Clare Cooper & Fred Lonberg-Holm

Clare Cooper (harp, guzheng), in her Chicago debut, mixes it up with Fred Lonberg-Holm (cello) for an evening of improvised music.

Harpist and digital media artist Clare Cooper (b.1981, Sydney, Australia) is interested in unlikely pairings, and what they reveal of machines and music. She focuses primarily on player-powered mechanical percussion and electronic-like acoustic soundworlds on her two chosen string instruments: the concert harp and the Chinese guzheng. Over the past seven years she has toured around the world, presenting solo work and teaming up with improvisers, artists, technicians and dancers. Frequent collaborators include Chris Abrahams, Cor Fuhler, Tony Buck, Anthony Pateras, Jean-Philippe Gross, Nicholas Bussmann and Valerio Tricoli. In 2002 Cooper and partner Clayton Thomas started “the NOW now festival” of spontaneous music, Australia’s key experimental sound and film festival. It was born from the ongoing fortnightly series “if you like improvised music, we like you.” In 2007 Cooper moved from Sydney to Berlin, where she is now based.

Fred Lonberg-Holm (b.1962, Wilmington, Del.) is a Chicago-based cellist, improviser and composer. A former student of Anthony Braxton, Pauline Oliveros and Morton Feldman, his primary projects are his Valentine Trio (with Frank Rosaly and Jason Roebke) and Lightbox Orchestra (non-fixed personnel). He also currently plays in groups led by Joe McPhee (Survival Unit III), Peter Brotzmann (Chicago 10tet), Tony Malaby (Cello Trio) and Ken Vandermark (Vandermark 5, Frame 4tet, Territory Ensemble). He also has contributed cello sounds to numerous recording projects by rock groups including Califone, Freakwater, God-is-my-co-pilot, L’altra, Smog, Super Chunk, U.S. Maple, Wilco and many others.