Cognitive Dissidents
Weekly experimental and other adventurous music and sound showcase. Hosted by Ffej on Tuesdays at the Coffee Messiah (1554 E. Olive Way, Seattle WA 8:00pm All Ages, Donation Requested) in Seattle.

Earshot Jazz
Seattle-based nonprofit music, arts, and service organization formed in 1984 to support jazz and increase awareness in the community. Earshot Jazz publishes a monthly newsletter, presents creative music and educational programs, assists jazz artists, increases listenership, complements existing services and programs, and networks with the national and international jazz community.

The Llanghaelhyn
In the 1960s, the Llanghaelhyn coffeehouse was arguably the fount of the Northwest free jazz and improvised music scene, hosting exploratory sessions with such regulars as Jerry Heldman, Larry Coryell, Ralph Towner, David Friesen, Gary Peacock, Glen Moore, Rufus Reid, Carlos Ward, Walter Zuber Armstrong, Jon Keliehor, and the two Joe Brazils, among hundreds of local and visiting musicians. A reunion took place August 20-21, 2000 at On The Boards.

Olympia Experimental Music Festival
Founded in 1995, this annual event showcases local, regional, and visiting experimental musicians representing multiple genres.

On The Boards
Seattle venue for touring and local performing artists.

Other Sounds
Seattle's Other Sounds concert series has presented adventurous, unconventional music by local, national, and international performers since 1995.

Seattle Improvised Music Festival
Founded in 1985, the Seattle Improvised Music Festival is the longest-running festival in North America devoted exclusively to freely improvised music.

Sister Sonic Electronic Music Network
Sister Sonic Electronic Music Network aims to establish a network where women who create electronic music can educate, help, promote, and connect with each other. This is a forum for anyone who wants to encourage and/or promote women who perform, record, and/or produce electronic music (men are welcome to join). Click the link above or send a blank e-mail to sistersonicnetwork-subscribe@egroups.com to join the list.

Sonarchy Web
A project of the Jack Straw Foundation, the Sonarchy Archives are a collection of audio works presenting the vast range of communication through sound. The dozens of audio clips archived on this site include creative music, sound experiments, and location recordings spanning the globe.

SoniCabal
The SoniCabal is a loose network of Seattle sound artists who meet regularly to discuss composing, recording, performance, and other issues relevant to experimental musicians. The group maintains an enlightened anarchy and has evolved into a forum where aural adventurers of all skill levels share works, works-in-progress, hare-brained ideas, and subversive schemes.

Strategic Improv Labs 2000 (SIL2K)
Strategic Improvisation Laboratories 2000 (SIL2K) experiments with sound, instrumentation, orchestration, and composition to create music that challenges audience expectations and defies performance conventions. In addition to writing and playing experimental music, SIL2K actively promotes artists who push the limits of their instruments, genres, and social identity.

Tacoma New Music Group (formerly Lake Washington New Music Center)
Puget Sound area nonprofit organization for new music performance and recording. Web site contains information about upcoming projects, an extensive list of new music links, and an area new music calendar.

University of Washington School of Music Computer Center (SMCC)
Information on facilities, courses, faculty and students, projects, and events.

Oregon

Creative Music Guild
This organization promotes new music that advances the arts of improvisation and composition. The Guild's focus is on jazz-related music that is artistically vital but under-represented in Portland.

Northwest Electro-Acoustic Music Organization
NWEAMO is dedicated to the promotion of music that involves the creative use of computers and electronics, and to putting electro-acoustic composers and musicians in the Pacific Northwest in contact with the international electronic music community.

Performance Works Northwest
PWNW is a dance and music studio that plays host to a great number of movement-related multimedia performances by artists from around the world as well as a clique of devoted locals.

PICA (Portland Institute for Contemporary Art)
A performing arts presenter that brings international artists (John Zorn, etc.) to Portland.

Portland Experimental Music discussion list

Red 76 Collective
Portland arts group that stages live multimedia performances with a wide range of music (from mainstream to experimental) and film, music and spoken word, music and visual arts, etc.

Temple of Sound
A derelict warehouse space, inhabited by a collective of musicians and artists in a state of perpetual conflict with the local police and their gentrification-happy neighbors. Also a religion this church is dedicated to the spirituality of music; and a non-profit organization that promotes and assists local musicians, particularly those of an electronic bent.

36 Invisibles
A loose association of artists and musicians dedicated to unifying the avant-garde movements in Portland local music, and establishing connections with other like-minded groups across the globe.

Two Gyrlz Productions
Non-profit arts collective that promotes and supports local and international artists who work with a broad range of concepts and media, and 2 consolidate this talent in public, accessible events and educational programs.

Vancouver / Victoria

Coastal Jazz & Blues Society
Venerable presenters of multifarious new-music events north of the border, including the mammoth DuMaurier Jazz Festival Vancouver (see link below).

