events
Rootstock Arts Thursdays - Jacob + Kanoko (Improvisational bass Drum/koto duo)
Kanoko Nishi-Smith is a performer currently based in SF/Bay Area. Though classically trained on piano, receiving a BA in Classical Music Performance from Mills College, her recent interest has primarily been in performing 20th century and contemporary musical compositions for piano as well as for koto (Japanese 13-string zither), and free-improvisation in various different contexts, with musicians, as well as dancers, poets,
and visual artists.
Jacob Felix Heule is an improvising percussionist with a special interest in friction techniques. His music is shaped by intuition, listening, and following where the sounds lead. He embraces limited instrumentation - usually playing just a single drum - as a commitment to exploring the depth of his instruments. He uses a wide array of found objects and extended techniques to create a unique and idiosyncratic sound vocabulary. He also plays drum set and electronics. Heule has been in active in the San Francisco Bay Area music scene since the early 2000s, and has played hundreds of shows in basements, warehouses, and squats around the world, with groups such as Ettrick, Basshaters, Sult, and Voicehandler. Heule frequently collaborates with Danishta Rivero, Kanoko Nishi-Smith, Guro Moe, Håvard Skaset, Matt Chandler, Chris Cooper, and Kevin Corcoran. He has long been active as an organizer, and since 2015 has facilitated a monthly improvisation workshop, Doors That Only Open in Silence.
Watch video here
TICKETS AVAILABLE HERE
Sharon D Henderson & Reflection
Sharon D Henderson & Reflection is a much in-demand Bay Area based musical/vocal group who performs at churches, temples, concerts, cafes and venues all over the San Francisco Bay Area and beyond. Their spiritual repertoire consists mainly of their trademark “Gosperational Music” style, which is a blend of rich gospel songs from her Baptist roots and inspirational songs which are drawn from any style of music which uplifts and inspires. Reflection also performs a repertoire of R&B, Jazz, blues, Pop and Rock music, which
the group performs at events in the greater Bay Area and beyond With a charter to uplift, inspire and spread the joy of the live music experience.
featuring:
Sharon D Henderson – lead vocals
Mark Rickey – keyboards/vocals
Leandrew (Lee) Henderson – bass/vocals
“Vino” (Alvin Thomas) – drums
Anthony (Tony) Simpson – guitar/vocals
tickets available at eventbrite
Valerie Troutt - Vocal Workshop Student Concert
vocalist, composer and educator Valerie troutt hosts a vocal workshop student concert at wyldflowr arts.
Bay-area born and bred, jazz and gospel trained, and internationally respected, Valerie Troutt is a musical collagist, borrowing from ancestral centuries of sound, channeling spirits, and delivering the stories of our love, loss, and lives. There’s a light in this unapologetically unconventional artist/teacher/activist for whom art and activism are intertwined. Within this spiritual and social justice-driven performer is a lifelong hunger for craft, for connection, for cultural narratives and an indefatigable thirst to serve as an agape griot to a waiting and hurting people.
Valerie Troutt - Vocal Workshop
Join vocalist, composer and educator Valerie troutt for an intensive workshop series:
classes on Nov 9, nov 16 , with performance on nov 17.
Bay-area born and bred, jazz and gospel trained, and internationally respected, Valerie Troutt is a musical collagist, borrowing from ancestral centuries of sound, channeling spirits, and delivering the stories of our love, loss, and lives. There’s a light in this unapologetically unconventional artist/teacher/activist for whom art and activism are intertwined. Within this spiritual and social justice-driven performer is a lifelong hunger for craft, for connection, for cultural narratives and an indefatigable thirst to serve as an agape griot to a waiting and hurting people.
Because of Black Music I Am Friendsgiving Game Night & Jam
Come hang out at the Because of Black Music IAM Friendsgiving Game Night & Jam Session for a soulful night of games and music with friends at wyldflowr arts!
tickets available at eventbrite
Valerie Troutt - Vocal Workshop
Join vocalist, composer and educator Valerie troutt for an intensive workshop series:
classes on Nov 9, nov 16 , with performance on nov 17.
