January 29, 2016

Friday night live at Transistor: Julian Kirshner/Matt Murphy Duo and melodic free improvisation from Brad Fritcher’s MOODS. Sound by Jon Monteverde.

Matt Murphy (right) is a guitarist and multi-instrumentalist living in Chicago. He collaborates with musicians, dancers, visual artists and new media innovators. He explores sound with an intention to increase awareness for all who listen, sharing creative expressions, and promoting community with compassion.

Julian Kirshner (b. 9/6/90) is a Chicago-based percussionist primarily working in the context of jazz and improvised music. Percussion studies began at age ten when Julian was selected to be a member of the CSO’s Percussion Scholarship Group. Over the past ten years, he has studied with Sarah Allen, David Bloom, Dylan Ryan and Frank Rosaly. Julian also organizes the Improvised Music Series at Myopic Books, a weekly showcase of musicians playing uncharted music in a first-time context.

For their performance at Transistor, Murphy and Kirshner played for the first time as a duo and performed a set of improvised music using a large arsenal of percussive instruments.

Also available: a previous Julian Kirshner Transistor performance (with Keefe Jackson and Aaron Zarzutzki) from January 9, 2015.

Brad Fritcher’s MOODS is a collective of Michigan musicians based out of Grand Rapids. MOODS experiments with melodic free improvisation within original compositions. Not only will you hear the lineage of the jazz tradition, you will find yourself immersed in the feel of nature at times within their performances. MOODS tries to entice the listener through many mediums. The members this evening at Transistor will be Brad Fritcher (trumpet), Patrick Booth (tenor/soprano sax), Joe Vasquez (bass), Jonathan Taylor (drums), with our newest addition, Travis Swanson (guitar).

Their performance at Transistor featured a full gale force wind of original compositions from Brad and Pat.