natural rhythm of language.  Padme was selected as a Downbeat Magazine Editor’s pick and received a 4-star review in All About Jazz. O’Doherty has performed at the Kimmel Center, SF Jazz, Jazz at Lincoln Center, Panama Jazz Festival, Guinness Cork Jazz Festival, concert halls throughout China and UNESCO First International Jazz Day in Paris, as well as two US State Dept. supported tours to Colombia and Togo and Benin in West Africa. Currently performing throughout NYC and touring as a bandleader and side-musician, O’Doherty also works in the education department at Jazz at Lincoln Center (JALC) as a piano accompanist for the WeBop early childhood jazz education program. She leads educational performances in New York City schools about jazz, democracy and civil rights as a bandleader for JALC’s Jazz for Young People program. O’Doherty has been a faculty member at the Stanford Jazz Workshop since 2012 and Litchfield Jazz Camp since 2015.

Emily Ritz is an artist and musician based in Hudson, NY. Emily’s visual art practice provides a meditative escape into a more beautiful world of her own creation while her music is a tool for directly expressing emotions and experiences.

Jude Shimer is a trans nonbinary artist in Brooklyn who makes silly/sad tunes, drawings, and videos about how intense everything feels all the time.

Maggie Toth is a queer multi-instrumentalist making music in Brooklyn. They are interested in pieces that highlight specificity and restraint over complexity. They have toured and performered nationally and internationally, and are currently working on releasing both solo and collaborative work (with their group, Slim Charles) in the near future. @maggietooth

Drawing upon a deep connection to listening, nature, and the power of the collective memory, sound artist, multi-instrumentalist, and educator Zaneta Sykes infuses their work with the elements and spirit. Through field recordings, improvisation, spoken word, meditation, and artistic decolonization practices, they seek to connect listeners to the earth, their ancestors, and ultimately themselves. They have performed at the Brooklyn Museum, Walt Disney Concert Hall, Los Angeles Museum of Natural History, and on national television.
www.zanetasykes.com @zanetasykes

Brenda Zhang (Bz) is a visual artist and architectural designer in Ohlone land (Oakland, USA). Their work is invested in understanding and interpreting the stories we tell about where we are and in creating new stories about where we go. Currently, they are a Master of Architecture candidate at University of California, Berkeley, and a co-founder of SPACE INDUSTRIES, an architectural design collective based in San Francisco and Rio de Janeiro.

Jess Best is an artist and songwriter who tells stories through sound and emotion. She currently resides in Los Angeles working as a songwriter. Jess is constantly creating and releasing new music. In 2018, she released a limited edition project VELVET, a unique release that was only available in 25 physical copies. In addition to her album Saturday, in 2017 she has released ‘The Giving Tree‘ – an album based off the picture book by Shel Silverstein; Anonymous – an experimental sound collage that brings the listener into transit throughout NYC; and ‘The Week‘ – a 30 song sketch book of the writing process behind her album Saturday.