DuMaurier Jazz Festival Vancouver
According to some authorities, the finest festival of jazz and improvised music in the world — ten days and hundreds of concerts representing every conceivable genre of jazz and jazz-related music.

Earsay
A new music Web magazine, meeting place, soundshop, CD producer, and composer's forum. Includes a comprehensive calendar of new music events in the Vancouver area and beyond.

Open Space
Established in 1972, Open Space is an artist-run centre dedicated to the presentation of contemporary Canadian culture. The Open Space New Music committee is committed to presenting performers, composers, and performances of work which would otherwise be without public venue in Victoria.

Oscillations Calendar of Sonic Art
Oscillations is compiled by Colin MacDonald for Vancouver New Music and other organizations in the Greater Vancouver area. This email calendar is sent out at the beginning of each month to subscribers. If you wish to subscribe then email crypticmusic@shaw.ca.

Standing Wave
One of the most dynamic voices in Vancouver's new music scene, Standing Wave is a chamber ensemble dedicated to commissioning and performing works by composers from Canada and abroad.

Vancouver East Cultural Center
This once-abandoned church has developed into a national treasure and B.C.'s most diverse performance space, hosting numerous creative music events.

Vancouver New Music
Western Canada's major producer of serious contemporary music commissions and premieres new works by Canadian composers; presents leading electroacoustic music, international composers, and performers; develops repertoire for the Vancouver New Music Ensemble; and produces the Vancouver International New Music Festival every second year.

The Western Front
Frequent presenters of adventurous music events in Vancouver.

Greater North Pacific Musical Sphere and beyond

Arts Wire's New Music Sightseeing Tour
Links to sites by or for adventurous composers and performers who are serious about the music they make despite the real commercial challenges they face.

Avant Art Web Ring
A clearinghouse for information on jazz and creative music activity in Russia, the former Soviet republics, Tuva, Mongolia, China, and the Far East.

Bay Area Creative Music Calendar
A simple but comprehensive list of upcoming creative/experimental shows, with links.

Bay Area Improvisers Network
Serving the San Francisco Bay Area Creative Music Community. Includes information on Bay Area artists, events, venues, recordings, labels, and more.

Bay Area New Music Discussion List
An e-mail discussion and concert posting list for San Francisco Bay Area new music.

Beanbender's
Bay Area venue for creative and improvised music.

Beijing International Jazz Festival

Creative Music Studio
A site dedicated to the late, lamented Creative Music Studio in Woodstock, New York, crucible of much of the new jazz and improvised music that arose in the 1960s.

DC Improv
An online resource for creative improvised music, avant-garde jazz, free improvisation, and new music in the Washington, D.C. area, maintained by Arts for Arts and Transparent Productions.

Improvised Music from Japan
A not-for-profit organization devoted to presenting and recording Asian American creative music.

La Liste
Based in Montréal, La Liste is a free regular snail-mail listing of concerts of adventurous music in Québec, Canada.

livingroom.org
An astounding collection of links and resources that is international in scope.

Los Angeles Improvised and Experimental Music Booking Resource
Contact information for presenters of improvised/experimental music in the Los Angeles area.

Madison Music Collective
New-music activity in the Madison, Wisconsin, area.

Matt Marth's List of Experimental Music Venues
This list includes venues that host performances of experimental and/or spontaneously created/freely improvised music. The list is organized by U.S. states in alphabetical order, followed by a few European venues.

Minneapolis Underground
Minneapolis Underground is a list devoted to informing people about live music events in and around Minneapolis (but not limited to, shows all over Minnesota as well reasonable stretches into the 5 state area) of an 'underground' nature.

(musings)
A treasure trove of sound clips by world-class improvising musicians.

New Directions in Chinese Music
Dennis Rea's series of profiles of radical musicians from China, Taiwan, and Hong Kong. Co-presented by Sonarchy.

One Final Note
A quarterly journal dedicated to improvisation and all things related, including but not limited to music known as free jazz, avant-garde jazz, new music, Great Black Music, ecstatic jazz, and so on.

Pacific Northwest Improvisation Mailing List
A regional online discussion group for Northwest improvisers and enthusiasts.

The Red Room
Based in Baltimore, the Red Room is "dedicated to radically experimental culture: freely improvised music, electronic sound, esoteric and self-built instruments, the outer limits of jazz, new musical genres..." and also hosts High Zero, an annual festival of experimental improvised music.

Rubberneck
The longest-running experimental music magazine in Britain specialising in improvised musics, as well as free jazz, experimental rock, electroacoustic, contemporary composition, and film music.

SoundArt Foundation
New York City's source for information on concerts of contemporary music in all its forms: Avant Garde, Classical, Electronic, Computer, Experimental Jazz and ???

SoundList
Web site for experimental music, free improvisation, and sound art events in the Toronto area.

Tautology Boston Improv Calendar

Trummerflora
Trummerflora is a musicians' collective dedicated to the performance, distribution, and promotion of experimental and improvisational musics in San Diego.