trē

trē seguritan abalos is a sound improviser who plays with flutes, found objects, and field recordings.

A child of Filipino immigrants, trē moved to Pittsburgh in 2016 from San Jose, CA, to study flute with Alberto Almarza at Carnegie Mellon University. Shortly after trē began improvising with flutes inflected by studying Japanese shakuhachi with devon osamu tipp. Drawing from further studies with Susie Ibarra, their sound merges classical techniques with deep listening and free improvisation into textural evocations of dis/placement and examinations of breath.

As a collaborator tre’s playing ranges from live sound collage and film scores to ambient soundscapes, free jazz, and other forms of research in listening rooms and space for works-in-progress, both as a solo improviser and within various electroacoustic collectives.

trē often co-facilitates Open Improvisation Lab, a fortnightly improvised music jam session free & open to the public held by the Pittsburgh Sound Preserve. trē organizes unmade place, a series of sound text experiments featuring local musicians and poets in spaces such as Telephone, The Big Idea Bookstore, the Maple Leaf, Abolition Coffee, Scobi Hotel, and Jerry’s Bar & Grille.

Projects include live scores for Pittsburgh Sound + Image, performances for JADED, Anthropology of Motherhood, Trust Visual Arts; experimental duo pterratactl with Petra Floyd; durational electroacoustic soundscapes with Herman Pearl as “Drift Terrain” and How Things Are Made at The Space Upstairs; live music for Confluence Ballet composed by Joshua Malavé; and performances/recordings with BusCrates, 7D, Jenna Peng, Sara Tang, Ariel Xiu, Caleb Gamble, Ricki Weidenhof, eli namay, and Mai Khôi.

In 2025 trē performed a solo tour of improvised music in Denver, Salt Lake City, and San Diego in collaboration with Sarah Christiansen / Sunswept, Chaz Prymak / Yardwork Presents, and Jonathan Piper. Earlier at CTM Festival trē wrote a text score for a lab hosted by Stas Shärifullá and Susie Ibarra called “a tune you almost remember: text score as poetics / playful research between forgetting & improvisation,” performed at Radialsystem in Berlin.

Recordings of trē’s playing include “live summer etudes,” three solo sets performed in 2025; “sequences of air,” sound collage for cassette tape; “A Place I Recognized” (Habitat Sounds), flute improvisation and field recordings; “Branches Wide Open” with composer Nick Fagnilli (electronics, toy piano); “GLO-TREE”, ambient music with GNM (guitar) and Herman Pearl (sound design, electronics); “Musically Yours: A Tribute to Sam Rivers” (Fleur Records) with Dylan Zeh (bass), Ross Antonich (drums), and Derek Bendel (tenor saxophone). Future releases include a duo record with electronics by Adam Kantz.

In 2023 trē attended Susie Ibarra and Jake Landau’s first Rhythm in Nature Residency at PS21 in Chatham, New York, field recording and premiering Susie Ibarra’s Four Meditations on Impermanence in an improvising orchestra featuring Tashi Dorji and Phyllis Chen.

In 2018 trē traveled on a research scholarship to Argentina to study roles and meanings of música folclórica in nation-building and indigenous communities.

trē has performed improvised music in spaces from Telephone and The Government Center to Bantha Tea Bar, The Space Upstairs, Seafoam, The Maple Leaf, Fungus Books & Records, The Big Idea Bookstore, Bottom Feeder Books, the Melwood Screening Room, Collision, Certain Death ii, Remedy, brillobox, Mr. Roboto Project, Bunker Projects, inter-, PearlArts Movement and Sound, Union Project, Con Alma, Incurably Optimistic, Three Stories, Rodef Shalom, Eberle Studios, Signal Sauna, Stage MK, Mixtape, Scobi Hotel/the Black Lace Club, Scoot’s Garage / Pierogi Palace, Jerry’s Bar & Grille, Poetry Lounge, Club Pittsburgh, Creative Coffee, Bottlerocket, Spirit Lodge, the Glitterbox Theater, City of Asylum, Riverlife, Carnegie Library at Mt. Washington, Kelly Strayhorn Theater, Wood Street Galleries, 707 Gallery, the Warhol Museum, the Miller Institute of Contemporary Art, Sculpture Court and Hall of Sculpture at the Carnegie Museum of Art, the Children’s Museum, and the Mattress Factory.