Timur and the Dime Museum

Formed in 2010, following their America’s Got Talent appearance, and collaboration with the Klaus Nomi songwriter, Kristian Hoffman, the dark glam opera band Timur and the Dime Museum fuses indie, pop & vaudeville sounds, creating a rich amalgam of sensibilities with Bjork fierceness, and Screamin' Jay Hawkins theatricality. Led by the rising opera singer from Kazakhstan Timur Bekbosunov, profiled in LA Weekly's BEST OF LA People Issue 2011, the band’s stunning intensity brings songs to cure the new depression with a bohemian attitude. Immediately following their successful debut at the ALOUD series at the Mark Taper Auditiorium, they established a strong following of fans, and received endorsements from artists, such as Amanda Palmer, DeVotchKa and Sondre Lerche  The band performed in numerous venues around LA and beyond, including the Echo, the Echoplex (opening for the legendary Tiger Lilies), Silver Lake Lounge, the Bootleg, Steve Allen Theater, M Bar, Bordello, Unknown Theater, Orpheum Theater; Portland Arts Center; Viracocha in San Francisco, and at the Steamcon II in Seattle. The band creates unconventional and fascinating sounds, combining Timur's “charismatic tenor” (LA Times) with electric guitar, upright bass, accordion, bass clarinet, viola, and drums.

Embracing the notion of multi-disciplinary contemporary projects, T&DM began a series of collaborations, directly working with composers on their music. Their first project, Zoophilic Follies, a puppet opera, was selected and premiered at the NOW festival at Redcat Theater in Disney Hall on September 14, 2011, with guest performers Abby Travis, Dorian Wood and Maesa Pullman. Their next collaboration, Crescent City, a hyperopera by Anne LeBaron and the Industry, is scheduled to premiere in May 2012. Timur, a noted interpreter of contemporary and cross-cultural music, and the members of the band, all are graduates of California Institute of the Arts, and individually, have performed in countless major projects, productions, festivals and venues around the world. 

Kazakh-American tenor Timur Bekbosunov, praised by La Reppublica as "talented and effective" and the Wall Street Journal as "program's promise fulfilled", is a noted interpreter of contemporary opera music in the United States and Europe. He has made solo appearances with Los Angeles Philharmonic, Bang on a Can All-Stars, Israeli Opera-JFLA, Santa Cecilia Academy, Opera Boston, Modern Art Ensemble of Berlin, American Repertory Theater, Long Beach Opera, Hawaii Performing Arts Festival and Rosanna Gamson/World Wide; at the Hollywood Bowl, Walt Disney Concert Hall, BAM and Berlin Konzerthaus, among many others. Recently profiled in LA Weekly's BEST OF LA People Issue 2011, Timur has worked and collaborated with many renowned composers, including Thomas Ades (Powder Her Face), Evan Ziporyn (A House in Bali, Oedipus), Anne LeBaron (Crescent City, Silent Steppe Cantata), Silvano Bussotti (Silvano Sylvano), Anthony Davis (Revolution of Forms), Tobias Picker (An American Tragedy) and Peter Eötvös (Snatches of Conversations). www.theoperaoftimur.com 

Daniel Corral is a composer and multi-instrumentalist born and raised in Eagle River, AK. Currently residing in the L.A. area, his unique voice has found a diverse range of outlets. He has accompanied avante-garde puppetry all across the USA, had his music performed by an orchestra riding the Santa Monica Pier Ferris Wheel, displayed his massive multi-movement music boxes at galleries all over Los Angeles, composed for film and dance, and much more. The LA Times called Daniel’s player piano piece Eraser, “fascinating – true eye music.” In May 2007 he received his MFA from CalArts, where his teachers included James Tenney, Morton Subotnick, Anne LeBaron, and Stephen “Lucky” Mosko. www.spinalfrog.com

Brian Walsh is a musician who is interested in sound and communication, regardless of the genre. Mr. Walsh specializes in performance on the clarinet and bass clarinet, and is fluent in many styles of music. He is a graduate of the California Institute of the Arts (MFA, BFA), and the Los Angeles County High School for the Arts. Mr. Walsh frequently performs with such diverse groups as Inauthentica, The California E.A.R. Unit, wild Up, The New Century Players, The Industrial Jazz Group, PLOTZ!, The Doug McDonald Brass and Woodwind Coalition, and the Vinny Golia Large Ensemble. Mr. Walsh also leads Walsh Set Trio, a jazz ensemble focusing on the performance of his own compositions. Performances have taken him to Japan, Canada, Italy, England, the Netherlands, Iceland, and all over the United States. He has premiered pieces by Luigi Nono, Girard Grisey, James Newton, Rosalie Hirs and many others. Past collaborators have included Peter Maxwell Davies, Gavin Bryars, Bobby Bradford, Nels Cline, Money Mark, Bright Eyes, James Newton, Larry Koonse, Muhal Richard Abrams, the Henry Mancini Orchestra, the Riverside Philharmonic and the San Bernardino Symphony. www.brianwalshclarinet.org

