WEDNESDAY 3/30	THURSDAY 3/31	FRIDAY 4/1
Ben Bracken	Ri Crawford	Molly Thompson
Dorsey Dunn	Dorsey Dunn / Vitas Germanavicius	David Holton
Chris Kubick	Keda Wang	Vitas Germanavicius
Michael McCormick	Sean Clute	Jeffrey Gordon
Agnes Szelag		Marisol Jimenez
Seth Warren
Theresa Wong
SATURDAY 4/2		SUNDAY 4/3
Luis Maurette		Joel Chapen
Terran Olson		Darren Johnston
James Sinclair		Seth Warren
Joel Chapen		Brian Montone
Kiku Day		Brian Pardo
Martin McGinn		Eric Roth
Gregg Kowalsky

BEN BRACKEN is a member of quiet band Flashpapr and improvising ensemble The Remote Viewing Ensemble. He has performed and recorded with His Name Is Alive, Le-Quan Ninh, Brent Guetzeit, Kevin Drumm, Michael Colligan, Ernst Long, Kyle Bruckman, Eric Cook, Warn Defever's 100 Years Band, as well as pop bands Showdown at the Equator and Saturday Looks Good To Me. Most recently, Ben has completed a remix for the upcoming TV-Pow CD on Bottrop-Boy, performed and recorded with Gino Robair's "I, Norton" project. He is currently enrolled in the MFA of Electronic Music and Recording Media at Mills College in Oakland, CA and is focusing his studies on more installation oriented works. Ben has improvised with Peter Kowald, Chris Cutler, Phil Minton, Fred Van Hove, Johannes Bauer, Kevin Drumm, TV Pow, Fred Lonberg-Holm's Lightbox Orchestra, Brent Gutzeit, Kyle Bruckman, Ernst Karel, Gene Coleman, Werner Dafeldecker, Gene Coleman, Gino Robair's I Norton Project, The Northwoods Improvisers, and Bracken/Bauder/Siegel/Wallace, among others.

JOEL CHAPEN studied at the University of North Carolina at Asheville where he received a BS in Music Technology where he studied under Dr. Wayne Kirby. Joel completed an internship at Moog Music Inc. where he worked assembling electronic instruments for Bob Moog. Joel is now working toward mastering the basics of classical guitar. He is also interested in reflecting inner points of view in his work, states of mind and impressions that occur only in the subconscious.

SEAN CLUTE is an inventor of sound, installation, and performance. He has built and performed in geodesic domes, suspended pods, and interactive sonic environments. Sean has performed music and live-video at such venues as The Kitchen (NYC), TED2005 (Technology Entertainment and Design Conference), CEAIT Festival, PBS series "Meaning of the 21st Century", and the Autonomous Mutant Festival. He is also the Un-Director of DOUBLE VISION, an intermedia performance collective.

RI CRAWFORD was born in South Carolina where it is very hot and humid. Such conditions are perfectly conducive to a high diversity of frogs and toads the vocalizations of which can be extremely informative to composition. A guitar player, Ri likes electronics and computers because they enable him to make music with things like frogs, trains, the sounds of Saturn's moon Titan, as well as other musicians.

KIKU DAY, from Copenhagen, Denmark, is a player of the ancient type of shakuhachi (Japanese, vertical, notched, oblique bamboo flute), called ji-nashi shakuhachi (literally: shakuhachi without filler. The filler is lacquer and grinded stone paste added to the bore). This shakuhachi have less volume than the modern shakuhachi, but has a more complex sonority. This suits well with Kiku’s interest in exploring texture and timbre. Kiku began studying piano at the age of three, later changed to flute, and encountered the complex, soft sound of the ji-nashi shakuhachi.during her travel in Japan. She immediately became a student of Okuda Atsuya, with whom she studied honkyoku (repertoire of the komusô, monks of the Fuke Sect of Zen Buddhism) for 11 years before returning to Europe. She is currently pursuing her MFA in Music Performance and Literature at Mills College

Raised in East Asia and a veteran of many cities, DORSEY DUNN is a San Francisco-based artist. His work in sound, text and image, in the form of installations, performances and written and recorded works, is an extended meditation on the perimeters of language, the movements of silence, and the vagaries of comprehension. Language, whether in speech, vocal texture, or other sound, is an important component of his work, as are considerations of public and private, revelation and hiding, freedom and fear. Dorsey performs and exhibits his music and sound installations in the US and Europe regularly. He is currently at work on a series of installation pieces, including a full production of a large-scale audiovisual work, The Narcissus Project, and on a series of live performances of music for acoustic and electronic saxophones and electronics. He has scored and produced music for film, theater, and dance. His latest score, for the film ‘IPO’, appeared at the Slamdance and Cinequest film festivals in Spring 2004 and opened the Film Arts Festival in San Francisco last fall. Previously, he edited an international literary magazine, Trafika. He was educated in New York City.

