Advertisement
TICKETS $20 @ THE DOOR.DOORS OPEN 6:30
San Miguel Chapel, 401 Old Santa Fe Trail, Santa Fe NM, https://www.sanmiguelchapelsantafe.org
Catherine Sikora, a native of West Cork, Ireland, recently moved to New Mexico from Brooklyn, New York, where she was at the epicenter of that city's cutting-edge music scene. Working in a broad range of settings, from highly complex composed music, to folk songs, to free improvisation, Sikora quickly found many kindred spirits; among them such notables as Eric Mingus, Susan Alcorn, Sam Newsome, Brian Chase, and Ross Hammond. A featured artist at the October Revolution in Jazz 60th Anniversary Celebration ’24, Los Angeles, CA, Sikora will be accompanied by three accomplished stalwarts of New Mexico's modern jazz / new music scene: bassist Ben Wright, and percussionists Al Faaet & Dave Wayne. It has been a great year for jazz and improvised music in New Mexico, and these performances promise to be peak experiences for those seeking new sounds.
PRESS RELEASE
Catherine Sikora brings new energy to the New Mexico jazz scene!
The “Catherine Sikora New Mexico Quartet” will be presenting three performances in, of all places,
New Mexico! On Friday, November 8, the Quartet will kick off its mini-tour at 7 PM at The Revolt
Gallery in Taos. On Saturday, November 9, the group will present a matinee starting at 1 PM at the
Guild Theater in Albuquerque. The quartet's third performance will occur at 7 PM on Monday,
November 11 at the historic San Miguel Chapel in Santa Fe. Saxophonist, composer, and educator
Catherine Sikora recently moved to New Mexico from Brooklyn, New York, where she was at the
epicenter of that city's cutting-edge music scene. These shows will be among the very first
opportunities for New Mexico residents to witness her unique brand of saxophone virtuosity and her
fiery, mercurial approach to jazz-based improvisation.
Venue information:
Revolt Gallery, 222 Paseo del Pueblo Norte, Taos, NM, 87521 (415-994-9163,
[email protected])
Guild Cinema, 3405 Central Avenue NE, Albuquerque, NM 87106 (505-255-1848, info@
guildcinema.com, https://www.guildcinema.com/)
San Miguel Chapel, 401 Old Santa Fe Trail, Santa Fe NM, https://www.sanmiguelchapelsantafe.org
About The Quartet
A native of West Cork, Ireland, Sikora made a bold move to New York City in 2000 to immerse herself
in that city's legendary music scene. Working in a broad range of settings, from highly complex
composed music, to folk songs, to free improvisation, Sikora quickly found many kindred spirits;
among them such notables as Eric Mingus, Enrique Haneine, Brian Chase, and Ross Hammond. She
has toured with these artists through all of North America, Europe and Australia. She was a featured
soloist in Eric Mingus’ reimagining of “Tommy” by the Who (Adelaide Festival 2015), and was artist
in residence at Paris' Centre Culturel Irlandais (CCI) in 2016. She was invited to return to the CCI in
2020 where she was commissioned to compose music for a sound installation titled “Vespers for the
Feast of St Patrick”. Her work is regularly featured on “Freeness” (BBC radio), Free Jazz Blog
(Berlin), Avant Music News (Chicago) and A Jazz Noise (Barcelona). She is active on the festival
circuit, and has performed at the Vision Festival (New York City), the Adelaide Festival of the Arts
(Australia), Jazz em Agosto (Lisbon, PT), Documenta 15 (Kassel, DE), and was one of the performers
at the BAM/Silkroad 1:1 Concerts event in the Brooklyn Navy Yard in May 2021.
For her New Mexico performances, Ms. Sikora will be accompanied by three accomplished stalwarts
of New Mexico's modern jazz / new music scene: bassist Ben Wright, and percussionists Al Faaet and
Dave Wayne. It has been a great year for jazz and improvised music in New Mexico, and these
performances promise to be peak experiences for those seeking new sounds.
Artist Biographies
Catherine Sikora
Tenor and soprano saxophonist, improviser and composer Catherine Sikora was first electrified by the
sound of air vibrating in a metal tube when, as a child, she heard the wind playing tones and overtones
in a metal gate. She has devoted her life to researching the magic of that sound with her saxophones.
Sikora’s body of recorded work is substantial and rapidly growing, with 16 releases as leader, including
albums on Relative Pitch Records, Tripticks Tapes, Fort Evil Fruit, and other independent labels. She
has toured in the US, Europe and Australia with Eris 136199, Brian Chase, Eric Mingus, Elliott
Sharp, and Ursel Schlicht, and is firmly committed to the art of practice as a lifelong meditative path.
Sikora was twice awarded residencies at the prestigious Centre Cultural Irlandais in Paris, France in
2016 and again in 2020. Her duo with Brian Chase received a grant from the Irish Arts Council in
support an island-wide tour of Ireland in 2019, and she was commissioned to contribute a composition.
