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Cecil Bridgewater
Cecil Bridgewater is a trumpeter, composer, arranger, producer, and educator. He has been a member of the bands of Max Roach, Horace Silver, and the Thad Jones/Mel Lewis Jazz Orchestra, among many others. He has also performed and recorded with the Count Basie Orchestra, Duke Ellington Orchestra, Dizzy Gillespie, McCoy Tyner, Jimmy Heath, Sir Roland Hanna, Wynton Marsalis, and Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers, to name a few.
Mr. Bridgewater’s compositions and arrangements have been recorded and performed by such artists as Lena Horne, Vanessa Rubin, the Uptown String Quartet, and Dee Dee Bridgewater (three of his arrangements are included on her Grammy Award-winning recording, Dear Ella). He has received commissions from the Cleveland Chamber Symphony, the Atlanta Arts Festival, University of Illinois, Jazzmobile , and Meet The Composer.
As a producer, Mr. Bridgewater has worked with Vanessa Rubin, Antonio Hart, Michael Carvin, the Uptown String Quartet, as well as producing his own recordings, I Love Your Smile and Mean What You Say, on the Brownstone record label.
Uri Caine was born in Philadelphia and began studying piano there with Bernard Peiffer. He began playing in bands led by Philly Joe Jones, Hank Mobley, Johnny Coles, Mickey Roker, Odean Pope, Jymmie Merritt, Bootsie Barnes and Grover Washington. He attended the University of Pennsylvania and studied music composition with George Rochberg and George Crumb. While in school, he played with many of the visiting musicians who played in Philadelphia including Freddie Hubbard, Joe Henderson, Benny Golson, Phil Woods, Donald Byrd, J.J. Johnson, Stanley Turrentine, and Lester Bowie.
Caine has recorded fourteen albums as a leader, on the JMT/Polygram and Winter & Winter labels. His recordings pay homage to the great jazz pianists Thelonious Monk and Herbie Hancock, showcase arrangements of the music of Gustav Mahler, Richard Wagner, and Beethoven’s Opus 120 for piano and orchestra. They also explore early Tin Pan Alley, and feature original compositions for Jazz piano trio and solo piano.
During the past several years, Caine has worked in groups led by Don Byron, Dave Douglas, Terry Gibbs and Buddy DeFranco, Clark Terry, Rashid Ali, Arto Lindsay, Sam Rivers and Barry Altschul, the Woody Herman Band, Annie Ross, the Enja Band, Global Theory and the Master Musicians of Jajouka. He has performed at many jazz and classical festivals in the U.S. and abroad, including The North Sea Jazz Festival, Montreal Jazz Festival. Monterey Jazz Festival, JVC Festival, Newport Jazz Festival, The Salzburg Festival, The Munich Opera, The Holland Festival, and others.
Uri Caine has received commissions from the Vienna Volksoper, The Seattle Chamber Players, Relache, The Beaux Arts Trio and the Basel Chamber Orchestra. He has received grants from the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, the National Endowment for the Arts and the Pew Foundation.
Classical Productions Chamber Chorus
Established in 1978 by Patricia Rogers, the Classical Productions Ensemble presents a wide variety of musical styles including scenes from operas and Broadway shows, spirituals, art songs, and other music. The touring ensemble has performed in the eastern U.S. and has been a special guest at the United Nations General Assembly. CPE’s choral members are also affiliated with the Metropolitan and New York City Opera companies.
Patricia Rogers, founder and directress of the Classical Productions Ensemble, earned her M.A. and M.S. degrees from Columbia University. She also studied in Switzerland, at the Schubert Institute, and in Austria. Ms. Rogers has appeared in opera houses in Europe, South America, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, and Southeast Asia. Her Carnegie Hall recital received critical acclaim from the Amsterdam News as revealing “a voice of beauty”. She has also served as a member of the New York City and Metropolitan Opera companies. Her multi-faceted career embraces television, radio, recordings, and Broadway musicals.
