John Niekrasz

John Niekrasz is a drummer, composer, teacher, and writer from Chicago, living in Portland. He received his MFA in poetry from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop in 2004. A lifelong student of drum set, John has also studied percussion and dance in Havana and classical Hindustani tabla in Varanasi, India, with Pandit Lacchu Maharaj. John’s recordings appear on labels Ecstatic Peace, ESP-disk’, Tender Loving Empire, Killertree, and others. He has composed original scores for choreographers including Shannon Stewart, Anya Cloud, Allie Hankins, and Ginger Krebs. He performs and composes for several ensembles including Orchestra Becomes Radicalized, Methods Body, Torse, Why I Must Be Careful, Glowing Life, Thicket, GRS, Poor School, and Guvna Rakety. John has collaborated and performed with Fred Lonberg-Holm, Nate Wooley, Marilyn Crispell, Mary Halvorson, John Butcher, Rhys Chatham, Glenn Kotche, Jason Adasiewicz, Sylvaine Hèlary, Frode Gjerstad, Wolter Wierbos, Jack Wright, Weasel Walter, Devin Hoff, Tim Daisy, Frank Rosaly, Joanna Newsom, Akron/Family, Tomeka Reid, Alexandra Grimal, Urs Leimgruber, Tim Kinsella, Tatsuya Nakatani, Seth Brown, William Hooker, Eve Risser, John Wiese, James Baker, Sally Timms, Michael Zerang, Guro Skumsnes Moe, Jaimie Branch, James Falzone, Jason Stein, Luke Wyland, Gust Burns, Gino Robair, Jason Roebke, John Gruntfest, Wayne Montana, Doug Theriault, Mika Singh, Thollem McDonas, Josh Berman, Josh Abrams, Keefe Jackson, John Dikeman, Julien Desprez, Matt Lux, Brian Mumford, Y La Bamba and many other fine artists.