LIVING AT THE INTERSECTION OF JAZZ & EXPERIMENTAL MUSIC, OYSTERS, AND NATURAL WINE.
Sasha Berliner
02.15.2025 LIVE AT THE CROWN
2523 BROADWAY
OAKLAND
OAKLAND
Sasha Berliner is a vibraphonist, DJ, & composer from San Francisco, currently residing in Los Angeles.
One of SFJAZZ's 10 Rising Female Instrumentalists (2018), LetterOne “Rising Stars” Jazz Award winner (2019), Downbeat Critics Poll Winner for Rising Vibraphonist (2020). Sasha performs internationally with her own group as well as musicians such as Tyshawn Sorey, Ben Williams, Nicholas Payton, and Victor Lewis, JMI Recordings.
She will perform at solo vibraphonist set of original compositions, improvisations, and standards.
Astrid Sonne 03.22.2025
LIVE AT
THE CROWN
2523 BROADWAY
OAKLAND
LIVE AT
THE CROWN
OAKLAND
Astrid Sonne is a Danish, London based composer and viola player. Throughout her acclaimed discography, Astrid Sonne has been carefully crafting different moods through electronic and acoustic instrumental endeavor's.
Her most recent album “Great Doubt” landed a No. 9 spot on Pitchfork’s ‘Best of 2024’ and shows her refined skills, now with the distinct addition of the composer's own vocal in the fore. The tone of each track is unmistakably Sonne’s, structured around contrasts through an impeccable sense of timing. Lyrics on the album are sparse, merely highlighting different scenes or emotional states of being, leaving the music to fill in the blanks. Yet they also form a pattern of ambiguity, consolidated through the album title, searching for answers through looking at how and what you are asking, questions for the world, questions of love.
The viola, a trusted companion since Astrid Sonne’s youth, appears effortlessly throughout the album, fully integrated into the sonic universe; through a pizzicato driven arrangement in the poignant track “Almost” or along with booms and claps in mutated cinematic stabs during “Give my all”, paraphrasing Mariah Carey's 1997 ballad. Yet the string section also gives way to explorations of woodwinds, counterbalancing the bowed movements with digital brass and airy flutes. Finally, beats and detuned piano are fresh additions to the soundscape, cementing how Sonne’s practice is always evolving into new territories.
Her most recent album “Great Doubt” landed a No. 9 spot on Pitchfork’s ‘Best of 2024’ and shows her refined skills, now with the distinct addition of the composer's own vocal in the fore. The tone of each track is unmistakably Sonne’s, structured around contrasts through an impeccable sense of timing. Lyrics on the album are sparse, merely highlighting different scenes or emotional states of being, leaving the music to fill in the blanks. Yet they also form a pattern of ambiguity, consolidated through the album title, searching for answers through looking at how and what you are asking, questions for the world, questions of love.
The viola, a trusted companion since Astrid Sonne’s youth, appears effortlessly throughout the album, fully integrated into the sonic universe; through a pizzicato driven arrangement in the poignant track “Almost” or along with booms and claps in mutated cinematic stabs during “Give my all”, paraphrasing Mariah Carey's 1997 ballad. Yet the string section also gives way to explorations of woodwinds, counterbalancing the bowed movements with digital brass and airy flutes. Finally, beats and detuned piano are fresh additions to the soundscape, cementing how Sonne’s practice is always evolving into new territories.