Composer/poet JJJJJerome Ellis will share contemplative soundscapes using piano, electronics, and vocals. Opener Mary Hanson Scott will create live compositions with saxophone and electronics, exploring the interplay between sound, the body, the earth, and the cosmos.

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“The five J’s in this multidisciplinary artist’s name represent a central fact of his life and work: He has a stutter. That shapes his music; as he speaks, he may be mirrored by skittering drums. Sometimes he forgoes voice altogether to make enigmatic, peaceful instrumental pieces.” – New York magazine

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JJJJJerome Ellis is a stuttering, Afro-Caribbean composer, poet, and performer. Through an interdisciplinary practice that focuses on oral storytelling; improvisation; and the interrelations between speech, silence, disability, and religion, they have collaborated with choreographers, rappers, playwrights, booksellers, typographers, podcasters, toddlers, and filmmakers. Their works are invitations to healing, transcendence, communion, and deep listening.

Ellis’s work has been presented or developed by the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Sundance Institute Theatre Lab, Lincoln Center, MASS MoCA, and WKCR. As a jazz saxophonist, they have performed with Joseph Daley, Aaron Scott, and Shayna Dulberger. Recent sound design/composing credits include Help (The Shed), Passage (Soho Repertory Theatre), the Radical Craft Design Salon (TED Conferences), and LAB RAT by A$AP Rocky (Sotheby’s/YouTube). Ellis earned their Bachelor of Arts in music theory and ethnomusicology from Columbia University, studying ear training and counterpoint with pianist and composer Ramin Arjomand.

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Mary Hanson Scott is a musician and composer based in Minneapolis. She has performed at events such as Drone Not Drones in Minneapolis, International Noise Conference in Miami, and Big Ears Festival in Knoxville (with Green Ribbon). She spent many years in the New Orleans experimental music scene developing a reedy, textural, psychedelic sound. Esoteric Lounge Music Now, the full-length album of multidimensional noir by Scott and Ruth Mascelli (NY), was released in 2025 on the London-based label Disciples.