She was also chosen to be a resident artist at l’Atelier de la Main d’Or in Paris in 2020.
Sikora collaborated with many artists, including Brian Chase, Susan Alcorn, Ursel Schlicht, Eric
Mingus, Ethan Winogrand, Ross Hammond, Christopher Culpo and Enrique Haneine. She is
proud to be one third of the joyful rowdiness that is Eris 136199, with Han-earl Park and Nick
Didkovsky, and a member of Sam Newsome’s Chaos Theory (a soprano saxophone quartet). She has
been a featured soloist with significant large improvising ensembles, including Karl Berger’s Creative
Improvisers Orchestra and Burnt Sugar: The Arkestra Chamber. In 2024, 'Filament', Catherine’s
duo album with Susan Alcorn was released on Relative Pitch Records, and she toured the east coast of
the US with bassist (and former Santa Fe resident) David Menestres. She will be a featured artist at the
October Revolution in Jazz 60th Anniversary Celebration ’24, Los Angeles, CA.
Sikora maintains a regular writing and teaching practice, with a blog where she posts practice prompts
and concepts for musicians to explore, with the goal of building community and encouraging creative
discourse in an inclusive and open way, outside of the world of academia.
Additional Photograph of Catherine:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1qXr39hOj_7tO1Njks0FsnKzJIuDFvex6/view?usp=sharing
Ben Wright (Contrabass)
Bassist Ben Wright cut his teeth in the Philadelphia-area punk rock scene, but has been playing
primarily acoustic music for the past 3 decades. Resident in New Mexico for over 25 years, Ben Wright
is firmly established as one of the finest contrabassists in the region. A lover of the lowest frequencies
Catherine Sikora
who also plays tuba, euphonium and musical saw, Ben has explored many disparate forms of music, yet
always returns to the wellspring of improvisation. Well-known for his extensive touring and many
recordings with his father – the legendary improvising saxophonist Jack Wright – Ben has also
worked with a stellar array of today's most exciting artists in 'the new music.' A brief list includes
luminaries such as Nate Wooley, Andrew Lamb, Ron Stabinsky, Mike Pride, Jeff Platz, and Kris
Tiner. In addition to his work as an improvisor, Ben is a long-standing member of Radio Free
Bassanda, a quintet co-founded with oud and bouzouki player Roger Landes and percussionist
Chipper Thompson out of a shared interest in the various modal music traditions from around the
Mediterranean, the Middle & Near East, and the Balkans.
Al Faaet (frame drums, gongs, percussion)
Al Faaet is a drummer, percussionist and gong artist who has played in and around Santa Fe for over 40
years with notable artists such as JA Deane, Ava Mendoza, Jack Clift, and John Gustafson. Released
in 2000, Al's duet recording with JA Deane, “Grand Cross Eclipse” (Zerx 24) received universally
positive reviews. ParisTransatlantic called it: “Vast and mind-blowing... as immense and at times as
intimidating as the desert landscape. Music as epic as this should be blasted on a speaker system
surrounded by two billion year old rocks at the bottom of the Grand Canyon." Long aware of the
inherent healing properties of gongs and sound baths, Al is also a dynamic and sensitive percussionist
who is stylistically at home in a variety of musical ensemble settings.
Al Faaet
Ben Wright
Dave Wayne (drum set, cymbals, percussion)
Dave Wayne is a drummer and composer who hails from the Philadelphia area. Resident in Santa Fe,
NM since 1993, he's accompanied a number of innovative and accomplished New Mexico-based jazz
and rock artists. He's also had the good fortune to perform and collaborate with notable musicians such
as Chris Jonas, Zimbabwe Nkenya, Mustafa Stefan Dill, Kim Stone, Delbert Anderson, Brian
Haas, Thollem McDonas, Dan Clucas, Jeff Platz, Andrew Lamb, Jack Wright, and Michael
Vlatkovich. In 2009, he composed a clutch of original pieces and formed a band – The Things That
Are Heard – to play them. The band lasted for 18 torrid months, approximately 16 months longer than
originally planned. At present, Dave plays original instrumental music with Love Unfold The Sun, and
the improvising ensemble Present Moment. Dave's drumming has also been documented on a fistful
of albums, both privately issued and on labels such as pfMENTUM, Plutonium, Snowdonia, and Zerx.
He's especially proud of the music on 2 of these albums: “These Times” by OrnEtc. (2016, self-
released), and “Hotend: the Music of Julius Hemphill” by Do Tell (2015, Amirani Records). In
addition to playing the drums, Dave maintains a record collecting vlog called “Cheap Heat”. He has
also written numerous music reviews for various online publications and could also write some really nice liner notes for your next album.
Advertisement
Event Venue & Nearby Stays
401 Old Santa Fe Trail, Downtown Santa Fe, NM, United States, New Mexico 87501, 401 Old Santa Fe Trl, Santa Fe, NM 87501-2746, United States,Santa Fe, New Mexico
