Friday, May 6, 2016

37th Edition of the Festival International de Jazz de Montréal (June 29 – July 9, 2016)


Montreal Jazz Fest announces a rich and diverse indoor line-up



Hi!

Below is a press release about the Festival International de Jazz de Montréal 37th season, which takes place June 29 – July 9, 2016.

The season includes 175 indoor concerts spread over 15 series.  The Festival will announce the outdoor concerts in early June.

The indoor program line-up is featured below.

I hope you'll be interested in writing about the Festival or announcing the programming on air.

Highlights include performances by a wide range of artists encompassing jazz, blues, world music and beyond from young stars on the rise–Joey Alexander, Ala.ni, Taylor McFerrin, Tal Wilkenfeld–artists at the peak of their powers like Melody Gardot, Rufus Wainwright, Ms. Lauryn Hill and Brian Wilson, and jazz legends including Chick Corea, Marcus Miller, Steve Coleman, Fred Hersch, Vijay Iyer/Wadada Leo Smith to name a few.

I've been going to the Montreal Jazz Fest for 21 years and it's a true highlight of my year. It has been heralded as "Best of the Fests… Bigger! Better! Best, actually…" by Michael Bourne in DownBeat Magazine. Playboy Magazine says it's "the best urban music festival in North America." Mitch Myers writes in the Hollywood Reporter that the Festival is "a compelling summer destination…the multicultural and cosmopolitan nature of Montreal is reflected in the festival's diverse programming, showing a great respect for music, the artists and culture in general."

It's also family friendly, with lots of free kids activities. "What makes this a family event?  One look at the stroller parking area or the diaper-changing tent and you will know. Thousands of children parade through the festival with their faces painted by talented make-up artists who work their magic from noon until 8 p.m. daily... The festival is strikingly well-organized and well-staffed.  It is quite a pleasure to take part in a large, lively event, in a public place, and not worry about safety." - Janet Strassman Perlmutter, Boston Globe.

All the best
Ann Braithwaite




NEC Jazz Faculty and Alumni Among 2016 Doris Duke Artist Awards Recipients



NEC Jazz Studies Faculty and Alumni Among the 2016 Doris Duke Artist Awards Recipients

2016 Doris Duke Artists include NEC Jazz Studies faculty member Jason Moran plus alums Dave Douglas, Fred Hersch and Matana Roberts

The Doris Duke Charitable Foundation (DDCF) announced today the recipients of the fifth annual Doris Duke Artist Awards. Appointed in recognition of their creative vitality and ongoing contributions to the fields of dance, jazz and theater, awardees will each receive $275,000 in flexible, multi-year funding as well as financial and legal counseling, professional development activities and peer-to-peer learning opportunities provided by Creative Capital, DDCF's primary partner in the awards. With the 2016 class, DDCF will have awarded approximately $27.7 million to 101 noteworthy artists through the Doris Duke Artist Awards.

Among the recipients are four with strong NEC connections: faculty member and pianist Jason Moran, alumnus and former faculty member pianist Fred Hersch '77 B.M. and two other alums: trumpeter Dave Douglas '83, and saxophonist Matana Roberts '03 M.M. Roberts received the Doris Duke Impact Award in 2013.

"I was extremely pleased to hear that four members of the NEC family were chosen to receive Doris Duke Artist Awards," said Ken Schaphorst, Chair of NEC's Jazz Studies Department. "I can't think of four more deserving musicians."

This will be the final group of Doris Duke Artists to receive these awards under the umbrella of the foundation's Doris Duke Performing Artists Initiative, a larger $50 million allocation by DDCF above its existing funding to the performing arts. However, having witnessed the tremendous value of the program over the past five years, DDCF is pleased to announce plans to extend the life of the Doris Duke Artist Awards by incorporating the program into its annual grant-making budget at a more sustainable scale for the long term. In the future, the foundation will continue to yearly give Doris Duke Artist Awards to three artists. These awards will be managed internally by DDCF staff. DDCF expresses deep gratitude to Creative Capital for their successful administration of the first five classes of Doris Duke Artists and for their part in making the awards program a success.

