Joanna Mattrey presents Battle Ready, a treatise on the universal and political expressions of love and destruction, and the value of the individual’s voice as a bringer and summoner. Mattrey creates a multimedia work bringing together composition, spoken word, video, and installation crafted specifically for the improvisers Patrick Shiroishi, gabby fluke-mogul, Chris Williams, and Mattrey, who together, make up the ensemble Swoon. Following their premiere of Mattrey’s Roulette Residency performance of Arrhythmia, this new work extends Mattrey’s sonic language by blending improvisation, composition, and installation to pry open the doors of experience.

Swoon (ensemble)
Joanna Mattrey viola, voice, composition
gabby fluke-mogul violin, voice
Patrick Shiroishi saxophone, voice
Chris Williams trumpet/electronics, voice

“Mattrey’s poignant, amorphous laments…are fundamentally indebted to the basic rhythms of human existence—inhale/exhale, heartbeat, movement both pragmatic and expressive.” -NoiseNotMusic

“Joanna Mattrey is becoming a force of nature.” -Foxy Digitalis

A livestream will be available free of charge at 8pm on the day of the performance and archived for future viewing. Watch below or on YouTube.

Swoon, the quartet of Shiroishi, Williams, fluke-mogul, and Mattrey brings together some of the scene’s most vital improvisers and showcase’s their collective fluency and range in their approach to music making, sound sources, and composition. Ensemble members have toured extensively in the states and internationally, participating in some of the leading jazz and improvised festivals and residencies. Extending the transmission of their work through acoustic and electronic synthesis, the genre defying quartet premieres ‘Battle Ready a work that blends composition, improvisation, staging, and video and installation.

Joanna Mattrey is a violist working in free improvisation, new music, and classical music. She uses extended techniques, modern compositional approaches, and electronic alterations to challenge the conventions of the viola. Joanna creates an embodied performance practice centered on ceremony and ritual. Recent solo works include, ‘Soulcaster’ (Notice Recordings), ‘Dirge’ (Dear Life Recs 2021), ‘Veiled’ (Relative Pitch Records, 2020). Mattrey is a current Roulette Resident, and past residencies include ISSUE Project Room, Banff’s Creative Gesture for Composers and Choreographers, 14th Street Y, Wild Project, and MoMa PS1’s ALLGOLD. Mattrey has performed with icons Tyshawn Sorey, Henry Threadgill, Marc Ribot, John Zorn, Mary Halvorson, Billy Martin, Elliott Sharpe, Miya Masaoka, and the International Contemporary Ensemble. www.joannamattrey.com

Patrick Shiroishi is a Japanese-American multi-instrumentalist and composer based in Los Angeles who is perhaps best known for his extensive and incredibly intense work with the saxophone. Over the last decade he has established himself as one of the premier improvising musicians in Los Angeles, playing solo and in numerous collaborative projects. Shiroishi may well be considered a foundational player in the city’s vast musical expanse.

gabby fluke-mogul is a New York based violinist, improviser, composer, educator, organizer, & doula. fluke-mogul weaves within the threads of avant & free jazz with deep roots in improvised & experimental music. Their playing has been described as “embodied, visceral, & virtuosic” & “the most striking sound in improvised music in years…” gabby is humbled to have collaborated with Nava Dunkelman, Joanna Mattrey, Ava Mendoza, Charles Burnham, Fred Frith, Luke Stewart, Zeena Parkins, Tcheser Holmes, Mara Rosenbloom, William Parker, & Pauline Oliveros among many other musicians, poets, dancers, & visual artists. fluke-mogul is a Roulette 2023 Jerome Artist in Residence.

Chris Williams is an interdisciplinary artist and musician based in Brooklyn, NY and is most at home collaborating with contemporary improvisers and experimentalists. He has toured extensively throughout the U.S. and Europe. His work explores the dyad of ancestral trauma and power existing in all Black Americans. Williams has been commissioned by WasteLAnd and International Contemporary Ensemble and has been in residence or with BANFF Centre for the Arts, Foundation of Contemporary Arts, Atlantic Center for the Arts, Musik Installationen Nürnberg and others. He has collaborated with creators including Eyvind Kang, Joanna Mattrey, Miriam Parker, Patrick Shiroishi, Bennie Maupin, Nicole Mitchell, Fay Victor, Wendy Eisenberg, Luke Stewart, Pink Siifu, and Marjani Forte-Saunders.