Matthew Sperry in Memoriam

Please join us in a celebration of Matthew Sperry’s life and music with the Bay Area’s creative music community:

June 2, 4 & 5, 2009
Seventh Annual Matthew Sperry Memorial Festival

This year the festival kicks off with Seattle-based Lesli Dalaba performing in a trio with Fred Frith, Jason Hoopes and a duo with special guest Gail Brand (UK) in Oakland’s intimate Studio 1510. Gail closes the festival with a performance with local Sperry collaborators Gino Robair, Morgan Guberman, John Shiurba, Tim Perkis and Tom Djll on the stage of the Maybeck-inspired Hillside Club. The festival tradition of works for large ensemble continues as OrcheSperry ascends the tall stairs of the Luggage Store Gallery to perform new works in homage to Matthew’s musical life and work, and reprise Matthew’s rollicking improv karaoke of Treasure Mouth, which requires a band to follow along to lyrics as fast as they can be written out for them by others.

Tuesday June 2 | 8pm | $6 – $100 sliding scale
Studio 1510
1510 8th Street
Oakland
Lesli Dalaba
trio with Fred Frith, Jason Hoopes and duo with Gail Brand (UK)

Thursday June 4 | 8pm | $6 – $100 sliding scale
Luggage Store Gallery
1007 Market Street
San Francisco
Co-presented by Full Moon Concerts – Strong Moon

Orchesperry and Treasure Mouth

Friday, June 5 | 8pm | $15
Hillside Club
2286 Cedar Street
Berkeley

Gail Brand
solo, duos, trios, quartets, quintets and sextets with

Gino Robair, Morgan Guberman, John Shiurba, Tim Perkis and Tom Djll

Festival Tickets are available at the door.

Donations accepted. All proceeds from these benefit performances support the Matthew Sperry Memorial Fund.

Download high-res or low-res versions of the festival poster art

Suki O’Kane writes: “Thanks for your creativity, ingenuity and humor behind the realization of Matthew Sperry’s Treasure Mouth composition [which was part of the Sixth Annual Matthew Sperry Memorial Festival]. Stacia commented on how much Matthew would have loved the treatment, and I imagine you, like I, have a couple ideas about where a piece like that can go next. Please share your comments and insights to help shape a December 2008 reprise.

Michael Zelner has kindly posted MP3s of the Treasuremouth set here.

Scot Hacker has posted photos from the Thundermouth performance here.

Please join us in a celebration of Matthew Sperry’s life and music with the Bay Area’s creative music community:

June 5, 6 & 7, 2008

This year the festival features special guests John Butcher (UK) and Carla Kihlstedt (US) in two evenings of solos, duos, trios and quintets. The festival tradition of commissioning new works for large ensemble continues with a page from Matthew’s composition notebook: Treasure Mouth, which requires a band to follow along to lyrics as fast as they can be written out for them by others — call it improv karaoke. Join in the fun of Treasure Mouth at the festival’s first official Children’s Matinee.

Update: Tom Duff reminds us that his recordings of all 2008 Matthew Sperry Festival events are indexed at http://4-33.com/fest/.

The festival concludes with a Master Class with guest artist John Butcher.

Thursday June 5 | 8pm
Hillside Club
2286 Cedar Street
Berkeley
with special guest
John Butcher
solo, duos, trios and quintets with
Gino Robair, John Shiurba, Tim Perkis and Tom Djll

Friday June 6 | 8pm
Hillside Club
2286 Cedar Street
Berkeley
with special guest
Carla Kihlstedt
solo and duos with
Marika Hughes and special guests

Saturday June 7 | 1pm | FREE
Museum of Children’s Art
538 Ninth Street
Oakland
Treasure Mouth: a SperryFest Improv Children’s Karaoke Matinee

Saturday June 7 | 2:30pm
Master Class with John Butcher
location provided with paid registration

Festival Tickets available in advance or at the door:
$15 for a single evening show
$25 festPass for two evening show admissions
$35 master class registration fee
$40 for admission to all events
Watch this space for information on advance tickets.

Donations accepted
All proceeds from these benefit performances support the Matthew Sperry Memorial Fund.

The Red Hot Chachkas are an eclectic Bay Area klezmer group who, once upon a time, played at Matthew and Stacia’s wedding. Soon after, Matthew joined the Chachkas as a basisst, and played with the group until his death.

The Chachkas have written a song for Matthew: Suite Matthew.

Julie Eggers wrote this song in memory of a wonderful friend, bassist Matthew Sperry. He played many types of music, including klezmer and avant-garde, and was a Red Hot Chachka for several years. He died in a tragic accident in 2003. We take this tune outside as a nod to Matthew.

