IMPROV SPACES MUSIC FESTIVAL

Thanks for attending the 2025 Improv Spaces Music Festival!

The 2025 Improv Spaces Music Festival took place on June 7, 2025 10am-10pm at the Round Lake Auditorium (2 Wesley Ave, Round Lake, NY) 2025 Festival Program

IMPROV SPACES held the first annual 2024 IMPROV SPACES Music Festival in Saratoga County in collaboration with the Round Lake Auditorium from May 29-June 2, 2024, providing space and collaborative opportunities for a range of improv artists to perform, for the general public during a span of five days, including interdisciplinary experimental collaborations, dancing, and food.

SESSIONS & WORKSHOPS

IMPROV SESSIONS
IMPROV SPACES is hosting Improv Sessions — a monthly series of invited improv sessions with musicians that began July 2024 at multiple locations throughout the region including at the Troy Savings Bank Music Hall, Saratoga Arts, Round Lake Auditorium, YESFOLK, and The Barn at Rock City Falls.

The Improv Sessions are meant to bring together musicians working in improvisation who are interested in collaborating with and meeting other musicians, expanding their practice, getting feedback, or building future projects and collaborations.

PAST WORKSHOPS

Open Office Hours
This past spring 2024, Improv Spaces hosted a series of weekly “Open Office Hours” with Saratoga Arts with musicians and artists and was open to the general public involved in improvisation and interdisciplinary improvisation including with music, performance, poetry, and visual arts. The open workshop/session-like atmosphere was meant to welcome artists to come together in an open jam format and to network and form collaborations together.

PERFORMANCES

IMPROV SPACES presents the work of musicians and interdisciplinary artists both locally and beyond.

UPCOMING PERFORMANCES:

SAVE THE DATE!

IMPROV SPACES FALL 2025 SEASON IS HERE
Up Next!

December!

PUBLIC WORKSHOP / EVENT

December 11, 2025

Illusions of Time

Finding your place in the challenge of continuity

Pheeroan akLaff 

Participants will engage with a purview of the social, political, and heightened sensitivity of jazz pedagogy, its impact, and meaning in American life. They will advance cognizance of pre-colonial and African diaspora art practices that fostered jazz as a response to Euro-centric performance art practices.

Workshop

This workshop is approximately 75 minutes in duration and is driven by the interaction of the participants. It will explore rhythm in music, poetry, and world events, as well as the impressions the cycles have on our immediate and recorded histories. We will listen to ancient sounds, modern sounds, and reflect upon their significance in our daily lives. We will engage in playful challenge and record our reactions to what is demanded of us in protocols. There is no need for musical training for these exercises. Our goal will be to gain a new perspective from an unexpected source and refresh our sense of curiosity.

Topics covered will include:
From Full Circle To Whole Cylinder 

Finding Voice Wrestling with Homeostasis
Shepherding the Metamorphosis
This will be followed by a solo by akLaff

The program is open to percussionists and non-percussionists and will also expose participants to discussions probing the spiritual, stylistic, political, and economic environments within 19th and 20th Century Jazz creators. Reference Authors may include Psyche Loui, Robert Palmer, Gary Giddins, Giovanni Rosellini, Jon Parales, Bill Cole, Ben Sidran, Oliver Sachs, Ingrid Monson, Stanley Crouch, Roger Riggins, Chip Stern, and Jose Arguelles, alongside Reference Musician Biographies such as Blind Tom, Willie Ruff, Thelonius Monk, Cannonball Adderley, Art Taylor, and Yusef Lateef.

Participants may be asked to bring a few simple materials to support the workshop activities, including a plastic bucket of any kind (preferably in the large Lowe’s, Home Depot, or joint-compound size), any colors of magic markers, and a notebook. A Swiss Army knife or screwdriver may also be brought if available, though it is not necessary.