Corona Seventh-day Adventist Church Concert Choir
The Corona Seventh-day Adventist Church Concert Choir was founded in 1979. Since that time, the concert choir’s annual presentation of Handel’sMessiah and other choral masterworks have been well received by the communities of Corona and East Elmhurst, Queens. Founded by Mrs. Muriel C. Wheeler, Mario Cameron Jr. is the third and present music director and conductor. The choir continues to uphold the tradition of learning and presenting magnificent music for the enjoyment of the community.
Mario E. Cameron, Jr. is the Music Director of the Corona Seventh-day Adventist Church in Corona (Queens), New York. He is also the conductor of the church’s Sanctuary Choir and the Corona Seventh-day Adventist Church Concert Choir.
A native of the Republic of Panama, Mr. Cameron studied music at the National Music Conservatory of Panama, and conducting with Muriel C. Wheeler, his long-time mentor, at the Corona Church. Mr. Cameron and Mr. Antonie Brady, the church organist at Corona, are developing a music mentoring program for aspiring musicians in the Corona-East Elmhurst communities.
Justin DiCioccio is internationally recognized as one of the foremost jazz educators of our time. In January 2001, he was inducted into the Jazz Education Hall of Fame, which took place at the 28th Annual International Association of Jazz Educators (IAJE) conference in New York City. His performances, guest conducting appearances, adjudications, jazz and percussion clinics and workshops are numerous and widely recognized in the professional and educational fields.
In 2002, Mr. DiCioccio was named assistant dean of Manhattan School of Music where he chairs the School’s jazz department, a position he has held since 1999. He has been a member of the School’s jazz faculty since 1984. Mr. DiCioccio also directs international summer jazz programs in partnership with Manhattan School of Music that take place in Amsterdam, The Netherlands, and at the Brevard Music Festival in North Carolina.
Mr. DiCioccio serves as program director for Carnegie Hall Jazz Education and acts as a consultant to Wynton Marsalis and Jazz at Lincoln Center, with whom he also performs and gives clinics. He designed, developed, and directed the internationally known and award-winning La Guardia High School of the Arts jazz program, the first fully accredited secondary jazz program in the United States.
Mr. DiCioccio has received awards from the mayor of New York and the U.S. Department of Education, an Achievement Award from Downbeat, and is active with the National Foundation for Advancement in the Arts, the Music for Youth Foundation and the National Foundation for Jazz Education. In 1998, The Commission Project, in partnership with the New York City Board of Education, created an annual JD Award for Outstanding Service to Music in New York City Schools, and honored Mr. DiCioccio as its first recipient.
Fish Love That, a free-wheeling improvising band made up of six individual artists from the cutting-edge performing arts circuit, is quickly emerging as a powerful new voice in New York. Influenced by genres from classical to downtempo, Fish Love That is known for their daring sensibility and frightening virtuosity. By blending electronics, ambient sounds, and video into an emotional soundscape, and boasting sharply rhythmic solos over haunting beats, the band continually explores and extends the limits of group improvisation.
Fish Love That:
Todd Reynolds, violin
Andrew Sterman, tenor sax and flute
Rob Henke, trumpet
Neil Rolnick, keyboard and electronics
Steve rust, bass
Lukas Ligeti, drums
Flux Quartet has performed to rave reviews at many music centers around the world. It has recently appeared at the Library of Congress, the Great Day in New York Festival, the New Chamber Festival in Baltimore, and at Lincoln Center with the New York City Ballet. Its radio credits include NPR’s All Things Considered, WNYC’s Around New York and New Sounds, and WFMU’s Saturday Night Toe Jamz with Kenny G. In the current season, Flux is once again resident artists of When Morty Met John, a three-year series at Carnegie Hall’s Weill Recital Hall celebrating the musical friendship between Morton Feldman and John Cage.
FLUX captivates its audiences worldwide with a vivid repertoire composed of notable pioneers as well as visionaries of tomorrow. From classics by Conlon Nancarrow, Gyorgy Ligeti, and John Cage, to new works by Renaud Gagneux, John Zorn, and the Slave Pianos, a group of Australian conceptual artists devoted to uncovering sound works by underground visual artists. FLUX also premieres works by its own members, and has cultivated collaborative relationships with artists such as Ornette Coleman, Oliver Lake, and tenor balloonist Judy Dunaway. To support emerging composers, FLUX actively pursues commissions, including recent grants from the American Composers Forum, the Koussevitzky Foundation, and the Aaron Copland Fund.