Bay-area born and bred, jazz and gospel trained, and internationally respected, Valerie Troutt is a musical collagist, borrowing from ancestral centuries of sound, channeling spirits, and delivering the stories of our love, loss, and lives. There’s a light in this unapologetically unconventional artist/teacher/activist for whom art and activism are intertwined. Within this spiritual and social justice-driven performer is a lifelong hunger for craft, for connection, for cultural narratives and an indefatigable thirst to serve as an agape griot to a waiting and hurting people.
Rootstock Arts Thursdays - Schoenbeck/Horvitz Project
The Wire magazine places Sara Schoenbeck in the "tiny club of bassoon pioneers" at work in contemporary music today and the New York Times has called her performances "galvanizing" and "riveting, mixing textural experiments with a big, confident sound.”
Wayne Horvitz is a composer, pianist and electronic musician who has performed extensively throughout Europe, Asia, Australia, and North America. He is the leader of the Gravitas Quartet, Sweeter Than the Day, Zony Mash, The Four plus One Ensemble and co-founder of the New York Composers Orchestra.
tickets available here
Chloe Jean (Jazz Vocalist)
Chloe Jean is a Larkspur based award-winning recording artist and songwriter. She has shared the stage with Pete Escovedo, The Ray Obiedo Group, Tony Lindsay of Santana, Azure McCall, Robert Cray, Jose Luis Rodriguez (aka. El Puma), Nelly McKay, and many others. Produced by famed guitarist, RAY OBIEDO, Chloe's 2023 debut Jazz Album reached #11 on the Jazz Week Charts, #1 on the Play MPE Charts and received much critical acclaim. Chloe has worked as a session vocalist and songwriter for Ken Caillat’s Sleeping Giant Records since 2016 as well as a songwriting mentor for Artist Max. She is also a Sofar Sounds Artist.
Rootstock Arts Thursdays - VidyA - Prasant Radhakrishnan, Sameer Gupta, David Ewell
“VidyA's music breathes at the very center of a cultural crossroads between the North American jazz idiom and the Carnatic music of South India. VidyA's music is a new vein of North American music... present tense, present location, new culture in the making.”
tickets available here
In Polite Company (Groove/Fusion)
Description: In Polite Company is a four-piece groove/fusion ensemble with members hailing from the East Bay and the City. The band shows off influences like Vulfpeck and Snarky Puppy through their originals alongside re-arranged versions of classics from Roberta Flack, Freddie Hubbard, and Herbie Hancock, among many others.
Featuring:
Alex Heigl: Electric bass
Chris Murdock: Tenor sax
Jeremy Welborn: Drums
Nick Wrubel: Keys
Bandcamp: https://inpolitecompany.bandcamp.com/album/three-songs
Rootstock Arts Thursdays - Things That Move featuring Ben Goldberg, Nate Brenner & Tim Bulkley
“Things That move” featuring Ben Goldberg, Nate Brenner, and Tim Bulkley.
ABOUT BEN GOLDBERG:
Berkeley clarinetist Ben Goldberg has spent the past four decades expanding jazz’s frontiers as an improviser, And composer. A relentlessly creative composer, he’s written chamber orchestra song cycles, gutbucket blues, and minimalist soundscapes.
Dividing his time between the Bay Area and New York City in recent years, Goldberg has forged deep ties to a vast and varied constellation of improvisers, including guitarist Mary Halvorson, pianist Myra Melford, and drummers Allison Miller, Gerald Cleaver, Kenny Wollesen, and Ches Smith.
TICKETS AVAILABLE HERE
Morley with Chris Bruce (NYC Acoustic duo)
New York City based artist, Morley, weaves the threads of jazz, soul, and global folk traditions into a singular tapestry of vocal and acoustic splendor — the sound wave of a life lived with uncommon devotion to human rights and environmental justice.
