Jonny Stallings Cárdenas is a composer, keyboardist, producer, and improviser based in Los Angeles, California. His compositions have been premiered in Amsterdam, Los Angeles, Tijuana, and San Diego by Ned McGowan and Bart de Vrees, wasteLAnd, Anne LaBerge, Palimpsest, Teresa Díaz de Cossio, and Mark Dresser Bass Ensemble. Working between spaces of avant garde jazz, experimental pop, cumbia, and fusion, Jonny has performed with acts such as Pigimichi, Logan Hone, 5hz, King Britt, Combo Leche, and Steph Richards Conduction Ensemble. He has played at multiple venues and festivals including Blacktronika: Now is the Time Festival at Geffen Contemporary at MoCA (2022), The Experimental Theater at UC San Diego, Future is Color, Gold Diggers, The Loft, and Zebulon. Jonny’s research on Colombian salsa and polyphonic rhythmic structures has inspired a series of canon-based compositions entitled Cañonazos, which includes Cañonazo 3, premiered by wasteLAnd ensemble in 2022. As a PhD candidate in music composition at UC San Diego, Jonny has conducted research on experimental opera and opera-adjacent works composed by Black creative musicians—Anthony Davis, Anthony Braxton, Leroy Jenkins, George E Lewis, and Nicole Mitchell. During the 2023-2024 academic year, Jonny ran TGIF (The Grad Improvisers Forum) at UCSD, a monthly series focused on collective improvisation, free and open to the public. Having relocated to Los Angeles in summer 2024, Jonny is currently composing an opera based on Euripides’ horrific Medea while promoting his experimental pop/rock collaboration, Pigimichi—a project merging Jonny’s synth-heavy grooves with artist Kiki LaPomme’s lyrically-rich and spaced out song structures. In November 2024, Pigimichi released a 4-track, limited edition EP “Empty House” on red 12” vinyl, anticipating the full LP release of Old Quarters by Spring 2025.