FLUX Quartet:
Tom Chiu, violin
Conrad Harris, violin
Max Mandel, viola
Dave Eggar, cello
Donal Fox is internationally acclaimed as composer, pianist, and improviser in both the jazz and classical fields. His numerous awards include a 1997 Guggenheim Fellowship in music composition, a 1998 Fellowship from the Bogliasco Foundation (Italy), and 1999, 2001, and 2003 nominations for a CalArts/Alpert Award in the Arts.
Mr. Fox served as the first African American composer-in-residence with the St. Louis Symphony from 1991 to 1992. In the l993-94 season, Mr. Fox was a special guest artist at the Library of Congress in a program that was recorded by National Public Radio, and was a visiting artist at Harvard University where he received a Certificate of Recognition from the President of Harvard College for his contribution to the arts. In the 1998-1999 season he was featured concert artist with the Richmond Symphony (VA) where he gave the world premiere performance of Anthony M. Kelley’s piano concertoAfricamerica. The concerto asked for Mr. Fox to compose and improvise four cadenzas and many solo passages, bridging both jazz and classical styles inherent in the concerto.
Mr. Fox’s exciting and innovative “Jazz Duet Series” has included concerts and collaborations with Oliver Lake, John Stubblefield, Billy Pierce, David Murray, Elliott Sharp, Regina Carter, Stefon Harris, Gary Burton,. and poet Quincy Troupe to name a few. He has recorded as composer and pianist for New World Records, Evidence Records, Music & Arts, Passin’ Thru Records, Yamaha’s Original Artist Series, and Wergo Records.
In the 2003-2004 season, Mr. Fox will be artist in residence at the Tyrone Guthrie Center in Northern Ireland and the Oberpflzer Kunstlerhaus in Schwandorf, Germany.
Chico Freeman’s musical journey has been one akin to that of an alchemist, providing the Midas touch to not only his projects, but also helping to create gold for others within the jazz, rhythm & blues, pop and world music musical realms. A multi-reedman, keyboard artist, composer and producer, Freeman embodies jazz by finding new avenues of expression that embrace its heritage and tradition. Many critics have compared him to the greats in jazz history, but the proof, beyond arguable opinion, is in the fact that he has played and recorded with some of the most innovative musicians in the world including: Dizzy Gillespie, McCoy Tyner, Elvin Jones, Charles Mingus, Jack DeJohnette, Art Blakey, Wynton Marsalis, Branford Marsalis, Hank Jones, Freddie Cole, Joe Henderson, Bobby Hutcherson, Roy Haynes, Von Freeman, Arthur Blythe, Billy Hart, Lester Bowie, Famadou Don Moye, Cecil McBee, Kirk Lightsey, John Hicks, Mal Waldron, Earth, Wind & Fire, The Eurythmics, The Temptations, The Four Tops and many others.
Born into a musical family, his father Von Freeman is the legendary tenor saxophone player, and his uncles George and Bruz play guitar and drums respectively. Freeman earned a mathematics scholarship to Northwestern University, and played trumpet in the school jazz band. He quickly learned that his heart was elsewhere, and eventually studied the tenor saxophone eight to ten hours a day until confident enough to challenge the sax section. He switched to a major in music and a great tenor player was born. He graduated with a degree in music, with proficiencies in saxophone, trumpet, and piano. Following studies in advanced composition and theory, he began teaching elementary and intermediate courses at the Chicago-based AACM (Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians) School of Music. While completing a Masters Degree in Composition and Theory at Governors State University, his memorable performance at the Intercollegiate Jazz Festival in South Bend, Indiana, with the Governors State’s Jazz Band won Freeman awards as “Best Soloist”, “Best Saxophonist”, and a tour of Brazil with the winning group.
Freeman’s latest projects, Chico Freeman y Guataca & Oh, By The Way, is one of his most completely realized musical excursions. The acclaimed CD blends all that the artist has experienced from his past, while providing fluidness into a future of infinite musical possibilities.
