A concert featuring critically acclaimed composers from Vashon and Seattle will take place at 8 p.m. Saturday at the Open Space for Arts & Community.
The show, featuring genre-busting Northwest music icons Robin Holcomb, Wayne Horvitz and Bill Patton, as well as Vashon composers and players Jessika Kenney and Eyvind Kang, is a benefit for Vashon’s Interfaith Council to Prevent Homelessness and Vashon Youth & Family Services. It’s being presented by Vashon Island Sessions and Mike Dumovich, a local singer/songwriter who said he was motived to help the two agencies because they had recently helped him through difficult times.
VYFS and the Interfaith Council are nonprofits that provide a wide range of services, including counseling, rent assistance and vouchers for travel, prescription medications, food, utilities, education and many other basic needs. In 2012, they helped over 300 households and 400 individuals meet these needs while also providing education and drug and alcohol counseling.
“It can be a really demeaning process to ask for help, and some agencies don’t treat you with a great deal of dignity,” Dumovich said. “Both [VYFS and the Interfaith Council] are honest and treat you with dignity and do what they can. Honest and super kind are a really good combination.”
Dumovich said he was excited to work with islander Debra Heesch, founder of Vashon Sessions, to arrange for such an accomplished group of artists to play together in concert on Vashon.
Horvitz, the prolific player and composer, has worked with a laundry list of acclaimed players and produced records by several Grammy award-winning and nominated musicians. His compositions have been commissioned by the Kronos Quartet, The Brooklyn Academy of Music and Earshot Jazz Festival, and he has been the recipient of grants from several organizations, including the National Endowment for the Arts.
Holcomb, a pianist and songwriter who is known for her merging of avant guard jazz, classical compositions and Americana and folk, has released several albums. She also appeared on the Bill Frisell’s seminal record “Nashville” and many other recordings. The New York Times has called her music as “elegantly simple as a Shaker Quilt, and no less beautiful.”
Eyvind Kang, the Vashon-based viola player and composer, has played on records from Bill Frisell, Laurie Anderson, Lou Reed, Mike Patton, John Zorn, Laura Veirs, Beth Orton and Beck. As a composer, he has put out more than 20 recordings, exploring music that swings between jazz, avant guard, metal, folk and eastern music.
Kenney, who is married to Kang, is a singer who is committed to traditional music, notably Persian and Javanese, and is one of the few non-Persians to achieve as much renown with her work, performing and recording with Ostad Hossein Omoumi. She has also collaborated with John Cage, Jarrad Powell and Kang.
Patton is a guitar and pedal steel player who has worked with countless names in the Seattle area, including Grammy-nominated work with the Fleet Foxes, Josh Tillman (Father John Misty), the Low Hums, Gold Leaves and many others.
Advance tickets to Saturday’s show, $20, are on sale at the Vashon Bookshop, online at www.brownpapertickets.com or at the door the night of the show. It’s an all-ages event.
