Composer Spotlight
John Seman
Monktail Creative Music Concern
Wed., Sept. 14 @ 7:30pm
Jack Straw Productions
4261 Roosevelt Way NE Seattle
map FREE
John Seman, director of Seattle’s Monktail Creative Music Concern, will be joined by fellow Monktail composers Mark Ostrowski and Stephen Fandrich for a detailed exploration of the compositional elements that are common and unique to their compositions for piano. Pianist Fandrich will perform pieces they have composed over the last year for the Monktail Composers Series at the Good Shepherd Chapel and for a 2011 Jack Straw Artist Residency.
John Seman is an active composer, producer, bassist, and archivist in Seattle, with a degree in Composition from the Oberlin Conservatory of Music and postgraduate work in Ethnomusicology at the University of Maryland. He has produced several CDs and numerous digital releases on the Monktail label, was an organizer of the Sounds Outside concert series for five years, and currently performs with many Monktail ensembles, as well as Ask the Ages and others.
Composer and percussionist Mark Ostrowski studied composition at the Berklee School of Music, has toured the country with several ensembles, and performs regularly in Seattle with Monktail, Hound Dog Taylor’s Hand, and the Wally Shoup Quartet.
Pianist and composer Stephen Fandrich has a degree from Cornish College of the Arts, composes, performs, and records with Gamelan Pacifica, and is director of Seattle Harmonic Voices, which released a double-disc set on the Monktail label.
Founded in 1990 by John Seman and Mark Ostrowski and rooted in Seattle since 2000, the Monktail Creative Music Concern exists to provide, propagate, promote, produce and preserve creative/experimental /exploratory music and associated art forms in its community through public performance, public and private educational forums, broadcasts, musical and visual recordings, and any other means of documentation appropriate an /or available at any time. more
Supporters
Jack Straw Productions gratefully acknowledges The Paul G. Allen Family Foundation, City of Seattle’s Office of Arts and Cultural Affairs, 4Culture King County Lodging Tax Fund, Washington State Arts Commission, National Endowment for the Arts, PONCHO, ArtsFund, Seattle Foundation, and individual contributors for their support of Jack Straw Artist Programs.