Gerry Hemingway, Composer/Percussionist, has been at the forefront of creative improvised music for over two decades. He was born in 1955 in New Haven and became interested in drums around the age of ten and by the age of seventeen was working as a professional musician primarily in the jazz and bebop domain.
He is a core member of Anthony Davis’ Episteme Ensemble, and has performed and recorded as a featured soloist on Mr. Davis’ violin concerto Maps as well as the operas Under the Double Moon and Tania (released recently on Koch Classics). A recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, Hemingway has become increasingly prominent as a solo composer and improvisor and a leader of several long standing quintets and quartets of international acclaim. In addition to receiving fellowships from both the National Endowment for the Arts and the New York Foundation on the Arts, he has also received four commissions through the Parabola Arts Foundation with funding from the New York State Council on the Arts, the latest of which (1998) was for The Visiting Tank. In 1993, he premiered a commission from the Kansas City Symphony with funding from Meet The Composer for a concerto for percussionist and orchestra entitled Terrains.
His current primary working band is a quartet with either Ray Anderson-trombone or Herb Robertson-trumpet, Ellery Eskelin-tenor sax and Mark Dresser on bass. The band performed 40 concerts in the US in 1998 and it’s first recording, Johnny’s Corner Song was released on the Auricle Record label in March of 1998.
The many facets of Hemingway’s work as composer/soloist/collaborator/ensemble member can be heard on over 100 recordings from many different record labels, among them: Tzadik Records, Enja, Palmetto, Random Acoustics, Auricle Records, and Hat Art.
Born is Boston, Mr. Horton received a calling in the spring of 1964 to relocate to San Francisco to study music. His first of several contacts with Duke Ellington occurred the following year, at the world premiere of Mr. Ellington’s first Sacred Concert at San Francisco’s Grace Cathedral. In 1973, Duke Ellington chose Randall to serve as his composing and conducting assistant, after Mr. Ellington had personally invited him to compose and conduct music for his orchestra at a concert at Disneyland.
Horton has conducted Mr. Ellington’s Sacred Music extensively, for Duke’s sister, Ruth Ellington-Boatwright, nationally. Mercer Ellington and G. Schirmer, Inc., commissioned him to create the concerto-grosso orchestration of Duke’s full-length tone poem, & Black, Brown and Beige. Randall has been active as a symphony and choral conductor, church and synagogue musician, and served as a consultant to Jazz at Lincoln Center for Ellington’s Sacred Music. He presently serves as an arts administration intern at American Composers Orchestra, staff musician at First Baptist Church, Queens, and is founder-director of the American Music Educational Television Project.
Earl Howard has been performing his compositions in the United States and Europe for the past thirty years. Recent compositions include music for live electronics, electronic tape music as well as music for electronics and instruments. Earl Howard’s method of creating orchestrated sounds with electronics and adding live, improvisational performance creates a unique, densely layered composition that has been performed to enthusiastic audiences at Merkin Hall, the Whitney Museum, The Kitchen, The Knitting Factory, Roulette, and Carnegie Recital Hall. In 1998 Earl Howard was the recipient of Harvard’s Fromm Foundation Commission, and Regents Fellowship at UCSD in the spring of 2003.
Earl Howard has performed frequently with improvisers including; Mari Kimura, Mark Dresser, Yuko Fujiyama,, Evan Parker and John Zorn, Thomas Buckner, and George Lewis. Earl Howard has received three New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowships, and graduated from California Institute of the Arts in 1974.
His works have been recorded by a number of musicians including Anthony Davis’ recording of Particle W, for piano and tape, released on the Gramavision label and Gerry Hemingway’s recording of D.R. for Solo percussion on the Auricle Record label. The recording, Pele’s Tears is from ten years of his electronic music on the Random Acoustics Label and Fire Song on Erstwhile Records with hyperpianist, Denman Maroney. Strong Force for ensemble and electronics was released on Mutable Music in the spring of 2003. Earl Howard has produced numerous soundtracks for some of the leading film and video artists including Nam June Paik, Mary Lucier, Rii Kanzaki, Bob Harris, and Bill Brand.