VITAS GERMANAVICIUS was born in Vilnius, Lithuania. In 1996, he graduated from the Lithuanian Academy of Music with a BA and MA in composition. He received a Fulbright Scholarship for electronic music and recording media studies at Mills College, USA (2003), a UNESCO-Aschberg Bursary for residence at The Banff Centre for the Arts, Canada (2000), the Sir William Glock Scholarship to attend Dartington International Summer Courses, UK (1996), and the Lithuanian State Individual Grant for Artists (2001-2003). Germanavicius has composed many works for chamber ensemble, orchestra, choir, traditional instruments and electronics – with a special interest in computer-controlled live sound performance. Germanavicius’ music has been performed by prominent orchestras and ensembles, – including the Cuarteto Latinoamericano, the Amstel and Stockholm Saxophone Quartets, the Helikon Ensemble, Kammarensemblen, and the Lithuanian National Symphony Orchestra, among others – at international contemporary music festivals in Europe, Asia and America including Vancouver New Music; the Niagara International Chamber Music Festival; ISCM World Music Days in Hong Kong and Japan; Foro International De Musica Nueva, Mexico; 8th Silesian Days of Contemporary Music in Katowice, Poland; Kyiv Music Fest, Ukraine and concerts in Austria, Denmark, England, Germany, Latvia, Netherlands, Sweden, Switzerland, USA. Music released: Amstel saxophone quartet www.amstel4tet.nl/onlineshop.htm 2D2N Festival 2000 www.anm.odessa.ua/fest/f-cds.html Scores published: www.mic.lt

Born in Las Vegas, NV, JEFFREY GORDON received his BA in Music Composition from The College Of Creative Studies at The University of California, Santa Barbara in 2001. He's currently in his second and final year in the MA Music Composition program at Mills College. Jeffrey's interests are diverse. Jeffrey is a black belt in Judo and Karate, an ordained minister in The First Church of the Universal Spiritualist Revival, and can do the splits three ways.

DAVID HOLTON received his BS and MS degrees in geophysics and went to work for the US Geological Survey where he was part of a team that mapped out a little piece of the ocean floor near San Diego. He then went to San Francisco State University to study composition and electronic music with Josh Levine, and subsequently enrolled in the electronic music program at Mills. He composes for both instruments and electronics and is interested in computer-assisted decision-making strategies that work in either domain.

Born in Guadalajara, Mexico in 1978, Marisol Jiménez began her musical studies by studying piano at an early age. Her catalog includes a variety of chamber, orchestral, electronic, and electro-acoustic works. She has also created music in collaborative art projects for video, short films, dance, and public art interventions. In May of 2003 she completed her degree of Bachelor in Music composition at the University of Oregon. She is currently completing a graduate program at Mills College. She has been the recipient of several scholarships and Grants like the Presser Award Scholarship (2002) and the scholarship for Young Artists, “Jovenes Creadores 2003-2004 given by the Mexican National Endowment for Fine Arts “FONCA”. Her music has been performed in concerts and music festivals in Mexico, U.S.A. and Europe.

DARREN JOHNSTON, originally from Ontario, Canada, has been living in the Bay Area since 1997. He has been fortunate enough to play a wide variety of styles, with a wide variety of inspiring musicians. He has worked with experimental, new music artists such as Fred Frith, Adam Lane's Full Throttle Orchesra, the ROVA Saxaphone Quartet's large ensemble project ORCHESTROVA, featuring Satoko Fuji and Natsuki Tamura, Marcos Oneidi and Wolter Wierbos. Darren has also performed more straight-jazz with Herbie Lewis, the Marcus Shelby Orchestra, and the Contemporary Jazz Orchestra, jump blues with the Swing Session, soul with the O'Jays, blues with Buddy Miles, salsa withTito Nieves, reggae, afro-beat, European Classical, hip hop, and a variety of hybrids as well, such as the Realistic Orchesra and Scott Amendola. In the dance world Darren has collaborated with local companies such as Kunst-Stoff, Rapt, Dandelion Dance Theatre, Savage Jazz (via the Marcus Shelby Orchesra), and for two years the all-improvised 14 Bells project, featuring local dancers as well as members of Ballet Frankfurt and the Dutch National Ballet. As a band leader Darren runs the United Brassworkers Front, the Empty Chamber Ensemble, the Scenty-Gents, Calgija, and the Darren Johnston Trio.

