“Feeding Goats” features artist-musician Michael Hafftka on guitar, synthesizers and other instruments, Yonat Hafftka on theremin, garrahand, steel pans and harmonium; Richard Carr on violin and computer and Allen Bernard Branch playing marimba and percussions.
Michael Hafftka is a composer, an improviser on fretless guitar and a visual artist. He is a member of the board for the American Festival of Microtonal Music. His music is featured on 12 CDs
released by the Pittsburgh label, Six Gallery and the New York label, Pitch. He has collaborated with Jemeel Moondoc, Butch Morris, Johnny Reinhard, Noah Creshvesky, Jandek and Jeroen Thesseling. Hafftka has been a featured artist in two live concerts on WKCR-FM. He has performed live with his bands Feeding Goats and Defective Chords. Hafftka’s music is on his soundcloud page with over 45,000 plays. https://soundcloud.com/feedinggoats.
Hafftka’s art work is in the permanent collections of a number of museums, including: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Museum of Modern Art, Brooklyn Museum of Art, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Carnegie Museum of Art, New York Public Library, Marion Koogler McNay Art Museum, Housatonic Museum of Art, Arizona State University Art Museum, National Gallery of Art, Yeshiva University Museum and Chapman University’s Phyllis and Ross Escalette Permanent Collection of Art. Housatonic Museum of Art mounted a major retrospective of his large paintings in 2005 and in 2009 Yeshiva University Museum at the Center For Jewish History presented a comprehensive show of old and new works. Hafftka’s Zohar paintings were shown in 2010 at the Mizel Center for the Arts, Denver, Colorado. http://www.hafftka.com/
Richard Carr is a violinist, composer and music educator who lives in Rosendale, New York. He holds a Doctorate in music education from Columbia University. He has recorded numerous albums under his own name and with artists such as Bill Laswell, Fred Frith, Bootsy Collins, Sly & Robbie, The Swans, Milt Hinton, Bucky Pizzarelli, John Pizzarelli Jr., Alan Dawson, Howard Alden, and Karl Berger. He has performed with James Williams, Kenny Davern, Doc Cheatam, Jay McShann, Jamal Nasser, Mike Nord, Georg Hofmann, Steve Gorn, and John McDermott. He has regularly toured the US, Europe, Japan, and Mexico over the past twenty years. He is a former radio host on WDST in Woodstock, NY. In the 1980’s he lived in Boston and played sectional violin with the Boston Philharmonic. He currently teaches strings in the Poughkeepsie City School District. https://sites.google.com/site/richardcarrviolin/
Allen Bernard Branch is a multi-instrumentalist from Maryland who is most often heard playing with “Everyman” and “Feeding Goats” and some of the most beautiful church gospels ensembles in the East Coast. Allen brings seriousness and passion to everything he plays.
Yonat Hafftka, in addition to performing with “Feeding Goats,” is a poet whose book of poetry “Sum” was published by Six Gallery in 2008.
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