Leroy Jenkins began his violin training as a child, received a B.S. in Music Education from Florida A&M University in 1961, and then taught music in the schools of Alabama and Chicago. Having studied classical violin, he was also influenced by the great jazz masters, and found a way to meld the two influences when he joined the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians, a pivotal Chicago organization that originated a vibrant new form of creative improvised music.
Moving to Paris in 1969, Jenkins toured Europe with his first group: The Creative Construction Company of Chicago, with Anthony Braxton and Leo Smith. In 1970, he came to New York and formed another cooperative, The Revolutionary Ensemble, a trio of bass, violin, and drums, which toured internationally to critical acclaim, and went on to record five albums.
He also developed his solo compositions and premiered his first works in this format at a concert at the Washington Square Peace Church in Greenwich Village.
In groupings from solo to chamber orchestras, Jenkins has recorded 23 albums/ CD’s, nine of which have been reissued. His most recent touring group was formed in 1999 (Equal Interest, a trio with violin, piano, and woodwinds). Jenkins also tours with dancer Felicia Norton (solo violin and dancer) and was commissioned twice by Lincoln Center’s Out of Doors Series for collaborations with choreographers Molissa Fenley and Mark Dendy. Other recent projects have been a commissioned piece for tenor, baritone, and brass quartet which was performed at Merkin Hall as part of the World Music series in New York, in San Francisco and at North Florida State University. Recent appearances have been at the Other Minds Festival in San Francisco, California Institute for the Arts, the Contemporary Museum in New Orleans, the Chicago Jazz Festival, as well as international jazz festivals in Portugal, Sardinia, and Canada.
Currently, with support from the Rockefeller Foundation and the New York State Council of the Arts Jenkins is developing a new theater/opera piece with a working title of Coincidents. The first section was presented in workshop at The Kitchen Center in July, 2003. He is currently continuing this project with a commission from Harvard’s Fromm Foundation. His new touring group, Driftwood, is a trio of violin, piano, and percussion. Jenkins serves on the Board of Directors of Meet the Composer in New York and the Atlantic Center for the Arts, and was Artistic Director and Board Member of Composers’ Forum.
The Juilliard Institute for Jazz Studies
A collaboration between The Juilliard School and Jazz at Lincoln Center, the Juilliard Institute for Jazz Studies is a pre-professional jazz education program for a group of select students. Established in Fall 2001, the individualized and tuition-free program provides a Bachelor of Music degree and focuses on public performances for jazz orchestra and small ensembles.
The Juilliard Jazz Orchestra, comprised of gifted young musicians from across the country, presented its debut concert in 2001 at Lincoln Center’s Alice Tully Hall. The orchestra has performed and toured frequently, including concerts in the tri-state area, Atlanta, New Orleans and in Italy’s Festival de Due Mondi in Spoleto.
Victor Goines, Saxophonist/Clarinetist and Artistic Director of Jazz Studies at Juilliard, performs with numerous renowned jazz artists and has many recordings and film soundtracks to his credit. A member of the Wynton Marsalis Quartet, Septet, and the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra, he also is educational consultant for Jazz at Lincoln Center. He has taught at the University of New Orleans, Florida A & M, Loyola, and Xavier universities.
Oliver Lake
Oliver Lake, composer, saxophonist, and poet is co-founder of the renowned World Saxophone Quartet. He has been a Guggenheim fellow for composition, and was the first African American to be commissioned by the Library of Congress and McKim Foundation for composition. Oliver Lake has received numerous commissions from the National Endowment for the Arts and Meet the Composer. His compositions are at the Smithsonian and were on the recommended list of recordings by president Clinton. Various artists have performed his works, such as Arditti String Quartet, World Saxophone Quartet, Amherst Saxophone Quartet, Regina Carter, Brooklyn Philharmonic, Wheeling Symphony, San Francisco Contemporary Players, New York New Music Ensemble, and Pulse Percussion Ensemble of New York.
Mr. Lake has performed through out the world, touring Japan, Australia, and Europe in World Saxophone Quartet and Trio Three. He has also performed and arranged for such diverse artists as Bjork, Lou Reed, Abbey Lincoln, A Tribe Called Quest.
