caldera

Liz Gill Neilson is a painter, printmaker, and multimedia artist based in Portland, OR. In her work, she creates a mythology of form that reveals the web of connection between humans and the natural world. Liz is the Artist in Residence for the Portland Chamber Orchestra, and creates multi-arts projects for the PCO and other music ensembles across the country, bringing visual art and story into a concert setting. This winter, Liz and her husband, composer Duncan Neilson, will be working on a multimedia piece based on Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, as told by the monster himself, entitled The Monster.
Duncan Neilson is a composer, performer, teacher, and artist whose work has appeared in venues ranging from Tanglewood, the Music Salon Philadelphia, the Warped Tour, the Knitting Factory, the Children’s Museum of Manhattan, and Carnegie Hall. Currently he is the composer in residence with the Portland Chamber Orchestra. At Caldera, together with his wife, artist Liz Gill Neilson, Duncan will compose a multi-arts retelling of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein for the PCO, told from the monster’s perspective. Duncan loves skiing, snow shoeing, birdwatching, coffee, all kinds of music, especially music (bird sounds, streams, wind in pines) found in the natural world.

Sandy Florian is the author of 4 books and 1 chapbook of prose poetry: Telescope (Action Books), 32 Pedals & 47 Stops (Tarpaulin Sky Press), The Tree of No (Action Books), On Wonderland & Waste (Sidebrow Press), and Prelude to Air From Water (Elixir Press). She lives in San Francisco where she’s an affiliate artist at the Headlands Center for the Arts and works as one of the “other” editors of the journal Tarpaulin Sky.  While she is at Caldera, she is hard at work on a novel called Boxing the Compass which involves the inner meanderings of a woman literally “lost at sea” in these post-modern times of climate change and environmental devastation.  For more information, visit her blog at http://boxingthecompass.blogspot.com

Erin Elder is an independent curator and writer, and teaches experimental art practices at the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs. She has produced projects with a variety of international institutions, is the co-founder of the curatorial collective InSitu, and has recently begun developing PLAND, an experimental, off-the-grid residency project near Taos, NM.  Her blog, Red Legacy, is a collection of notes on the intersection of land use, communalism, and art practice and can be found at www.red-legacy.blogspot.com. While at Caldera, Erin will develop a research-driven project about a little-known Sixties art collective called the Anonymous Artists of America.

VONIGA is the compositional and performance duo of percussionist/electronic manipulator Joe Janiga and accordionist/guitarist/saxophonist Courtney Von Drehle, working in close association with sound engineer Drew Canulette. VONIGA creates film scores, dance scores, commercial music and Music to Live Your Life By. They scored the HBO documentary “The Final Inch”  which was nominated for a 2008 Oscar. Their music has the intimacy and immediacy of gut bucket blues mixed with Electronica along with the ambient and natural flow of breathing. During their 2010 Caldera residency, VONIGA will be crafting and recording new and old music inspired by the remote and rugged setting.
Website: http://voniga.com/
Myspace: http://www.myspace.com/voniga
Courtney Von Drehle has worked extensively as a composer, band leader and multi-instrumentalist. Mr. Von Drehle’s broad musical appetites have involved him in experiences ranging from playing improvised musical mayhem while concealed in downtown city bushes, to film scoring, to composing for and performing with  symphonies. He  co-founded the world-chamber music ensemble 3 Leg Torso in 1997. In 2003 he was awarded a fellowship at the Sundance Institute in their film composers lab. In 2005 he studied North Indian classical singing with Michael Stirling, Rik Masterson and Terry Riley, which has informed his current passion for the Weissenborn slide guitar.
Joe Janiga has worked as a percussionist, composer, accompanist and band leader since 1988.  He has recorded, composed and arranged music for film, dance, theater, and various musical projects.  Joe scored music for the 2008 Oscar Nominated film “The Final Inch” directed by Irene Taylor Brodsky. Mr. Janiga has played and recorded on drumset and acoustic/electronic percussion over the years in many musical genres.  He co-leads KLEZMOCRACY (www.klezmocracy.com) and VONIGA (voniga.com).   Joe has played and recorded for 3 LEG TORSO, MCKINLEY and BOSSANOUVEAU.   Since 2000 Joe has worked with DOJUMP THEATER.
Joe Janiga
Percussionist, Composer, Performer
5410 NE 49th Ave, Portland, Oregon 97218  tel:(503) 288-5216  email: joejdrums@gmail.com  websites: joejaniga.com, voniga.com, klezmocracy.com

Anna Marie Rockwell