Faculty & Guest Artist Performance | Niloufar Shiri (kamancheh), Kyle Motl (bass), and Jessika Kenney (voice)
Event Date & Time
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Event Location
Lloyd Ultan Recital Hall in Ferguson Hall
2106 4th St S
Minneapolis,
MN
55455
Niloufar Shiri (kamancheh), Kyle Motl (bass), and Jessika Kenney (voice) develop post-spectral improvisations and conversations on poetry, translation, and collective liberation. Each member brings extraordinary approaches to their knowledge and skills, based in Persian Radif, jazz, noise, ecomusicalities, and the sound of social movements.
This School of Music event is free and open to the public. A livestream will be available (click on the Lloyd Ultan Recital Hall events in the right callout box).
Artist Bios
Niloufar Shiri
Niloufar Shiri is a kamancheh player, composer, and improviser born and raised in Tehran, Iran, whose work bridges the traditional and experimental, weaving them into a singular musical language. Rooted in the Radif (the classical Persian music repertoire), Shiri’s music navigates the textural and timbral spaces of instruments' harmonic and sonic properties. Drawing inspiration from the intervallic relationships and pitch settings of traditional Iranian music, she analyzes and incorporates the spectral qualities of these extended intervals, uncovering their latent possibilities.
Shiri has composed solo works, as well as small ensembles and orchestras. She loves reimagining the sonic potential of string instruments and voice, positioning them as central elements in her explorations. Her recent album release, OSHI, is a collaboration with Isaac Otto, an L.A.-based composer and multi-woodwind performer, released on Infrequent Seams.
Her pieces have been performed by ensembles such as the JACK Quartet, Del Sol Quartet, International Contemporary Ensemble, Loadbang Ensemble, Eclipse Quartet, Hub New Music, LAMNTH, and the San Diego Symphony. She has been featured in festivals and series including Mostly Mozart, the Ojai Music Festival, Long Beach Festival, Hear Now Festival, Tehran Contemporary Music Festival, Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity, Festival POTE, Angel City Jazz Festival, Sled Island Festival.
Jessika Kenney
Jessika Kenney is a sound and voice artist, composer, teacher, and writer born on Sp'q'n'i?/Spokane lands (www.native-land.ca). Her vocal background spans from punk and jazz roots into geomusicalities, based in long-term study of Indonesian vocal practices and the singing of Classical Persian poetry and radifs with Ostad Hossein Omoumi, combined with her collaborations in electronic music, metal, and recent work centered around the Spokane River. As a composer Kenney has written for solo voices, small ensembles, traditional Javanese gamelan, traditional Korean ensembles, choirs, orchestras, and sound/video installation. Her recordings includes ATRIA, on the SIGE label, as well as many records in the duo with composer/violist Eyvind Kang including ‘Azure’, 'the face of the earth' and 'Aestuarium' on Ideologic Organ. She has recorded as a vocalist for Sarah Davachi, Alvin Lucier, Wolves In The Throne Room, as well as performing the vocal music of Scelsi, Feldman, and Cage. Jessika has collaborated with many musical gems including Lori Goldston, Holland Andrews, and Niloufar Shiri. Kenney is a student of Indonesian and Persian languages.
Niloufar Shiri is a kamancheh player, composer, and improviser born and raised in Tehran, Iran, whose work bridges the traditional and experimental, weaving them into a singular musical language. Rooted in the Radif (the classical Persian music repertoire), Shiri’s music navigates the textural and timbral spaces of instruments' harmonic and sonic properties. Drawing inspiration from the intervallic relationships and pitch settings of traditional Iranian music, she analyzes and incorporates the spectral qualities of these extended intervals, uncovering their latent possibilities.
Shiri has composed solo works, as well as small ensembles and orchestras. She loves reimagining the sonic potential of string instruments and voice, positioning them as central elements in her explorations. Her recent album release, OSHI, is a collaboration with Isaac Otto, an L.A.-based composer and multi-woodwind performer, released on Infrequent Seams.
Her pieces have been performed by ensembles such as the JACK Quartet, Del Sol Quartet, International Contemporary Ensemble, Loadbang Ensemble, Eclipse Quartet, Hub New Music, LAMNTH, and the San Diego Symphony. She has been featured in festivals and series including Mostly Mozart, the Ojai Music Festival, Long Beach Festival, Hear Now Festival, Tehran Contemporary Music Festival, Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity, Festival POTE, Angel City Jazz Festival, Sled Island Festival.
Jessika Kenney
Jessika Kenney is a sound and voice artist, composer, teacher, and writer born on Sp'q'n'i?/Spokane lands (www.native-land.ca). Her vocal background spans from punk and jazz roots into geomusicalities, based in long-term study of Indonesian vocal practices and the singing of Classical Persian poetry and radifs with Ostad Hossein Omoumi, combined with her collaborations in electronic music, metal, and recent work centered around the Spokane River. As a composer Kenney has written for solo voices, small ensembles, traditional Javanese gamelan, traditional Korean ensembles, choirs, orchestras, and sound/video installation. Her recordings includes ATRIA, on the SIGE label, as well as many records in the duo with composer/violist Eyvind Kang including ‘Azure’, 'the face of the earth' and 'Aestuarium' on Ideologic Organ. She has recorded as a vocalist for Sarah Davachi, Alvin Lucier, Wolves In The Throne Room, as well as performing the vocal music of Scelsi, Feldman, and Cage. Jessika has collaborated with many musical gems including Lori Goldston, Holland Andrews, and Niloufar Shiri. Kenney is a student of Indonesian and Persian languages.
Kyle Motl
Kyle Motl is a bassist, composer, and improviser described as “spectacularly adventurous and dynamic,” whose playing is noted for both “iridescent delicacy as well as abrasive force” (The Wire). A frequent soloist, his performances “promise to change us by revealing things we could never have imagined” (Free Jazz Collective). Kyle makes music in collaborative trios with Anthony Davis and Kjell Nordeson (Vertical Motion, 2023 Astral Spirits) and with Dan Clucas and Nathan Hubbard (Daydream and Halting, 2022 FMR). Upcoming recording projects include a collaborative chamber trio with Rocío Díaz de Cossío and José Fernando Solares and an extended take on the piano trio with Eli Wallace and Nick Neuberg. Kyle works regularly with both emerging and established composers and champions new works for the bass. He has performed with ensembles including International Contemporary Ensemble and Ghost Ensemble. His 2022 solo record, Hydra Nightingale, consists of solo premieres by Caroline Louise Miller, Anqi Liu, Jessie Cox, and Asher Tobin Chodos.
Kyle holds a DMA from UC San Diego, where he studied with Mark Dresser and Anthony Davis, an MM from Florida International University, and a BM from Florida Atlantic University. His book, Bells Plucked From Air, sheds light on harmonic techniques for the double bass. Kyle is Assistant Professor of double bass and contemporary instrumental music at University of Minnesota Twin Cities.