Damon Locks and Ken Vandermark began to collaborate as a duo through an invitation to perform at Chicago’s Hyde Park Jazz Festival in September of 2020. Their material is based on their collective histories, which include decades of work with a variety of musical aesthetics and artists that have taken place during hundreds of concerts and dozens of recordings, at home and abroad. Their performances are a unique combination of pre-recorded materials, improvisation, electronics, and reed instruments, and are focused on spontaneous interaction and creation.
Damon Locks
Is a Chicago-based visual artist, educator, vocalist/musician. He attended the Art Institute of Chicago where he received his BFA in fine arts. Since 2014 he has been working with the Prisons and Neighborhood Arts Project at Stateville Correctional Center teaching art. He is a recipient of the Helen Coburn Meier and Tim Meier Achievement Award in the Arts and the 2016 MAKER Grant. He operated as an Artist Mentor in the Chicago Artist Coalition program FIELD/WORK. In 2017 he became a Soros Justice Media Fellow. In 2019, he became a 3Arts Awardee. He recently completed 4years as an artist in residence as a part of the Museum of Contemporary Arts’ SPACE Program, introducing civically engaged art into the curriculum at Sarah E. Goode STEM Academy High School. In the spring of 2022, he taught his first semester in the Sound Department on improvisation at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Damon leads the Black Monument Ensemble and is a founding member of the band The Eternals.