This Music (TM) Presents is a Boston musician’s initiative to recognize the creativity of many who haven’t been given the stage as leaders, often younger than the Jazz scene veterans; those with acknowledgment who can create a new project and musical ideas; and the unsung “gems” who aren’t in the public’ eye and deserve to be. The emphasis is on the freer forms, the adventurous (to help find a “home”).
IG: @this_music_presents
$15 (students) // $20
Tonight’s Performance:
QUARTET BLURB
2 + 2 = 4 is a new meeting, a mix of two duos who, on the face of it, may seem quite different. What unites us is a love of sound and improvisation and a considered desire to build beauty in the moment - differently each and every time. A melding of two sets of paired friends. Expect the unexpected!
Duo Bio I
Dani Dobkin and Matt Sargent
Dani Dobkin (synthesizer) and Matt Sargent (guitar and electronics) are a musical duo from New York. Beginning with a phrase from Gertrude Stein’s Tender Buttons, "Act so that there is no use in a center," the improvising duo delights in the exploration of their contrasting sensibilities. Since 2021, they have released two albums and completed two North American tours, during which they’ve continued a musical conversation across many shows in museums, cathedrals, universities, warehouses, and bars.
Their music has been described as “a strangely emotional, gossamer-like tapestry of sounds, from barely audible phrases to saturating swells of noise. It all sounds almost like an American primitive guitar record retrieved from far in the future.” (Antonio Poscic, Future Music) Writing about their newest album, Old Dutch Church, Bill Meyer of the Chicago Reader states, “Dobkin’s electronics shimmer and writhe like something growing under the light of Sargent’s carefully spaced harmonics.”
Duo Bio II
Chris Cochrane and Stephen Haynes
Chris Cochrane and Stephen Haynes have worked over the past few years on projects with Andrea Centazzo and Loren Mazzacane Connors and - in the process - have gotten to know each other. Our new duo is intended to deepen our musical friendship and explore shared methodologies and voice in an intimate setting.
Individual bios
Dani Dobkin is a New York City based artist, composer and educator currently working with sound, ceramics and modular synthesis. Recently their work has engaged with ideas of grief, decay and ephemerality.
Past and recent collaborators include Yarn/Wire, International Contemporary Ensemble, CT::SWaM, Qubit and Women in Sound.
As an artist and composer, their work has been showcased at a variety of venues and galleries including ISSUE Project Room (NYC), Dimenna Center for the Arts (NYC), The Clay Studio (Philadelphia), Spectrum (NYC), Fridman Gallery (NYC), Mom’s Gallery (NYC), The Wallach Gallery (NYC), The Rubin Museum (NYC), Public Records (NYC), Chronos Art Center (Shanghai), NextSunday (Tokyo) and Little Berlin (Philadelphia).
Dobkin received a BFA from Bard College, both an MFA in Sound Art and a DMA in Music Composition from Columbia University. They are currently serving as an early career fellow at Columbia University and teaching electronic music at Bard College.
Matt Sargent is a composer, guitarist, and recording engineer based in upstate New York. His music has been described as “bringing a sharpened sense of the transcendental into the 21st century.” (Paul Muller, Sequenza21) Writing about his album, Ghost Music, Bill Meyer states, “this music isn’t about following in anyone’s footsteps; it uses bare resources to establish a bounded and essential place.” (The Wire Magazine)
His albums include Illuminations (Sawyer Editions, 2024), Bend (Waveform Alphabet, 2023), Between Time and After (Chen Li Music, 2023), Tide (A Wave Press, 2020), Separation Songs (Cold Blue Music, 2019), Tide (for ten basses) (Marginal Frequency, 2019), and Ghost Music (Weighter Recordings, 2018).
Matt is currently engaged with expanding available repertoire for the pedal steel and electric guitar. In 2022, he commissioned new music for solo pedal steel from Michael Pisaro-Liu, Carl Stone, and Nomi Epstein. This season, his guitar collaborations with Robert Carl for just intonation guitar and electronics were released on Carl’s Infinity Avenue (Neuma Records, 2024). Most recently, his recording of James Romig’s hour-length piece for electric guitar, The Fragility of Time, was released by A Wave Press.
In demand as an audio engineer for contemporary music, Matt’s recent production credits include Alvin Lucier’s One Arm Bandits (Important Records), Ricochet Lady (Black Truffle), and Works for the Ever Present Orchestra II (Black Truffle), Richard Teitelbaum’s Asparagus (Black Truffle), Musica Elettronica Viva’s Symphony No. 107 - The Bard (Black Truffle), Michael Ranta’s Transits: Volume I (Important Records), and Sarah Hennies’s Spectral Malsconcities (New World Records), among many others. Praising his work on Robert Carl’s album, Splectra (Cold Blue Music), Fanfare Magazine writes, “he could find no better collaborator than composer and sound designer Matt Sargent.”
Matt is an assistant professor of music at Bard College.
Chris Cochrane is a Brooklyn-based musician guitarist improviser noise maker collaborator and composer. Chris has worked with many musicians including Zeena Parkins, John Zorn, Tim Hodgkinson, Billy Martin. Loren Connors, Marc Ribot, Jamaaladine Tacuma, Gabby Fluke-Mogul, Brandon Lopez, Gelsey Bell, Galvin Weston, Stew, Eszter Balint, and many others. Chris formed the band No Safety with Zeena Parkins, and amongst other bands was in Curlew.He has also composed music for dance, theater and film since arriving full time in NYC, over forty years ago. He plans to continue to collaborate and make music as long as he able to.
Stephen Haynes is an improviser, organizer and recording artist. His practice ranges from small groups to large orchestras with a particular focus on working directly with composers in the development and performance of new music. This aspect of his work is prominently featured on Pillars, Tyshawn Sorey’s groundbreaking work for octet released on Firehouse 12 Records. He is also a founding member of Adam Rudolph’s East Coast version of Go: Organic Orchestra.
Haynes’ latest project – Knuckleball – is a modern take on the brass band, grounded in Free Music practice. Recorded during the spring of 2023, the music should see release during the fall of 2025 on the Fundacja Słuchaj! label as a box set.
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