Anne LeBaron
Anne LeBaron is an internationally noted composer widely recognized for her work in instrumental, electronic, and performance realms. Her compositions embrace an extraordinary array of subjects, ranging from contemporary adaptations of Greek and South American myths, to probes into physical and cultural forms of extinction, to Pope Joan and other unheralded women across the centuries.
As a Fulbright Scholar to Germany, LeBaron studied with György Ligeti, later completing her doctorate in composition at Columbia University. Her works have been written for virtually every contemporary genre, with numerous national and international performances and broadcasts. Her orchestral works have been conducted by Leonard Slatkin, Jorge Mester, and William McLaughlin.
An accomplished harpist, LeBaron is renowned for her pioneering methods of developing extended techniques and electronic enhancements for the harp. The range of LeBaron’s musical language can be heard on a number of recordings on Tellus/Mode, CRI, and Alcohol Records. Leading innovators of jazz and other forms of improvised music, including Muhal Richard Abrams, Anthony Braxton and Derek Bailey, have also engaged Anne LeBaron in performance and recording collaborations.
Awards and prizes include a Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship, a Fromm Foundation Commission, a three-year residency in Washington D.C. sponsored by Meet the Composer, and the 1996 CalArts / Alpert Award in the Arts, along with fellowships from the D.C Commission on the Arts and Humanities, the New York Foundation for the Arts, New York State Council on the Arts, and the Pennsylvania State Council on the Arts. In the summer of 2001, she was awarded a residency at the Bellagio Study and Conference Center where she completed Sauger, for trombone and processed vacuum cleaner sonorities, premiered by Abbie Conant. She currently teaches composition and related subjects at the California Institute of the Arts.
Martha Mooke
Martha Mooke is a pioneer in the field of the electric five string viola. She has developed a unique musical voice by synthesizing her classical music training with extended techniques, digital effects processing and improvisation, while retaining the depth and soul of the instrument. She has received awards from ASCAP, Meet the Composer and Arts International among others. Besides her catalog of works for solo and ensemble electric strings, she has composed music for theater and ballet and served as Music Director for national and international events. Ms. Mooke’s diverse schedule includes touring, clinics and lecture demonstrations on electric strings and the use of electronics, extended techniques and improvisation. Enharmonic Vision, her solo debut CD, continues to receive wide critical acclaim. Along with electric elbow guitarist Randolph Hudson, III, the duo “Bowing” recently released it’s debut CD Cafe Mars on the 2105 A.D. label. Ms. Mooke performs with many of New York’s leading ensembles, touring and recording in the states and abroad. Ms. Mooke and her avant-garde string quartet, the Scorchio Quartet have performed at the last three benefit concerts for Tibet House at Carnegie Hall with David Bowie, Philip Glass, Moby, Lou Reed, Ziggy Marley, Rufus Wainwright, the Kronos Quartet and Tony Visconti. Scorchio appears on David Bowie’s 2002 release Heathen. Ms. Mooke played in the U.S. premiere of Paul McCartney’s “Standing Stone” at Carnegie Hall and on Philip Glass’s film scores of Kundun and Koyaanisqatsi. Other artists she has performed and recorded with are Enya, Lauryn Hill, Al DiMeola, John Cale, Anthony Braxton, the Orchestra of St. Luke’s, Soldier String Quartet, Musicians Accord, Turtle Island String Quartet and Steve Reich. She has performed on Regis Live!, the David Letterman, Late Night with Conan O’Brien and Rosie O’Donnell shows. Ms. Mooke received an ASCAP 2001 Concert Music Award for creating and producing ASCAP’s new music showcase THRU THE WALLS featuring composer/performers whose work defies categorization.
