Faultlines Artists

(listed in order of performances/lectures/workshops)

Evan Parker and Ned Rothenberg

Workshop: Thursday September 24, 2pm, Arms Music Center, Room 7, Amherst College, free and open to the public. Co-sponsored by the U-Mass Amherst Fine Arts Center's Solos & Duos Series.

Evan Parker may be the most formidable saxophonist since John Coltrane. He plays Trane's instruments, tenor and soprano, and lists Coltrane as one of his principal influences. Born in Bristol, England, in 1944, Parker has worked with Derek Bailey, Tony Oxley, Alexander von Schlippenbach and virtually every other important European innovator of the last 45 years. Parker has developed the possibilities of unpremeditated music more deeply than almost anyone, creating a personal vocabulary that is simultaneously instantly recognizable and adaptable to the most varied of situations.

“If genius is the sustained application of intelligence,” writes Richard Cook, “then Evan Parker merits the epitaph.”

Ned Rothenberg has been internationally acclaimed for both his solo and ensemble music, presented for the past 25 years in North and South America, Europe and Asia. He leads the trio Sync, with Jerome Harris and Samir Chatterjee, and has collaborated with Sainkho Namchylak, John Zorn, Marc Ribot and Elliot Sharp. He has recorded for Tzadik, New World, and his own Animul label.

"Solo recordings of reed instruments reach from Coleman Hawkins’s ‘Picasso’‚ to Sonny Rollins’ cheerful collages of quotations, and the exploratory tours-de-force by Dolphy, Braxton and Steve Lacy,” wrote Manfred Pabst in 2002. “But no on has pursued this difficult undertaking with quite such persistency as Ned Rothenberg. For the last twenty years, the 45-year-old New Yorker who also plays in a variety of ensembles, has evolved an oeuvre of remarkable coherence and poetry. There’s no danger of his studies in clarinet, bass clarinet, shakuhachi (a Japanese bamboo flute) and alto sax being confused with easy listening‚. These demand the same qualities of the listener as they do of the performer: alertness, absorption and tantalizingly charged repose. This is not about virtuosity, in spite of Rothenberg’s superb technique. In the way he combines circular breathing, overblowing, playing through half-opened keys and the technique of using the keys percussively, he forms tonal loops of timeless beauty. Other kinds of music might entertain you, cheer you up or pump the blood, but his clarifies the mind and throws your soul wide open".

Websites: Evan Parker on European Free Improvisation website, www.nedrothenberg.com

(photo by C. Neil Scott)

Peter Evans

Concert: Saturday September 26, 8pm, Rotherwas Gallery, Mead Art Museum,
Amherst College, free and open to the public.

Peter Evans has been a member of the New York musical community since 2003, when he moved to the city after graduating Oberlin Conservatory with a degree in classical trumpet. Evans currently works in a wide variety of areas, including solo performance, chamber orchestras, performance art, free improvised settings, electro-acoustic music and composition. As a performer, Evans strives to broaden the expressive range of the trumpet and enjoys playing with steady configurations of players and composers. Current bands include the Peter Evans Quartet, Moppa Elliott's bombastic bebop band Mostly Other People Do the Killing, the hyperactive improvisation duo Sparks (with Tom Blancarte), duo with trumpeter Nate Wooley, as well as a sustained interest in solo performance. Other collaborators include: Mary Halvorson, Dave Taylor, Steve Beresford, Okkyung Lee, Keiji Haino, Jim Black, Evan Parker, Tyshawn Sorey, Peter Brotzmann, Mark Gould, Weasel Walter, Tobias Delius, Joel Ryan, and Luka Ivanovic. In New York, Peter also performs contemporary notated music and is a member of the International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE). He has continued to perform on piccolo trumpet in Baroque settings, performing Brandenburg Concerto No. 2 at the Bargemusic series, and in Bach’s Mass in B Minor at St Peter’s Church. Peter is also an experienced teacher, having given workshops on music, trumpet, and improvisation at institutions including the University of California in San Diego, Buffalo University, University of Oregon, Northwestern University and the Walden School. In June 2008 Peter traveled to the Philippines with the Cultures in Harmony project, teaching, collaborating and performing with tribal musicians in Mindanao. Recent travels have brought Peter to venues and festivals in the U.S., Canada, Europe, the UK, and Southeast Asia. These include appearances at the Moers Festival, the Ulrichsberg Kaleidophon Festival, Bordeaux Jazz Festival, Jazz a Mulhouse, and the Free Music Festival in Antwerp. Recordings include the Peter Evans Quartet (firehouse12), Sparks (Creative Sources), and This is Our Moosic (HotCup Records), the third album by MOPDTK. Evans recently released his second solo recording, a 2-disc set titled "Nature/Culture" (psi/2009).

