Baltimore’s High Zero Festival :: Theatre Project, Baltimore, MD :: September 17 – 21, 2008.

One of the longest running and most successful festivals of experimental improvised music in the country and what City Paper called “one of Baltimore’s great cultural treasures” and Baltimore Magazine called “Best Music Festival”— the High Zero Festival is entering its tenth year. This critically acclaimed festival pulls out all the stops presenting six days of inspired live music featuring special programming legendary performers such as 1st generation Fluxus artist Olga Adorno from France, minimalist icon Tony Conrad from Buffalo, Baltimore conceptualist Jennifer Graf Sheppard, and visionary Philadelphia film-maker Peter Rose, as well as the freshest homegrown & international improvisers—all in the town Rolling Stone calls “The Best Music Scene” in the country. And it is.

The High Zero Festival gathers avant-garde musicians each year from around the world for a series of concerts featuring startlingly new ad hoc collaborations, virtually taking over the city. This year’s festival will open with a special works by Adorno, Conrad, and Rose, beginning with a special opening concert at the Fox Court of The Baltimore Museum of Art, followed by five days of intensive improvised music concerts featuring artists from as far away as Africa and Japan at Theatre Project and all over the city, including numerous street performances.

Attendance of the High Zero Festival in previous years has been exceptionally high for this non-commercial music, with the festival frequently selling out. A weekend pick in the New York Times and regularly covered by major European and U.S. magazines, the festival is an outgrowth of the vital weekly Red Room performance series at Normals Books and Records, which since 1996 has presented roughly 700 concerts of experimental music in Baltimore, making it one of the longest running series of its kind in the country.

Special 10th anniversary artists:

Olga Adorno, Nice France
Tony Conrad, Buffalo NY
Peter Rose, Philadelphia
Jenny Graf Sheppard, Baltimore

Festival musicians from outside Baltimore:

Tetuzi Akiyama (acoustic guitar), Japan
Liz Albee (trumpet), San Francisco
Magali Babbin (amplified metal), Montreal
Tony Buck (drums), Berlin
Carbon (electronics, tapes), NYC
Chris Corsano (drums), Scottland
Lucas Crane (tapes), NYC
Arrington de Dionysio (voice, bass clarinet), Portland OR
Bill Nace (guitar), North Hampton, MA
Robert Van Heuman (electronics), Amsterdam
Camel Zekri (oud, guitar, electronics), North Africa
Dan Blacksberg (trombone), Philadelphia

Festival performers from Baltimore:

Susan Alcorn (pedal steel guitar)
John Berndt (saxophones, inventions, electronics)
Tom Boram (synthesizer, voice)
Alessandro Bosetti (electronics, voice)
Samuel Burt (clarinets, electronics)
Audrey Chen (voice, cello, electronics)
John Eaton (alto saxophone, voice)
Carson Garhart (inventions, electronics)
Rose Hammer (saxophones)
Janel Leppin (cello, electronics)
Michael Muniak (electronics)
Paul Neidhardt (percussion, friction)
Ric Royer (voice, tapes)
Martin Schmidt (electronics)