seattle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . contact
Gust Burns is a pianist, improviser, and composer based in Seattle, Washington.
Gust is foremost an improvising pianist. He continues to develop new routes into improvisation on the piano, working with diverse areas of music such as silence, density, structure and alternative narrative approaches, extending traditional piano technique, and developing new techniques for inside the piano.
Burns performs on both traditional piano - playing the keyboard - and ‘inside piano’ or re-assembled and altered piano soundboard and strings, with or without electronics.
Burns counts diverse perspectives and lines of tradition as influences.
Both jazz and classical traditions, the avant-garde lineages in Europe and America, the traditions of improvised music over the last 40 years, traditional musics from around the world, the hip-hop and grunge he grew up with…
However, he does not attempt to assimilate these influences/ interests into one melting-pot musical identity.
Instead, he seeks to further develop a relevant vocabulary and identity within several different areas of contemporary Improvisation.
He also has a keen interest in how music functions as discourse within the social-political world at large and what this can mean to us as musicians/ listeners.
In addition to improvising and composing, Burns is an organizer/ presenter of new music in Seattle. Since 2003 he has been director of the Seattle Improvised Music Festival, North America’s longest running festival dedicated to Improvised Music.
Burns is also director of Seattle Improvised Music, a non-profit organization dedicated to supporting and developing the improvised music community in Seattle, and co-founder of gallery 1412, a Seattle music space dedicated to new and experimental music and sound.
In the Northwest, Burns has long-standing collaborations with Improvisers including Jeffrey Allport, Wally Shoup, Jonathan Sielaff, Kelvin Pittman, JP Jenkins and others.
He maintains collaborative relationships with North American Improvisers including Bob Marsh, Jack Wright, Nate Wooley, Gregory Reynolds, Chris Cogburn, Andrew Lafkas, and others.
Burns has also performed and recorded with Improvisers from abroad including Keith Rowe, Andrea Neumann, Tetuzi Akiyama, Stéphane Rives, Jason Kahn, John Edwards, Caroline Kraabel, Lori Freedman, Wade Matthews, rapper Adam ‘Dose One’ Drucker, and others.
Burns has one recent release on creative sources, with Ernesto Rodrigues, Vic Rawlings, and David Hirvonen, and another on clean feed, with Wally Shoup, Greg Campbell, and Reuben Radding.
He also runs his own label (tone action family) on which several other recordings can be found.
listen:
listen:
chamber composition.
composition for chamber ensemble .
performed gust burns, mara sedlins, candice chinn, eric rynes, mark collins, greg sinibaldi.
solo inside piano.
solo improvisation recorded for sonarchy radio in december 2006.
available from the artist on tone action family cd 011, edition of 100.