Website: www.myspace.com/peterevanstrumpet

Steve Lehman Trio

Concert: Sunday October 4, 4pm, Cole Assembly Room, Converse Hall, Amherst College, free and open to the public.
Post-concert talk: immediately following concert.

For his only 2009 appearance in Massachusetts, Steve will present a set of his cutting-edge trio music, including selected compositions from his critically acclaimed octet record, Travail, Transformation & Flow (2009/Pi), meticulously re-arranged for the acoustic trio format. The Steve Lehman trio is Steve Lehman (alto saxophone), Matt Brewer (acoustic bass), and Damion Reid (drum set).

Named a Rising Star on the alto saxophone in 2006, 2007, 2008 and 2009 by the Downbeat Magazine International Critics Poll, STEVE LEHMAN is a saxophonist and composer whose work resides on the frontiers of contemporary music. He has been recognized as one of today's truly original creative voices by The Wire, The New York Times, and Downbeat Magazine, as well as by National Public Radio and The BBC. A former student of both Jackie McLean and Anthony Braxton, he has performed and recorded throughout the United States and Europe with his own ensembles, and with those led by Anthony Braxton, Dave Burrell, Meshell Ndgeocello, Mark Dresser, Vijay Iyer, Oliver Lake, and High Priest of Anti-Pop Consortium.

An award-winning composer, Lehman’s pieces for large orchestra and chamber ensembles have been performed by the Janacek Philharmonic, the International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE), So Percussion, Kammerensemble Neue Musik Berlin, members of the Argento and Wet Ink Ensembles, and by the pianist Marilyn Nonken. His electro-acoustic music, recently showcased in Boston, Chicago, Baltimore, Washington D.C. and New York, has focused on the development of computer-driven models for improvisation, based in the Max/MSP programming environment.

In 2003, as a Fulbright scholar in France, Lehman was invited to teach a weekly undergraduate course on current trends in improvised music at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique de Paris. Since the fall of 2006, Lehman has been a doctoral candidate in Music Composition at Columbia University where he is a departmental fellow and teaches in the Music Department.

His most recent recordings as a leader include Travail, Transformation & Flow (Pi 2009), with his critically acclaimed octet, On Meaning (2007/Pi), Door (2008/Pi), with the collective trio Fieldwork, Manifold (2007/Clean Feed), Demian as Posthuman (2005/Pi), featuring Tyshawn Sorey and nine-time Grammy nominee Meshell Ndegeocello, and Interface (2004/Clean Feed), featuring Mark Dresser and Pheeroan akLaff.

Website: www.stevelehman.com

Adam Rudolph

Workshop: Thursday October 15, 2pm, Arms Music Center, Room 7, Amherst College, free and open to the public. Co-sponsored by the U-Mass Amherst Fine Arts Center's Solos & Duos Series.

Originally from Chicago, composer and percussionist Adam Rudolph has appeared at festivals and concerts throughout the world. Since the 1970’s, Rudolph has been developing his unique approach to hand drums in creative collaboration with such masters of cross-cultural and improvised music such as Sam Rivers, Pharaoh Sanders, L. Shankar, and Fred Anderson. He is known especially for his innovative small group and duo collaborations with Don Cherry, Jon Hassell and Wadada Leo Smith. In 1977 he co-founded The Mandingo Griot Society with Foday Musa Suso, and in 1988, recorded the first fusion of American and Gnawa (Moroccan) music with sintir player and singer Hassan Hakmoun. Active as a performer and concert producer in the Los Angeles creative music scene since 1979, Rudolph recently moved to New York. He runs the Meta Records label.