Born in New York City and raised in South Florida, GREGG KOWALSKY has had the opportunity to perform throughout Europe and the United States under the Osso Bucco moniker for the past several years from his former home in Barcelona, Spain. He participated in festivals such as WDR’s SoundArt-Köln Festival, Sonar, OFFF (Online Flash-Film Festival) and The Nursery Summer Festival in Sweden alongside artists like Stephan Mathieu, Taylor Dupree, Keith Fullerton Whitman, Akira Rabelais, Thomas Koner and others. He now resides in Oakland, California where he is studying in the Master of Fine Arts program in Electronic Music and Recording Media at Mills College. Kowalsky’s compositions range from textural ambient to drone and noise pieces, which are highly influenced by the thick, humid air of South Florida where Gregg lived for most of his life. He is interested in creating a balance between the organic and inorganic by layering textures of processed acoustic instruments along with found sounds and field recordings. Gregg is scheduled to release a full-length album in 2005, as well as a compilation tracks for Audiodregs, Ideal Recordings and Nosordo labels. Thus far, he has released a Split Cd with Ljudbilden & Piloten on the Nosordo label, several compilation tracks and a host of mp3 releases on Komplott, Tu m’ and Antiopic labels. www.ossobucco.net, www.nosordo.com

CHRIS KUBICK is an artist and sound designer whose work focuses on speech and other human sounds. He is the founder and director of Language Removal Services (languageremoval.com). His sound work has been heard internationally, in installations at places such as the Whitney Museum of American Art and the Venice Biennale, as well as on radio programs such as NPR’s “All Things Considered”. With the artist Anne Walsh he has created the "Art After Death" series of cd's (www.doublearchive.com), as well as installations and performances at many venues internationally, including the Whitney Biennial and the Tate Museum in London England. He has also created sound for films and videos which range from sublime films which have won awards from places such as the Walker Center for the Arts, to B-grade Hollywood monster movies.

LUIS MAURETTE is from Buenos Aires, Argentina. He has been making music since childhood and has had the fortune of living in many different countries. He holds degrees from Berklee College of Music and the CCMIX in Paris and is currently completing an MFA degree from Mills College in Electronic Music. Luis has delved into numerous musical worlds, including improvisation, production, electro-acoustic compositions, art installations and perfomances. I am currently in pursuit of a music that is aware and present. The two pieces being premiered at Signal Flow - “El Canto al Gallo” and “In Between” - honor death in hope of illuminating life.

MICHAEL McCORMICK grew up in San Diego, California, where his primary years involved working with any parts and tools available.  His father taught him how to build a house and landscape a yard while his grandfather took him to the Marine Physical Laboratory to design and fabricate fantastic toys and experiments.  This combination of experiences engendered a love of manual labor and a desire to create, which Michael adapted to live-sound engineering at UCSD's student-staffed Technical Services.  In addition to learning with the Technical Crew, the undergraduate education at UCSD provided Michael with the opportunity to study acoustics, sound synthesis, recording studio practice, psychoacoustics, programming for computer music, and electronics.  He also worked at the Center for Research for Computing and the Arts where he became friends with the sound artist Ted Apel.  Ted's work inspired Michael, and after a few experiments Michael began indulging his creative drive by constructing sound sculpture of his own.  Michael is now in his second year at Mill's College continuing to explore his newest passion.  Documentation lives at http://dipolesource.org

MARTIN McGINN (b. 1981) grew up in central Iowa. He began composing at the age of 15 and, while in high school, won first place in the Iowa Composers Forum Student Composition Contest two years in succession. Martin's compositions led him to the University of Iowa where he studied composition with Dimitri Papageorgiou, David Gompper, Lawrence Fritts and Amelia Kaplan. At Iowa Martin had two of his compositions, Oscillations and Two Songs to Poems by David Williamson, premiered by the Center for New Music. After graduating in 2003 with a BM in composition he moved to California to pursue an MA degree at Mills College. While at Mills Martin has studied with Pauline Oliveros and Fred Frith.