Matthew Setzer is a musician, composer, and music technologist living in Los Angeles, California. Matthew received a Bachelor of Music in Composition and Technology from the University of Montana. He regularly performs on guitar with Ulrich Krieger, a well-known avant-garde electric guitarist and contemporary classical composer.  Matthew graduated from the California Institute of the Arts with a Masters of Fine Arts in Experimental Sound Practices. He studied with: David Rosenboom (composition, biofeedback systems), Ajay Kapur (programming, robotics), Mark Trayle (Max/MSP, interface design), Ulrich Krieger (composition, ritual methods), and Morton Subotnick (composition). Recently, Matthew developed an interactive microphone enabling a performer to control audio/video elements with gestural movements, which has been utilized in his later compositions for dance and voice. He is also a guitarist for the gothic industrial band London After Midnight. www.matthewsetzer.com 

Andrew Lessman is a drummer and composer who has been active in Los Angeles since completing his CalArts BFA in 2009 where he studied jazz drums with Joe Labarbera; Afro-Cuban, Brazilian and Salsa drumming with Aaron Serfaty; Anlo-Ewe drumming of Ghana with Alfred Ladzekpo; and composition and improvisation with Larry Koonse, Wadada Leo Smith and Vinny Golia. This past year has seen Andrew perform in NYC (John Zorn's club, The Stone) and the Southwest, in Austria and Germany, Angel City Jazz Fest at the John Ford Amphitheater, collaborating with Swedish and French dance/performance artists, drumming with live shadow puppetry, opening for 90’s alt-rockers Cracker, playing Steve Reich music on a moving carousel at Santa Monica’s GlowFest, and cutting records with the Vinny Golia Sextet, Pitch Like Masses, Timur and the Dime Museum, and the Joe Santa Maria Quartet feat. Larry Koonse. www.myspace.com/anlessdrewman

David Tranchina, bassist, teacher, and composer, is a well-known musician on the Los Angeles scene. As a classical bassist he is known for his big warm sound, solid groove and inventive melodic solos. His compositions range from jazz to experimental and avant-garde. Originally from Forestville, California, he started playing bass at age 13, and was self taught until he began studies with Classical bass virtuoso Barry Green at UC Santa Cruz where he earned is Bachelor’s Degree in Music. He moved to Los Angeles to attend Calarts, where he studied with Charlie Haden, and Darek Oles, and received his Master’s Degree in Jazz Performance in 2008.  David has performed with Bennie Maupin, Gary Fukushima, Matt Otto, Nate Wood, Gonzalo Bergara, Lorca Hart, Walter Smith III, Bobby Watson, Mike Barone, Butch Morris, William Winant, Smith Dobson, Vinny Golia, Larry Koonse, and Joe LaBarbara. David has played some of the top jazz venues in Los Angeles, including The Jazz Bakery, Catalina’s, Vibrato, The Temple Bar, 2nd Street Jazz, Cafe Metropol, The Mint, and REDCAT. www.davidtranchina.com

Cassia Streb is a Los Angeles-based violist, improviser and composer. She is active in the field of contemporary and experimental music, performs regularly as a soloist and a chamber musician, and collaborates with a variety of artists from many disciplines. She performs with the Vinny Golia Large Ensemble, the California EAR Unit, Wadada Leo Smith’s Silver Orchestra and Guthrie & Streb. Cassia is also sought after as a soloist, particularly for her interpretation of modern scores and microtonal works, and she collaborates with many artists from the fields of electronic music, western classical instruments and composes for theatre, dance and film. She has commissioned and performed a number of works by both established and emerging composers and she has worked closely with a range of artists including Christian Wolff, James Tenney, Michael Pisaro Jurg Frey, John Zorn, Morton Subotnik, Mark Trayle, Radu Malfatti and many others. Cassia holds a Bachelor’s degree from the University of Victoria and a Masters’ degree from the California Institute of the Arts. www.cassiastreb.com