Ches Smith’s Clone Row with Mary Halvorson, Liberty Ellman, and Nick Dunston

Name: Ches Smith’s Clone Row with Mary Halvorson, Liberty Ellman, and Nick Dunston
Start: 2026-01-11T19:00:00-05:00
End: 2026-01-11T21:00:00-05:00
Location: Tonal Park

Schedule

Sun Jan 11 2026 at 07:00 pm to 09:00 pm

UTC-05:00

Location

Tonal Park | Takoma Park, MD

Transparent Productions welcomes Ches Smith’s Clone Row to Tonal Park Studios with Ches Smith: (drums, vibes, electronics), Mary Halvorson (guitar), Liberty Ellman (guitar), and Nick Dunston (bass, electronics).
Sunday January 11th. Doors at 6:30, show at 7:00.
Admission: $25-$30, sliding scale.
Co-presented with Rhizome DC.
Ches Smith's new release, “Clone Row”, features an adventurous new quartet with guitarists Mary Halvorson and Liberty Ellman and bassist Nick Dunston. Smith finds endless possibilities in this seemingly limited instrumentation, weaving together varied threads from his divergent earlier projects in ways that sound not quite like any of them. “This definitely ain’t your father’s guitar band,” writes no less an expert on six-string subversion than Marc Ribot, who penned the album’s liner notes. “It’s as if I’m hearing a Jim Hall concert in which one of us did a lot of mushrooms, or… some post-punk post-Dave Brubeck post-trip-hop experiment with classical form.”
“These renowned composer-improvisers tangle with Ches Smith’s newest compositions. Two highly individualistic guitarists swirl, echo and double-take, squaring off with a bass and drums team that anchors and unhinges through doubling sounds -- drum machines and acoustic drums, low-end analog synth and acoustic bass, digital samples and repeated fragments performed in real time. In a dance of coherence and chaos, the four musicians plunge headlong into the feedback loop of composition and improvisation armed with chemistry created by their mutual appreciation and enduring friendships.
Check out "Clone Row" on Bandcamp: https://chessmith.bandcamp.com/album/clone-row
“One of the wiliest drummers on the experimental scene” --The New York Times
Originally from Sacramento, California, CHES SMITH is a drummer, percussionist, and composer based in New York. He has collaborated with a host of artists on many scenes since the early 2000s, including Marc Ribot, Tim Berne, John Zorn, Darius Jones, David Torn, John Tchicai, Nels Cline, Mary Halvorson, Trevor Dunn, Terry Riley, Kris Davis, Dave Holland, Secret Chiefs 3, Xiu Xiu, Good for Cows, Theory of Ruin, and Mr. Bungle, among others. He has nine records to his name as a bandleader that feature his writing and ensemble curation, and is a devout student of Haitian Vodou drums, performing in religious and folkloric contexts in New York and Haiti for the last decade.
MARY HALVORSON is a Brooklyn-based guitarist, composer and recording artist for Nonesuch Records. Her distinctive sound and innovative approach to her instrument have earned her widespread recognition over the past two decades, including numerous best-of-the-year lists, a 2019 MacArthur Foundation fellowship and Guitarist of the Year honors in the DownBeat Critics Poll for the past nine years. When not leading her own award-winning bands, she can be heard in a wide variety of creative partnerships and on more than 70 releases as a co-leader or sidewoman.
Guitarist / composer / educator LIBERTY ELLMAN has performed and or recorded with a host of stand-out creative artists including: Joe Lovano, Myra Melford, Wadada Leo Smith, Butch Morris, Vijay Iyer, Steve Lehman, Greg Osby, Rudresh Mahanthappa, Nels Cline, Somi, Nicole Mitchell, Ledisi, JD Allen, Michele Rosewoman, Adam Rudolph, Stephan Crump, Jonathan Finlayson, Okkyung Lee, and Ches Smith. In 2014 Ellman performed in “Luanda Kinshasa”, a video installation by visionary filmmaker Stan Douglas and Jason Moran. Mr. Ellman has been teaching privately and at various institutions over the last 20 years, including The New School and U.C. Berkeley. Played faculty concerts at the California Jazz Conservatory with Dave Liebman, Mark Turner and Terri Lyne Carrington. Mr. Ellman is perhaps best known for his long tenure in Henry Threadgill's groundbreaking ensemble, Zooid. The group has recorded several critically lauded albums. Their recording "In For A Penny, In For A Pound" earned a Pulitzer prize for Mr. Threadgill.
NICK DUNSTON is a Brooklyn-based composer, bassist, and scholar. An “indispensable player on the New York avant-garde” (New York Times), his performances have also spanned a variety of venues and festivals across North America and Europe. He’s performed, toured, and recorded professionally with bands led by artists such as Tyshawn Sorey, Vijay Iyer, Marc Ribot, Ches Smith, Imani Uzuri, Ingrid Laubrock, Anthony Coleman, Anna Webber, Roman Filiu, Jonathan Finlayson, Amirtha Kidambi, María Grand, Amir ElSaffar Moor Mother, Dave Douglas, Matt Wilson, Tomas Fujiwara, Allison Miller, Jeff Lederer, Jeff “Tain” Watts, and Darius Jones. He’s spent extensive time studying with bassists Linda May Han Oh, Ben Street, Harish Raghavan, as well as with composer Missy Mazzoli.