The 35th Seattle Improvised Music Festival was organized by Haley Freedlund, Christopher Icasiano, and Steve Peters. Presented by Nonsequitur, with assistance from 4Culture and the Raynier Institute & Foundation. Haley Freedlund designed the poster.

Originally scheduled to take place in March 2020, the festival was postponed until early September due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Of course, by then we were still on lockdown. On the verge of cancelling the festival altogether, we were invited to curate an evening of video performances – a solo, an ensemble, and an experimental music/video project - as part of a collaborative streaming video edition of the annual High Zero Festival in Baltimore. We accepted, and decided to record any of the Seattle musicians who had been invited and still wanted to participate, resulting in an additional program streamed a week later, independently of High Zero. We are grateful to Wayne Horvitz and the Royal Room for providing us with a venue and equipment to make the video recordings.

The High Zero program was streamed on September 27, 2020:

Solo: Marina Albero
Solo: Alison Clendaniel (Baltimore)
Quintet: Jim Knodle + Casey Adams, Heather Bentley, Evan Woodle, Jenny Ziefel
Video ("Silent Blaze"): Dana Reason, Melody Owen

The second program was streamed on October 4, 2020 (viewable at the Racer Sessions YouTube channel):

Solo: Ben Goldberg
Duo: Laurel Evers, Galin Hebert
Solo: Sam Newsome
Trio: Thomas Campbell, Dick Valentine, Tamara Zenobia
Solo: Joe McPhee

Sadly, the dance/music performance curated by Lorraine Lau was cancelled.

The festival was dedicated to Bill Smith, who was intended to have a featured set at the Racer Sessions but passed away before the festival took place.

Participating artists:

Casey Adams, drums
Marina Albero, piano
Heather Bentley, viola
Thomas Campbell, drums
Laurel Evers, clarinet
Ben Goldberg, clarinet (Oakland)
Galin Hebert, drums
Jim Knodle, trumpet
Joe McPhee, tenor sax (Poughkeepsie)
Sam Newsome, soprano sax (Brooklyn)
Melody Owen, video (Portland/Sydney)
Dana Reason, piano (Corvallis)
Dick Valentine, woodwinds
Evan Woodle, drums
Tamara Zenobia, voice
Jenny Ziefel, bass clarinet

Invited artists who did not participate:

Elby Brosch, dance
James Falzone, clarinet
Christopher Icasiano, drums
Andrew Jones, bass (Portland)
Leanna Keith, flutes
Rebekah Ko, percussion
Lorraine Lau, dance
Pete Leinonen, bass
Haruko Crow Nishimura, voice
Hendri Walujo, dance
Fox Whitney, dance