Dogwood with Emma Garau / John Dikeman Trio
Wednesday, May 8 at 7pm
Black Mountain College Museum + Arts Center {120 College Street}
TICKETS – $10 General Admission / $5 for BMCM+AC members + Students w/ID

Black Mountain College Museum + Arts Center presents Dogwood (Emma Garau) and the John Dikeman Trio for an evening performance.

Dogwood

Dogwood is an evolving rendition of Garau’s solo project; reimagined as a live, improvised performance. Built around an exploration of rhythmic and tonal textures on drum set, Dogwood combines elements of soundscape, free jazz, and electronic music into a performance that oscillates between deceptively delicate and unapologetically dissonant.

Emma Garau is a drummer and composer based in Asheville, NC. She graduated with a BFA in jazz and contemporary music from UNC Asheville in 2022 while independently studying with Dave King of The Bad Plus, and touring extensively with Fortezza- which she co-founded in 2016. Emma currently tours and records with art punk duo, ¿WATCHES?, Powder Horns, and as a solo artist.

John Dikeman Trio

John Dikeman is an American saxophonist currently residing in Amsterdam. Drawing inspiration from a wide range of sources, his playing runs the gamut of improvised music and technique, ranging from reductionist extended technique based improvisation to full throttle free jazz. He is currently active as a member of numerous groups including Cactus Truck, a band made up guitarist/bass guitarist Jasper Stadhouders and Onno Govaert; Universal Indians with Norwegian rhythm section Tollef Østvang and Jon Rune Strøm and often featuring Joe McPhee; the trio Dikeman, Parker, Drake with William Parker and Hamid Drake, and numerous other collaborations including projects with Andrew Barker, Dirk Serries, Steve Noble, Luis Vicente, Alexander Hawkins, Roger Turner, Hugo Antunes, Peter Jacquemyn, Peter Ole Jorgensen, and Aleksandar škorić. Dikeman also collaborates regularly with producer Jameszoo.

“The saxophonist… puts fire to the fuse with the Old Testament fury that Charles Gayle displays on his best trio records. More than improvisation or free jazz you hear übergospel: reeling with religious conviction and tortuous dynamism, with roaring pounding in the low register, split tones and a timbre that is almost torn to pieces.” – Guy Peters, Enola

Thomas Florin explores the free spaces of improvisation and groove through a wide range of jazz and improvised music. Pianist, trumpeter, arranger and composer, he tours regularly with his trio Dig dug dug with double bassist Bänz Oester and drummer Samuel Dühsler (first album released in 2022), as well as playing solo piano (2 albums). His musical research has led him to collaborate with improvised music and free jazz artists, including drummer Nicolas Field and saxophonist John Dikeman, with the electroacoustic trio Re-Ghoster (with Nicolas Field and Valerio Tricoli), and in an extended version with Nate Wooley and Fritz Welch.) Active in Japan since 2018, Thomas also regularly collaborates with many Japanese artists.

He has performed with artists such as Nate Wooley, Fritz Welch, Hans Koch, Jerome Noetinger, Akira Sakata, Yasuhiro Yoshigaki, Shinpei Ruike, Valerio Tricoli, Nicolas Field, Jasper Stadhouders, Keigo Iwami, Bjørnar Habbestad, Matthieu Michel, Philippe Sellam, Shems Bendali, Leon Phal. Since 2020, Thomas Florin has been a member of Geneva’s Fanfareduloup collective as pianist, trumpet player and arranger, for a whole series of creations, and is artistic director of the “Let’s Play” video game show at the Alhambra in Geneva in January 2022.

Nicolas Field is a drummer, composer, performer, and artist. Born in London, he studied drums and percussion at the Amsterdam Conservatorium, sonology at The Hague Conservatorium and “Art and Media” at HEAD in Geneva. In the early 2000s, Field began touring Europe as a drummer with different bands playing improvised music, contemporary music, and jazz. Performing as a touring artist has taken him to the U.S., Japan, Korea and Australia, and allowed him to collaborate with musicians such as Tetuzi Akyama (guitar), Akira Sakata (saxophone), Otomo Yoshihide (guitar), Keiji Haino (guitar), the band Cactus Truck, Didi Bruckmayr (vocals), Jacques Demierre (piano), Gilles Aubry (electronics) or Fritz Welch (drums/vocals).

In 2008 Field started creating sound installations and visual works of art. His works has been shown at the Maison d’Ailleurs in Yverdon, Lift Geneva, the Design biennale in St-Etienne, Crisalide Festival in Forli), the Burgtheater in Vienna, “Corpo 6” gallery in Berlin, Netwerk-center for contemporary art in Aalst, Maison des Moines in Romainmôtier, the MEG in Geneva, the Embassy of Foreign Artists in Geneva (EoFA), and at the Festival Novas Frequenciãs in Rio de Janeiro. He was artist in residence at the Swiss Institute in Rome, AirAntwerpen, Belluard Bollwerk international, and Johannesburg South-Africa (2015).

Nicolas has also worked for several years in dance and theatre performances. In Switzerland, he has collaborated with the dance company 7273, the dancer Mohamed Toukabri, the “Sugar-Free” collective as well as with the performers Marie-Caroline Hominal and Gilles Furtwängler. He also works regularly with the Belgian company Needcompany, as a composer, musician, and performer.