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.

About a month ago, a quintet Chamber Edition of Leap of Faith (PEK, Glynis Lomon, John Fugarino, Michael Caglianone, Kelsey Gallagher) made the trek from Boston to Erie PA to perform at the North American New Arts Festival. I generally take a chamber edition of LOF to events like this when we go. We mostly perform LIVESTREAM to YouTube from Evil Clown Headquarters. We average about 3 performances per month, and in 2026 only 5 of these 36 performances occurred out of house. Two of these are the big band project which happens in Brattleboro VT, and the other three are this Chamber Edition of LOF. 

There are advantages to this sort of line up – less stuff to carry (I can 4 musicians and their instruments in my van), relatively quick to mobilize into the room and set up, and most audience for free improvisation do not see ensembles comprised only of the melodic orchestra instruments. Most performers are playing more free jazz styles or are leaning into more noise-oriented styles – what we present is fundamentally different.

The NAMA festival performance was very successful and I immediately scheduled a follow up at ECH with the same quintet, so we could do two performances close in time – one with a very focused portable palate, and one with all the advantages of the ECH Studio environment and the hundreds of instruments available to us there.

Anyway, on the day of the show I got an email from Kelsey who couldn’t make it because she had car trouble. A big hurdle since she lives a state over and drives a bit over an hour to get here. We missed her, but it ain’t no thang… Improvisation is very tolerant of last second changes to ensemble. We are not playing repertoire, if someone can’t make it, we don’t need a sub who knows the book; we simply adjust to a slightly different Aesthetic Problem – In this case changing from a 5-player improvisation to a 4-player one. I will schedule another set for this quintet probably in early 2027.

Continuous Spontaneous Localization is a solid improvisation by 4 Evil Clowns heavyweights. Glynis, John, Michael and I have played really a lot together in the last 5 years or so – both as this same quartet and more often as part of a larger unit. John, Michael and I all use lots and lots of the available instruments – the constant changing of instrumentation over the duration of the work create a story of transformation through sonority and create the form of the work.

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

• PEK, 10/6/2026