John Butcher (saxophones), Gino Robair (percussion, electronics), Bill Hsu (electronics, interactive animation) October 14, 2009

An evening of electroacoustic audio-visual improvisations
with John Butcher, Gino Robair and Bill Hsu

John Butcher lives in London and has played the saxophone for over 20 years. His work ranges through free improvisation, multitracked pieces, work with pre-recorded tape, and also with live electronics. He appears on over 40 recordings. Solo concerts have long been a particular enthusiasm, as was featured in an episode of the BBC TV series Date with an Artist. A selection of groups he has played with include Derek Bailey's Company Weeks, News from the Shed with Radu Malfatti and Paul Lovens, Chris Burn's Ensemble, the Butcher/Durrant/Russell trio, the Phil Minton Quartet, Fred van Hove's t'nonet, and Butch Morris' London Skyscraper.

Gino Robair is an American composer, improvisor, drummer, and percussionist. In his own work (as a soloist and in improvisation ensembles), he plays prepared/modified percussion, analog synthesizer, ebow and prepared piano, theremin, and bowed objects (polystyrene, customized/broken cymbals, faux daxophone, metal). Although Gino is often referred to as a jazz musician, he grew up playing both rock and concert music. Gino Robair is currently the editor of Electronic Musician magazine, and he runs Rastascan Records.

Bill Hsu plays piano and work with electronics. He is interested in real-time performance systems that have some of the live, tactile qualities of good human musicians playing acoustic instruments. His work mostly involves using gestural interfaces to control synthesis, and building systems that interact with human performers. In particular, he is inspired by improvisers who have developed rich palettes of extended techniques.

He has performed in the San Francisco Bay area, New York, Hong Kong, Tokyo, Amsterdam, Karlsruhe (Germany), Berlin, London, and Porto (Portugal), and he is a founding member of the Beanbender's collective, which organized over 150 concerts of new music in the San Francisco Bay area.