Ava Mendoza (voice, electric guitar), selections from New Spells, The Circular Train and more

Through decades of collaborations with Nels Cline, Carla Bozulich, William Parker, Fred Frith, Matana Roberts, and Mick Barr, as well as years leading her power trio Unnatural Ways and playing in Bill Orcutt’s quartet, Ava Mendoza has become synonymous with virtuoso technique, raw passion, and visceral resonance, a player pushing the edges of the guitar’s possibilities. Between 2007 to 2023, Mendoza also wrote the slow-burning, incandescent songs collected on The Circular Train, an album consisting entirely of her single-tracked guitar playing and, on two songs, her strikingly corporeal singing.

Marcelo Galter Trio with Ilessi

Marcelo Galter (piano), Ilessi (voice), Ldson Galter (double bass) & Reinaldo Boaventura (drums, percussion)

Brazilian pianist and composer Marcelo Galter has developed a distinctive musical language through his ongoing exploration of Bahia’s musical traditions and their possibilities for reinvention. His latest album, Marcelo Galter investiga a beleza sem fim de Dorival Caymmi, explores Caymmi’s creative universe, translating the rhythms and textures of samba de roda, viola machete, berimbau and Afro-Bahian drums into a contemporary piano language.

Joined by bassist Ldson Galter and percussionist Reinaldo Boaventura, Marcelo brings this musical exploration to the stage in a trio shaped by collective improvisation and rhythmic interplay. Singer and composer Ilessi joins as a special guest, adding another dimension to the dialogue between composition, improvisation and the musical traditions of Bahia.

Stemeseder–Lillinger with Axel Dörner

Elias Stemeseder (keyboards), Christian Lillinger (percussion) & Axel Dörner (trumpet)

In Stemeseder–Lillinger, manipulations of signal paths and the use of self-produced samples allow for novel causal chains within the music and a reciprocal feedback between the perfomers and their instruments. Stemeseder–Lillinger have released three duo albums—Penumbra, Penumbra II, and Antumbra (all on Plaist)—as well as three ensemble records on Intakt:  Umbra (with Peter Evans, Russell Hall, DoYeon Kim & Brandon Seabrook), Umbra II (with Peter Evans & Russell Hall), and Umbra III (with Craig Taborn). 

Harsh Narayan, sarangi

Evening raga with Friedemann Zintel, tabla

Grégoire Simon, violin/viola
Under the Voice (for solo viola) and a collaborative work with Irene Galindo Quero for violin and pedals

Roy Montgomery, solo guitar

Across an array of peerless solo and collaborative releases on labels like Kranky, Siltbreeze and VHF, Roy Montgomery is the architect of a widescreen drone aesthetic exploring psychedelic abstraction and pastoral minimalism.

“The slow washes and thunder-cracks of guitar. . . come across like a grey Antipodean version of the tone poems of late European Romanticism, in which landscape might somehow be translated straight into musical texture: Sibelius in Lyttleton” – The Wire

growthrings is the solo project of Oleksandra Kopelyan. Drawing on Slavic folk traditions and polyphonic singing, she explores the voice as both a musical instrument and a source of texture. Layered vocal arrangements, dark synthesizers, field recordings, and noise weave together into a distinctive form of sonic storytelling that evokes the troubadour tradition. 

ELISION

Paula Rae (flute), Peter Veale (oboe), Ryan Williams (recorders), Joshua Hyde (saxophone), Benjamin Marks (trombone), Alex Waite (piano)

ELISION is Australia’s 17-member ensemble focusing on complex and virtuosically challenging aesthetics, a unique instrumentarium, and work in cross-disciplinary artforms. ELISION is especially acknowledged for its authoritative interpretations of the music of Liza Lim, Richard Barrett, Mary Bellamy, Aaron Cassidy, Evan Johnson, Turgut Erçetin, and many others.

