Ensemble members performing at the April 2nd performance at Saratoga Arts:

Brian Brancato
Brian is a music educator and multi-instrumentalist from Rochester, NY. Now a resident of Troy, NY, he holds both Bachelor of Music and Master of Music degrees from SUNY Potsdam, and he has been teaching private instrumental lessons at several different studios in the area for the past five years. He has taught in the CHIME program through the Empire State Youth Orchestra, the ArtSmart program at Troy Middle School through the Troy Savings Bank Music Hall, as well as various music seminars and summer camps. Most recently, he was the elementary music director for 2025’s Shen Summer Adventures, a musical theater camp in the Shenendehowa Central School District, for their productions of Winnie the Pooh Jr. and Seussical Jr. Brian is currently a K–12 substitute teacher in Shen, teaches private lessons, and performs on the trumpet in several bands, including the NoLaNauts, Trojan Horns, Improv Spaces, and the Silver Arrow Band.

Alex Chang
Alexandra Chang is a composer, harpist, and interdisciplinary artist whose work explores improvisation, sound, and immersive performance across music, technology, and visual media. Her practice engages embodied approaches to improvisation, exploring how sound moves through the body and connects individuals through shared experience. She is a member of the Rock City Falls Trio, a cross-genre ensemble focused on collaborative improvisation and interdisciplinary performance. Drawing from free jazz, indie rock, Celtic traditions, and contemporary classical music, her work reflects the hybridity of contemporary life and her diasporic identity. She is co-director of Improv Spaces and an Associate Professor of Practice at Rutgers University.

Christian Cocco
Guitar/Bass/Synthesist based in Troy, NY.
https://c-h-r-i-s-t-i-a-n-t-h-o-m-a-s.bandcamp.com/album/a-tunnel-under

Karen Dazzler
Karen Dazzler is a game developer and music maker. When she isn’t pulling her hair out in front of a computer or complaining about animation pipelines, Karen can be found performing around Troy and the surrounding area, either on sax or keys or some combination of the two, usually playing her strange brand of electroacoustic improv. With a mix of melodic playing and spacious effects, Karen aims to create landscapes that listeners can meditate to and get lost in, drawing them into a story about a place that doesn’t exist.

Jason Handron (b.1995) is a composer and bassist from Albany, NY. He has been featured as both a composer and performer at events such as the soundSCAPE Festival (Maccagno, Italy) and the New Music Gathering (Boston, MA). He currently performs with the Rock City Falls trio and teaches private lessons in the NY Capital Region.

Jason holds a B.M. in Music Composition from the State University of New York at Fredonia and an M.M. in Music Composition from Bowling Green State University.

Derick Noetzel is a video artist and multimedia specialist from upstate NY. With a video synthesizer and video mixer, he creates live audio reactive analog “visuals” AKA video installations using several projectors and sometimes televisions.This creates an immersive experience where a light show is dependent on the sounds and shapes of the room, an additional layer of video art intertwined with the sound of the music.

Jeffrey Schanzer is a composer and guitarist involved in a wide variety of music, ranging from fully notated to fully improvised. He has studied composition with Morton Feldman and Anthony Davis and guitar with Oswald Rantucci. Jeffrey performs with his wife, composer/pianist Bernadette Speach, in Schanzer/Speach Duo, and leads the Jeffrey Schanzer Ensemble. Within the context of the Duo and his Ensemble, Jeffrey has worked with such musicians as Lester Bowie, Joseph Jarman, Leroy Jenkins, Oliver Lake, Myra Melford, Bobby Previte, Ned Rothenberg and Wadada Leo Smith. His recordings include The Past Is Present, a cantata about and by Holocaust survivors and their children, the text of which was taken from the
oral testimony of members of his family, on the Neuma label, Dualities by the Schanzer/Speach Duo on the Mode label and, as a sideman, Leroy Jenkins’ and Joseph Jarman’s Out of the Mist on Ocean Records.
https://jeffreyschanzer.com/

Although trained in the classical idiom, Bernadette Speach is equally rooted in jazz and improvisation ranging from solo, chamber, choral and orchestral. Her latest project, the opera The Little Rock Nine – a collaboration with librettist Thulani Davis, tells the story of nine students, ages 14 and 15, who integrated Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas in 1957-58. The Little Rock Nine reunites Speach with Davis. The pair redefine the art of poetry and music fusion. Speach’s post-minimalistic jazz punctuates Davis’ considerable literary depth. As a presenter she has commissioned and presented multiple composers of diverse genres. As a seasoned improviser she has performed with her husband, composer/guitarist Jeffrey Schanzer and a host of others. As pianist she is highly regarded for her interpretations of the keyboard repertoire of John Cage, including In a Landscape and pieces for toy piano.www.bernadettespeach.com

djdrummernk
djdrummernk’s work is well known to the 518 and as an artist, musician and educator, his work spans a wide range of genres across a variety of projects ranging from jazz, electronic, experimental noise, and musical theater. Thanks to eclectic background, he has opened for an uncommonly diverse collection of artists, from Mobb Deep to the New York City Ballet.

Chuck Ver Straeten

Dominique Vuvan is a multigenre-multi-instrumentalist based in the Capital Region. She also performs as part of indie-pop project Nice Hockey, experimental electro-acoustic ensemble Sun Dogs, and Adam Tinkle’s singer-songwriter project the Long-Awaited Wrinkle.