New compositions and improvisations by violist and composer Nils Bultmann for violas and 8-channel surround sound. This performance will include a series of new acoustic and electroacoustic pieces including 10 duets with special guest Violist Hank Dutt from the Kronos Quartet.

Hank Dutt, violist, began his musical studies at age 10 in Quincy Illinois. He continued his work under the inspirational tutelage of David Dawson at Indiana University where he earned a Bachelor and Master of Music degree. Directly after his work at Indiana in 1977, he joined the Kronos Quartet and has held the viola position ever since. For more than 30 years, San Francisco's Kronos Quartet has pursued a singular artistic vision - a commitment to expanding the range and context of the string quartet. In the process, Kronos has performed thousands of concerts worldwide, releasing more than 45 recordings and commissioning more than 600 new works and arrangements for string quartet. Kronos' work has also garnered numerous awards, including a Grammy for Best Chamber Music Performance (2004) and "Musicians of the Year" (2003) from Musical America. Kronos' repertoire encompasses works by 20th-century masters (Bartók, Shostakovich, Webern), contemporary composers (Aleksandra Vrebalov, John Adams, Alfred Schnittke), jazz legends (Ornette Coleman, Charles Mingus, Thelonious Monk), and artists from even farther afield (rock guitar hero Jimi Hendrix, Azeri vocalist Alim Qasimov, and avant-garde saxophonist John Zorn). Integral to Kronos' work is a series of long-running, in-depth collaborations with many of the world's foremost composers, including Americans Terry Riley, Philip Glass, and Steve Reich; Azerbaijan's Franghiz Ali-Zadeh; Poland's Henryk Górecki, and Argentina's Osvaldo Golijov. Additional collaborators from around the world have included Chinese pipa virtuoso Wu Man; the legendary Bollywood "playback singer" Asha Bhosle; the renowned American soprano Dawn Upshaw; Mexican rockers Café Tacuba; the Romanian gypsy band Taraf de Haïdouks; and Inuit throat singer Tanya Tagaq.

Nils Bultmann is a violist, improviser, and composer currently based in the San Francisco bay area. Rooted in classical technique and tradition, he has developed his own voice within the context of a wide variety of musical styles and art forms. Active as a performer in the United States and Europe, he plays both classical repertoire as well as his own compositions and is involved in collaborative projects of dance, film, and avant-garde improvised music. Nils was born in 1975 to a German father and American mother and was raised in Madison WI while travelling often to Germany. In 1994 he was an exchange student to Oldenburg Germany funded by the US Congress and German Bundestag scholarship. Nils received his B.A. from the University of Madison-Wisconsin on a music scholarship, studying viola performance with Sally Chisholm as well as German Literature. His orchestral engagements include the National Repertory Orchestra, the Jerusalem International Symphony, and the New World Symphony under conductor Michael Tilson-Thomas. Nils has collaborated with and received commissions from with the Jin Wen Yu, Li-Chiao-Ping, Kendra Kimball, and Kaeja dance companies. He has been featured on Douglas Rosenberg’s Dance for Camera series on public television and was a guest musician at the Contact-Improvisation dance festival in Budapest Hungary. As an improviser, he has worked with Ken Butler, David Wessel, Frank Gratkowski, William Winant, Myra Melford, Evan Parker, and Roscoe Mitchell. In September 2004 he was a guest at the International Symposium for Improvised music in Munich Germany to perform two new works by jazz Saxophonists’ Roscoe Mitchell and Evan Parker, as part of the Transatlantic Art Ensemble which was recorded and released on ECM records. Nils has been the recipient of many awards including the Music Omi composer’s residency fellowship in upstate New York, the Djerassi artist residency in northern California, and at the Ucross Foundation’s resident artist program in Wyoming. He has received several Dane County Cultural Affairs Commission arts grants and was the recipient of the Madison Arts Council Signature Arts Grant. He self-produced and recorded a CD compilation of his own compositions, Forgiveness, including a Solo Sonata for Viola, which appeared in full score with review in the Journal for the American Viola Society. His most recent sols CD “Terminally Unique” featuring guest musicians Paddy Cassidy (Djembe), Parry Karp (Cello) and Roscoe Mitchell (sax and flute) was released on Mutable Records. He is currently on fellowship at UC Berkeley enrolled in a doctorate program in music composition and is active in the UC Berkeley Center for New Music and Technology. He is also a certified Yoga Instructor and enjoys swimming, dancing , thinking, film making , traveling and baking cookies .