Fri

10/1/2010

8:30pm

Jason Hwang’s “Burning Bridge” & Trio X

Edgefest

• $30 General Admission
• $15 Students (limited availability)

• JASON HWANG'S "BURNING BRIDGE"
• Jason Kao Hwang, violin/viola/composer
• Taylor Ho Bynum, cornet/flugelhorn
• Andrew Drury, drums
• Ken Filiano, bass
• Joe Daley, tuba
• Sun Li, pipa
• Dick Griffin, trombone
• Wang Guowei, erhu
• TRIO X:
• Joe McPhee, pocket trumpet/saxophones
• Dominic Duval, bass
• Jay Rosen, drums

Event Details

This evening of Edgefest 2010 is supported by Current Magazine.

Composer/violinist Jason Kao Hwang received a 2009 Chamber Music America New Jazz Works grant to create Burning Bridge, a concert-length composition of multiple movements featuring an octet of traditional Chinese and Western instruments. Burning Bridge will be composed upon a Burning Bridge. The nature of this music consumes temporal illusions while enveloping the concurrence of life and death. On this Burning Bridge, the tinder of history and culture feed flames that vibrate within the core of both instinct and identity. The fire, often ignored, has always existed, with bridges burning each moment of our ever-changing lives. For Burning Bridge, the various traditions of each instrument, Chinese, jazz, and classical, will be united into a single musical voice resonant with distinct cultural overtones. With the poetic complexities inherent to this sound, the music possesses all the attributes of any human being. Burning Bridge is the experience, not the representation, a synergism, not a montage, a life form, not a concept. “Burning Bridge” by Jason Kao Hwang has been made possible with support from Chamber Music America’s 2009 New Jazz Works: Commissioning and Ensemble Development program funded through the generosity of the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation.

Trio X: After collaborating with artists such as Ken Vandermark and Peter Brotzmann, Joe McPhee discovered two like-minded improvisers in bassist Dominic Duval and drummer Jay Rosen. The trio premiered at the Vision Jazz Festival in the 1990’s, but the concert went unnoticed by the press; McPhee, Duval, and Rosen therefore decided that an apt title for the group would be Trio X. A number of Trio X recordings have since been released on the Cimp and Cadence Jazz Records labels, including “Live at Edgefest 2008.” www.triox.org

These performances are sponsored in part by a grant from Meet the Composer and the MetLife Creative Connections program.

Jason Kao Hwang

Jason Kao Hwang (composer, violin/viola) has created works ranging from jazz, classical, “new” and world music. Both Coda Magazine and All About Jazz selected “Stories Before Within” by his quartet EDGE, as one of the Top Ten CDs of 2008. Mr. Hwang also leads Spontaneous River, an orchestra of string improvisers. As a violinist, he has worked with many artists, including Reggie Workman, William Parker, Anthony Braxton, Butch Morris and Henry Threadgill. In 2009, the Jazz Journalists Association nominated Mr. Hwang “String Player of the Year.” As composer he has received support from the National Endowment for the Arts and New Jersey State Council on the Arts and others. His chamber opera, The Floating Box, A Story in Chinatown (New World Records), was named one of the top ten opera recordings of 2005 by Opera News. www.jasonkaohwang.com

