Biographies
CARLA KIHLSTEDT
Violin, Voice
Carla has played the violin for most of her years on this planet. It has been the vehicle that has brought her through many approaches to music-making, from her beginnings in the classical world, to her present many-headed musical life. She is a composer, an improviser, a singer, and a member of several long-term projects, including 2 Foot Yard, Tin Hat, and Sleepytime Gorilla Museum.
2 Foot Yard (www.2footyard.com) is an intimate trio whose purpose is to explore and expand their ideas of song-writing. Their debut CD was released on the Oracles series of Tzadik (www.tzadik.com), and they self-released their second cd, Borrowed Arms, earlier this year. Tin Hat (www.tinhat.org) is an acoustic instrumental chamber group that dissolves the boundaries between classical, jazz, and folk musics, and between improvisation and composition. They have toured the U.S. and Europe extensively, and have released five albums— two each on Angel/EMI, and Ropeadope Records, and their fifth, The Sad Machinery of Spring, on Rykodisc/Hannibal. Sleepytime Gorilla Museum (www.sleepytimegorillamuseum.com) is a Dadaist rock cabaret that constructs intricate and visceral music on an atypical array of instruments, many of them home-made. They tour extensively and ruthlessly, bringing their densely-packed ear-food to unsuspecting rock fans. Their third studio release, In Glorious Times, came out in May, 2007 on The End Records.
Aside from her various identities within these bands, Carla has worked as a composer both in collaboration with other artists, and alone. She has written and recorded music to accompany the dance performances of Jo Kreiter and Flyaway Productions, the Joe Goode Performance Group, and next year, inkBoat as well as Deborah Slater Dance Theater.
Carla’s most recent project is a collaboration with theater director Paul Bargetto (East River Commedia) and award-winning poet Rafael Oses called Necessary Monsters— a song cycle based on entries from The Book of Imaginary Beings by Jorge Luis Borges. It was commissioned by Alverno Presents, the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, and the National Performance Network Creation Fund.
In the classical realm, Carla has recently performed as a soloist with contemporary music ensembles premiering two pieces: Jorge Liderman’s “Furthermore…”-- a concerto for violin and small ensemble, and Lisa Bielawa’s new double violin concerto with the Boston Modern Orchestra Project and violinist Colin Jacobsen (of The Silk Road Ensemble, and Brooklyn Rider).
Carla has had the opportunity to work with many of her favorite musicians including Tom Waits, Satoko Fujii, Ben Goldberg, Carla Bozulich, the Rova Saxophone Quartet, and Fred Frith. She has also collaborated on dance/theater productions with choreographer Shinichi Momo Koga and director Allen Willner of inkBoat. She was an Artist in Residence at the Headlands Center for the Arts in 2003, at the Civitella Ranieri Center in Italy in 2006, and in 2008, at the Ucross Foundation in Wyoming via the Alpert Award in the Arts.
She is currently starting a new record label called Twelve Cups Records. More information will be available soon at www.twelvecupsrecords.com.
MARIKA HUGHES
Cello, Voice
Marika knew she had to play the cello when after 9 years of playing the violin, she held a cello for the first time and played the C-string; the lowest string. She was 12 and in the NYC shop of Mosa Havivi, a former student of her grandfather, the great cellist Emanuel Feuermann. That low end seduced Marika to switch to the cello and end her violin studies.
Growing up in NYC, Marika was exposed to a varied creative life. Her parents owned a jazz club on the upper west side, she was a regular on Sesame Street, spent summers at chamber music camps and busked with her high-school string quartet. After completing her studies at Barnard College in political science and cello performance at the Juilliard School, Marika moved San Francisco, CA.
Marika spent her early twenties serving coffee and exploring the northern coast of California, all the while playing in local symphonies. Eventually she was able to leave the service of coffee and fine dining and began to teach private lessons at the Waldorf School and at public schools in Oakland thru the Oakland East Bay Symphony’s MUSE program. She also enjoyed a few years playing with Quartet San Francisco in local performances as well as for the San Francisco Symphony’s AIM program, visiting all 75 public elementary schools in SF, introducing the kids to the string quartet thru tango, pop and jazz.
Realizing that the symphony life was not for her, Marika met new musicians, some from the classical tradition, some not, who expanded her repertoire and ears. In addition to joining Carla Kihlstedt in 2 Foot Yard, Marika founded the band Red Pocket with Jewlia Eisenberg and they released their CD Thick on Tzadik’s Oracle Series. She also joined Jewlia’s band Charming Hostess, at that time an a cappella female trio. And she toured extensively with singer/songwriter Vienna Teng. She recorded for many artists in the Bay Area including Mr. Bungle, Xiu Xiu, Santana and Tom Waits. She also recorded commercial and film scores.
In 2006 Marika decided it was time to come home. Since moving back to NYC Marika has enjoyed playing with many local musicians and has joined violinist Charlie Burnham’s new band Hidden City. She has played with Mary J Blige and recorded for many artists including Lou Reed, Ani DiFranco, Jolie Holland and Toshi Reagon.
SHAHZAD ISMAILY
Percussion, Guitar
Shahzad Ismaily, an American of Pakistani descent, was born and raised in Shickshinny, a quiet ex-coal mining town in Pennsylvania. He fell in love with music as an art for personal expression and cathartic self-actualization at an early age. Although he is self-taught, he thoroughly digested written treatises on theory, composition, expression, form, and acoustics while at Simon’s Rock of Bard College studying pre-medicine. His interests soon took him outside the Western tradition, and led him to pursue study of traditional music in Bali (with I Sumarsam), Pakistan (Ustad Bismillah Khan), Japan (Kodo taiko ensemble), Morocco (Bachir Attar, Master Musicians of Jajouka), Brazil (Cyro Baptista) and India. As a composer, he has written works for small chamber ensembles, short film, dance and live theatre. He performs and records regularly on piano, electric bass, electric guitar, double bass, drums, percussion, and electronic textural instruments. He has worked with musicians Marc Ribot, Cyro Baptista, John Zorn, Eyvind Kang, Laurie Anderson, Jojo Mayer, Wolfgang Muthspeil and Butch Morris; choreographers and dance companies including Jo Kreiter’s Flyaway Productions, Min Tanaka, Collision Palace (Amsterdam dance/music collective) and Frankfurt Ballet (co-composer Joel Ryan); and filmmaker Jim Mayer (documentary/HBO). He currently resides in New York City.