Apricot trees exist

• Liza Lim, throat song excerpt from Sex Magic (2020) for solo ocarina

• Aaron Cassidy, l.d._p.c. (t.c.h.) (2010) for solo piano                          

• Aaron Cassidy, The wreck of former boundaries (2016) for solo saxophone                                     

• Richard Barrett, sorcerer (2023-24) for solo pedal steel guitar

• Nardi Simpson, new work (2026) for solo trombone

• Marta Gentilluci, flutters étude (2023) for solo recorder

• Victor Arul, new work (2026) for flute, oboe and trombone

• Liza Lim, apricot trees exist, apricot trees exist (2026) for solo alto saxophone

• Richard Barrett, all night invisibility flickers on & off visibly (natural causes VI) – duo 2 (2021-22) for soprano saxophone and electronic keyboard

Morton Feldman, Crippled Symmetry (1983)

Ensemble KNM Berlin & Guests

Rebecca Lenton (flutes), Joseph Houston (piano, celesta) & Michael Weilacher (percussion)

Morton Feldman’s Crippled Symmetry (1983) unfolds over roughly 90 minutes, played by three musicians on flute and bass flute; percussion; and piano and celesta. Inspired in part by the subtle irregularities of Turkish rug patterns, the music uses recurring figures across independent, unsynchronized parts. As the parts move at different rates, the figures overlap in changing combinations 

Paul Lytton, Ken Vandermark & Nate Wooley Trio

Paul Lytton (drums/electronics), Ken Vandermark (reeds) & Nate Wooley (trumpet/electronics)

In celebration of their upcoming double album, three key figures of the international experimental and improvised music scenes— Paul Lytton, Ken Vandermark, and Nate Wooley—will be touring Europe during November of 2026. The recordings are a double document: the first showcasing Lytton’s rarely heard work on electronics, the other his drumming, taken from the Haarlem stop on the trio's 2025 European tour.

Vandermark and Wooley have been working as a duo for almost a decade, touring in both the States and in Europe, and have released three critically acclaimed albums together. Both have performed and recorded with Lytton many times, and the three of them issued an album of trio material as part of the double CD, The Nows, in 2012.  

Morton Feldman, Triadic Memories (1981)  

Jared Redmond, piano

Triadic Memories is a solo piano composition written by Morton Feldman in 1981, marking a key transition into his late, large-scale period. Lasting roughly 90 minutes, Feldman called the piece as "a conscious attempt at formalizing a disorientation of memory", where repeated chords and arpeggiated patterns recur without a traditional functional or directional progression.

Jared Redmond is a pianist-composer whose repertoire stretches from music of the 16th through 21st centuries. As a composer, Jared’s works deal especially in literary and historical allusion, expressive microtonalism, and increasingly, music for the piano. He also develops experimental compositions and new notation systems for Korean traditional performers.  

Kim–Viner–Lillinger 

DoYeon Kim (gayageum), Jeremy Viner (saxophone & clarinet) & Christian Lillinger (drums & percussion)

DoYeon Kim is known for her pioneering performances and compositions that have expanded the role of the gayageum, an ancient Korean zither, in contemporary music.  

Jeremy Viner is a founding member of Sifters, with Kate Gentile and Marc Ducret, a trio exploring complex polyrhythmic frameworks, counterpoint, and the integration of composed and spontaneous form. He has also performed and recorded with the chamber-minimalist ensemble Bing & Ruth for over two decades. Snce 2012, he has been a member of the four-tenor-saxophone quartet Battle Trance, whose music uses breath, resonance, and close ensemble coordination to create a single shifting body of sound. 

Christian Lillinger is a drummer, composer, curator, producer, and founder of PLAIST. His artistic practice is characterized by high structural density, dynamic precision, and a distinctive approach to sound, form, and collective interaction. Lillinger develops unique temporal and textural frameworks that blur the lines between composition and improvisation.