"The Doris Duke Performing Artist Awards has been a truly visionary program, setting a standard for comprehensive artist support," said Ruby Lerner, founding president and executive director at Creative Capital. "We at Creative Capital have been so proud to be a part of the powerful partnership that has supported the 101 artists who have received awards to date."

Each recipient of a Doris Duke Artist Award receives $275,000-including an unrestricted, multi-year cash grant of $225,000, plus as much as $25,000 more in targeted support for audience development and as much as $25,000 more for personal reserves or creative exploration during what are usually retirement years for most Americans. Artists will be able to access their awards over a period of three years under a schedule set by each recipient. Creative Capital, DDCF's primary partner in the Doris Duke Performing Artist Awards, will also offer the awardees the opportunity to participate in professional development activities, regional gatherings, and financial and legal counseling-all designed to help them personalize and maximize the use of their grants.

To qualify for consideration by the review panels, all the Doris Duke Artists must have won grants, prizes or awards on a national level for at least three different projects over the past 10 years, with at least one project having received support from a DDCF-funded program. The panel chose the artists based on demonstrated evidence of exceptional creativity, ongoing self-challenge and the continuing potential to make significant contributions to the fields of contemporary dance, jazz and theater in the future.




New England Conservatory's Jazz Studies Department was the first fully accredited jazz studies program at a music conservatory. The brainchild of Gunther Schuller, who moved quickly to incorporate jazz into the curriculum when he became President of the Conservatory in 1967, the Jazz Studies faculty has included six MacArthur "genius" grant recipients (three currently teaching) and four NEA Jazz Masters. The program has spawned numerous Grammy winning composers and performers and has an alumni list that reads like a who's who of jazz. As Mike West writes in JazzTimes: "NEC's jazz studies department is among the most acclaimed and successful in the world; so says the roster of visionary artists that have comprised both its faculty and alumni."  The program currently has 95 students; 48 undergraduate and 47 graduate students from 13 countries.




Fred Hersch Receives 2016 Doris Duke Artist Award



Pianist/composer Fred Hersch receives 2016 Doris Duke Artist Award

New album Sunday Night at the Vanguard with The Fred Hersch Trio 
to be released August 12 on Palmetto Records

Fred Hersch Duo Invitation Series May 10 – 16 at NYC’s Jazz Standard

Hersch also to receive Honorary Doctor of Human Arts degree from Grinnell College on May 22

“Singular among the trailblazers of their art, a largely unsung innovator of this borderless, individualistic jazz – a jazz for the 21st century."  – New York Times Sunday Magazine


The Doris Duke Charitable Foundation (DDCF) today announced that pianist, composer, bandleader, and theatrical conceptualist Fred Hersch has been named a 2016 Doris Duke Artist. Appointed in recognition of their creative vitality and ongoing contributions to the fields of dance, jazz and theater, the twenty-one awardees will each receive $275,000 in flexible, multi-year funding as well as financial and legal counseling, professional development activities and peer-to-peer learning opportunities provided by Creative Capital, DDCF’s primary partner in the awards. With the 2016 class, DDCF will have awarded approximately $27.7 million to 101 noteworthy artists through the Doris Duke Artist Awards.

"I'm just blown away. I know people who have won this award, and I have so much respect for them; it feels so special to be in their company," said Fred Hersch, a recipient of this year's award in the jazz category. "Given the health struggles that I've experienced over the years, it's remarkable that I'm alive: I never expected to be 40, and now I'm 60. I feel like I'm still getting better at what I do, and that keeps me going. At heart, the thing I love to do is play–that's never, ever going to change–but I know that this award is going to open some doors, personally and professionally, in ways I can't even begin to predict."

