Join us to participate in the maiden voyage of this unique new band led by composer/bassist Todd Sickafoose. The left-field instrumentation is ideal to explore the thrum of acoustic instruments –the percussive to the sustained and everything in between. Featuring some truly original music-makers gathered from across Oregon and Northern California. 

Band members:

Jenny Scheinman (violin)
Jonny Rodgers (glass orchestra)
Mike Gamble (guitar)

Simon Chrisman (hammered dulcimer)
Todd Sickafoose (bass)

The musicians in this band have collaborated with Bill Frisell, Son Lux, Jason Moran, Jeremy Kittel, Lucinda Williams, Andrew Bird, Nels Cline, and many others. 

Todd Sickafoose is a Tony and Grammy award-winning composer, producer, arranger, orchestrator, bandleader and double bassist. He makes richly moving, imaginative music which has been called "thoroughly original, endlessly creative” by Jazz Times and "stunningly brilliant” by Bassplayer. He has performed on hundreds of recordings, toured internationally, appeared at music venues and festivals from Carnegie Hall to New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival. Known as a musical cross-breeder who stretches across genres, Sickafoose has been described by the San Francisco Chronicle as “a captivating improviser, imaginative composer, and master of collaboration”. In 2004, Sickafoose began performing and recording in a duo format with folk poet, activist and cultural icon Ani DiFranco. Their relationship has developed for two decades – together they have made 10 albums, two concert DVDs, and performed thousands of shows. In 2007, Sickafoose began working on Anaïs Mitchell's folk opera, Hadestown, wearing many hats including arranger/orchestrator and music producer. After years of development and regional productions, the show opened at the Walter Kerr Theater on Broadway in 2019 and won 8 Tony Awards, including Best Musical and Best Orchestrations for Sickafoose and collaborator Michael Chorney. Sickafoose produced the Hadestown Original Broadway Cast Recording which won a 2020 Grammy Award for Best Musical Theater Recording. Hadestown recently celebrated 5 years on Broadway while also continuing to perform as a North American Tour and an open-ended run at the Lyric Theatre in London’s West End. Straddling the worlds of folk, indie rock, jazz and chamber music, Sickafoose’s own band Tiny Resistors has performed at the North Sea Jazz Festival, Stern Grove Festival, Angel City Jazz Festival and been featured on many “Best-Of” lists including the Village Voice, DownBeat, and JazzTimes. Writing for Tiny Resistors, he recently composed and released BEAR PROOF, a long-form chamber jazz hybrid commissioned by the Doris Duke Foundation.

Jenny Scheinman, acclaimed violinist and composer, for many years a stalwart of the New York jazz and creative music scenes, returned to her native Humboldt County, California in 2012. There she has continued her artistic evolution, as heard on her recent albums Here on Earth (“packed with moments of joyous ecstasy and wind-swept solemnity” – Downbeat),  Parlour Game, a co-lead collaboration with Allison Miller (“The band levitates and feels grounded both” – PopMatters), and The Littlest Prisoner, an album of songs in trio with Bill Frisell and Brian Blade (“self-assured, made with a deft, steady hand.” – New York Times). In addition to her extensive work in jazz and improvised music with Jason Moran, Brian Blade, Ron Miles, Allison Miller, Vinicius Cantuaria and many more, Jenny Scheinman has toured and recorded with songwriting legends such as Lucinda Williams, Bruce Cockburn, Robbie Fulks, Rodney Crowell, Lou Reed, Ani DiFranco and Joni Mitchell. In March 2015 she premiered a multimedia performance at Duke University entitled Kannapolis: A Moving Portrait (the basis for her album Here on Earth), which she continues to present in theaters around the country.

Hammer dulcimer virtuoso Simon Chrisman brings an unusual style to an instrument that has previously been thought to have limited range and technique… his inventive virtuosic touch and sophisticated rhythmic sensibilities are redefining the instrument and earning the attention of musicians from all over the world. He tours with the Jeremy Kittel Band and the Bee Eaters, and has performed with Darol Anger, Bruce Molsky, Mike Marshall, Laurie Lewis and Seamus Egan.

Jonny Rodgers is a composer and multi-instrumentalist performing and recording as Cindertalk.  Best known for his “stunning” (NY Times) work with tuned glass, Jonny orients his work around unusual organic instrumentation, often manipulating it electronically, to create future-leaning music that feels anchored in the real world. Never content to stay in one musical lane, Jonny is equally at home writing indie-music, classical art-music, and scoring films. A musical explorer, he seeks out unconventional sounds that permeate his  writing which is often described as surprising, wistful, lovely, melancholy, intricate, and emotionally immersive. As a recent attendee to one of his concerts blurted out, “What planet are you from?” Raised in the households of an Oxford theologian and then second-wave feminist lesbians, Jonny spent his formative years touring with his brother Stephen Peter Rodgers in the band Mighty Purple.  He subsequently worked as a guitarist and writer in multiple touring bands.  Between tours he studied art-music privately with composers in the Yale community, notably Padma Newsome, Fenno Heath and Deborah Teason. Jonny maintained a 9 piece chamber ensemble in New Haven until he moved to NYC and then Oregon to write and perform full time as Cindertalk.Jonny lives on an Oregon farm with his wife and daughters, where he grows food, raises chickens, hosts artists for residencies, runs the record label Off Atlas, and above all — writes music.

Mike Gamble is an adventurous guitarist and multi-instrumentalist whose work with electronic modes of composition are integrated endlessly into his setup. Gamble has spent the last 15 years immersed in the creative jazz, experimental rock and improvised music scene primarily in NYC, with close ties to New Orleans, Burlington, Boston, San Francisco and now in Portland OR, where he currently lives. He now teaches audio production at Oregon State University and is in and out of his apartment in Brooklyn, New York, touring the states and Europe. While living in New York from 2002-2013, he performed monthly with indie rockers Seequill, his solo project Scrambler, as well as other NYC fixtures like Bobby Previte, The Brooklyn Qawwali Party, and Pete Robbins. For seven years Gamble held down a weekly series he called 4playbar4 in Park Slope. He has also has worked on soundtracks, notably "Manda Bala," an award-winning critical look at the Brazilian kidnapping regime and "Captured," a film about how photographer Clayton Patterson has dedicated his life to documenting the final era of raw creativity and lawlessness in New York City’s Lower East Side. 

Ben Goldberg – clarinets

Todd Sickafoose – acoustic bass

Scott Amendola – drums / electronics

The trio with recent album "HERE TO THERE" brings a concert of mysterious, fluid music to Berkeley's historic Maybeck Studio.