Suite Matthew

{download}

Festival special guests Ellen Fullman (CA) and Sean Meehan (NY) announced the release of their new CD, which Ellen has dedicated to Matt. Copies will be available at the Festival for purchase. (Update: Copies of the CD can now be purchased through limitedsedition.com)

Click links for audio samples:

Excerpt 1
Excerpt 2
Excerpt 3

Festival-goers will also be able to buy the latest release of rare recordings of Matt. This year’s recording is of a concert featuring Matt with Lesli Dalaba (trumpet), Fred Frith, and Gino Robair.

You can hear these new releases, plus other SperryMusic by tuning into these radio programs:

• Music from Other Minds
  Fridays, 11pm (repeated Mondays 11pm) Pacific Time
  KALW 91.7
• Psychoacoustic Soundclash
  with Nozmo King

  Saturday, June 9 from 3pm – 6pm
  KFJC 89.7FM
  John Shiurba and Ellen Fullman will be in the studio with Nozmo, playing SperryMusic and talking about the Festival, with special guest live performances TBA and ticket giveaways.

Thanks to Other Minds, KFJC and KUSF for their support of the Festival.

Please join us in a celebration of Matthew Sperry’s life and music
with the Bay Area’s creative music community:

June 9 & 10, 2007

Fifth Annual Matthew Sperry Memorial Festival

This year the festival features special guests drawn from Matthew’s personal circle of all-stars: Sean Meehan (NY) and Ellen Fullman (CA). These musicians who inspired Matthew and his music will perform over two nights, in both experimental gallery and intimate studio settings, in both solo sets and small ensembles, in a musical journey of remembrance and reunion. The festival tradition of commissioning new works for large ensemble continues with The Enormous Quartet, where a creative cloud of Bay Area musicians will perform in spontaneous combinations of four.

Saturday June 9 | 8pm
21 Grand

416 25th Street at Broadway
Oakland
with special guest
Sean Meehan
solo and in trios with
Scott Rosenberg/John Shiurba and Bill Hsu/Gino Robair

and
The Enormous Quartet
(with many musicians!)
Admission is $6 – $600 sliding scale at the door

Sunday June 10 | 8pm
Casa Ninja
Address provided upon reservation
Berkeley
with special guest
Ellen Fullman
solo and in duos with
Sean Meehan, Gino Robair and Theresa Wong

Admission is $25 – $50

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Seating is extremely limited at Casa Ninja
Advance reservations are required for Sunday performance; click here to reserve.

Note: If you previously reserved a seat for the Casa Ninja performance, please RE-RESERVE. Due to an email delivery problem, your original reservation submission was lost. We apologize for the inconvenience.

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All proceeds from these benefit performances support the Matthew Sperry Memorial Fund.

it’s amazing to me that so many amazing artists show up for no other reason than to contribute to a sense of community and higher purpose; to pay tribute to not only matthew but to what it means to make art in a communal way. i know matthew would have loved that. this is the most clear and obvious demonstration of the fact that art and music can connect human beings and their communities to the upper partials of existence on this planet, and perhaps beyond. i know that i did my best as one of the organizers of the festival, to foster an atmosphere of appreciation and respect for each player, and to acknowledge the fact that the music of each of the participants expresses some meaning, the elucidation of which lies well beyond my capacity. my reflection on matthew’s life and work and life-force has inspired in me something beyond the obvious need to strive to be a better musician, namely to strive to be a better member of the community. in that sense i feel this year’s festival was a true success. and of course the music was incredible.

Tom Baker writes:

I thought you or someone on the list might be interested in that I played on June 1st in Den Haag in Holland, where I played excerpts from my Requiem “What Remains” that I wrote for Matt and played on the first memorial concert in Seattle at Polestar. It went very well, and I had lots of questions about Matt and his work. The CD of the piece is at www.cdbaby.com/tbaker2 and there is more at www.tombakercomposer.com and www.presentsounds.com.

Friday June 2 at Starry Plough
3101 Shattuck Ave, Berkeley, 9PM
Black Cat Duo (from Seattle)
Daniel Popsicle & dotdotdot

Saturday June 3 at 21 Grand
416 25th St, Oakland, 8PM
Stuart Dempster (from Seattle)
in small groups and with Orchesperry

Sunday June 4 at 21 Grand
416 25th St, Oakland, 8PM
Christian Asplund (from Salt Lake City)
in small groups and with Orchesperry

Doug Theriault writes:

I have a new release with Matthew playing bass. It’s called:

Sperry/Burdon/Theriault
Straw Dog Music 03/01
Improvised on June 16th, 2001 at “Are You Listening” Studio, Portland, Oregon.

Recorded and Engineered by Simon Widdowson.
Matthew Sperry: Acoustic Bass ‚ Mark Burdon: Percussion ‚ Doug Theriault: Guitar

It is available here: http://dougtheriault.tandjrec.com/discography/. This release is meant to be a showcase for Matthew’s playing, nothing more. Only 50 copies are being released and 35 have gone out already to be reviewed (hopefully). That leaves 15 copies. This is not a fundraiser, and if anyone of you wants a copy (without artwork) I will send it to you personally for the cost of postage.