Liner Notes by PEK

Leap of Faith is the core duet of the Leap of Faith Orchestra (LOFO) comprised of PEK on clarinets, saxophones, double reeds & flutes, and Glynis Lomon on cello, aquasonic & voice.  The ensemble is based in Boston and dates back to the early 90s.  We utilize a huge arsenal of additional Evil Clown instruments to improvise long works featuring transformations across highly varied sonorities.   At times, the core unit has been a trio or even a quartet.  The longest running core unit was comprised of PEK, Glynis and drummer Yuri Zbitnov, who played for the last couple of years of the archival period and the first 5 years of the reboot starting in 2015.  The ensemble has always been highly modular, and our many recordings (well over 100) feature the core unit in dozens of configurations with a huge list of guests and occasionally as only the core unit with no guests.  Currently, the core unit is the duet of PEK and Lomon and we are regularly presenting LIVESTREAMs to YouTube from Evil Clown Headquarters with other guest performers.

Since the pandemic finished, most Evil Clown Activity occurs at Evil Clown Headquarters in the form of Livestreams.  We used to do a lot of live performances – I had the third Saturday of the Month at Outpost 186 for 5 years and we did there what we currently do at ECH: Different performers and different instruments each time – distinct sections through the full sonority space. Now we mostly Livestream and I don’t have to lug huge piles of instruments every time to perform the broad palate improvisation aesthetic we espouse. So, the small number of live performances every year are a bit special.

For shows like Bonnie Kane’s shows in Holyoake, and the occasional festivals we’ve been doing lately, I have been taking a chamber edition Leap of Faith. All acoustic, with just Glynis on cello/aquasonic/voice, and horns. We’ve done a trio, several quartets, and now for the first time, a quintet. This lineup is practical, since my van is big enough for 4 people and lots of instruments as long as we don’t have big stuff like drums, bass, electronics, etc.

The aesthetic problem posed is very different than a livestream from ECH. Archetypes of Causal Propagation features all-stars in the Evil Clown Roster. Glynis, PEK, John and Micheal have played an enormous amount together and together in other ensembles in the last few years. Kelsey is new on the scene since about a year, but is a regular outstanding contributor and is the new member of this quintet Edition. This is a very tight improvisation quintet performing on a palate of instrumentation far broader than is typical of ensembles in Festival performance. We demonstrated the same steady transformation of sonority over time that we routinely achieve at ECH where our palate is much larger with just horns, Glynis, and a small amount of percussion.

This is a good Leap of Faith Edition for Festival Performance. A lot of the improvisation you see is either electronics/noise oriented, free jazz oriented with bass and drums, or solo of some kind. This Leap of Faith Chamber Edition is none of those things, and along with our broad-palate approach, makes us stick out from the crowd. We had a great time at the North American New Arts Festival watching the other performers that we were able to see. We drove from Boston to Erie Pennsylvania to do the performance, so we did not see much of the whole 4-day festival, but we really enjoyed the whole scene despite the long commute.

Anyway, I really like this performance, and I bet you will too…

• PEK, 10/6/2026