The first of two nights curated by Norway's Motvind Records 

Andreas Røysum Ensemble

Andreas Røysum (clarinets), Axel Dörner (trumpet), Signe Emmeluth (alto sax), Tobias Delius (tenor sax), Hans Kjorstad (violin), Egil Kalman (modular synthesizer), Magnus Nergaard (double bass) & Hans Hulbækmo (drums)

Andreas Røysum’s ensemble normally comprises a wind quartet, a string quartet (including two double basses), tabla, and drums. Tonight Andreas presents an eight-piece version of the ensemble, including guests Axel Dörner and Tobias Delius. 

Monkey Plot

Christian Winther (guitar), Magnus Skavhaug Nergaard (bass), and Jan Martin Gismervik (drums) present Yndling (Motvind Records, 2026), their fourth studio album. Built around fuzzy bass loops and intricate guitar interplay, it is the band’s most sonically diverse release to date.

The second of two nights curated by Norway's Motvind Records 

Miman 

Hans Kjorstad (guitar), Andreas Røysum (clarinet) & Egil Kalman (synthesizer, double bass) with guest Fredrik Rasten (guitars) draw upon Norwegian, English and Indian folk music, blending them with elements of free jazz and contemporary music 

Kalman & Hulbækmo
Egil Kalman (double bass, modular synthesizer, and mouth harp) and Hans Hulbækmo (drums, percussion, and mouth harp) draw on Norwegian and Swedish folk rhythms, free jazz, and experimental electronic music. Their duo combines composed and improvised music, using rhythm and unusual timbres to explore different experiences of time.

Amalie Dahl's Dafnie with Lisa Ullén present Live at Kafé Hærverk (Trost Records 2026)

Amalie Dahl (alto saxophone), Oscar Andreas Haug (trumpet), Jørgen Bjelkerud (trombone), Nicolas Leirtrø (double bass), Veslemøy Narvesen (drums) and Lisa Ullén (piano)

In 2025, Amalie Dahl’s Dafnie performed as Dafnie EXTENDED, marking the start of its collaboration with pianist Lisa Ullén. On Live at Kafé Hærverk, their new album on Trost Records, Ullén and the quintet play Dahl’s compositions, moving between written material and improvisation. The album follows the band's two earlier releases: Dafnie (Sonic Transmissions Records 2022) and Står op med solen (Sonic Transmissions Records / Aguirre 2024).

IFANAME

Mats Gustafsson (saxophone), Jan St. Werner (electronics) & Johan Berthling (double bass) with guest Mariá Portugal (drums)

Mats Gustafsson met Jan St. Werner in 2019, when they performed with Peter Brötzmann and a group of improvisers in Berlin. Mats and Jan recognized their mutual passion for performing not just inside spaces, but also with them, activating environments and shaping sound through diversion. Mats then introduced Johan Berthling, whose complex bass explorations complement the frantic jitter of Mats’ saxophone and pedals and Werner’s digital nerdery.

IFANAME

Mats Gustafsson (saxophone), Jan St. Werner (electronics) & Johan Berthling (double bass) with guest Mariá Portugal (clarinets)

Mats Gustafsson met Jan St. Werner in 2019, when they performed with Peter Brötzmann and a group of improvisers in Berlin. Mats and Jan recognized their mutual passion for performing not just inside spaces, but also with them, activating environments and shaping sound through diversion. Mats then introduced Johan Berthling, whose complex bass explorations complement the frantic jitter of Mats’ saxophone and pedals and Werner’s digital nerdery.

Dylan Kerr & Rebecca Lane, For Thee Further 

Dylan Kerr and Rebecca Lane present their recent work for voices, quarter-tone bass flute, piccolo and tape.

Wrong Norma present their new work Mondegreen, a concert-length work based on mishearing how the bell tolls. 

Jessie Marino (fiddle, electronics), Inga Margrete Aas (double bass), Jennifer Torrence (percussion), Ane Marthe Sørlien Holen (percussion) & Sigrun Rogstad Gomnæs (percussion)