In celebration of the September release of Morley’s full-length studio album,“Follow The Sound,” co- produced with her partner, Chris Bruce (producer of Lizz Wright’s “Shadow” and Meshell Ndegeocello’s sophomore Blue Note Records album, “No More Water: The Gospel of James Baldwin”), Morley is joined by Chris Bruce for this acoustic duet concert.
Rootstock Arts Thursdays - Drifting East: Exploring the Rhythms & Melodies of Afghanistan
the ‘drifting east’ project is lead by Eman Essa—one of this generation's most talented and sought-after Afghan musicians. Essa learned tabla under his father, the prominent Afghan tabla virtuoso Ustad Toryalai Hashimi, and is currently under the guidance of Padmashree Pandit Swapan Chaudhuri. Eman has trained in and performed both the afghan style of tabla as well as north Indian classical percussion. He has also earned a BS in Business Administration: Management Information Systems and works in the IT industry as an Program Manager and go-to-market advisor to start-ups. As he continues his musical journey, he looks to preserve the Afghan style of rhythm and to incorporate it with his enriched north Indian classical music studies. His mission is to preserve the rhythms and melodies of Afghanistan and share it with the rest of the world.
TICKETS AVAILABLE HERE
The Hogan Brothers (Jazz Fusion Trio)
The Hogan Brothers - Steve (bass), Colin (keyboards), and Julian (drums) - are a jazz fusion trio based in Oakland, California. Their influences, while rooted in American styles such as Jazz, Funk, R&B, and Pop, are also informed by many international styles such as Timba, Tango, Gamelan, Highlife, Soukous, Afro-pop, North Indian Classical music and much more. Born and raised in the San Francisco Bay Area, the brothers credit their parents (Jim & Maddie) for their diverse musical upbringing, exposing them to a plethora of international musical styles at young ages. They were fortunate not only to take advantage of the wide variety of excellent music programs available in the Bay Area (Berkeley High Jazz, Young Musicians Program, Cal State East Bay Music, UC Berkeley Ethnomusicology), but also had the opportunity to study internationally with master musicians in such countries such as Indonesia, Cuba, Ghana, and Brazil.
The brothers are collectively involved in many projects and have performed extensively throughout the US and internationally (Brazil, Turkey, Indonesia, England, France, Switzerland, Italy, Canada, Mexico, Barbados). They have performed with many great artists/projects such as: James Moody, Hugh Masekela, Peter Erskine, Tommy Igoe, Larry Graham, Bob Brookmeyer, Roy Ayers, Josh Jones, Goapele, Maria Schneider, Bobby Brown, Evan Rachel Wood, Keith Terry, Victor Wooten, Latoya London, Dave Chappelle, Crosspulse, Dynamic, Adam Theis, Jazz Mafia, and O-maya. The Hogan Brothers continue to perform and study internationally, always seeking to broaden their audience and sound.
Mia Pixley (Cello)
Mia Pixley, Ph.D. is a mother, clinical psychologist, and artist who uses her cello, voice, and music performance to study and represent aspects of self and other, community, and the natural world. Similar to the collaborative lens from which she approaches her psychotherapy practice, Mia’s artistic collaborations lead with curiosity, honesty, humility, and humor. Protectively whimsical and simultaneously melancholic, Mia’s music gravitates toward the beauty hidden in sorrow, pain, and loss and this beauty’s potential to inspire curiosity, wonder, rebirth, and reconnection to ourselves, each other, and the natural world.
Rootstock Arts Thursdays - Ragamenco
RAGAMENCO music represents the synthesis of ancient traditions that have been linked by human and cultural migration through the centuries.
A collaboration of Spanish and Indian musicians from the Bay Area, RagaMenco explores exciting new territories by combining haunting Indian melodies with exciting Roma, flamenco, and jazz traditions from Spain.
