Sabana Blanca

Free improvisation trio, Sabana Blanca, flourished on the avant-garde fringes of Boston’s contemporary classical music scene during the 1990s. Bonded by their love of sonic experimentation and dislike of limitations and conventions, percussionist Takaaki Masuko, violinist Johannes Ammon, and bassist/cellist Andrew Blickenderfer performed as Sabana Blanca for over a decade, spontaneously generating compositions in cafes, art galleries, carpet stores, alleyway pop-up spaces, theaters, and the Harvard Film Archive screening room. [r23378711]—Sabana Blanca's debut EP—releases worldwide on October 31, 2023. Harvested from hundreds of weekly improv sessions percussionist Takaaki ‘Taki’ Masuko recorded live in his Jamaica Plain apartment in 1999, 6th Sense Living Room captures what Masuko calls Sabana Blanca’s shared sense of “asobi”—the desire to play with “no purpose, no absolutes, no competition.” Although Ammon’s return to Europe put the trio on hiatus, indie label NativeWit Productions opted to release both 6th Sense and a forthcoming second EP to celebrate the trio’s unique and highly visual music.