About Myth-Science Ensemble
Myth-Science Ensemble founders Thomas Aber and Dwight Frizzell use a wide array of clarinets and saxophones, as well as bagpipes, Cherokee flutes, zwooms (long-hose instruments), spacial-spectral electronics and video for their performances and recordings.
In the ‘80s, they performed with Don Cherry, Alvin Curran and Frederic Rzewski through satellite hook-ups to promote world peace. They are founding members of newEar, BCR and Myth-Science Ensemble.
Aber studied bass clarinet with Harry Sparnaay at the Sweelinck Conservatorium in Amsterdam. Frizzell’s teachers included Sun Ra, clarinetist Raymond Luedeke and video artist Douglas Davis. He is Professor of Sound and Converging Media at the Kansas City Art Institute.
Guest performers include Robert Carl, William Plummer, Rev. William Ellis Bradley, Rhondda Francis, Patrick Conway, Kyle Quass, Marty Belcher, and Tony Brewer.
Meet the Myth-Scientists
Michael Henry is a composer, sound designer and performer. Michael holds an undergraduate degree in Horn performance from the UMKC Conservatory of Music, and a Masters in Music Composition from Northwestern University. He studied composition with Raymond Luedeke, Gerald Kemner, and Alan Stout. Among his recent works are many collaborative efforts with Dwight Frizzell to re-purpose military technology for peaceful artistic uses, including Sonic Force for A-10 Warthogs, Helicopters, Foley artists, and ensemble; and H for Thermonuclear Device and Remote Chamber Ensemble. He is currently employed at Cryptic Studios as audio manager and lead sound designer.
Steve Donofrio is freelance producer, audio engineer, technical consultant and audio artist. For ten years he served as Technical Coordinator for Midwest Radio Theatre Workshop and its Executive Director for three more years. Steve is also a founding board member of the National Audio Theatre Festivals. Steve has played Tibetan singing bowls for the past 30 years As a member of The Dalai Lama Orchestra, Steve is also an avid collector of Tibetan singing bowls, using them as instruments of music as well as for meditative and tonal healing. Currently, Steve works at the Columbia Public Library as a technical support specialist and lives in rural Missouri with his wife, two dogs and a charm of 1000 hummingbirds.
Robert Carl received his musical training at Yale, Penn, and the University of Chicago. He also studied in Paris as a Lurcy Fellow at the Conservatoire Nationale Supérieure and the Sorbonne. His teachers include Iannis Xenakis, Betsy Jolas, Ralph Shapey, George Rochberg, Jonathan Kramer, George Crumb, Richard Wernick, and Robert Morris. Carl received the 2016 Award in Music from the American Academy of Arts and Letters; he received the Charles Ives Fellowship from the same organization in 1998. He has also received prizes and fellowships from such organizations as the National Endowment for the Arts, Chamber Music America, American Chamber Symphony, and Tanglewood.
Rev. William Ellis Bradley is a luthier, musician, and certified Deep Listening practitioner based in NE Wisconsin where he directs SOLLUS (a solar-acoustic ensemble that incorporates his solar-powered instruments as a means to explore the transmutative and transcendent aspects of sound) and co-directs the BEGIN Series in Door County, WI with percussionist Jon Mueller. William has studied extensively with Rev. Dwight Frizzell and has performed under many monikers alongside groups including BCR, Expo 70, Pele, Shawn Hansen, and Jametatone. He is a longtime collaborator of ceramicist Joey Watson with whom he has exhibited in locations including the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art. William received a BFA from the Kansas City Art Institute (Sculpture ’14), a Masters Certificate of Advanced Studies from the Alternative School of Fine Art at Wickerson Studios (’15), a certificate in Deep Listening from the Deep Listening Center (’18), and is a Music/Sound MFA Candidate at Bard College (expected ‘21). William has received grants from national institutions and has attended national and international residencies.
William Plummer is an interdisciplinary artist based in Kansas City, Missouri. Plummer is interested in the relationship between language, communication, and trust — exploring mutualistic relationships and systems through the growth, recycling, and reclamation of materials. Plummer is a graduate of the Kansas City Art Institute’s Fiber and Art History program and has had experience as a design contractor for the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art and an Artist in Residence at Gould Evans. Plummer is currently a studio resident at the Drugstore.
Patrick Conway is a percussionist, wind player and composer who studied with Master Drummers Abubakari Lunna-Wumbie & I Ketut Gedé Asnawa. He holds a Master of Music degree in Music Composition from the UMKC Conservatory of Music. He is director of UMKC’s Gamelan Genta Kasturi and was a founding member of the contemporary music ensemble newEar. Mr. Conway has performed with numerous ensembles, including Mambo DeLeon Orchestra, the Brad Cox Ensemble, Gillham Park Orchtet, The Terrestrial Consort, Orquesta Inspiracion, Flamanté, Mambo X, ERV Andean fusion group, Grupo Aztlan, Grupo Muralla, BCR, and Necessity Brass Band.
Tony Brewer is a poet, sound effects artist and musician, spoken word performer, screenwriter, and roller derby announcer from Bloomington, Indiana. He has been teaching, directing, and performing live sound effects over 20 years, including for the National Audio Theatre Festivals in Missouri since 2001 and WFHB’s Firehouse Follies live variety show in Bloomington since 2008. In 1994, Tony learned the craft of audio art while making Hayward Sanitarium, a horror thriller series he directed and produced for NPR Playhouse. Since then he has taught at Indiana University and Michigan University, and performed with the Knoxville Opera; Otherworld Media in Washington, Florida, and Kentucky; and Mind’s Ear Audio Productions in Bloomington.