LHUCA Firehouse Theatre
511 Avenue K

Friday, June 23rd
7:30 – 9:30pm

¡Radio Free Bassanda! brings a wide range of repertoire and instrumentation to their performances, delighting the ear with their eclectic mix of exotic Eastern rhythms and dizzying melodic frenzy.

Come and experience music from Greece, Turkey, Bulgaria, Kurdistan, Armenia, North Africa, Medieval Spain, and New Mexico with a signature ¡Radio Free Bassanda! twist on June 23!

Founding Members:

Roger Landes has been playing and teaching traditional music for 40 years: touring with the celebrated Celtic band Scartaglen, performing with vocalist Connie Dover, as well as touring with Carlos Núñez, Tommy Peoples, John Carty, Frankie Gavin & Rick Epping, and Randal Bays, he distinguished himself as an innovator on the Irish bouzouki as both accompanist and soloist. He is currently a Senior Lecturer at Texas Tech University School of Music in Lubbock, Texas, where he teaches courses in the history of rock and roll, critical listening, and music in film, as well as directing the university’s Balkan Music Ensemble and Caprock English Bagpipe Consort. Roger is the Associate Director of the TTU School of Music’s Vernacular Music Center.

Chipper Thompson is a writer, artist, and musician who is probably best known as a singer-songwriter with numerous recordings to his credit; and as member of the groups Kim & The Caballeros, and Bone Orchard, and for his pioneering duo bouzouki record with Roger Landes The Janissary Stomp; but in Radio Free Bassanda he is a percussionist, a role he pursues with inventiveness, and passion. Whether playing the Arabic dumbeq, the Turkish darbouka, or Persian zarb, Thompson’s rhythms propel RFB’s string and wind players, grounding their flights of exotic fancy in complex yet earthy grooves. With apologies to Frank Zappa, Sheik Yerbouti, indeed!

Ben Wright from Taos, New Mexico plays double bass and sousaphone/tuba. He cut his teeth in Philadelphia punk rock and has since been working the bass end for 30 odd years bolstered by intense spats of incidental formal training. A lover of the lowest frequencies, Ben has explored many disparate forms of music through bass instruments, yet always returns to the wellspring of improvisation. Currently, Ben plays with Radio Free Bassanda, Irksome Trio, poet John Biscello, and assorted eclectic partners locally and nationally.

Special Guest Musicians:

Jordan Langehennig is a multi-faceted musician residing in Lubbock, TX. He is a virtuoso player of the Great Highland Bagpipes, having competed from an early age, and he continues as a professional piper to this day, while branching out into other piping traditions (Irish uilleann pipes, Galician Gaita, Bulgarian gajda, Scottish Smallpipes, and English border pipes). A multi-instrumentalist, Jordan plays tin whistle, clarinet, subois, zurna, harp, hammered dulcimer, banjo, lute, and oud.He serves as a choirmaster and church organist, as well as a professional bagpiper, and holds two degrees from Texas Tech University in Music, and English. He is a longstanding member of two ensembles associated with the Vernacular Music Center at TTU: the TTU Balkan Ensemble and the Caprock English Bagpipe Consort.

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