"Rudolph re¬invents world music for sophisticated listeners...he fuses many world musics into a very artful and keenly constructed whole," writes EAR. Earshot Jazz called his recent release, “Dream Garden”, featuring his Moving Pictures Octet, "a project of haunting power and beauty. Captivating and profoundly beautiful."

Website: www.metarecords.com/adam.html

(photo by Michael Klayman)

Jason Robinson

Concert: Appearing as a special guest with the Amherst College Jazz Ensemble, Friday November 6, 8:30pm, Family Weekend, Buckley Recital Hall, Amherst College, ticket purchase required.

American saxophonist and scholar Jason Robinson is fascinated by the relationship between improvised music, experimentalism, and cultural identity. His current performance interests include the intersection of improvisation and composition, new electro-acoustic processing and interaction enabled through software-based technologies, and the relationship between popular music and experimentalism. He performs regularly as a soloist (acoustically and with electronics), with groups he co-leads (Cosmologic and the Cross Border Trio), as a leader of varying ensembles performing his original music, and in a variety of collaborative contexts. His latest albums include his fourth release as a leader—Cerberus Rising (2009/Circumvention)—the fourth release by Cosmologic, Eyes in the Back of My Head (2008/Cuneiform), and an upcoming duo album with pianist Anthony Davis titled Cerulean Landscape (2010/Clean Feed). He has performed at festivals and prominent venues in the United States, Canada, Mexico, and Europe. He has performed or recorded with Peter Kowald, George Lewis, Anthony Davis, Eugene Chadbourne, Earl Howard, Emily Hay, Jeff Kaiser, Toots and the Maytals, Groundation, Elijah Emanuel and the Revelations, Bertram Turetzky, Mark Dresser, John Russell, Roger Turner, Gerry Hemingway, Kei Akagi, Mel Graves, Liberty Ellman, Babatunde Olatunji, Mel Martin, Marco Eneidi, Lisle Ellis, Raphe Malik, Mike Wofford, Philip Gelb, J.D. Parran, Dana Reason, David Borgo, Nathan Hubbard, Michael Dessen, Contemporary Jazz Orchestra (at Pearl's, San Francisco), the La Jolla Symphony, SONOR (UCSD), and the San Francisco Mime Troupe, among others. Robinson has published articles and reviews in Ethnomusicology and Critical Studies in Improvisation/ Études critiques en improvisation. Robinson is currently a Visiting Assistant Professor of Music at Amherst College and holds a Ph.D. in Music from the University of California, San Diego.

Website: www.jasonrobinson.com

(photo by Bonnie Wright)

Lisle Ellis, with Bob Weiner and Jason Robinson

Concert: Sunday, November 8, Arms Music Center, Room 7, Amherst College, free and open to the public.

Lisle Ellis is a multifaceted creator whose work reflects his interests in music, visual art, computers/technology, and community. As a composer and improvisor-bassist his oeuvre spans three decades and two countries and has brought him international recognition as an artist with an exceptional vision. Some critics consider him to possess an important voice and to have made a significant contribution to the field of experimental music. Recent years have also brought him attention as a creator of computer/electronic music and as a visual artist.

Ellis began playing electric bass in his teens and worked professionally from an early age in numerous environments including studios, radio & tv shows, and even strip clubs. When his teacher and mentor, Walter Robertson, suddenly died in 1974, Ellis abandoned his studies at a music conservatory in Vancouver, Canada in favor of the seminal, and now legendary, Creative Music Studio in New York. There, over a period of several years, he had intimate contact with the vital NYC music scene at a time of surging changes and extraordinary developments. Ellis' pioneering role in improvised and experimental music in his native Canada was recognized in 1986 when he he received the first Frederick Stone Award. In Vancouver in the early 1980's and Montreal in the late 80's, Ellis was a conspicuous activator of musician alliance organizations, performance venues, and concert series presentations. One collective in particular, Vancouver's New Orchestra Workshop, is still active nearly thirty years later. Almost immediately after relocating to the United States in 1992, Ellis's music began to attract attention and acclaim on a global level. His recording, Kaleidoscopes: The Ornette Coleman Songbook (Hat Art), with pianist Paul Plimley, was given five stars in Downbeat Magazine and has been hailed as a modern masterpiece.

