Bowerbird is pleased to present The Lepidopterans: Tom Boram (Synthesizer, Sitar), Jason Willett (Electronics), and Toshi Makihara (Percussion), at The Rotunda with an opening set by Anne Ishii.

ABOUT THE ARTISTS

Tom Boram and Jason Willett have been playing together for almost 25 years as ‘Leprechaun Catering.” The Baltimore-based duo makes improvised music from electronics that is strange and dark, yet joyful and humorous. Their music reflects their influences: the outer space analog echoes of the Barron’s “Forbidden Planet” and the Solar Arkestra’s “Art Forms of Dimensions Tomorrow”, or the sarcastic industrial noises of Northern England’s late 1970s, or the inscrutable textural puzzles of Cecil Taylor’s “Unit Structures” or Incus’ “Company Week” collaborations, and/or the child-like plasticity of the “moogsploitation”-album era, or the vintage TV and cinema sounds of De Wolfe and Chapelle library music.

Boram is also a harpsichordist, organist, filmmaker and multi-media artist. He has had his films/videos and multi-media installations featured throughout the USA, Mexico and Europe. He is a founder of Baltimore’s 25-year old improvised music festival, High Zero.

Willett is also a bass player, producer, record store owner. He has been playing bass in the infamous art punk band Half Japanese with Jad Fair for 30 years. He is a founder of Baltimore’s Megaphone Records and the True Vine Record Shop. He has played on, recorded and produced hundreds of albums.

Toshi Makihara studied drums, percussion and improvisation with Sabu Toyozumi, a prominent percussionist in Tokyo. Since arriving in the United States in the late 1970’s he has worked with various new music ensembles as well as with numerous dance and theater companies internationally. Makihara has provided original music to Arden Theater Company, Diversions Dance Company (Wales), Pennsylvania Ballet, ZeroMoving Dance Company and Leah Stein Dance Company among others,
and has worked with musicians including Steve Beresford, Peter Brotzmann, John Butcher, Nels Cline, Eugene Chadbourne, Tom Cora, Amy Denio, Thurston Moore, William Parker and John Zorn. He has also collaborated with poets, visual artists, filmmakers and performance artists widely.

Anne Ishii is a writer and born again percussionist who leads the Asian Arts Initiative in Philadelphia. She plays in TOTALLY AUTOMATIC.