Kyle Bruckmann teaches oboe and performance at four universities (the University of California campuses in Santa Cruz, Davis, and Berkeley plus the University of the Pacific), plays with five new-music ensembles (Quinteto Latino, sfSound, the Eco Ensemble, the San Francisco Contemporary Music Players, and Splinter Reeds), and subs with the San Francisco Symphony and several northern California regional orchestras. He also has an edgier side: he plays electroacoustic improvisations and compositions by the likes of Anthony Braxton and Michael Pisaro in the duo EKG, suspends densely layered poetry over twisting prog rock with Degradient, and performs solo concerts that seek to apply his free-jazz chops to nakedly beautiful music. As he explained in the notes of his 2012 CD On Procedural Grounds (New World), what ties all these projects together is his determination to “undermine alleged dichotomies.” Before he moved to the Bay Area in 2003, Bruckmann spent several years honing his inclusive yet selective approach to music in Chicago, where his associations included structuralist composer and reedist Guillermo Gregorio and aggro-prog band Lozenge (which featured Reader music editor Philip Montoro on scrap-metal percussion), but he hasn’t been through town since Splinter Reeds played here in 2016. For this visit he will reengage with an old collaborator and test the waters with some new ones: first he’ll open a show this Sunday in a duo with percussionist Tim Daisy, who played in Bruckmann’s late, great jazz combo Wrack. Together they’ll adapt scores that Bruckmann developed for a larger electroacoustic combo to a two-piece format. (You’ll definitely want to stick around for the headlining solo set by Franco-German bassist Pascal Niggenkemper, who will expand his bracing approach to prepared double bass by applying motorized agitators to his instrument’s surface.) Then on Monday, Bruckmann will perform two sets, one solo and another with violinist-vocalist Macie Stewart and electronic musician Ted Moore. v
Kyle Bruckmann, a linchpin of the Bay Area’s new-music scene, returns to the scene of his early post-everything exploits
