Ars Nova Workshop is proud to announce a groundbreaking partnership with the Broad Street Ministry. As BSM practices what they term “Radical Hospitality,” ANW brings the international trio Hear In Now to perform for BSM’s guests and collaborate with them in making music—a practice that opens hearts, minds, and imaginations.
Ars Nova Workshop is pleased to announce the return of The October Revolution of Jazz & Contemporary Music, a four-day international music festival featuring some of the most groundbreaking and uncategorizable artists in modern music.
Ars Nova Workshop is gearing up for our next big event: “Lovers (for Philadelphia),” a project with Nels Cline that we commissioned with a grant from the Pew Center for Arts & Heritage (click for details of the June 2 event at Union Transfer on the sidebar).
The October Revolution of Jazz & Contemporary Music, a four-day (Oct. 5-8, 2017) music festival presented by Ars Nova Workshop, in collaboration with FringeArts, has confirmed several additional artists for its inaugural lineup. More artists will be added in the coming weeks. The current performers are listed below.
The Art Ensemble of Chicago: a rare appearance from the influential ensemble that recently celebrated its 50th anniversary
Cortex: an extremely rare stateside appearance by this “high-velocity” (Chicago Reader) Norwegian jazz quartet
Karuna: a longstanding duo featuring Chicago percussionist Hamid Drake and Adam Rudolph with special guest and Eternal Wind member Ralph Miles Jones III
John Luther Adams: a performance of the Pulitzer Prize and Grammy Award winning artist’s “Across the Distance” featuring members of Orchestra 2001
Claire Chase: MacArthur Fellow, International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE) founder, and “young star of the modern flute” (The New Yorker)
Zeena Parkins / Brian Chase Duo: a new duo featuring the acclaimed harpist and drummer best known for collaborations with Bjork and the Yeah Yeah Yeahs
David Torn’s Sun of Goldfinger: the guitar virtuoso, best known for his work with David Bowie, hits the stage with Tim Berne and Ches Smith
Ars Nova Workshop (ANW) is excited to announce a new partnership with the Ardmore Music Hall (AMH), enabling the two entities to present the biggest names in contemporary jazz to audiences in and outside of Philadelphia. The partnership kicks off with three performances featuring some of the most impressive names in modern jazz, including icons such as Bill Frisell, Jack DeJohnette, John Scofield, and John Medeski, as well as the final Philadelphia-area performance of The Bad Plus’ original line-up. All of these not-to-be-missed performances spotlight boundary-stretching artists who bring together the sounds of contemporary jazz with classic rock, folk, country and other influences that fit well with the mission and history of the Ardmore Music Hall.
The Ardmore Music Hall has quickly established itself as a premiere landing spot for many renowned, local, and national touring musical acts. Due to its geographic location on the Main Line and a calendar full of a diverse range of artists, AMH draws from virtually every demographic group in the Greater Philadelphia area. The room holds as much history as any local venue in Philadelphia or the surrounding suburbs; and, since 2013, Ardmore Music Hall has hosted artists the likes of George Clinton & P-Funk, Maceo Parker, Bad Brains’ HR, Victor Wooten, Snarky Puppy, Rebirth Brass Band, Adrian Belew, the Sun Ra Arkestra, members of the Grateful Dead and Phish, Digable Planets, and many more.
“For years, Ars Nova has sought to expand our programming to assure that our modern jazz heroes and legacy artists have a stable and accommodating environment that elevates and respects their extraordinary work,” says ANW founder and Artistic Director Mark Christman, “and we couldn’t be more excited about partnering with Ardmore Music Hall, who shares our commitment and passion.”
"It's a thrill for us to more aggressively pursue some of the greatest jazz icons in the world, knowing that we've got a partner in Ars Nova. They will not only be instrumental in reaching core jazz fanatics in the Philly area but will also bring years of event production expertise and great contributions to the overall fan and musician experiences for these events. To kick off the partnership with Bill Frisell, John Medeski, John Scofield and Jack DeJohnette among others, will be a wonderful honor for Ardmore and a terrific personal reward for us the fans,” add Chris Perella, Talent Buyer and Co-Owner of Ardmore Music Hall.
The new partnership will launch on Saturday, September 16 with iconic guitarist Bill Frisell’s new quartet Harmony, featuring vocalist Petra Haden, cellist Hank Roberts and bassist Luke Bergman. A sprawling and evocative trip through the landscape of American music of the last century, Harmony is a new group that continues Frisell’s career-long exploration of the breadth and scope of American music. Drawing on influences from folk, bluegrass and country as well as jazz, Harmony brings together collaborators from throughout Frisell’s notable career: vocalist Petra Haden, who has performed extensively in duos with the guitarist as well as on his movie-music tribute When You Wish Upon a Star; Roberts, whose association with Frisell spans three decades, dating back to the 1987 ECM release Lookout for Hope; and Bergman, a fellow member of the University of Washington Jazz Studies faculty and member of the Cuong Vu Group, which has recorded with Frisell.