The Manhattan Jazz Philharmonic
The Manhattan Jazz Philharmonic performs original orchestral compositions that combine jazz rhythms, harmonies, and improvisation with contemporary classical compositional techniques. The orchestra bridges the gap between classical, jazz, popular, and contemporary media, creating a unique educational experience that prepares MSM students for job opportunities outside of the traditional classical market, such as those in recording studios, theaters, concert tours, club dates, back-up bands, television, and film scoring. The Philharmonic also provides exposure to the latest technologies and trends, and the opportunity to work with today’s leading composers and arrangers, recording engineers, and other industry professionals.
soNu
The improvisational group soNu, based in southern California, has been described by Anthony Braxton as producing “the music of the Third Millennium.” The group synthesizes the wide range of music and cultures that its various members have studied and/or absorbed: serialism, post-serialism, Mexican folkloric music, non-Western classical music, Norwegian folk song traditions, Native American music, rock, electronica, and hip-hop. soNu has collaborated and performed with numerous figures from the world of post-free improvisational music, including Anthony Braxton, Anthony Davis, Lisle Ellis, Vinny Golia, Earl Howard, George Lewis, and Wadada Leo Smith.
soNu is committed to extending the music exemplified by these musicians and thinkers by critically reexamining and reconceptualizing improvisational forms and means, with an eye toward the socio-cultural context of contemporary communities.
soNu:
Gustavo Aguilar, acoustic and electronic percussion
Phil Curtis, electronics
Nina Eidsheim, voice/electronics
Alan Lechusza, woodwinds
String Trio of New York
Since its formation in 1977, the String Trio of New York has been delighting, inspiring and thrilling audiences around the world with its singular acoustic improvisations and compositions for violin, guitar and bass. Initially conceived as a composer/performer’s collective, the Trio has grown in scope and now features a repertoire of over sixty stylistically diverse works made up of originals by the members, works commissioned from composers such as Muhal Richard Abrams, Dave Douglas, Joe Lovano, Wadada Leo Smith, Mark Helias, Bobby Previte, Marty Ehrlich, and Anthony Davis, and arrangements of classics by Ellington, Mingus, Monk, Parker, Coltrane, Powell, Shorter and others.
In the United States, the S3NY has performed at such venues as the Mellon, Ravinia and Newport Jazz Festivals as well as Great Performers at Lincoln Center, Walker Arts Center, The Smithsonian Institution, The Kennedy Center, Wolf Trap and many others. The ensemble has been featured on National Public Radio’s Weekend Edition and most recently on Public Radio International’s Concerts from the Library of Congress.
The String Trio of New York has released fifteen critically acclaimed recordings for the Arabesque, Black Saint, Stash, Music & Arts, Accord Accort, and Westwind labels. In 2003, the 15th CD by the String Trio of New York was released by Brooklyn-based Omnitone Records.
Recent seasons have brought highly regarded collaborations with saxophonist Joe Lovano, saxophonist/composer Oliver Lake and the Bang On A Can All-Stars. The String Trio of New York/ Bang On A Can All-Stars program was heard at the Kennedy Center, the Hult Center in Oregon, the University Musical Society at the University of Michigan, and other locations.
The year 2001 brought violinist Rob Thomas into the group. The group has featured some of the finest violinists in jazz, contemporary and improvised music and Thomas is no exception. He follows violinist Diane Monroe, who played with the group from 1997 to 2000. The first violinist to perform with the group was Billy Bang (1977-’85), followed by Charles Burnham (1986-’90) and Regina Carter (1991-’96).
String Trio of New York:
Rob Thomas, violin
John Lindberg, bass
James Emery, guitar
Dave Taylor
David Taylor holds Bachelor of Science and Master of Science degrees from the Juilliard School of Music, and began his career playing with Leopold Stokowski’s American Symphony Orchestra. He records solo albums, presents numerous recitals throughout the world and has performed on numerous Grammy Award-winning recordings.
Mr. Taylor has won the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences Most Valuable Player Award for five consecutive years as the NARAS Most Valuable Player Virtuoso. He currently teaches at Manhattan School of Music and Mannes College of Music, and is an artist clinician for Edwards Trombones
21st Century Schizoid Music
21st Century Schizoid Music, curated by Frank J. Oteri, is an ongoing series of concerts at Greenwich Village’s historic Cornelia Street Cafe which take place on the 4th Monday of every month. “Schizoid” concerts consist of a two-part program featuring two completely different kinds of music from the same composer/musician. Previous Schizoid concerts have featured Derek Bermel, Kitty Brazelton, Daniel Bernard Roumain, Andrew Shapiro, Katchie Cartwright as well as Oteri himself who in addition to composing post-classical chamber music fronts an old-timey/bluegrass band.