Taylor Ho Bynum

Critics have called Taylor Ho Bynum “a young brass master and compelling composer” (Jon Garelick, Boston Phoenix), “a remarkable writer, improviser and bandleader” (Troy Collins, AllAboutJazz.com) and “one of the most exciting figures in jazz’s new power generation” (Steve Dollar, Time Out Chicago). The Chicago Reader’s Peter Margasak adds, “Taylor Ho Bynum cemented his reputation as one of the most compelling and progressive trumpeters and bandleaders currently active, at home in every corner of the creative-music map.” Bynum’s expansive resume includes collaborations with both his contemporaries and legendary figures alike, most notably the iconic saxophonist/composer Anthony Braxton, with whom he has performed and recorded extensively over the past decade. His most recent releases as a leader/co-leader include Tomas Fujiwara & Taylor Ho Bynum’s Stepwise (NotTwo), Taylor Ho Bynum & SpiderMonkey Strings’ Madeleine Dreams (Firehouse 12), Positive Catastrophe’s Garabatos Volume One (Cuneiform), The Thirteenth Assembly’s (un)sentimental (Important), and the Taylor Ho Bynum Sextet’s Asphalt Flowers Forking Paths (hatOLOGY). He is also a member of such groups as Jason Kao Hwang’s Edge, Myra Melford’s Happy Whistlings, and the large ensembles of Bill Dixon and Cecil Taylor. In addition, he is a founding partner of Firehouse 12 Records, the vice president of Dave Douglas’ the Festival of New Trumpet Music (FONT Music), and the president of Anthony Braxton’s Tri-Centric Foundation. www.taylorhobynum.com

Andrew Drury

Andrew Drury (drum set) is drummer/composer, mostly in jazz and free improvisation. He has toured homeless shelters in Indiana, was artist-in-residence for six months with the Oneida Nation, jammed with prison inmates in Connecticut, and led workshops in Nicaragua, Guatemala, Bosnia, and across the U.S. A former student of Ed Blackwell, he can be heard on over 20 CDs and has played with Ricardo Arias, Jim Black, Michel Doneda, Mark Dresser, Peter Evans, Mazen Kerbaj, Eyvind Kang, Briggan Krauss, Myra Melford, Andrea Neumann, Reuben Radding, Wadada Leo Smith, Chris Speed, Steve Swell, TOTEM>, Jack Wright, and others. www.andrewdrury.com

Ken Filiano

Ken Filiano (string bass) has fused the rich traditions of the double bass, bringing out the many voices inherent to the instrument. His solo bass CD, Subvenire (NineWinds), received unanimous critical praise, and was chosen by Cadence Magazine as one of the top ten CDs of 2003. Ken tours widely, performing at the DuMaurier International Jazz Festival, Banlieues Bleues Festival (Paris, France); and on many concert stages including Carnegie Hall. He was principal bassist with the Cascade Festival Orchestra from 1985 -2002. Ken has also played and/or recorded with many artists including Bobby Bradford, Nels Cline, Vinnie Golia, Dom Minasi, Alex Cline, Ted Dunbar, and Joseph Jarman. www.myspace.com/kenfiliano

Joe Daley

Joseph Daley (tuba) is a musician/composer/educator specializing in new/contemporary music, jazz, and improvisation. He has studied at the Manhattan School of Music attaining a master’s degree in music education. He has received fellowships in music composition from the National Endowment, MacDowell Colony, Music Omi and Geraldine R Dodge Foundation. Mr. Daley has performed and recorded with Muhal Richard Abrams, Bill Cole, Far East Side Band, Sam Rivers, Ellery Eskelin, Liberation Music Orchestra, Gil Evans, Carla Bley, Taj Mahal, Jayne Cortez, George Gruntz, Gravity, Ebony Brass Quintet, Paradigm Shift, Dave Douglas, Bill Dixon, Cecil Taylor, Anthony Braxton, Craig Harris, Spider Monkey Strings and Hazmat Modine. www.josephdaley.com

Sun Li

Sun Li (pipa) is a graduate of Shenyang Music Conservatory in Liao Ning Province of China. She was a member of the China National Song and Dance Ensemble in Beijing before coming to the US. Currently, Sun Li is a member of Music From China, a New York based chamber ensemble that performs a dual repertoire of traditional and contemporary Chinese music. Sun Li has performed with the ensemble in many famous concert halls through the US, such as Merkin Hall at Lincoln Center and Freer Gallery in Washington DC. The New York Times calls her performances “virtuosic and colorful”.

