The Trummerflora Collective (2000-2011) was an independent group of music makers that embraced the pluralistic nature of creative music as an important means of artistic expression for the individual and the community, and provided an atmosphere that nurtured the creative development of its members.
Trummerflora, or rubble plants and trees, are a special phenomenon unique to heavily bombed urban areas. The bomb acts as a plow, mixing rubble fragments with the earth, which often contain seeds dormant for a century or more. These seeds come to light and those that can live in this new and special earth grow and flourish.
-Helen and Newton Harrison
The Trummerflora Collective used the energy of this concept to create a fertile, varied, self-sustaining environment for the Southern California experimental and improvised music scene. The collaboration of sympathetic artists, producers, fans, and venues grew a community that can emerge from the rubble. Thanks for listening.
Past Members
Kristy Cheadle (percussionist, performance artist, improviser)
Marcos Fernandes (percussionist, improviser)
Lisle Ellis (bassist, improviser)
Hans Fjellestad (filmmaker, musician, educator)
Curtis Glatter (composer, improviser, percussionist)
Damon Holzborn (guitarist, improviser, composer)
Nathan Hubbard (percussionist, improvisor)
James Ilgenfritz (bassist, composer, improviser)
Sam Lopez (Guitar, Bass, Percussions, Drones, Sitar, Household Items)
Tracy McMullen (saxophonist, improviser, composer)
Robert Montoya (percussionist, sound artist, improviser)
Joscha Oetz (contrabassist, composer)
Marcelo Radulovich (multi-instrumentalist, improviser, composer, sound artist, graphic designer)
Jason Robinson (saxophonist, flutist, clarinettist, improviser, composer)
Al Scholl (guitarist, improviser, composer)
Scott Walton (bassist, pianist)
Ellen Weller (flutist, saxophonist, pianist, ethnomusicologist, improvisor-composer)
History
Based on a mutual desire to provide a network of support for San Diego's experimental and improvised music community Marcos Fernandes, Hans Fjellestad, Damon Holzborn, Robert Montoya, Marcelo Radulovich and Jason Robinson formed the Trummerflora Collective in the Spring of 2000.
The collective concept grew out of a sequence of collaborations beginning with Trummerflora at the Casbah, a concert series started in 1999; ...and the reindeer you rode in on, a holiday CD released also in 1999; and trummerflora.com, a resource site for experimental and improvised music launched in 2000.
Following their official announcement in May 2000, the TFC continued to grow as a performing and organizing collective, curating a new series, Trummerflora Mondays at Galoka, and welcomed Nathan Hubbard to the group in November.
In April 2001, the TFC released No Stars Please, a collection of live recordings made during their first year, and appeared in The Wire's Global Ear column. They enlisted two new members Kristy Cheadle and Joscha Oetz in the Fall.
The TFC presented the the first Spring Reverb, an annual festival of music and art at the Spruce Street Forum and Don Loope in Tijuana, Mexico in April 2002 and launched their most successful series, Other Ideas at the Space, in November. Lisle Ellis and Ellen Weller joined the ranks while Kristy Cheadle relocated to Madison, Wisconsin.
In 2003, the collective broadened its nominal focus from "improvised and experimental" to "creative music," which more accurately represented the diverse nature of Trummerflora artists and the musical communities that they engage with. The TFC concentrated on organizational activities, presenting the second Spring Reverb at the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego and La Antigua Bodega de Papel iin Tijuana in May, and continuing their Other Ideas series. Al Scholl became a member.
The TFC released Rubble 1, a compilation CD featuring both individual and ensemble works, to coincide with Spring Reverb 2004. The Other Ideas series moved to a new home at Voz Alta, a downtown performance and gallery space, and the group inducted Curtis Glatter and Scott Walton.
In January of 2005, TFC became collective in residence at Voz Alta Project and celebrated their 5th anniversary at Spring Reverb which included three nights of performances and a visual art exhibit in the trans-border region. In August, Tracy McMullen joined the collective. 2005 also marked the start of a major shift. Over the next few years, founding members Marcos Fernandes, Hans Fjellestad, Damon Holzborn and Jason Robinson would relocate to Yokohama, Los Angeles, New York, and Amherst, respectively.
TFC released their second compilation album Rubble 2 in 2006.
TFC found a new home at Kava Lounge Gallery in 2007 where they presented Spring Reverb as well as their concert series. James Ilgenfritz became a member.
With the addition of Sam Lopez in 2009, TFC continued to organize events at Kava Lounge Gallery including Spring Reverb 2009 with Fernandes, Fjellestad, Glatter, Holzborn, Oetz, Robinson and Scholl all assembling from their separate locales.
However 2011 marked the swan song for Spring Reverb and an end to Trummerflora's decade as the transgressive instigators of experimental and improvised music in San Diego. The dormant seeds had sprouted from the rubble and the musical landscape in the region had become a much fertile and inclusive community. The Trummerflora Collective provided a much needed and valuable springboard for its members and the musical community at the start of the new millennium.
Spring Reverb Festival Series (2002 - 2010)
In a spring reverb, a solenoid is used to generate a magnetic field that imparts vibrations to the unit's springs. The performers at Spring Reverb generated electro-acoustic fields that imparted vibrations throughout the San Diego/Tijuana trans-border region. This bi-national project continued the steady development and growth of a creative music scene in San Diego, and promoted an ongoing dialogue across the San Ysidro border. This trans-border space was a central focus for Trummerflora activities from 2002 to 2010.
Invited musicmakers represented a fascinating international subculture of genre-bending aesthetic risk-takers pushing the limits of the musical imagination. Each with a unique approach, these artists were unbound by any unifying philosophy, no dogma, simply a commitment to musical exploration, artistic freedom and the creative process. Trummerflora continued to explore the theme of collaboration by hosting numerous improvisatory interactions between the collective and their invited guest artists during Spring Reverb over it's nearly decade long run. They will also expanded their work with visual arts, dj's, and dancers.
Geographical, cultural, aesthetic...this transgressive music has little regard for borders or labels. No dogma. No idiom. Creative music is about choice, freedom, personal expression and collective action. Rebirth. Bloom. Flourish. Spring Reverb.
Press
"I say that right now it's amazing. It's nothing like I have ever seen, and I'm just happy that this sort of homegrown collective in what many people think as an out of the way, very conservative place, which would never have a scene of new and transgressive music, would suddenly develop one out of nowhere which I think eventually will be known around the world. I'm sure that is going to happen."
- George Lewis, The Wire (UK)
"It may not sound political, but the sheer unconventionality of the
Trummerflora Collective's approach is historically one that the Powers That
Be won't take kindly to in these parts. Round up a posse. Circle the
wagons, before it's too late."
- Scott Batiuk, SLAMM
"...at the heart of everything done for Trummerflora is the notion of original sound composition and discovering music that has never been done before -- even if the players are forced to look a little strange doing it."
-Angela Ashman, San Diego Union-Tribune
"...you can rest assured that soon enough you will find yourself in the midst of an essential part of the local arts community when participating in any of the many activities of San Diego's newest proprieter of, well... new music."
- Chris Williams, San Diego New Music
"... if you like improvised music, free-jazz or noise art, and like your musical boundaries challenged, this is...for you."
- Bart Mendoza, San Diego Union-Tribune
"When not committing additional subversive acts, the members of Trummerflora can be found at random locales around San Diego and points beyond aiding and abetting others with experimental music."
- Dylan Roberts, DigitalCity.com
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