There is a special place, in the Chapinero district of Bogotá, Colombia, called Matik Matik. There's a bright red bar top, a few cafe tables, and a small stage for concerts of experimental music of all types. It's the kind of place where musicians gather to meet and listen to other musicians.

Other cities have places like this—Cafe Oto in London, The Lab in San Francisco, KM28 in Berlin, Cave 12 in Geneva, among many others—and each one not only provides a home for new approaches to music but also anchors and holds a community together.

The Colombian pianist and composer Ricardo Gallo has played at Matik Matik many times. He not only knows its community well but he also appreciates the musical sensibility it fosters—a curiosity for the music of Colombia’s diverse regions heard through the filter of a noisy and chaotic city like Bogotá.

But Ricardo has been living in NYC for years and developed close ties to the local scene as well. For this event, Ricardo invites musicians from Bogotá who have developed musical relationships with musicians from NYC. Together, they position GPS as being one of those places that nurtures conversation and collaboration with and around new music.

Ricardo curates two sets of improvised music that bridge the music of Bogotá and NYC:

The first set is Dan Blake on saxophone, Alejandro Florez on guitar, Ricardo himself on piano and flute, and Satoshi Takeishi on percussion.

The second set is Holman Álvarez on piano, Patricia Brennan on vibraphone, Brandon López on bass, and Maria Angélica Valencia on saxophone/clarinet.