Matt Hannafin - percussion

Matt Hannafin is a New York-based percussionist active in both free improvisation and traditional Iranian music. He studied Iranian tombak (classical goblet drum) with master Kavous Shirzadian; frame drums with Jamey Haddad and Glen Velez; African and Afro-Caribbean percussion with John Amira, Magette Fall, and others; and voice with composer La Monte Young and master Pandit Pran Nath. For Improv New Music performances he uses a percussion kit that blends the timbres of various Asian traditions with those of the orchestral percussion ensemble and the urban/industrial soundscape, allowing deeper exploration of sympathetic resonance, layered continuous sound, and organizational principles based on tonal decay, textural progression, and sequential, nonmetrical rhythmic structures.

In addition to Chainworks, Mr. Hannafin is a member of the Iranian traditional/Sufi ensemble Soroosh (featuring singer/instrumentalist Amir Ali Vahabzadegan and ney/sorna player Omar Faruk Tekbilek) and the improvisation group Two Moon Ensemble (with flautist Muriel Vergnaud, clarinetist Rich Gross, and bandurist Michael Andrec). He's performed solo and with tar/zarb player Kavous Shirzadian, bandurist Julian Kytasty, theremin player James Colemen, soprano Anita DeChellis, sax player Blaise Siwula, guitarists Chris Forsyth and Ed Littman, percussionists Hearn Gadbois, Glen Velez, and Jeff Arnal, and many others. In the 1980s he was a regular guest with NY/NJ dada-noise legends Children in Adult Jails and performed as half of the improv/industrial duo Alexis at Spala. In 1993-94 he was the first male drummer in Layne Redmond's previously all-female percussion ensemble The Mob of Angels. For the past several years he's been active as a teacher of Persian classical and traditional percussion.

Mr. Hannafin has appeared at the Miami Iranian Cultural Festival (1998 and 1999); the United Nations and the Iranian Mission to the UN; Symphony Space, the Brooklyn Museum, the Knitting Factory, Tonic, Washington Square Church, Roulette, ABC No Rio, CBGB's, and Columbia University (New York); the Red Room (Baltimore); the New England Conservatory and the Zeitgeist Gallery (Boston/Cambridge); and at many other venues, including performances for the World Music Institute, New York University's Near Eastern Studies Department, and numerous cultural and arts groups. Recent recordings include duets with San Francisco improviser/composer Ernesto Diaz-Infante and a solo project, Eight Pieces in Suspended Time. Both will be released in 2003.

contact:

(212)362-3933

e-mail:matthannafin@earthlink.net