St. Louis-based violinist Alex Cunningham and double bassist Damon Smith will join Chicago percussionist Adam Shead for their first meeting as a trio.
Alex Cunningham is a violinist, improviser, and visual artist based in St. Louis, MO. His recorded output spans free improvisation, drone, noise, and minimalist composition. Cunningham has recorded with Lisa Cameron, Damon Smith, claire rousay, Chris Trull (under the Apathist! moniker), Mark Shippy, Thom Nguyen, Patrick Shiroishi, Jessica Ackerley, Seth Andrew Davis, Sandy Ewen, and Weasel Walter. Cunningham has released music on Close/Far Recordings, Personal Archives, Already Dead Tapes and Records, Fort Evil Fruit, Working Man Lay Down, Orb Tapes, Astral Editions, Infrequent Seams, Industrial Coast, and Astral Spirits.
Cunningham’s collage work has appeared on various album covers and concert posters. He was named St. Louis’ “Best Concert Poster Designer” by the Riverfront Times in 2015. His visual work has shown at Hoffman LaChance Contemporary, Resident Arts, Blank Space, and the Thomas Dunn Learning Center and has been featured on bus stops in St. Louis as part of St. Louis Metro’s “Arts in Transit” initiative.
Damon Smith studied double bass with Lisle Ellis and has had lessons with Bertram Turezky, Joëlle Leandré, John Lindberg, Mark Dresser and others. Damon’s explorations into the sonic palette of the double bass have resulted in a personal, flexible improvisational language based in the American jazz avant-garde movement and European non-idiomatic free improvisation. Visual art, film and dance heavily influence his music, as evidenced by his CAMH performance of Ben Patterson’s Variations for Double Bass, collaborations with director Werner Herzog on soundtracks for Grizzly Man and Encounters at the End of the World, and an early performance with the Merce Cunningham Dance Company.
Damon has collaborated with a wide range of musicians, including: Cecil Taylor, Marshall Allen (of Sun Ra’s Arkestra), Henry Kaiser, Keith Rowe, Jaap Blonk,Roscoe Mitchell, Weasel Walter, Michael Pisaro, Wadada Leo Smith, Weasel Walter, Marco Eneidi, Wolfgang Fuchs, Peter Brötzmann and Peter Kowald. After many years in the San Francisco Bay Area, and six great years in Houston, Texas working regularly with Alvin Fielder, Sandy Ewen, Thomas Helton, David Dove & Chris Cogburn. Damon moved to the Boston area in the fall of 2016 and began working with Jeb Bishop, Pandelis Karayorgis, Joe McPhee and Ra-Kalam Bob Moses and many others. Damon has run Balance Point Acoustics record label since 2001, releasing music focusing on transatlantic collaborations between US and European musicians.
Adam Shead can be heard performing regularly throughout the United States and Europe at venues such as Constellation, City of Asylum, Trinosophes, De Ruimte, PACA, and Zaal 100. Shead has performed with the likes of Roscoe Mitchell, Jason Stein, Damon Smith, John Dikeman, Angel Bat Dawid, Mary Oliver, and Ben Zucker; amongst others. Adam has released music with Amalgam, Ears & Eyes Records, Scripts Records, Balance Point Acoustics, Shifting Paradigm Records, and Impermanent Records. Since early 2022 Shead has been a permanent member of the iconic NYC no-wave tinged band Cellular Chaos. Shead is the founder and composer of the Adiaphora Orchestra, Adam Shead Quintet, and microplastique."
Krissy Bergmark is a tabla player, percussionist, improviser, and educator who centers her creative work on bringing tabla to new genres and cross-genres through composition and performance with a grounded understanding of the traditions of the instrument. Bergmark has received commissions and grants through the Cedar Commissions, the Jerome Foundation, the Metropolitan Regional Arts Council, and the Minnesota State Arts Board. She composes and performs with her progressive folk trio Sprig of That, and a variety of other artists in Minneapolis, Saint Paul, Chicago, and New York. Her current solo project, titled Body of Water, explores the juncture of epigenetic inheritance and body memories through sound, visuals, and physical sensation to tell the story of her family and present-day manifestations of its history in her life. Her debut album, an in-studio improvised work entitled Everything's Glacial Shine, is set to be released in early 2025. Bergmark is a professor of music at Oakton College. She studies tabla with Pandit Yogesh Samsi in the Punjab Gharana.