Come hear ancient traditions from the Old World finding a new voice in California.
tickets available here
Watch: ragamento
Vocal Performance workshop with Tiffany Austin
join tiffany austin for a weekly workshop series to free your voice, and refine your band leading and musicianship skills! We will conclude with a final student concert at the beautiful Wyldflowr Arts venue in Oakland.
Sun, September 8 (11am-2pm)
Sun, September 15th (12-3pm)
Sun, September 22 (12-3pm)
$100 per workshop
$290 for all 3 workshop dates
About Tiffany Austin: Tiffany Austin is an award winning vocalist, composer and educator who has performed in premier national and international venues, including Dizzy’s (NYC), the Blue Note (NYC), and Walt Disney Hall (LA). She holds a degree in law from UC Berkeley and has taught voice at series hosted by SFJAZZ, Stanford Jazz, and Healdsburg Jazz. She specializes in teaching students to understand vocal mechanics, while calming their nervous systems and connecting to both the audience, musical traditions, and themselves.
Reserve your spot:
https://partiful.com/e/Tt9WChybFeiOcGal7C3A
Mads Tolling & John R. Burr: Ramblin’
Mads Tolling & John R. Burr:
Ramblin’
Mads Tolling is a two-time Grammy Award-Winning Violinist and the 2016 Winner of DownBeat Critics Rising Star Poll. As a former nine-year member of both Turtle Island Quartet and bassist Stanley Clarke's band, Mads has spent most of his professional life touring internationally. Mads has been featured on NPR's Morning Edition, and his recordings have received rave reviews in DownBeat Magazine, Strings Magazine, Washington Post and San Francisco Chronicle. He has performed with Chick Corea, Ramsey Lewis, Kenny Barron, Paquito Rivera, and he is now a part of Bob Weir’s Wolf Bros Band. In 2015 Mads was commissioned to write a violin concerto by the late great conductor Michael Morgan, which he performed with Oakland Symphony Orchestra at the Paramount Theatre.
John R. Burr is one of the most in-demand pianists around the Bay Area. He has toured extensively with Maria Muldaur and The Alison Brown Quartet. Mads and John met back in 2015, and just last year the two released their first album together, Ramblin’ on Blue Coast Records. The CD, which was recorded a day before the COVID lockdowns 2020, features creative arrangements of songs from all corners of the music world, including Toto, Lennon/McCartney, Victor Young and John McLaughlin.
Rootstock Arts Thursdays - The Sky Unit feat. Erika Oba: The Glenn Horiuchi Legacy Project
The Zen of Glenn: Glenn Horiuchi Legacy Ensemble with The Sky Unit (Francis Wong, Chris Trinidad, Carrie Jahde) featuring Erika Oba. Horiuchi was a pioneer in the Asian American creative music movement with a foundational legacy in compositions, recordings, and major international performances. A Zen Buddhist practitioner, he is the author of Zen of Glenn, a collection of writings published after his untimely death. Celebrated flutist, pianist, and composer Erika Oba will join the band to render a program of Horiuchi’s musical works and readings of his essays.
The Sky Unit is a multi directional ensemble emerging from electric bassist, synth performer, and composer Chris Trinidad’s weekly residency at the Sky Cafe in South San Francisco, CA. Formed as a collective also featuring trapset drummer Carrie Jahde and saxophonist Francis Wong, the Sky Unit’s two fold mission is to incubate new improvised music repertoire and excavate lesser known work from creative and jazz music lineages. Its most recent work has included a broad exploration of the hybrid palette of Asian American (+1 Canadian) Improvisers, from the jazz poetics of Genny Lim, to the Zen informed work of the late Glenn Horiuchi, to sounds of liberation of its own “OG” social justice warrior Francis Wong.