Hersch, who turned 60 in October 2015, continues to create music that inspires, stimulates and illuminates. His 2016 schedule includes the 10th Anniversary of The Fred Hersch Duo Invitation Series at NYC’s Jazz Standard May 10–15 with guests Avishai Cohen, trumpet; Cécile McLorin Salvant, vocals; Julian Lage, guitar; Anat Cohen, clarinet; Kate McGarry, vocals; and Yosvany Terry; saxophones and shekere. 


Hersch’s new recording, Sunday Night at the Vanguard will be released by Palmetto Records on August 12, 2016.  It’s the most profound and enthralling trio statement yet by an improviser whose bands have for three decades embodied the enduring relevance of the piano-bass-and-drums format. Featuring the exquisitely interactive bassist John Hébert and extraordinarily sensitive drummer Eric McPherson, the ensemble has recorded a series of critically hailed albums over the past seven years, including 2012’s Fred Hersch Trio - Alive at the Vanguard, a double album that earned France’s top jazz award, the Grand Prix du Disque, and 2014’s lavishly praised Floating, a double Grammy®-nominee (both on Palmetto). With Sunday, Hersch’s trio gracefully leapfrogs past its already daunting accomplishments.

His essential contributions in jazz and beyond have not gone unnoticed in the academic world. Grinnell College in Iowa is bestowing an Honorary Doctor of Human Arts on May 22. His previous Honorary Doctorate–of Musical Arts–was awarded last year by Northern Kentucky University.

A feature length film, The Ballad of Fred Hersch, recently premiered to rapturous reviews at the Full Frame Documentary Film Festival, and Hersch is busy at work on a memoir (working title: Good Things Happen Slowly) for Crown/Random House due in stores Spring 2017.

This will be the final group of Doris Duke Artists to receive these awards under the umbrella of the foundation’s Doris Duke Performing Artists Initiative, a larger $50 million allocation by DDCF above its existing funding to the performing arts. However, having witnessed the tremendous value of the program over the past five years, DDCF is pleased to announce plans to extend the life of the Doris Duke Artist Awards by incorporating the program into its annual grant-making budget at a more sustainable scale for the long term. In the future, the foundation will continue to yearly give Doris Duke Artist Awards to three artists. These awards will be managed internally by DDCF staff. DDCF expresses deep gratitude to Creative Capital for their successful administration of the first five classes of Doris Duke Artists and for their part in making the awards program a success.

“The Doris Duke Performing Artist Awards has been a truly visionary program, setting a standard for comprehensive artist support,” said Ruby Lerner, founding president and executive director at Creative Capital. “We at Creative Capital have been so proud to be a part of the powerful partnership that has supported the 101 artists who have received awards to date.”

About the Doris Duke Artist Awards
Each recipient of a Doris Duke Artist Award receives $275,000—including an unrestricted, multi-year cash grant of $225,000, plus as much as $25,000 more in targeted support for audience development and as much as $25,000 more for personal reserves or creative exploration during what are usually retirement years for most Americans. Artists will be able to access their awards over a period of three years under a schedule set by each recipient. Creative Capital, DDCF’s primary partner in the Doris Duke Performing Artist Awards, will also offer the awardees the opportunity to participate in professional development activities, regional gatherings, and financial and legal counseling—all designed to help them personalize and maximize the use of their grants.


To qualify for consideration by the review panels, all the Doris Duke Artists must have won grants, prizes or awards on a national level for at least three different projects over the past 10 years, with at least one project having received support from a DDCF-funded program. The panel chose the artists based on demonstrated evidence of exceptional creativity, ongoing self-challenge and the continuing potential to make significant contributions to the fields of contemporary dance, jazz and theater in the future.




Praised in a New York Times Sunday Magazine feature as "singular among the trailblazers of their art, a largely unsung innovator of this borderless, individualistic jazz—a jazz for the 21st century," pianist Fred Hersch balances his internationally recognized instrumental and composing skills with significant achievements as a bandleader, collaborator and theatrical conceptualist. 

