No Idea Residency #1
Ken Vandermark + Mabel Kwan
May 29-30, 2025

7pm: Film screening of Daniel Kraus’ Work Series #2: Musician

58 mins, 2007

Daniel Krauss’ film, Musician, works with a similar methodology as Frederick Wiseman—no voice overs, no talking heads—letting the camera capture events as they unfold in real time. Though Ken Vandermark is at the center of the action, he is not the subject of the film. Instead, the subject is the work it takes for every musician, whatever genre, to get their material onstage and is a one-of-a-kind document of this process.

8pm: Mabel Kwan + Ken Vandermark Duo

Mabel Kwan and Ken Vandermark have worked together in various formats, including projects with the new music group Ensemble Dal Niente featuring new work by Roscoe Mitchell, Last Trane to Clover Five (2021), and performances at Big Ears Festival (2022). Since then they have played together in various improvised music groups; this will be their first concert as a duo.

9:15pm: Panel Discussion and Artist Talk

Vandermark’s resoluteness in managing innumerable projects functions as a springboard to investigate and understand the complexities of establishing and maintaining a creative life in music. Panel members represent different aspects of Ken's sprawling work as musician, label owner (Audiographic Records since 2014), Director of the Catalytic Sound musician cooperative (since 2012), concert presenter (Catalytic Sound Festival since 2020), and writer.

Ken Vandermark - musician
Mabel Kwan - musician
Eric Drott - Professor at UT Butler School of Music and author of Streaming Music, Streaming Capital (Duke Press)
Pedro Moreno - Founder of Epistrophy Arts, a grass-roots organization dedicated to presenting the finest in improvised music and adventurous jazz in Austin Texas since 1998.
+ more TBA

Open Rehearsal + Master Class with Ken Vandermark

Ken Vandermark leads a 2-hour open rehearsal with his quartet of Texas musicians workshopping music to be performed this evening. Ample time will be left for audience questions about Vandermark’s working process as composer, improvisor, and bandleader.

Set 1: Mabel Kwan + Juan García duo

First-time free improvisations between two acclaimed artists investigating the peripheries of contemporary classical, improvised, and experimental music.

Mabel Kwan - piano
Juan García - double bass

Set 2: Ken Vandermark Texas Ensemble

Ken Vandermark presents new compositions exploring distinct melodic, rhythmic and architectural strategies for improvisers. Vandermark will work with Texas musicians Jonathan Horne (Austin), Matthew Frerck (Denton), Stefan González (Denton), and Kory Cook (San Antonio) in a debut collaboration.

Ken Vandermark - tenor saxophone, Bb clarinet
Jonathan Horne - electric guitar
Matthew Frerck - double bass
Stefan González - vibraphone
Kory Cook - drumset

The music of Fred Anderson + Dennis González

The music of legendary musician Fred Anderson, a founding member of the AACM and a mentor for numerous musicians, is rarely heard outside of Chicago. Vandermark was fortunate enough to work with Anderson on a regular basis, record an album of his compositions with the DKV Trio, as well as feature Anderson as a guest soloist on the Territory Band album, Collide (2007). Vandermark will present a selection of Fred Anderson's pieces in a trio with North Texas musicians Stefan González and Matthew Frerck.

The trio will also perform selections of music from Dallas’ pioneering trumpeter, artist and educator Dennis González. González established the Dallas Association for Avant-Garde and Neo Impressionistic Music (daagnim) in the late 1970s, at the suggestion of Anthony Braxton and Art Lande. The daagnim organization, which functioned both as a group of musicians and as a record label, was based on and named after Chicago's AACM. Dennis’ youngest child, drummer and vibraphonist Stefan González, will present selections of their father’s music heavily influenced by his work with Chicago colleagues Malachi Favors and Alvin Fielder (via Mississippi), among others.

Ken Vandermark - tenor saxophone, Bb clarinet
Matthew Frerck - double bass
Stefan González - drumset