Meridian Music: Composers in Performance presents a performance by recorder duo Three Trapped Tigers, an ensemble of recorder players whose core members are David Barnett and Tom Bickley. Their first performance was on 21 June 2003 as part of the Garden of Memory Summer Solstice Concert at the Chapel of the Chimes in Oakland, CA. They have since performed on BARS (the Bay Area Recorder Series), the Acme Observatory Series and as part of the ARS 2004 Great Recorder Relay. Their concerts reflect their varied musical interests.

David Barnett was a very bad boy while a student in the New York City public school system. His punishment was to play the recorder for the principal once a week. While this did not necessarily solve his behavior problems, he did find that he enjoyed the recorder. About the same time he took up the clarinet and has been playing music on both instruments ever since in one form or another. A long time Bay area resident, he now lives in exile in southern California. He has recently been a visiting artist at the California Institute for the Arts. He currently performs on recorder and chalumeau with the Los Angeles based ensemble, Jealous Nightingale (www.Jealousnightingale.org). In a past life, he was the music director for the notorious San Francisco arts group, the Noh Oratorio Society. He has recorded for the Earthbeat, Pacific Artist and Centaur labels.

Tom Bickley listens to the world always hoping to hear more and more fully. He grew up in the semitropical soundscape of Houston, sojourned in Washington, DC (studying music, religion, and information science) and came to the Bay Area as a composer in residence at Mills College. He studied music with Pauline Oliveros, Scott Reiss, and Ruth Steiner. He is part of the community at Incarnation Priory (an Episcopal Benedictine community), a member of the library faculty at CSU East Bay, and teaches music privately and at the Bay Area Center for Waldorf Teacher Training. He plays with Gusty Winds May Exist (with shakuhachi player Nancy Beckman) and directs the Cornelius Cardew Choir. His work is available on CD on Quarterstick and Metatron Press.