Meet the Musicians Performing at DT Social 1
Sample tracks from our four musicians — just 10 tickets left for tomorrow’s fundraiser!
DT Social 1
A party supporting the Desert Trumpet & local nonprofit news
Thursday, May 14, 2026
6:30 - 8:30 pm
Tickets: $50
Experience Composer George Zelenz’s Spirit Wind House
Music: Tara Jane O’Neil • Derek Monypeny • Ash Ingalls • Ellen Schloff
Drinks donated by Más o Menos • Light bites
Tickets: https://givebutter.com/dt-social-1
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Tara Jane O’Neil
The work of Tara Jane O’Neil innately crosses genres and boundaries—like several genies emerging from a single lamp. The multi-instrumentalist, composer, and visual artist has performed under her own name and in collaboration with other musicians, artists, dancers, and filmmakers since 1992. Her kaleidoscopic discography includes a dozen solo albums. She was a founding member of the legendary art punk bands Rodan and the Sonora Pine. TJO has performed solo songs and improvisational explorations in venues around the world from the Firehouse JT to the Centre Pompidou in Paris. Tara Jane O’Neil’s most recent album, The Cool Cloud of Okayness, was released in 2024 on Orindal Records.
Derek Monypeny
Born in the Arizona desert, a veteran of multiple explorations into the Sahara desert via Morocco and Western Sahara, and now a resident of the Mojave, Derek Monypeny sees his musical mission as adding to and expanding on what he calls the "desert continuum”; the psychedelic sirocco swirl of desert-based stringed instruments played with utter abandon by musicians the world over.
Derek uses a variety of instruments to achieve these ends. In addition to guitar, he has recorded an album of solo oud recordings (Don't Bring Me Down, Bruce) and is currently performing and recording using the 15-string bulbul tarang (Indian electric banjo).
Derek is a former member of the bands Oaxacan (Oakland, CA), ALTO (Portland, OR), and Sir Richard Bishop's Freak Of Araby Ensemble. He has collaborated and toured with artists such as Bill Orcutt, Jozef van Wissem, Mike Watt, Eva Aguila, Ak'chamel, and many others.
Ash Ingalls
Ash Ingalls wanders many pathways of vibrational praxis though their work as an improviser, recording artist, radio DJ, and independent researcher, in addition to founding & facilitating Searching Records, a cassette label presenting a wide spectrum of improvised music from both local and international community. Ash is involved in multiple music projects as a producer and multi-instrumentalist, with an intuitive gravitation toward acoustic string instruments (cello, bass, guitar, ruan, banjo, etc.) modified through shadowy electronic effects. They perform ritualistic drone-folk with Ritual Ashing, loop-based explorations with Entwined, and chaotic free-rock with Aeon Jung. Based in Joshua Tree, CA.
Ellen Schloff
Ellen Schloff is an experimental multi-instrumentalist & vocalist whose improvised performances draw from their classical training in violin and piano and merges electronic elements of layered loops with effects, creating a kaleidoscope of sounds and gestures, transforming them into symphonic compositions.
What is an exquisite corpse?
Desert Trumpet Editor in chief explains the concept for the performance, which takes place at Spirit Wind, the house designed by composer George Zelenz (1968-2022). Prior to Desert Trumpet, Bernard was the founder and director of SASSAS, an organization dedicated to experimental music and art, for which she produced more than 150 events including Welcome Inn Time Machine for the Getty Pacific Standard Time Public Art and Performance Festival (2012).
An exquisite corpse is a surrealist collaborative art/writing/music game where each participant adds to a work without seeing what came before. Named after the first sentence produced by surrealist artists in Paris in the 1920s: "The exquisite corpse shall drink the new wine." The results are often bizarre, dreamlike, and unintentionally poetic.
Applying the exquisite corpse idea to music was developed and deployed for several SASSAS performances.
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