THURSDAY, DEC 11, 2025
TIME 7-9PM
LOCATION Arts Letters & Numbers, 1548 Burden Lake Road, Averill Park, NY
ADMISSION Free to the public with suggested donation $20

Artist Bio

Pheeroan akLaff’s signature drumming with adventuresome composers has been voluminously documented. His studies with “Pistol” Allen (Motown) and Randall Hicks (NJSO), was broadened by living and working in Abidjan, Cote D’ivoire, with the African ballet company of Marie Rose Guiraud, and by meeting Fela Anikulapo Kuti, and Steve Rhodes in Lagos Nigeria.  He participated in U.S. State Department tours of nine African nations, the Near East, and India. He has toured Japan and Korea with national treasure artist Yamashita Yosuke since 1988. He made groundbreaking collaborations with Oliver Lake, Wadada Leo Smith, Anthony Davis, Henry Threadgill, Liu Sola, Tom Pierson, Andrew Hill, Cecil Taylor, Anthony Braxton, and has interdisciplinary work with Dr. Psyche Loui and Dr. Julian F. Thayer. Through Seed Artists, a New York City and Montclair, New Jersey based non-profit, akLaff presents and expands the terrain of creative music. https://pheeroanaklaff.com/home

In collaboration with Arts Letters & Numbers

Images courtesy of Pheeroan akLaff. All rights reserved by the artist.

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ARCHIVE OF PAST PERFORMANCES:

TUES. SEPT. 30th 7-9pm
Mt. Ida Preservation Hall
548 Congress St. Troy, NY
Tickets $20

MATTHEW RYALS
djdrummernk

Join us for a special evening of immersive sound and light at Mt. Ida Preservation Hall with New York City-based Matt Ryals and Capital Region’s own djdrummernk.

As a synthesist and composer-improviser whose music delves into improvisation, real-time sound generation, cybernetics, chance operations, and archival experimentation, Matthew takes a highly tactile live approach to the modular synthesizer—much like an acoustic musician shaping sound, he manipulates electricity by constantly adjusting dials, switches, and patch points, allowing each performance to unfold spontaneously in the moment. He has performed his music internationally, including concerts in Taiwan, Hong Kong, Europe, and across North America

Described as “a sonic explorer on the frontier of experimental music” whose work is “a fascinating foray to the edges of generative music production” (Plastic Mag), Matthew’s music has been praised for its “full-blown cybernetic synth shocks and mirrors” that are “unabashedly confident” (Tabs Out) and for treating sounds “as if they were alive, breathing” to create something “truly immersive and unforgettable” (Beats Per Minute).

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.

collage by Eric Sorg

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More information

March 30, 2025 —
Co-Sponsored by Improv Spaces

More Music Less Violence presents
Girls Need Love 2
The Independent Artists Experience
5-8PM
at The Madison Theatre
1036 Madison Ave, Albany, NY

All women line-up — $10 cover
featuring Lace, Aila, Ke $upreme, Attaquinetta, V3X, Shaun Jeannette, Aniya Kouture, Goldenkisses, Chelsea Denae, Gracie Lineham,
and Alex Chang
Photo by Kémiyah Griffin

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FEBRUARY 25, 2025

Location: Troy Savings Bank Music Hall
30 Second Street, Troy, NY
Time: 7-9pm

More information

DECEMBER 2, 2024

AN ILL-FITTING GARMENT—
Album Release Tour

with Eli Wallace, Bill Harris,
Josh Berman and Ishmael Ali
& special opening performance by
Matt Weston

Location: Mt. Ida Preservation Hall
548 Congress St, Troy, NY
Time: 7:30-9:30pm
Tickets on sale now! Eventbrite link: $20 suggested donation

Join us on the first stop of the album release tour of An Ill​-​Fitting Garment featuring Brooklyn and Chicago-based musicians Eli Wallace, piano; Bill Harris, drums; Josh Berman, cornet; and Ishmael Ali, cello. The evening will open with a special performance by Albany-based percussionist Matt Weston.

Special Thanks to Artist Pianos

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THANKS! To everyone who came to
The Long Jam!

Time: 6:30pm-8pm
Location: Outdoor performance at Saratoga Arts Center 320 Broadway, Saratoga Springs, NY 12866
Free with suggested donation of $10-20
More Info

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Thursday, July 18, 2024 — Improv Spaces presents
fluxxbaby ‚girlflux EP‘ RELEASE TOUR and DEATH RATTLED
@ Saratoga Arts Theater 8-9h30pm more

fluxxbaby

Death Rattled

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Sunday, March 17, 2024 — Improv Spaces presents
EARTH TONGUES “Anenome” and SUN DOGS —
@ Saratoga Arts Theater 5-7pm more

Earth Tongues

Sun Dogs