Dick Griffin

Dick Griffin (trombone) is one of today’s leading trombone players. In a career spanning over 40 years, he has performed with some of the biggest names in jazz and soul, as well as appearing with several symphony orchestras. A short list of the luminaries Mr. Griffin has worked with includes Duke Ellington, Count Basie, Ella Fitzgerald, Tito Puente, Art Blakey, Charles Mingus, Dizzy Gillespie, McCoy Tyner, Marvin Gaye, Michael Jackson, Isaac Hayes, Dionne Warwick, and Lionel Hampton. Griffin has developed a highly personalized playing style called “circularphonics”. His ability to combine playing chords on the trombone with circular breathing is unrivaled among jazz trombonists. The expanded range of simultaneous sounds Griffin creates through his multiphonic technique sometimes evokes the spirit of such experimental jazz musicians as John Coltrane, Rahsaan Roland Kirk, and Sun Ra. Never a follower, Griffin has moved beyond the course set by these pioneering giants to develop a unique style on and for an instrument which has hardly been the most widely used in modern jazz. Based in New York City, Griffin performs regularly in a variety of concerts, in clubs and other venues. Always independent, he collaborates and participates in global projects with musicians from many countries, exploring possibilities of new media and the Internet. www.dickgriffin1.com

Wang Guowei

Wang Guowei, the Artistic Director of Music From China, is one of the most outstanding erhu soloists of his generation. Born in Shanghai, he joined the Shanghai Traditional Orchestra at age 17, later becoming soloist and concertmaster. He gained national prominence garnering several prestigious awards including the “ART Cup” at the Shanghai Spring Music Festival. In America, Wang Guowei has been hailed by the New York Times and Washington Post as a “master of the erhu” and praised for his “extraordinary” and “gorgeous playing of the instrument.” He has performed with Yo-Yo Ma, Ornette Coleman, the New Music Consort, Ethos Percussion Group, Ying String Quartet, and many others. www.musicfromchina.org

Joe McPhee

Joe McPhee emerged on the jazz and new music scene in the late ‘60s. He began playing the trumpet at age eight and continued through high school and then in a U.S. Army band stationed in Germany where he was first introduced to traditional jazz. Clifford Thornton’s Freedom and Unity, recorded in 1967 and released in 1969 on the Third World label, is the first recording on which McPhee appears. In 1968, he began playing the saxophone and since then has investigated a wide range of instruments (including pocket trumpet, clarinet, valve trombone, and piano), with active involvement in both acoustic and electronic music. McPhee now has more than 60 recordings to his name. www.joemcphee.com

Dominic Duval

New Yorker Dominic Duval is one of the finest and most prolific bassists on the contemporary scene, having played and recorded with some of the greatest names in jazz and new music. Duval’s continuing tenure with pianist Cecil Taylor’s trio has cemented his reputation as one of contemporary music’s more important figures. Duval can be seen performing in any number of genres, including modern classical, jazz or music that defies classification. The bassist has performed and recorded with such notables as saxophonists Joe McPhee, Ivo Perelman, Glen Spearman, and Mark Whitecage, composer Pauline Oliveros, trombonist Steve Swell, pianists Joseph Scianni and Michael Stevens, trumpeter Herb Robertson, drummer Paul Lytton, and David S. Ware, among many others. Duval leads and co-leads a number of ensembles himself, including the critically-acclaimed C.T. String Quartet, Trio X, “The Wedding Band”, and the Dominic Duval String Ensemble. Duval’s solo bass CD, Night Bird Inventions, was a Top 10 pick in the Coda Magazine critics poll, and his String Ensemble CD, State of the Art, was chosen one of the year’s best in the Jazziz Magazine poll. Mr. Duval can be seen on tour through out the United States, Europe, Canada and Asia. www.dominicduval.com

Jay Rosen

Jay Rosen has earned a considerable reputation as a first-rate drummer, lending his talents to diverse musical projects. He has performed throughout Europe, Canada and the U.S. and/or recorded with: Mark Whitecage, Paul Smoker, Herb Robertson, James Carter, Anthony Braxton, Jaco Pastorius, Ivo Perelman, Steve Swell, Michael Bisio, William Parker, Roy Campell, Sonny Simmons, Dominic Duval, Joe McPhee, Matt Shipp, Charles Gayle among many others. www.jay-rosen.com