Michael Foster with Strings shares re-arranged and deconstructed interpretations of standards such as “Solitude” (Duke Ellington / Billy Strayhorn), “Smoke Gets In Your Eyes” (The Platters), “Sunset & The Mockingbird” (Duke Ellington), as well as pieces by Fred Anderson, Joe McPhee, and Fabio Frizzi.
Michael Foster saxophones
Webb Crawford electric guitar and tenor banjo
Zosha Warpeha hardanger fiddle
Rocio Sanchez cello
Leila Bordreuil cello
Anna Abondolo bass
Nava Dunkelman percussion
Zosha Warpeha will open the evening with a meditative solo performance on Hardanger d’amore and voice. Known for creating music at the intersection of contemporary improvisation and folk traditions, a recent review in The Wire of Warpeha’s latest collaborative record Orbweaver (Outside Time), describes the work as “Improvisation that, in spite of its experimental edge, feels decidedly human.”
A livestream will be available free of charge at 8pm on the day of the performance and archived for future viewing.
Michael Foster with Strings is a radical take on the soloist-with-strings tradition. Inverting, exposing, & subverting the power relations therein, while mining the tradition for clues to a more queer and equitable future within both repertoire and the dynamics between ensemble and bandleader. This projects aims to unpack the concept of a Great American Songbook by placing that repertoire in dialogue with works by overlooked, contemporary composers, and with an approach to ensemble playing that integrates elements of noise and free improvisation. This ensemble proposes approaching standards and composition with the same dynamism and openness as free improvisation, but with a keen awareness of power relations and commitment to form.
Zosha Warpeha is a Brooklyn-based composer-performer working in a meditative space at the intersection of contemporary improvisation and folk traditions. Using bowed stringed instruments alongside her own voice, her long-form compositions explore transformations of time, tonality, and resonant space. She performs primarily on Hardanger d’amore, a sympathetic-stringed instrument closely related to the Norwegian Hardanger fiddle. While her work is informed by the cyclical forms and physical momentum of Nordic folk music, her solo practice “subvert[s] tradition not as a political act, but as a point of departure” (Peter Margasak, Nowhere Street). She was a 2025 artist-in-residence at ISSUE Project Room and her work has also been supported by the US-Norway Fulbright Foundation, Jerome Foundation, and the Minnesota Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund. Her second solo album, I grow accustomed to the dark, will be released on Outside Time in early 2026.
Leila Bordreuil is a French-American cellist, composer and sound-artist based in Brooklyn, NY. She accesses concepts as diverse as noise, contemporary classical, free jazz, and experimental traditions but adheres to none of them. Her music mixes deep melancholia with harsh noise-walls at ear-bleeding levels, and was described by The New York Times as “steadily scathing music, favoring long and corrosive atonalities”.
Nava Dunkelman is a percussionist and improviser based in Brooklyn, NY. Born in Tokyo, Japan and raised in a multi-cultural environment by an American father and Indonesian mother. Her musical approach is innovative and dynamic, combining virtuosity and intuition. Meticulous in an intrinsic way, she uses her distinctive sound palette to explore and give life to a vast spectrum of musical possibilities.
Anna Abondolo A native of California and based in Brooklyn, Anna Abondolo is a multidisciplinary artist whose work spans music, movement, art, and theater. A graduate from the New England Conservatory, Anna studied bass performance with a concentration in music technology. Curious about individual experience, her work investigates memory, spatial environments, and their relationship to the body. Anna uses a combination of traditional notation, graphic scores, and text, writing for instrumental ensembles, vocalists, electronics, song, and bodies.
Webb Crawford is a guitarist, tenor banjoist, and instrument-builder who works in free and structured improvisation. Their focus as a builder is in modern reinterpretations of historical stringed instruments, and they have led instrument-building workshops at The Cooper Union, Connecticut College, and the Bennington Museum.
