Dok Night | KB_Presents: Impro+Song=Love!!!

18:00 Bar open

19:00 Vegan Food by Mody: Bamia (ocra stew) with rice and green salad / € 8 / cash only

20:30 KB_ Presents: Impro+Song = LOVE!!!

Wendy Eisenberg + Beatrice Sberna & Gabriel de Oliveira
Connecting expressions of impro-songwriting from New York to Amsterdam; a workshop + concert
evening.
In a previously unheard constellation, rising NYC impro star Wendy Eisenberg and emerging
creative musicians from the European scene promote an encounter of improviser-songwriters of
diverse backgrounds. Invited by collective-label KB_, Eisenberg joins impro-folk-art-punk duo
Beatrice Sberna & Gabriel de Oliveira for an EU tour throughout mid-June, developing new
material in diverse settings. Together they promise an evening of cathartic improvisation and sonic
narratives touching themes of life, death, adulthood, youth, fear, joy, the art scene, the supernatural
and more.
Bassist Alessandro Fongaro and drummer Sun-Mi Hong (both on awarded projects Pietre, Sun-Mi
Hong Quintet, Ambergris) will play an opening set in duo for the evening.
Before the concert, Wendy will facilitate a workshop on their practice merging songwriting and
improvisation and give insight into their solo and ensemble approach – bring your instruments and
ears!

Wendy Eisenberg
Over the last five years Wendy Eisenberg has been keeping listeners guessing. Nominally an improvising guitarist, they don’t recognize any musical limitations, perpetually finding ways to
apply a deeply exploratory practice to a wide variety of contexts. Eisenberg plays solo guitar as well as banjo in both acoustic and electric settings, warped post-punk songs in the trio Editrix,
delicately dangerous guitar music in the critically acclaimed Bill Orcutt Guitar Quartet, country-free jazz in the band Darlin’, with Lester St. Louis and Ryan Sawyer, febrile post-Prime Time free
jazz in Strictly Missionary, and punk-prog in a trio with Trevor Dunn and Ches Smith. As Eisenberg told fellow guitarist Nick Millevoi in an interview for Premier Guitar in 2021, “I need to be
in a punk band at the same time as I need to be playing free improv, at the same time as I need to be playing songs. All at the same time—otherwise none of the practices will work for me.”
Their musical range isn’t a glib manifestation of eclecticism, but a genuine artistic essence.
Eisenberg has collaborated with a disparate array of musicians from all points along the creative
music spectrum, including Bill Orcutt, Allison Miller, Shane Parish, Francisco Mela, Carla Kihlstedt,
John Zorn, and Caroline Davis. They have released music on Astral Spirits,Tzadik, VDSQ, Ba Da
Bing! Records, Exploding In Sound, Garden Portal, Feeding Tube, Out of Your Head, and Dear Life
Records, and performed everywhere from intimate basements to international festivals including
Moers, Le Guess Who? and Big Ears. They also write words about music and other things, and have
published work in John Zorn’s Arcana series, The Contemporary Music Review, Talkhouse, and
Sound American

Beatrice Sberna & Gabriel de Oliveira
At once adventurous and solid, candid and mysterious, the unprecedented sound of Beatrice Sberna & Gabriel de Oliveira has recently drawn attention in the Dutch creative music scene, echoing in several collaborations and a budding reputation. The duo’s music is an uncompromising expression of impro-songwriting influenced by Italian cantautori and Brazilian “folk” traditions, contemporary pop and jazz, all with a slight punk ethos and heartfelt delicacy. While deeply rooted in their native traditions, the pair nevertheless reaches for a new, mixed sound that transposes the expected voice-and-guitar settings. Following their independent EP Verão é Neve (2021), they now prepare to release a debut LP, revealing a body of work sculpted over the years. In it, they are joined by an unique ensemble of acclaimed and rising names, including Sun-Mi Hong, Alessandro Fongaro, Federico Calcagno
and Ketija Ringa-Karahona and collaborate with featured artists in the league of David Binney and Binkbeats. Their previous work has been commissioned by Kunstinstituut Melly and Le Guess Who?, and includes collaborations with Yamandú Costa, Emanuele Maniscalco, Toninho Horta, and The Klittens.

***

Wendy Eisenberg – electric guitar, voice
Beatrice Sberna – voice
Gabriel de Oliveira – 8-string and electric guitars, viola de cocho, voice
Alessandro Fongaro – double bass
Sun-Mi Hong – drums

This event is supported by Space is the Place and is part of  “KB_ Presents”, the collective’s official live program for the 2024 season, funded by the Amsterdam Fonds voor de Kunst.