ANW and AMH then team up on Sunday, October 1 with The Bad Plus, in what will be the revered trio’s final Philadelphia-area performance with co-founding pianist Ethan Iverson. The Bad Plus came together at the end of the 20th century and has avoided easy categorization ever since, winning critical hosannas and a legion of fans worldwide with their creativity, unique sound and flair for live performance – not to mention their irreverent, power-trio reimagining of classic rock songs from “Smells Like Teen Spirit” to “Iron Man.” Since coming together as a collective trio 17 years ago, The Bad Plus has been considered among the tightest, hardest-working bands in the world, without a line-up change or even a one-night substitution in 17 years. That all changes in 2018, however, when Ethan Iverson moves on to new horizons and Orrin Evans steps in, making this performance a crucial opportunity to catch the band in its original form.
On Wednesday, October 11, ANW and AMH will present the Philadelphia debut of HUDSON, the new supergroup featuring Hudson River Valley residents Jack DeJohnette, John Scofield, John Medeski and Larry Grenadier. The awe-inspiring new quartet brings together four of the world’s most influential musicians—known for their work with Miles Davis, Medeski Martin & Wood, Brad Mehldau and so many others, and all of whom have chosen to call the Valley home, with inspiration from the region’s cultural, musical and environmental history. The group’s extraordinary self-titled debut strikingly captures the atmosphere and beauty of the region while celebrating the indelible music that has emerged from it, mixing original music stamped with the Valley’s rejuvenating essence with thrilling renditions of world-famous songs by the likes of Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell, Jimi Hendrix and The Band’s Robbie Robertson, Hudson has created an album as spectacular and breathtaking as the area itself.
In advance of the Sun Ra Arkestra's annual Halloween performance, Ars Nova Workshop asked guitarist Nick Millevoi to interview Arkestra guitarist DM Hotep. These two Philadelphia-bassed axe-slingers discussed Hotep's time in the Arkestra and how that has shaped his musical life.
The Sun Ra Arkestra performs at Johnny Brenda's this Monday, Halloween, at 8 pm. Millevoi's band, Desertion Trio, will be featured on the Ars Nova calendar later in the season, performing alongside Nels Cline/Larry Ochs/Gerald Cleaver, also at Johnny Brenda's, on December 11.
Guitarist DM Hotep has been a member of the Sun Ra Arkestra as long as I've been going to see the band play. As a guitar player myself, I've always been intrigued by his unique approach. Using his guitar as a MIDI controller with a stereo amp setup, Hotep seems capable of conjuring any sort of sound out of his guitar from one moment to the next. In a band full of horns, he's an understated presence, often near the back of the bandstand, humbly ripping a hole in the cosmos and contributing doses of sci-fi sonics to the ensemble.
We recently started collaborating in visual artist Erik Ruin's band, Ominous Cloud, and I continue to be enthralled by Hoteps ability to channel the unexpected. We had yet to have a good hang where we talked about the Arkestra and his experience with the group, so I decided to document the conversation. -Nick Millevoi
It was the right person at the right moment at the right space and the right time, you know? It was pretty much that kind of situation.
I got to know the avant garde musicians in Philadelphia through [vibraphonist] Khan Jamal. Khan Jamal, like in the mid-90s/late-90s, he had an organization called Jazz Composer's Forum and it was a big group of musicians who were a little on the avant garde side just looking to workshop their pieces for large ensembles.
I guess I got to know Tyrone Hill [through the Jazz Composer's Forum]. Tyrone Hill was in it and I auditioned for the string section for the Arkestra's big new millennium concert at the Painted Bride. I wasn't initially gonna audition because they were looking for a string section. My girlfriend was like, “You play strings,” and I was like, “Guitar doesn't really count,” and she was like, “It's strings right?” So I ended up getting in the rhythm section and the guys became aware of me. Then, a couple of years later, they needed a guitarist in the band. Charlie Ellerbee was there and I guess he decided he was gonna go in a different direction and they needed an emergency guitarist and called me.
Ars Nova Workshop is proud to announce the British Contemporary Music Festival, a two-day celebration of Britain’s extraordinary contributions to jazz and contemporary music.
Presented in conjunction with the Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival, the UK’s largest international festival of new and experimental music, the festival presents compositions and performances by some of the leading pioneers of free improvisation and avant-garde composition in the UK. Renowned saxophonist/composer John Butcher will present a scintillating evening-length composition inspired in part by classical Arabic and Sufi music, while the compositional achievements of ground-breaking free improvisers Derek Bailey and Paul Rutherford, many of them world or US premieres, will be realized by a remarkable ensemble of creative musicians from the UK and Philadelphia.
On Friday, June 24 at FringeArts, the festival kicks off with an evening of compositions by guitarist/composer Derek Bailey and trombonist/composer Paul Rutherford, two of the artists who helped lay the foundation for European free improvisation beginning in the 1960s. The program includes the US premiere of Bailey’s realization of Karlheinz Stockhausen’s “Plus-Minus;” the world premiere of “Ping,” Bailey’s transliteration of the titular Samuel Beckett play, and a trio of solo guitar compositions; and the world premiere of a new version of Rutherford’s piece “Quasi-Mode” for 12 players.
