OPTION: Caroline Jesalva

Violinist/vocalist Caroline Jesalva performs a solo set of experimental improvised music.

This performance and interview are presented in the ESS garden, and will premiere online on ESS's YouTube.

The OPTION series is curated by Andrew Clinkman, Lily Finnegan, and Dorothy Carlos.

Sunday, August 9

Music at 3pm

Experimental Sound Studio Garden
5925 N. Ravenswood Ave., Chicago

Caroline Jesalva is a Chicago-based violinist/vocalist whose practice centers on contemporary, improvised and experimental music composition, performance, and curation. Her music continually concerns the intermingling of violin and vox, finding an expressive home in many disciplines, including free jazz, experimental theater, songwriting, puppetry, performance art, and classical music. Her self-led projects include the experimental-art-rock quartet 20/20 Plastic, and two solo projects for violin and vox: ‘out of context’ and ‘rotations around the sun’. Caroline’s work has been presented, curated, and funded by the Ear Taxi Festival, Edgefest Music Festival, Elastic Arts Foundation, Bang on a Can, New England Conservatory of Music, International Museum of Surgical Science, and the 3Arts Foundation. A nomadic performer, Caroline can be seen improvising with music collective BananaAcid, exploring the performance of the body with Katinka Kleijn, violining in the pit for puppets with Manual Cinema, creating electric-acoustic improvisations with Sarah Clausen, fiddling in a string quartet with Crossing Borders Music, and more.

OPTION is an ongoing music salon curated by Chicago musicians Andrew Clinkman, Lily Finnegan, and Dorothy Carlos and presented by Experimental Sound Studio. Its programming explores contemporary perspectives on improvisation and composition in a 'salon' format, enabling local, national, and international artists to publicly discuss their practice and ideas as well as perform. Click here for past OPTION performances.