Lampo is very pleased to present the Chicago debut of percussionist Lê Quan Ninh.

Emphasizing texture over meter, the French-Vietnamese artist beats, scrapes and bows a range of tools. On his solo release Ustensiles, from Gunter Müller’s For 4 Ears label, he uses a bass drum, Turkish and Chinese cymbals, Japanese bowls, bells, gongs and sheets of aluminum. On one track, musique spectrale à petit budget, he coaxes a mysterious glitchy noise from a handful of chickpeas. A new record, La Voyelle Liquide (Erstwhile) documents Ninh and Müller together, with both contributing percussion and electronics.

Lê Quan Ninh (b.1961, Paris) is a classically trained percussionist, active in contemporary and improvised music. He is a John Cage specialist and founding member of the Hêlios Quartet, a classical ensemble that mixes percussion and new technology. Past Hêlios performances include concerts at the Centre Pompidou and several appearances at the Centre Culturel André Malraux for the Festival Musique Action in Vandœuvre-lès-Nancy. Additional collaborations include work with Martine Altenburger, J.A. Deane, Michel Doneda, Mats Gustafsson, Luc Houtkamp, Tristan Honsinger, Peter Kowald, Joëlle Leandre, Paul Lovens, Buth Morris, Jim O’Rourke, Jean Pallandre, Evan Parker and Carlos Zingaro.

For this special concert, Ninh will improvise with clarinetist and alto saxophonist Guillermo Gregorio. Now based in Chicago, Gregorio (b.1941, Buenos Aires) has made several recordings for the Swill label Hat Art. Some of his early experiments from Argentina have been collected recently on the fascinating Otra Musica: tape music, fluxus & free improvisation in Buenos Aires 1963-70 (Atavistic).

Support provided by the Cultural Services of the French Embassy, Chicago