Bailey co-founded Incus, the first musician-owned independent record label in the UK, with Evan Parker, Tony Oxley and Michael Walters, while his long-running Company Week festival convened a wide range of improvisers annually for nearly 20 years. Rutherford met drummer John Stevens and saxophonist Trevor Watts in 1958, laying the foundation for European free improvisation through the trio’s experiments with American jazz. He was a member of the Spontaneous Music Ensemble, Barry Guy’s London Jazz Composers’ Orchestra, Globe Unity Orchestra and Keith Tippett’s Centipede, and founded the group Iskra 1903, originally with Barry Guy and Derek Bailey.
On Saturday, June 25 at the Phialdelphia Art Alliance, the festival concludes with saxophonist/composer John Butcher and percussionist Mark Sanders performing Butcher’s hour-long composition Tarab Cuts, which was shortlisted as one of the Best Contemporary Jazz Compositions of the Year in the 2014 British Composer Awards. The concept of “tarab” stems from Arabic classical music and refers to a state of musical ecstasy, a melding of music and emotional transformation.
Butcher earned his PhD in theoretical physics at the University of Surrey in England before turning his full attention to music. He’s since become a vital and prolific contributor to the British contemporary music scene, both as a renowned improviser and composer. He’s well known for his solo work, often employing multitrack effects, extended techniques, and acoustic explorations of his environs. A regular duo partner with Butcher, percussionist Mark Sanders has played with many renowned musicians including Wadada Leo Smith, Derek Bailey, Henry Grimes, Roswell Rudd, Peter Brotzmann, Otomo Yoshihide and William Parker.
Ars Nova Workshop is proud to present its spring 2016 season, a thrillingly eclectic mix of American innovators and European masters.
MacArthur Fellow saxophonist-composer Steve Coleman and his ensemble, Five Elements, are in Philadelphia for a two-week residency. Activities include multi-level workshops, performances, outreach, masterclasses, and more. Events and activities will happen in a variety of locations throughout the city.
The five 3-hour workshops will focus on merging intuitive and logical faculties. Sessions led by Coleman will develop individual work, demonstration, theoretical skills, and listening. Sessions led by the band will focus on ensemble demonstrations, communication, and instrumentation. Includes some public rehearsals and performances. All workshops will be held at the Rigby Mansion in Germantown. Tickets are extremely limited.
“The AACM intends to show how the disadvantaged and disenfranchised can come together and determine their own strategies for political and economic freedom, thereby determining their own destinies.” –Muhal Richard Abrams and John Shenoy Jackson
The Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM) is without question one of the most influential music collectives of the 20th and 21st century. As individuals, its members have created singular visions and musical languages that draw on evolving traditions of Jazz, European classical music, and other world music traditions. They have created distinct music that elevates and advances what Robin D.G. Kelley refers to as “the black radical imagination.” As a collective, the AACM has been at the forefront since its inception of community-based, grassroots music education. Its musicians have long recognized the liberatory power of improvisational music to lift up communities and imagine new possibilities when there seems little hope. Historically, the AACM’s members have been active in some of the most revered moments in the development of jazz and experimental music: Chicago in the late-‘50s and ‘60s, the American ex-patriot scene in Paris in the ‘70s, the ‘70s Loft scene in New York, and New York’s Downtown scene of the ‘80s. Today, AACM members teach at some of the most esteemed, progressive music schools in the country, including Columbia, Wesleyan, University of California Irvine, and CalArts.
So much of the music that Ars Nova presents would not exist were it not for the tremendous living legacy of the AACM’s individuals. In 2005, Ars Nova celebrated the AACM’s 40th anniversary of “Great Black Music – Ancient to Future.” Over the past decade, Ars Nova has regularly presented AACM members and their students. To name a few: Muhal Richard Abrams, Roscoe Mitchell, Anthony Braxton, Wadada Leo Smith, Joseph Jarman, Henry Threadgill, the Art Ensemble of Chicago, George Lewis, Leroy Jenkins, and Matana Roberts.
This year, we help celebrate the AACM’s 50th anniversary with two very special concerts. On Friday, June 5, we welcome back Wadada Leo Smith’s Golden Quartet, featuring Anthony Davis (piano), John Lindberg (bass), and Pheeron akLaff (drums). On June 12, Nicole Mitchell (flute), Tomeka Reid (cello), and Mike Reed (drums) make their Philadelphia debut. In addition to their tremendous musical outputs and critical accolades, this trio served on the AACM's executive board from 2009-11, holding the positions of Chairperson, Treasurer and Vice Chairperson respectively. These very special performances are not to be missed.
Ars Nova Workshop is a Philadelphia nonprofit jazz and experimental music presenting organization. ANW informs, inspires, and challenges listeners to elevate the role of jazz, improvisation, and experimental music in contemporary culture. ANW events provide a forum for discourse, emergent trends in contemporary music, and unique forms of cultural exchange, while nurturing a diverse community for innovative music.