TERRAN OLSON studied music and Hampshire College, spent the next few years making records with maudlin of the Well, Kayo Dot, and Autumn Tears, and is currently pursuing graduate studies in composition at Mills College.

BRIAN PARDO has spent 25 years as a professional jazz guitarist and composer.  He has performed, toured or recorded nationally with Jack McDuff, Eddie Harris, Stan Getz and, locally, with Chuck Israels Bonnie Raitt, Mark Levine, Paul Hanson and David Garibaldi among others. He has written music for radio and television commercials and co-composed the score for a feature length documentary film entitled "Everyday Heroes" produced for PBS in 2002. In his time at Mills he has learned a tremendous amount from his teachers and fellow students and has been introduced to a myriad of wonderful new musical ideas.  There's so much music left to explore!! At this time he is hoping to win the lottery and spend the rest of his life in the studio composing, recording and ordering take-out. Until then, however, he continues to work commercially and is on the faculties of the Jazzschool in Berkeley, the Bentley School and Diablo Valley College.

ERIC ROTH (b. 1977, Chicago, USA) is a composer, performer (voice, percussion, conductor), and an author of poetry and essays.  His musics feature exotic musical shapes and animals, deviant harmonies, shadow narratives, texts, creative applications of incidental sounds, theater, indeterminacy and improvisation.  Particularly interested in live performance, Eric has written for chamber orchestra, solo snare drum, very large improvising ensemble, string quartet, voices, books, piano, electronics, found/collected sounds, solo performer with fountain, kiddie pool, pail and potted plant, and other ensembles.  His compositions have been performed in New York City, London, Chicago, San Francisco and elsewheres. Upcoming premieres include at the shiny altar of time and space for E-flat clarinet with real time digital processing at Mills College and Bible Thumpin’ V for three performers with bibles for the Music for People and Thingamajigs Festival (both in Oakland, May 2005).  Eric has participated as a composer, performer, producer and arranger for many live performances and on nearly 30 recordings including his own Anathema, Program 16 and explosion: cerebral (a cooperative) with plans for new releases. Currently residing in Oakland, California, Eric will complete his Master of Arts in music composition at Mills College this May and begin Doctoral studies in New York in the Fall.  Composition teachers include Fred Frith, Joelle Leandre, Alvin Curran and Stephen Rush.

Although born a "commie" AGNES SZELAG was given a microphone and recording device at age 4, and recorded many great hits throughout her childhood. In Junior High she took up the cello and played in super geeky orchestras all the way through college. She was also always interested in photography and received a film and video degree from Northwestern University in Evanstion, IL. Although she changes monikers like underwear Agnes has been producing electronic music and visuals in the bay area for the past 6 years. She has been teaching media arts at Ex'pression College for Digital Arts for the past 5 years, as well as running a business and doing freelance media work. She self-released an album in 2002 as well as producing some music for a dance troop named Capacitor. Over the last two years she has coupled with Abe Dichi to make some "comfort food", and they have been playing out live. Agnes has also been doing VJ gigs for the past two years. This year she released a full length DVD of her own audio/visual work, as well as featuring three songs on a compilation named Konstrukt ions. Most recently Agnes has started an M.F.A program in Electronic Music at Mills College. This fall she has performed at multiple events as "aggiflex" doing both visuals and playing music, as well as putting on a series of events herself. In November she performed at San Francisco's first all female electronic music festival -Estrogenesis. Agnes hopes to continue performing and making new exciting interactions between her music, movement, and video. Her piece “inhabitants” in Signal Flow is a site-specific installation. Even when first visiting the school Agnes was very inspired by this site when she saw it. She was compelled to put some life and movement into a space that has been unused and forgotten for quite some time. Her piece involves sound, projected video, wood, water and smoke. www.aggiflex.com

JAMES SINCLAIR started his first band in LA when he was 13. he went on to perform in punk bands, puppet theatres, folk groups, and electronic noise ensembles throughout the west coast. these pieces for signal flow reflect the academic work enviornment at mills and his extra ciricular studies in ontology, meta-programming, and neurosomatics.

