Han-earl Park: guitarist, improviser, constructor

Eris 136199 plays on the crossroads of noise, melody, rhythm, space, density, contrast, synchronicity, asymmetry, serendipity and contradiction. Eris 136199 is the noisy, unruly complexity of composer, computer artist and guitarist Nick Didkovsky, the corporeal, cyborg virtuosity of constructor and guitarist Han-earl Park, and the no-nonsense melodic logic of composer and saxophonist Catherine Sikora.

A composer who enjoys blurry boundaries, Nick Didkovsky founded the avant-rock big band Doctor Nerve, and is a member of Swim This with Gerry Hemingway and Michael Lytle. He is a pioneer of small-systems computer music, and has composed music for ensemble including Bang On A Can All-Stars and the California EAR Unit.

Described by Brian Morton as “a musical philosopher… a delightful shape-shifter”, Han-earl Park is drawn to real-time cyborg configurations in which artifacts and bodies collide. He has performed with some of the finest practitioners of improvised music, is part of Mathilde 253 with Charles Hayward and Ian Smith, and Numbers with Richard Barrett.

Catherine Sikora is “a free-blowing player’s player with a spectacular harmonic imagination and an evolved understanding of the tonal palette of the saxophone” (Chris Elliot, Seacoast Online). She has a long-standing duo project with Eric Mingus, and performs as part of ensembles led by Elliott Sharp, François Grillot and Matt Lavelle.

Together, Didkovsky, Park and Sikora forges an improvisative space where melody can be melody, noise can be noise, meter can be meter, metal becomes metal, bluegrass turns to bluegrass, jazz transforms into jazz, all there, all necessary without imploding under idiomatic pressures.

ISIM’s purpose is to promote performance, education, and research in improvised music, and illuminate connections between musical improvisation and creativity across fields.

Melding diverse cultures, ethnicities, disciplines, and ideas that shape society at large, today’s musical world is rich with creative expressions that transcend conventional styles and categories. Improvisation is a core aspect of this global confluence.

In addition to other projects, and networking among improvisers, ISIM has held six festival/conferences since 2006, with a full schedule of talks, panel discussions, workshops, and performances during the day, and headliner per- formances in the evenings. Participants, including presenters, headliners, and audience, have been a mixture of academ- ics and people from the wider musical and artistic communities. Reflecting its commitment to diversity in its many forms, ISIM welcomes participants from the widest possible variety of ethnic, racial, cultural, and geographic back- grounds, strongly promotes gender balance, and celebrates work that is rooted in the many styles, genres, ethnic and historical traditions, methodologies and technologies both old and new, that are linked by the central practice of im- provisation. ISIM encourages collaboration with improvisatory practitioners from areas beyond music, such as dance, theater, visual music, and film, and also seeks to make its events open to a wider audience. This includes public school teachers, students, children, individuals from under-served communities, and others from the general cross section of people interested in the arts.