Uploaded August 2023 | Updated September 2026, 2 days ago
On Saturday, August 26th, we proudly hosted saxophonist/improviser Danny Kamins (TX), saxophonist/improviser Jamison Williams (Luxembourg) and a collaboration between new media artist Krista Faist (CMH) and music trio consisting of saxophonist Alex Burgoyne (CMH), percussionist Eli Chambers (OH), and noisemaker Abhilasha Chebolu (CMH). The performance took place at the Columbus Cultural Arts Center. Video credits: Rachel Rew Wagner.
Our 2023 touring musician program is supported by New Music USA.
About the artists:
Krista Faist is a virtual reality artist based in Columbus, Ohio. She has lived all over the United States and loves to travel and see the world. She holds a BFA in New Media from Penn State University and an MFA in Visual Arts from Columbus College of Art & Design in 2023. Her background is in oil painting, computer science, and nonprofit development. She also creates intricate, colorful sculptures and encaustic paintings on plate glass as well as immersive video experiences. Her work explores childhood wonderment, sentimentality and liminal states of reality.
Saxophonist Alex Burgoyne is an active member of the Columbus jazz community as a performer, teacher, and composer, and bandleader. He frequently performs on various Columbus stages with a variety of jazz, rock, and latin bands, and is featured on a number of recordings both as a sideman, and as a featured soloist. He is a founding member of the Alex Burgoyne Quartet, Liver Quiver and Small Songs.
Eli Chambers is an Ohio-based composer, multi-instrumentalist, and educator. He holds Music Composition degrees from Ohio University and Bowling Green State University, studying with Mark Phillips, Marilyn Shrude, Mikel Kuehn, Christopher Dietz, and Elainie Lillios. He has also studied percussion with Roger Braun and Dan Piccolo. His music has been featured at the Nief-Norf Summer Music Festival, Electroacoustic Barn Dance, West Fork New Music Festival, and Guthman Musical Instrument Competition. His works have received performances by ensembles such as Hypercube (New York), Long Leash Trio (New York), the Toledo Symphony Orchestra, and the Ohio University Wind Ensemble, for whom the 2017 composition and recording Cryptogram was nominated for GRAMMY™ eligibility. As a performer, he has worked and studied with artists such as John Luther Adams, Mark Applebaum, Allison Miller, and members of Snarky Puppy. In addition to his appointment at Marietta College, he is an adjunct instructor of Percussion and Contemporary Music and Digital Instruments at Ohio University.
Abhilasha Chebolu is a guitarist and electro-acoustic improvisor currently residing in Columbus, OH. She leads a free jazz outfit 'Turtle Boat', performs solo harsh noise under the moniker 'Null Copula', and is a member of the jazz-adjacent midwestern-eclectic group 'Gault'.
On Saturday, August 26th, we proudly hosted saxophonist/improviser Danny Kamins (TX), saxophonist/improviser Jamison Williams (Luxembourg) and a collaboration between new media artist Krista Faist (CMH) and music trio consisting of saxophonist Alex Burgoyne (CMH), percussionist Eli Chambers (OH), and noisemaker Abhilasha Chebolu (CMH). The performance took place at the Columbus Cultural Arts Center. Video credits: Rachel Rew Wagner.
Our 2023 touring musician program is supported by New Music USA.
About the artists:
Krista Faist is a virtual reality artist based in Columbus, Ohio. She has lived all over the United States and loves to travel and see the world. She holds a BFA in New Media from Penn State University and an MFA in Visual Arts from Columbus College of Art & Design in 2023. Her background is in oil painting, computer science, and nonprofit development. She also creates intricate, colorful sculptures and encaustic paintings on plate glass as well as immersive video experiences. Her work explores childhood wonderment, sentimentality and liminal states of reality.
Saxophonist Alex Burgoyne is an active member of the Columbus jazz community as a performer, teacher, and composer, and bandleader. He frequently performs on various Columbus stages with a variety of jazz, rock, and latin bands, and is featured on a number of recordings both as a sideman, and as a featured soloist. He is a founding member of the Alex Burgoyne Quartet, Liver Quiver and Small Songs.
