Asian Improv aRts Midwest

Sonic Pavilion Festival

Kioto Aoki, Sonorous Admittings 

About the work:
Sonorous Admittings is a sonic landscape that accentuates the taiko drum’s most fundamental and captivating element: acoustic resonance. The simple phrasing played by the artist on the odaiko (larger taiko) and smaller shime taiko enunciate the textural and tonal shifts of assonant sound between silence, and recreates what it feels like to play the odaiko and be completely surrounded by thunderous reverberations.
About the artist:
Kioto Aoki is a visual artist and musician descending from the Toyoakimoto performing arts family in Tokyo with roots dating back to the Edo period. Studying under her Tokyo-born father, Aoki is carrying on the family lineage in Chicago as a taiko artist while also playing shamisen and tsuzumi. She plays in both traditional and contemporary musical contexts and is active within the experimental and creative music communities in Chicago and the Bay Area.

Sonic Pavilion Festival is developed by Experimental Sound Studio and is presented by Millennium Park and the City of Chicago’s Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events.

Find more information about Sonic Pavilion Festival on ESS website.

Join Asian Improv aRts Midwest at the annual Destination Asia Festival taking place at Morton Arboretum. Three of AIRMW’s traditional arts programs will take the Tram Road stage:

10:30 – 11:30 AM: Tsukasa Taiko Japanese drumming

11:30 – 12:30 PM: Shubukai Japanese classical dance

Explore the diverse cultures of Asia through music, dance, food, and more. Join us for a fun-filled weekend that will transport you across the globe. On Saturday, September 25th, enjoy diverse cultural performances and demonstrations, various shopping and art vendors and local food trucks.

Event is free with arboretum admission. Visit Morton Arboretum website for more information.

Hyde Park Jazz Festival

MAI SUGIMOTO TRIO

SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 25. | TIME: 2:30 – 3:15 PM

VENUE: AUGUSTANA CHURCH. 5500 S. WOODLAWN AVE.

MAI SUGIMOTO

Mai Sugimoto is a saxophonist, composer, and active member of Chicago’s jazz and improvisational music scene. “A compelling performer” with “dry-champagne tone and lyrical lines” (Chicago Tribune), Sugimoto draws inspiration from her upbringing in Japan and her roots in jazz to compose and perform from her unique multicultural experience. “Born/Raised,” her 2018 debut album, explores this cultural and musical binary – juxtaposing, among other things, a jazz rendition of a Japanese children’s song with compositions inspired by the American jazz idiom.

Sugimoto is also a core member of the quartet Hanami, whose two albums similarly mix Japanese culture into creative music. She has performed three times at the Chicago Jazz Festival: in 2015 with Hanami, in 2019 as a leader, and in 2018 with renowned bassist Tatsu Aoki, with whom she frequently plays, including appearances in his Fred Anderson Legacy Band. Her first solo album, “monologue” (Asian Improv Records) was released in March of 2021.

The musicians: 

Mai Sugimoto – Saxophone

Tatsu Aoki – Bass

Isaiah Spencer – Drums

Hyde Park Jazz Festival

TRIO WAZ

SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 25. | TIME: 4:45 – 5:30 PM

VENUE: DUSABLE ROUNDHOUSE MUSEUM PLAZA. 740 E. 56TH PL.

TRIO WAZ

Trio WAZ has performed together for more than twenty years, making it one of the longest-standing experimental music trios in Chicago. Edward Wilkerson, Jr. is one of the great saxophone and clarinet players on the Chicago scene. Tatsu Aoki is a prolific artist, composer, musician, and educator, and a consummate bassist and Shamisen lute player. Michael Zerang is a percussionist who focuses extensively on improvised music, free jazz, contemporary composition, puppet theater, experimental theater, and international musical forms. Each brings their own distinctive disposition to the trio, where their unique skills braid and interplay, forming an incomparable synthesis of musical actuality.

The musicians: 

Edward Wilkerson, Jr. – Saxophone

Tatsu Aoki – Bass

Michael Zerang – Drums, percussion

Sonic Pavilion Festival

Kioto Aoki, Sonorous Admittings 

About the work:
Sonorous Admittings is a sonic landscape that accentuates the taiko drum’s most fundamental and captivating element: acoustic resonance. The simple phrasing played by the artist on the odaiko (larger taiko) and smaller shime taiko enunciate the textural and tonal shifts of assonant sound between silence, and recreates what it feels like to play the odaiko and be completely surrounded by thunderous reverberations.
About the artist:
Kioto Aoki is a visual artist and musician descending from the Toyoakimoto performing arts family in Tokyo with roots dating back to the Edo period. Studying under her Tokyo-born father, Aoki is carrying on the family lineage in Chicago as a taiko artist while also playing shamisen and tsuzumi. She plays in both traditional and contemporary musical contexts and is active within the experimental and creative music communities in Chicago and the Bay Area.

Sonic Pavilion Festival is developed by Experimental Sound Studio and is presented by Millennium Park and the City of Chicago’s Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events.

Find more information about Sonic Pavilion Festival on ESS website.