One of the Sky Unit’s key strategies is to collaborate with guest artists as a means to bring to the performance space a range of influences and lived experience in the music-making. Look out in the coming year for performances at the Sky Cafe and other Bay Area creative venues, new recording projects, and social media content. A partial list of recent guests: poet Genny Lim, flutist Erika Oba, taiko sensei Melody Takata, kulintang artist Conrad Benedicto, guitarist Karl Evangelista, Vietnamese zither performers Jacqueline and Christopher Lam, and more!
tickets available here
WatchL glenn horiuchi “Heart Place”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OtKOoJ1BBjU
Vocal Performance workshop with Tiffany Austin
join tiffany austin for a weekly workshop series to free your voice, and refine your band leading and musicianship skills! We will conclude with a final student concert at the beautiful Wyldflowr Arts venue in Oakland.
Sun, September 15th (12-3pm)
Sun, September 22 (12-3pm)
Sun, September 29 (12-3pm)
$100 per workshop
$290 for all 3 workshop dates
About Tiffany Austin: Tiffany Austin is an award winning vocalist, composer and educator who has performed in premier national and international venues, including Dizzy’s (NYC), the Blue Note (NYC), and Walt Disney Hall (LA). She holds a degree in law from UC Berkeley and has taught voice at series hosted by SFJAZZ, Stanford Jazz, and Healdsburg Jazz. She specializes in teaching students to understand vocal mechanics, while calming their nervous systems and connecting to both the audience, musical traditions, and themselves.
Reserve your spot:
https://partiful.com/e/Tt9WChybFeiOcGal7C3A
Diaspora Sessions: The Sacred Turn Up
Diaspora Sessions is back with another immersive art experience at the new Wyldflowr Arts space in Oakland on September 14th, 3-8pm!
Featuring:
fashion show & Art exhibit by gerry simpson
african drumming & dancing by African heritage ensemble
Commissioned performances by Destiny muhammad (harp) & Nakachi clark-kasimu (poetry)
dj dance party
Purchase tickets Here
Rootstock Arts Thursdays - Lucian Balmer and Spruce Ritual
Experience Spruce Ritual, a musical exploration of two great traditions: eastern Hindustani music and western classical music. Through sublime melodies, intricate compositions, and ecstatic poetry, they take the listener on a heartfelt musical journey.
Led by composer, violinist, and vocalist Lucian Kano Balmer, Spruce Ritual released their debut album to great acclaim in February of 2023. "Spruce Ritual: The Way The Evening Speaks is a wonderfully original, musically masterful and evocative album. Lucian Kano Balmer has united skillful playing with soulful longing, and the results speak volumes." - Rebecca Cullen, stereostickman.com
Accompanying Lucian will be:
Charith Premawardhana (viola)
Robin Reynolds (cello)
Will Marsh (sitar)
Josh Mellinger (tabla)
tickets available here
Katrina Croswell: Pieces of eight (Book Reading)
Please join us for the lively Oaktown launch of Pieces of Eight: A Harper Family Mixtape! The YA novella (20 years in the making) is a captivating narrative that takes you on a journey through the eyes of eight-year-old Jazzy. Set in 70s Chicago, it's a tale of secrets, dilemmas, and life-changing experiences. This literary mixtape, filled with a unique blend of drama, humor, and music, explores the resilience of the human spirit and the power of family. It's a story that will resonate with you, long after the last page is turned.
The author, Katrina "Kat" Antoinette Croswell, an Oakland transplant with deep Chicago roots, is a multifaceted artist and writer. Earning her MFA from California College of the Arts, Kat has an impressive portfolio of fiction, non- fiction, poetry, short stories, and songs. Her abstract art is as captivating as her written works. Kat's debut novella, Pieces of Eight: A Harper Family Mixtape, is the first in a promising series. Residing in Oakland, California with her life partner and their Golden Doodle, Kat's diverse experiences and creative prowess make her a relatable author for readers of all walks of life.