Ellis's distinct instrumental voice has been heard in a multitude of concerts on the world stage in the company of legends of the avant-garde such as Paul Bley, Peter Broetzmann, Andrew Cyrille, Joe Mcphee, and Cecil Taylor; leading contemporary players Marilyn Crispell, Dave Douglas, Fred Frith, and John Zorn, and on more than 40 recordings for international labels such as Black Saint, DIW, and Hat Art, and New World. Currently, Ellis's principal interest is in developing an electro-acoustic architecture he calls string-circuitry-confluence. Secondary to that are projects such as his long standing trio with Larry Ochs and Donald Robinson called What We Live, Di Terra, an Italy based trio with Alberto Braida and Fabrizio Spera, and duos with pianists Paul Plimley and Mike Wofford. Ellis lives in New York City.

Drummer and percussionist Bob Weiner has toured and performed with Harry Belafonte, Itzhak Perlman, Betty Buckley, Jon Lucien, Dianne Reeves, Andy Statman, Rebecca Paris, Kenny Werner, Bob Moses and many others. He has taught at the Drummers Collective in New York, New England Conservatory, and Berklee College of Music, and has taught and mentored hundreds of private students.

Bob has co-authored two important percussion books, Afro-Cuban Rhythms for Drumset, with Frank Malabe, and Brazilian Rhythms for Drumset, with Duduka da Fonseca (Alfred Publications). He holds a MA in Music and Human Development from Leslie University and a BA in History from UMass, Boston.

Reedist and computer musician Jason Robinson appeared on a previous Faultlines event this Fall. For his bio and web information, click here.

Websites: www.lisleellis.com, www.myspace.com/lisleellis

Tyshawn Sorey

Workshop: Thursday November 19, 2pm, Arms Music Center, Room 7, Amherst College, free and open to the public. Co-sponsored by the U-Mass Amherst Fine Arts Center's Solos & Duos Series.

“The enigma that is Tyshawn Sorey: while most young drummers are walking in the footsteps of the elders and the influences of the mainstream,” writes Mark F Turner. “Sorey thrives on the outside, composing and performing free improvised music, leading experimental groups such as Oblique, or doing stints with progressives like Dave Douglas, Mark Helias and Steve Coleman. His debut 'That/Not' further exposes the inner workings of a young musician with the ability to play in any context, but the boldness to do his own thing.” Born on July 8, 1980, multi-instrumentalist Tyshawn Sorey is fast becoming a vital voice in New York City's jazz and creative music scene. Originally self-taught in composition, piano, trombone, and percussion, he has worked with chamber ensembles and collaborated with a diverse array of musicians, including Muhal Richard Abrams, Ray Anderson, Wadada Leo Smith, Peter Evans, Mario Pavone, Ellery Eskelin and Butch Morris, among many others. Sorey's debut release “That/Not” (Firehouse 12) baffled many critics, becoming one of 2007's most critically acclaimed recordings. He is also co-leader of the collaborative trio Fieldwork (with Steve Lehman and Vijay Iyer) whose album, “Door,” also received critical praise.

Sorey is on the faculty of Brooklyn's School of Improvisational Music and the Jazz and Contemporary Music Department at The New School for Social Research. He has received grants and commissions from the Van Lier Fellowship and Roulette Intermedium, most recently for a multi-chapter work in progress entitled "Wu-Wei." Other critical accolades include nominations for Up and Coming Artist and Drummer of the Year from the Jazz Journalists Association and Rising Star Artist and Rising Star Drummer from Downbeat magazine.

“It's a two-disc manifesto of some downright iconoclastic music,” writes Nic Jones about Sorey’s “That/Not," “and the work of a quartet of musicians with their eyes seemingly on expansive, open, new vistas. That much is clear in every note they play. The overall effect is that of a group working within the widest parameters of the avant-garde, and the music has no obvious precedents. The pervasive feeling throughout this programme is that Sorey and his colleagues have arrived fully formed on the scene, in the same way as saxophonist Ornette Coleman's quartets did on that body of albums they cut for Atlantic all those years ago.”

Website: www.myspace.com/tyshawnsorey