SEPTEMBER
Our program on Sunday, September 6 marked our third annual Improv Spaces Music Festival and featured more than 20 boundary-pushing musicians, composers, and collaborating artists from the Capital Region and beyond.
Thank you to all of the artists and audiences who joined us, as well as our local vendors, sponsors, and community supporters, including Yesfolk Tonics and John Keal Music.
Images of the Improv Spaces Music Festival by Kylie Spinelli.
Artists pictured from top to bottom, left to right: Matt Weston (newsletter featured image), Rock City Falls Trio, Hypercube, Adam Forman, Matthew Ryals, Erin Rogers, Alexis Marcelo and Andrew Drury, Melissa Almaguer, Jesse and Joseph Bruchac, Melissa Almaguer, Jason Handron, Matthew Ryals, and Hypercube.
We also had a wonderful time presenting a performance by an Improv Spaces Ensemble Members Trio with co-director Alex Chang on harp and electronics, Abu Zeyn on woodwinds and bass, and djdrummernk on drums at the packed Mount Ida Preservation Association Gala this past weekend on September 26.
OCTOBER
On October 10 from 7–9pm, co-directors Alex Chang and Adam Forman will perform with bassist Jason Handron as the Rock City Falls Trio for their release show celebrating their album SIGNAL at Mt. Ida Preservation Association. They will perform improvisations from the album along with other material.
The trio will also continue their new collaboration with Seattle-based multidisciplinary artist Carlin Ma, first presented at the Improv Spaces Music Festival. They will perform this work, along with Rain (from Water Suite in C# Minor), at the upcoming Soon Is Now festival on Saturday, October 17 in Beacon, NY, continuing a series of site-based engagements as the work evolves. See soonisnow.org for more information.
Rock City Falls Trio and Carlin Ma collaboration, “Re:evolution: The World at Play,” at the Improv Spaces Music Festival. Photo by Kylie Spinelli.
NOVEMBER
Improv Spaces is presenting a very special pairing of performances on Wednesday, November 18 from 7–9pm at Saratoga Arts, featuring New York artists Leo Chang performing a solo set and a trio of Eli Wallace, Joe Moffett, and Michael Foster.
We are delighted to welcome back Eli Wallace and Joe Moffett, whom we have previously presented in separate Improv Spaces programs. This time they will be joined by Michael Foster, performing material from their recent album Disquiet.
Michael Foster, Joe Moffett, and Eli Wallace. Photo by Peter Gannushkin.
Michael Foster is a NYC-based saxophonist, improviser, composer, and curator. His work as both a performer and curator is focused on the intersection of improvisation and queer identity and its implications across myriad forms of performance practice.
Joe Moffett is a trumpeter and improviser based in New York. He approaches his work with an interest in unconventional sounds and forms and the integration of improvisation and collective composition into a musical praxis.
Eli Wallace is a pianist, improviser, and composer who resides in Brooklyn, NY, where he develops his own projects and collaborates with like-minded artists. His work as a pianist displays a proclivity for non-idiomatic free improvisation, incorporating vast and elaborate piano preparations that John Lewis (The Guardian) describes as “…pushing the boundaries of the prepared piano.”
Leo Chang is a Korean-born, Queens-based experimental musician, improviser, composer, and sound artist. Informed by his transient lived experience, Leo plays with sounds, instruments, forms, and social practices outside of their original contexts. He does so using electronic audio processing and sound design, performance, individual and group improvisation, graphical notation, and text scores. Leo is also a 2026–2028 Princeton Arts Fellow, 2026 NYSCA/NYFA Artist Fellow, 2023–25 Commissioned and Resident Artist at Roulette Intermedium, and 2024 Center for Performance Research Artist-in-Residence, and has received grants from the Korea Foundation, NYFA Queens Arts Fund, and Brooklyn Arts Council.
DECEMBER
Please also mark your calendars for a holiday-season performance with the Improv Spaces Ensemble on Saturday, December 12 from 7–9pm at Mt. Ida Preservation Hall. The ensemble will perform a new original improvised work with improvised visuals by artist Derick Noetzel.
We look forward to seeing you this fall!
Alex and Adam
Co-directors, Improv Spaces
