Polly Moller brings Company to AVA

Published 5:16 am Monday, October 15, 2007

Astoria Visual Arts Creative Music Series presents Polly Moller and Company, an improvisational and experimental music group from the San Francisco Bay Area, at 8 p.m. Friday, Oct. 19. There is a $5 suggested donation.

Polly Moller improvises on the flute and bass flute. She also composes, creates performance art and heads up the revolving cast of characters called Polly Moller and Company. Moller has been awarded grants by the American Composers Forum Subito Program, the American Composers Forum Community Partners Program and the National Foundation for Advancement in the Arts. Her recordings have been released on Albany Records, Pax Recordings, Mindspore Records and Silver Wheel Music. A new album, “Not Made of Stone,” is Moller’s fourth and the first by Polly Moller and Company.

Bassist, composer and teacher James Carr performs and teaches bass in the Lexington, Ky., area. Carr has also taught music theory, music history and composition at San Francisco State University, Stanford University and Columbia University. As an electric and upright bassist, he has worked and collaborated with many artists, performing electronic jazz improvisation, classic rock, rhythm and blues and bluegrass. Carr is a member of the Folk Boy Orchestra, which is the house band at Wood Songs, the Kentucky Theater’s weekly live radio, Web and PBS TV broadcast, hosted by folksinger Michael Jonathon.

Amar Chaudhary is a composer and performer specializing in contemporary and electronic music. With a doctorate in computer science from the University of California, Berkeley, he is also a developer of advanced software for sound synthesis and music composition. Chaudhary has seen his music performed internationally and has received several honors for his musical work, including a 1992 premier of his clarinet quartet Conversational Impromptu at Weill Recital Hall in New York and the 1990 NGCSA Young Composers Award for Earth Songs.

Having recently received a bachelor’s degree in jazz and world music from San Francisco State University, John Moreira continues his studies at both SFSU and U.C., Berkeley, as he works towards advanced degrees in music history and Japanese culture and language. He also studied for some time at Berklee School of Music in Boston and spent his formative years under the mentorship of Bay Area guitarist Dave Bernstein. While his interest lies in improvised musical performance, he continually seeks to expand outside the scope of his formal music training, with excursions into atonality and a deep exploration of color.

The Astoria Visual Arts Center is located at 453A 11th St. For more information, call (503) 325-4589 or visit www.astoriaarts.com