This Winter Solstice edition of Fire Over Heaven features three artists with divergent, experimental approaches to American folk and vernacular music. Ryan Sawyer is one of the most in demand drummers in town in rock and improvised music circles alike, counting Thurston Moore, Daniel Carter, C.Spencer Yeh, Nate Wooley and Matana Roberts among his frequent fellow travelers. He will appear solo here, the combination of his unmistakable, force-of-nature free drumming with raw vocal renditions of Willie Nelson and Neil Young tunes making an idiosyncratic music that is as beautiful as it is improbable. Equally skilled on the fiddle, banjo and as a singer, Anna R.G. has taken a decades worth of experience studying traditional Appalachian folk music and turned it into a highly personal exploration of old and new forms. At once invoking the "avant-garde hillbilly and blues music" of Henry Flynt and the bare voiced vocal discipline of Meredith Monk, her music reconfigures and subverts its Appalachian sources without ever losing its elemental, high-lonesome quality. National steel guitarist Zeke Healy has steadily evolved into one of the most interesting guitar players in the city since arriving here in the early 2000s. His high energy slide work was a driving force in the Boggs' early 2000s punk re-imaginings of Appalachian music and continues with his ongoing work with Morgan O'Kane. His solo playing makes it plain that his listening habits extend far beyond the folk/trad orbit, with modal drones and ornamentation reminiscent of Indian classical music often in the mix. Please join us for this special evening of music. It's winter in America, as they say.

7:30pm Doors
8:00pm Zeke Healy
9:00pm Anna RG
10:00pm Ryan Sawyer

Ryan Sawyer (b.1976) born in San Antonio TX started playing drums at the age of 11. Learning his craft throughout an early exposure to not only rock and jazz but the colloquial conjunto, zydeco, and punk rock musics of his home town. When he was 19 he recorded the now highly influential first record with At The Drive-In. Sawyer moved to New York in 1997 to pursue further his interest in improvised music. Sawyer has been leading a balanced life between composed and improvised performance. He has supported and collaborated with such diverse names as Rhys Chatham, Charles Gayle, Tv on the Radio, Boredoms, Thurston Moore, Nik Zinner, Kid Millions, Fiery Furnaces, Trevor Dunn, Gang Gang Dance, Mekons, Scarlet Johansson, to name a few. While this list is always growing Sawyer has been cultivating a tight group of peers to deepen collaborative possibilities with, including a trio with Nate Wooley / C. Spencer Yeh, trio with Thurston Moore / Daniel Carter, and a duo with Matana Roberts to name just a few. Formal bands have been a linchpin to Sawyer's integration of musical ideas. Stars Like Fleas, Tall Firs, Glass Rock, Family Dynamics, and Eye Contact, are some of the bands Ryan has been a key member in over the years. One of the more involved collaborations Sawyer has been working on is Lone Wolf & Cub; a project with his partner Suzanne Rogaleski. They have performed at Deitch Projects, Socrates Sculpture Garden, been twice asked to Ox-Bow artist residency and have taught at Cal Arts.

Anna RG spent ten years studying traditional music in the Appalachian mountains, with elder masters, and in intensive archival research. she now makes music for fiddle and banjo and film inspired by her experiences, and experiments with connections she finds between old sounds and new ones. She has been a fellow at The MacDowell Colony, Virginia Center for Creative Arts, Berea College Traditional Music Archive OneBeat (Bang on a Can’s Found Sound Nation); three years artistic director of Kentucky’s traditional music institute, the Cowan Creek Mountain Music School. she collaborates primarily with ballad singer Elizabeth Laprelle, as Anna & Elizabeth, and just completed their third studio record, which features Susan Alcorn and drummer Jim White.
www.annaandelizabeth.com

National steel guitarist Zeke Healy has steadily evolved into one of the most interesting guitar players in the city since arriving here in the early 2000s. His high energy slide work was a driving force in the Boggs' early 2000s punk re-imaginings of Appalachian music and continues with his ongoing work with Morgan O'Kane. His solo playing makes it plain that his listening habits extend far beyond the folk/trad orbit, with modal drones and ornamentation reminiscent of Indian classical music often in the mix. He also plays in the duo Zeke and Karen, with violist Karen Waltuch.