Our fabulous moderator for the day, Kelechi Ubozoh, Co-editor of We've Been Too Patient: Voices from Radical Mental Health has this to say:
"Time travel through a weathered boombox to the south side of Chicago in the 1970s and hear the exhilarating music and lives showcased in Kat Croswell's debut novella: Pieces of Eight: A Harper Family Mixtape. Join our heroine, eight-year-old Jasmine (Jazzy) Piccolo Harper, as she and her family experience joy, grief, and good trouble in this tender, tragic, and dramatic coming of age story. Kat dreams up sweet, powerful images juxtaposed with the major and minor chords of life in an innovative writing genre she has named a literary mixtape. Prepare your heart to burst, to break, and to be on beat to a perfectly timed 8 count."
free admission.
Vocal Performance Workshop with Tiffany Austin
Join Tiffany Austin for a workshop series to free your voice, and refine your band leading and musicianship skills! We will conclude with a final student concert at the beautiful Wyldflowr Arts venue in Oakland.
Classes
Sun, August 25th (12-3pm)
Sun, September 8th (11am - 2pm)
final concert
Sun, September 22 (3-5pm)
$100 per workshop
$180 for both workshop dates
Register here
Fam Sesh lead by Oddity
FAM SESH: a queer, femme and them centered jam session featuring multi-instrumentalist, oddity
Rootstock Arts Thursdays - Eki Shola
Born in London to Jamaican parents, Eki Shola was raised in a musical family. She emigrated to the U.S. in ’87 and later as a pre-med student at Cornell, she performed in the jazz ensemble under the direction of Dr. Karlton Hester. In 2016, fueled by grief, she was inspired to release her debut album, Final Beginning. Subsequently, after a traumatic escape from the Sonoma County October 2017 wildfires, Eki Shola was further moved to focus more on her music and she composed Pieces, a trilogy, each album portraying a particular stage of reflection and healing.
ASCAP Plus winner and selected “23 people to watch in 2023" by the Press Democrat, Eki Shola has shared the stage with Dr. Donald Byrd, Steve Turre and more and and has opened for various artists including Habib Koité, Bebel Gilberto, DakhaBrakha, Georgia Anne Muldrow, Lucky Otis, Sammy J and Kitaro. Eki Shola completed her Essential Virtual Tour in 2021, performing and giving talks across the world. Furthermore, inspired by observing the need for amplifying the voices of underrepresented creatives, Eki Shola was moved to create and launch Unmute Magazine, a digital publication by and mainly for BIPOC artists.
tickets available here
Daniel Riera
Daniel Riera is a Latin-Grammy nominated multi-instrumentalist, producer, and composer from San Francisco, CA. He plays the flute, wind-controller, modular synthesizer, guitar, and bass. He is active as a performer with his jazz-fusion quartet the Daniel Riera Ensemble as well as performing solo with a modular synthesizer and looper. He also performs with alternative jazz artists like Rebirth Canal, Kev Choice, Mara Hruby and Indian bhangra fusion group the KGS Band.
Rootstock Arts Thursdays - Raffi Garabedian (sax)
tickets available here
about raffi garabedian
Raffi Garabedian is a tenor saxophonist and composer living in Oakland, California. A dedicated improvisationalist, Garabedian utilizes spontaneous composition to create sonic atmospheres in which different perspectives on rhythmic, harmonic, and melodic progression can take shape. Garabedian’s compositional work remains strongly informed by his relationship with improvisation, a relationship which expresses itself in unique ways. His second record, Melodies in Silence, was marked in part by the remote nature of its recording, which opened new avenues in terms of production and processing. A record in part of grief and loneliness, Melodies in Silence allowed Garabedian to deepen and broaden the possibilities for composition and playing communal music when alone. On 2024’s The Crazy Dog, Garabedian began writing for voice—which he treated as a part of the horn section—in part of a cross-generational effort to bring his own, his father’s, and his grandmother’s voices into one piece of art. The result is what Downbeat calls a “deeply personal and musically inventive” work, full of “complex, contrapuntal ambitions.”