Composer/performer MOLLY THOMPSON has written music for concerts, independent film, and multimedia performance. She has been commissioned by the California E.A.R. Unit, Composers Collaborative Inc., Margaret Lancaster, and Kathy Supové and has been resident at Villa Montalvo and the Oregon Bach Festival. The LA Times called Draft of Shadows “a clever mash-up of tango, rock rhythms, and taped city noises,” Spoleto Today called The Great Hush “eerie and lovely,” while the New York Times described Our Mingling Arms as “rhapsodic music with…jazzy outbursts and exuberant chaos.” Thompson’s work has been performed at the Santa Fe New Music Festival, Spoleto USA, Stanford University’s Campbell Recital Hall, The Salvador Dali Museum, and at New York performance spaces such as The Bowery Poetry Club, The Cutting Room, The Flea Theatre, and the Sanford Meisner Theater.

KEDA WANG. Born in 1976, I spent most of my life in Beijing until 2001, when I moved to Texas to start my Journey to the West. However, the real adventure began after I entered Mills College, CA, in the fall of 2003. Coming from a different academic as well as cultural background, I am in a constant struggle with the adaptation and reorientation of my new life and environment. I was thus forced to deal with the conflict between my inner world and the external reality. On the one hand, it's a good news to my music. Because finally I had something I could genuinely bring to my music works. My joyful pain, my hopeless hope, my blank dream and my unsatisfied hunger. Let’s see where this Journey to the West will lead me.

SETH WARREN grew up in New Hampshire, studied English Literature and Religion at Lawrence University in Wisconsin and began an MFA in Electronic Music and Recording Media at Mills College in 2003. He creates electro-acoustic music, sound sculptures and installations, sound design for theater and film, and performs as a drummer and percussionist in the bay area and abroad. Among other things, he is currently interested in how nature as a social and biological construction is mediated through technology.

THERESA WONG (b.1976, Schenectady, NY) “I myself feel more committed the more diverse and multiplied my interests and actions become.” -John Cage, from Lecture on Commitment Theresa Wong is a cellist, composer and artist exploring a sound world that embraces improvisation, her instrument, voice, language and most recently, bicycles. After many years of classical piano and cello training, she studied design at Stanford University and at the University of Applied Arts in Vienna. While working as a designer in northern Italy, she met Alexander Balanescu, Koichi Makigami and Lawrence Weiner, who inspired her to explore an art form where music, design, improvisation, conceptual and performance art could coexist. Before moving into the area of installation and performance art (of which Bicycle Ride is her first work), her work in design has included tableware for Italian company Paola C., which was presented at the Milan Furniture Fair 2003, installation design for the exhibit "Gonzaga - The Celestial Gallery " at Palazzo Te in Mantova, Italy and stage design for performances of Koichi Makigami and Phil Minton with Fabrica Musica in Innsbruck and Bressanone. As a cellist, she recorded the music of Aleksi Aubrey Carlson and Ramon Schneider for the Florentine dance company Secondo Taglio, and toured with the group to festivals including Danza Reggio Emilia, the Enzimi Festival in Rome, Danza Urbana in Bologna, Bassano Operaestate Festival and the Florence Dance Festival. Returning to the Bay Area in the fall of 2003, she recorded Fred Frith’s music for Amanda Miller’s Pretty Ugly Dance Company, and has performed in Gino Robair’s opera, I-Norton, and with Moe!Staiano’s Moe!kestra. 2004 performances included a concert at Mills College directed by Joëlle Léandre, performances at the Big Sur Experimental Music Festival and with Meredith Monk in the Bay Area Meredith Monk Marathon. As an improviser, Wong collaborates in a duo with saxophonist Phillip Greenlief, exploring the expressive possibilities of their instruments while weaving voice and text into their rich musical language. She is a member of String Theory, a string ensemble including Bob Marsh, George Cremaschi and Jonathan Segel that focuses on texture and microtonality. She is also working with Italian improvisers Emanuale Primavera, Giorgio Occhipinti and Marco Braggion on a recording project of improvised music. Other recent performances include work with ROVA Saxophone Quartet founding member Jon Raskin in his epic composition, The Hear and Now. Ms. Wong is currently a Master’s student studying cello performance and improvisation.