EMAS: Extemporaneous Music & Arts Society
Founded in 2021, the EMAS (Extemporaneous Music & Arts Society) free improvisation/contemporary music collective & ensemble based in Kansas City. The mission of the group is to help grow and facilitate an improvised/experimental music scene in Kansas City through performances, collaborations, workshops, and a concert series. EMS was founded by Seth Andrew Davis & Evan Verploegh along with Ben Baker & Krista Kopper
Second Nature Ensemble
Second Nature is a new-music/free-jazz ensemble founded by Seth Andrew Davis and Michael Eaton in 2017. Second Nature is a Kansas City collective that fuses free improvisation, noise, and contemporary classical structures with, metal, math rock, and electronic beats. If Frank Zappa, Sun Ra, and Karlheinz Stockhausen had a baby, this is what the kid would sound like. Davis and Eaton serve as curators and artistic directors of the ensemble, composing original repertoire for the ensemble.
Symbiotique
Symbiotique is the woodwinds & electric guitar/electronics duo of Seth Andrew Davis & Michael Eaton. The group focuses on the compositions of Davis & Eaton and free improvisation. The duo released their self-titled debut record in May 2020.
Cheli/Davis duo
Cheli & Davis duo present a set of improvisations for electro-acoustic guitar & percussion/koma field kits. Cheli & Davis is the duo of percussionist Kevin Cheli & guitarist/technologist Seth Andrew Davis.
Torches Mauve
Torches Mauve is the free-jazz/free improvisation duo of Seth Andrew Davis on electric guitar, laptop/electronics and Evan Verploegh on drums and percussion. Torches Mauve combines elements of free-jazz, non-idiomatic free improvisation, electro-acoustic techniques, noise, and groove based music. Davis & Verploegh released their first record Hunter on Lurker Bias in spring 2022. The duo will released their self-titled follow up in February 2023. Davis & Verploegh are the co-founders of the Extemporaneous Music & Arts Society (EMAS) a Kansas City based improvised and experimental arts collective.
Project C4
Project c4 is a cutting edge new music ensemble that promotes fresh ideas for the audience by breaking with classical music tradition through free improvisation and newly commissioned music with an original, yet flexible, instrumentation which includes flute, saxophone, percussion, piano, electric guitar, and computer. By engaging the community through performance, we will increase the exposure to and push the boundaries of experimental music. All this in pursuit of our goal to inspire others to experience, support, and enjoy experimental music and free improvisation.
Founded in the beginning of 2018, Project c4 has premiered compositions by Dylan Findley, Ying Ting Lin, and our own composer and pianist Yin Hao. These pieces were premiered during the Exchange of Midwest Collegiate Composers – Festival of New Music at the University of Iowa, and at the University of Missouri-Kansas City. Our future plans include the continuation of commissioning new works with new ideas as well as creating interdisciplinary projects with visual artists, dancers, and theatrical production. We plan to explore the far reaches of free improvisation within the densely populated art scene in Kansas City and beyond.
Social Ecology Project – (Michael Eaton, Dorian Wallace, Seth Andrew Davis)
Social Ecology Project derives from the utopian philosophy of human evolution by social theorist and political philosopher Murray Bookchin. By combining the nature of biology and society into a third “thinking nature” beyond biochemistry and physiology, social ecology proposes ethical principles to replace society’s propensity for hierarchy and domination with that of democracy and freedom, creating a more complete, conscious, ethical, and rational nature. Humanity is the latest development from the long history of organic development on Earth. With the use of physical, mental, and spiritual conditions, Social Ecology Project seeks to liberate musical expression, without being constrained by tonal limitations, rhythmic predetermination, or harmonic rules. Harmony, movement, melody, speed, rhythm, the placing and spacing of ideas, time and phrases all share the same value.
If we do not do the impossible, we shall be faced with the unthinkable.
Solo Electronic Music
Davis releases and performs his solo electronic music under the names The Gods Hate Kansas, Mr. Sandman, Ghost In The Machine, & Spiritus Ex Machina. Davis has released music on the Kansas City based label Mother Russia Industries
Heroic Dose
Heroic Dose is a saxophone and computer/electronics/guitar duo comprised of Dylan Ward and Seth Andrew Davis. Heroic Dose presents original music which combines heavy electronic processing and free improvisation in order to create an experience which lifts listeners