The Royal Room Collective Music Ensemble/ Empty Boat at

Wayne Horvitz first performed in Butch Morris’s Conduction in 1987 at The New School for Social Research in New York City. Twenty four years later, in the summer of 2011, Horvitz began to experiment with the Conduction approach while leading Seattle JazzEd ensembles and teaching jazz and improvisation to high school students at Cornish College of the Arts’ summer program. Horvitz’s own approach to Conduction came out leading youth ensembles to hone their improvisational skills. The improvisations that we played were conducted through a series of hand signals and cues developed by Horvitz, and they were constructed out of original charts of cues he composed. Upon the opening of The Royal Room several months later, Horvitz took the opportunity to form his own big band to exclusively perform these charts in his approach to Conduction, thus The Royal Room Collective Music Ensemble (originally called The Seattle Conduction Band) was formed. ...

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Wayne Horvitz first performed in Butch Morris’s Conduction in 1987 at The New School for Social Research in New York City. Twenty four years later, in the summer of 2011, Horvitz began to experiment with the Conduction approach while leading Seattle JazzEd ensembles and teaching jazz and improvisation to high school students at Cornish College of the Arts’ summer program. Horvitz’s own approach to Conduction came out leading youth ensembles to hone their improvisational skills. The improvisations that we played were conducted through a series of hand signals and cues developed by Horvitz, and they were constructed out of original charts of cues he composed. Upon the opening of The Royal Room several months later, Horvitz took the opportunity to form his own big band to exclusively perform these charts in his approach to Conduction, thus The Royal Room Collective Music Ensemble (originally called The Seattle Conduction Band) was formed.

Different musicians have come through and performed with The Royal Room Collective Music Ensemble, including Neil Welch, Ivan Artega, Bobby Previte, Greg Campbell, Stuart Dempster, and Briggan Krauss. Regular members include Beth Fleenor, Al Keith, Sam Boshnack, Ryan Burns, Geoff Harper, Eric Eagle, Kate Olson, Naomi Siegel, Jacob Herring and more.

Don Berman's EMPTY BOAT quartet is named after the famous Laotzu empty boat parable; an assemblage of four excellent Seattle players:
Geoff Harper...bass
Kate Olson...sax
Dennis Rea...guitar
Don Berman...drums

The group plays both original compositions and guided improvisations, as well as selected pieces by great composers such as Dave Holland, John McLaughlin, and others.

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