Mark Nagy's Station Four

Station Four is a Chicago band using music, dance, and text to create a multi-sensory experience for its audience. Each of Station Four’s musician-members have a long and varied performance career and together have collaborated stretching back 30 years. Saxophonist-composer Mark Nagy, guitarist Steve Doyle, modular synthesizer player and bassist Neil Jendon, and bass clarinetist Emily Rach Beisel wrap their uniquely structured electro-acoustic improvisations around the spoken-word performance art of Kao Ra Zen in Nagy’s most recent work for the ensemble a multi-movement suite “Urban Voices: Listening to the Unheard”. In addition to the music and text, the ensemble is augmented by four dance artists, Tuli Bera, Heather Zimny, Karen Fisher-Doyle, and Mindy Meyers. Nagy conceived and formed Station Four in 2022, initially inspired by the works of Merce Cunningham and John Cage. In 2023, Nagy was awarded a DCASE grant from the city of Chicago to create a multi-movement work for musicians and dancers to celebrate diverse neighborhoods and important events in the city’s history entitled “Dynamic Fabric: Chicago Intersections”. Station Four uses a combination of strictly notated music as well as verbal cues to inform group improvisations, which creates an environment in which the ensemble’s members are challenged to respond simultaneously to the aural textures and visual stimuli. The objective of the ensemble is to lead both ensemble members and audience members to question preconceived notions and consider new ideas.