This year’s 17 sound allies include Pamela Z, who combines her chilling voice with sampling technology triggered by a BodySynth MIDI controller; Melody of China, which makes folk music on moon guitar, mouth organ, and table harp; and California Symphony composer-in-residence Mason Bates, who wrote a “water symphony” for orchestra and synth, which begins with crashing ice bergs. Lovers of New York’s highly theatrical World/Inferno Friendship Society are already familiar with Ken Thomson’s fearsome clarinet and the sneaking suspicion that playing Weimar-punk is barely a stretch. Thompson’s original compositions are as complex as a beehive, filled with amber-hued nooks and crannies that bear traces of jazz, world music, and classical, without succumbing to any of them. Watch the patterns emerge and dissolve.
Sun., March 29, 2 p.m., 2009
