Baltimore - The 23rd annual High Zero Festival of Experimental Improvised Music takes place Sept. 23 through Sept. 26. This unusual performing-arts festival features improvised performances by one-time ensembles that combine artists who have not performed together before. In-person performances occur Friday, Sept. 24 and Saturday, Sept. 26 at the Baltimore Theatre Project; streamed performances happen Thursday, Sept. 23 and Sunday, Sept. 26 on High Zero’s Twitch channel.

To minimize pandemic-related cancellations, the two in-person nights feature regional artists rather than the festival’s normal model that combines regional, domestic and international artists. The streamed shows will feature international artists. (See attached link to full performer list.) Performers include sound artists, experimental musicians, dancers and performance artists. Some are classically trained, some in the jazz tradition, and still others entirely self-taught. Some artists perform using their own invented instruments or techniques.

This year’s High Zero Festival has received a $10,000 grant from the National Endowment for the Arts—a major accomplishment for High Zero Foundation, the all-volunteer nonprofit organization that produces the festival. High Zero must match this grant through donations, ticket sales, ad sales, volunteer labor and in-kind donations specific to the festival. Arts lovers can learn how to help by visiting highzero.org. In past years the Festival has also been supported by the Maryland State Arts Council; the Baltimore Office of Promotion & Arts; The William G. Baker, Jr. Memorial Fund; and more.

High Zero Foundation has weathered COVID shutdowns through collaborative streamed presentations with like-minded organizations across the U.S. as well as its own streamed concert series, Red Room in Your Room. The festival’s devoted local fan base has welcomed hundreds of new international fans that discovered High Zero’s thrillingly unusual programming via Twitch.

High Zero Foundation has expanded its programming in recent years, bringing high-profile artists to the Red Room, the year-round performance space operated by the group, as well as launching the Diffusion Festival of multi-channel electroacoustic music and continuing to mount the Worlds in Collusion festival as part of Baltimore’s Artscape.

High Zero has proven time and again that radical music can be popular, and has had a palpable effect on the cultural scene in Baltimore. The festival highlights Baltimore as home to highly unusual, risk-taking and adventurous artists and productions.

HIGH ZERO 2021 FACT SHEET
Press Contact - CK Barlow

IN-PERSON CONCERTS: Friday, Sept. 24 and Saturday, Sept. 25, 2021
Baltimore Theatre Project, 45 West Preston St., Baltimore, MD 21201
7:30pm doors / 8:30pm shows
Tickets: Online advance purchase $16; At door $15 / $10 students, seniors, and artists

STREAMED CONCERTS: Thursday, Sept. 23 and Sunday, Sept. 26, 2021 on Twitch
8pm doors / 8:30pm shows
No charge; donations happily accepted. The Twitch page features a donation button.

HI-RES IMAGE OF PERFORMERS: highzero.org/2021_site/press

SOCIAL MEDIA: Twitch • Twitter • Facebook • Instagram • YouTube

SELECT VIDEO FROM PAST FESTIVALS
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5nUFAQxmO58
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h3kQ__Rw1Ok

PRESS QUOTES
They aren’t just playing outside the box; the box is set on fire, its ashes mixed with water, the subsequent clay is shaped into something just outside the periphery of recognizable. … High Zero is an exhausting, invaluable gem of a performance series that enriches anyone who experiences it, whether they bring earplugs or not. – BmoreArt
http://www.bmoreart.com/2016/10/improvisation-in-real-time.html

Some of the most intense new music being made anywhere, on everything from oboes and one-of-a-kind instruments to the human body itself... unforgettable performances. – The Washington Post

A fertile laboratory of musical possibility without equal. – Signal to Noise Magazine

[W]hat the members and guests of High Zero distilled from the ether on Wednesday night exceeded all expectations of what might have been, with an undulating vibrancy that brought to life what could have been, like some rare or unstable element that flickered in and out of existence only for an instant. - I Care If You Listen
https://www.icareifyoulisten.com/2018/10/high-zero-20th-anniversary-tour-improvised-experimental-music-roulette/