Eli Chambers is an Ohio-based composer, multi-instrumentalist, and educator. He holds Music Composition degrees from Ohio University and Bowling Green State University, studying with Mark Phillips, Marilyn Shrude, Mikel Kuehn, Christopher Dietz, and Elainie Lillios. He has also studied percussion with Roger Braun and Dan Piccolo. His music has been featured at the Nief-Norf Summer Music Festival, Electroacoustic Barn Dance, West Fork New Music Festival, and Guthman Musical Instrument Competition. His works have received performances by ensembles such as Hypercube (New York), Long Leash Trio (New York), the Toledo Symphony Orchestra, and the Ohio University Wind Ensemble, for whom the 2017 composition and recording Cryptogram was nominated for GRAMMY™ eligibility. As a performer, he has worked and studied with artists such as John Luther Adams, Mark Applebaum, Allison Miller, and members of Snarky Puppy. In addition to his appointment at Marietta College, he is an adjunct instructor of Percussion and Contemporary Music and Digital Instruments at Ohio University.
Abhilasha Chebolu is a guitarist and electro-acoustic improvisor currently residing in Columbus, OH. She leads a free jazz outfit 'Turtle Boat', performs solo harsh noise under the moniker 'Null Copula', and is a member of the jazz-adjacent midwestern-eclectic group 'Gault'.









![Cassette Culture Celebration: Hal McGee + Skull Vacuum
On Saturday, July 22 2023 we proudly hosted our first ever Cassette Culture Celebration microfestival at the Columbus Performing Arts Center. This event celebrated Cassette Culture and the spirit of DIY from the early 1980’s and beyond, included a who’s who of DIY cassette culture and noise, and was organized by Columbus music historian Jeff Chenault.
Jeff kicked off the festival with a seminar on the history of Columbus electronic music, titled Attack and Decay: The History of Columbus Electronic Music. Festival performers included Chris Phinney (Harsh Reality Music, Mental Anguish), Hal McGee, certified guru of HalTapes and multiple other labels, Jeff Chenault (ITN/Exoteque Music), Knox Mitchell (Green Tapes, Easy Listening), Gates of Janus (Detroit), Envenomist (Columbus), Full Load of King (Cuyahoga Falls), with a special surprise appearance by Michael Thomas Jackson (Winston-Salem, NC).
In addition, Jerry Kranitz, author of the book Cassette Culture – Homemade Music and the Creative Spirit in the Pre-Internet-Age lead a panel discussion and Q&A with Hal, Chris, and Jeff. During the performances and presentations, we also screened two films, which ran continuously throughout the day: The Great American Cassette Masters by William Davenport and Grindstone Redux by Andrew Szava-Kovats. To top everything off, vendors sold cassettes, books, and other cassette culture memorabilia. along with displays of vintage tapes and artwork by the festival performers.
Video credits: Rachel Rew Wagner.
About Hal McGee: Hal is an American experimental artist and producer who has been active since 1981. With Debbie Jaffe, McGee operated the Cause And Effect cassette label and distributor in Indianapolis, Indiana. In the mid-1980s, McGee recorded works as a member of Viscera, solo as Dog As Master, and in collaboration with If, Bwana and JABON.
McGee moved to Florida in 1988, where he operated the Electronic Cottage label out of Gainesville, FL, simultaneously with an Electronic Cottage Magazine into the 1990s. This was restarted as an online zine and community in April 2018.
In the mid to late 1990s, McGee released dozens of cassettes of homemade experimental music, solo and in collaboration with Jeph Jerman, Brian Noring (EHI), Big City Orchestra, Emil Hagstrom (Cock E.S.P.), Charles Rice Goff III and others. He also produced a series of Tape Heads cassette compilations on his own HalTapes label.
In the late 1990s and early 2000s Hal McGee started releasing homemade CDr albums. During this time he collaborated heavily with Brian Noring of the FDR Tapes, in person and via mail collaboration, and with his long-time partner Chris Phinney. In 2006, with the encouragement of Andrew Chadwick and Christopher Miller (2), McGee began performing live for the first time since 1987, joining the ranks of Floridas live noise/experimental music scene. From 2014 to 2015 Hal operated a new label, Kassette Kult Tapes, and has contributed to Exit (16). He continues to release music on the [lHalTapes] label.
Since 2008 Hal has hosted a numbered series of live performances from his apartment called Apartment Music. Attendance is limited mostly to participants but documentation is posted on his YouTube channel, and some live audio recordings have been released.
About Skull Vacuum: Skull Vacuum is a collaborative project between Chris Phinney and Jeff Central Chenault - see: https://harshrealitymusic.bandcamp.com/album/a-chris-phinney-tribute-concert-by-jeff-central Cassette Culture Celebration: Hal McGee + Skull Vacuum](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/D9Vypa1OscA/mqdefault.jpg)