Hersch – an 8-time Grammy® nominee who as leader or co-leader has over three dozen albums to his name – has featured himself as either a solo performer or at the helm of varied small ensembles, which in addition to his celebrated trio, include a quintet and his unconventional Pocket Orchestra.

He has also collaborated with an astonishing range of instrumentalists and vocalists throughout worlds of jazz (Joe Henderson, Charlie Haden, Art Farmer, Stan Getz and Bill Frisell); classical (Renée Fleming, Dawn Upshaw, Christopher O'Riley); and Broadway (Audra McDonald). Long admired for his sympathetic work with singers, Hersch has joined with such notable jazz vocalists as Nancy King, Norma Winstone and Kurt Elling. 

In 2006 Hersch became the first artist in the 75-year history of New York's legendary Village Vanguard to play a weeklong engagement as a solo pianist. His 2011 release, Alone at the Vanguard received Grammy Award nominations for Best Jazz Album and Best Improvised Jazz Solo. In 2014, Hersch garnered his sixth Grammy nomination for his solo on "Duet" from Free Flying, a duo album with guitarist Julian Lage that received a rare 5-star rating from DownBeat. His most recent CD, Fred Hersch: SOLO, earned critical acclaim from DownBeat for “a program so rich you will want to savor it in increments, enjoying its bittersweetness and poignancy.”

In 2003 Hersch created Leaves of Grass (Palmetto Records), a large-scale setting of Walt Whitman's poetry for voices (Kurt Elling and Kate McGarry) and an instrumental octet; the work was presented to a sold-out Zankel Hall at Carnegie Hall in 2005. His acclaimed 2010 theatrical project, My Coma Dreams (based on imaginings Hersch had during a two-month coma), is a full-evening work for an actor/singer, 11 instrumentalists and animation/multimedia; it is available on DVD on Palmetto Records. A disc of his through-composed works, Fred Hersch: Concert Music 2001-2006, has been released by Naxos Records. He was the recipient of a 2003 Guggenheim Memorial Fellowship in Music Composition among his many awards and honors.

For two decades Hersch has been a passionate spokesman and fund-raiser for AIDS services and education agencies. He has produced and performed on benefit recordings and in numerous concerts for charities, including Classical Action: Performing Arts Against AIDS and Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS. He has also been a keynote speaker and performer at international medical conferences in the U.S. and Europe. He is currently a member of the Jazz Studies faculty of Rutgers University. And Hersch's influence has been widely felt on a new generation of jazz pianists, from former students Brad Mehldau and Ethan Iverson to his colleague Jason Moran, who has said, "Fred at the piano is like LeBron James on the basketball court. He's perfection."




Wadada Leo Smith Receives 2016 Doris Duke Artist Award



Trumpeter, composer, musical visionary 


receives 




The Doris Duke Charitable Foundation (DDCF) today announced that the boldly original composer, trumpeter and Pulitzer Finalist Wadada Leo Smith has been named a 2016 Doris Duke Artist. Smith is one of twenty-one awardees appointed in recognition of their creative vitality and ongoing contributions to the fields of dance, jazz and theater.  The awardees will each receive $275,000 in flexible, multi-year funding as well as financial and legal counseling, professional development activities and peer-to-peer learning opportunities provided by Creative Capital, DDCF’s primary partner in the awards. With the 2016 class, DDCF will have awarded approximately $27.7 million to 101 noteworthy artists through the Doris Duke Artist Awards.

“To receive the prestigious Doris Duke Artist Award is the highest honor," said Smith. "It celebrates my achievements as a creative composer and performer in an art form that transcends boundaries. With the support of the Doris Duke Foundation, I now have the unique opportunity to develop a fresh connection to my art and to my community.”

Smith, who turns 75 in December 2016, maintains an active touring and recording schedule.  Most recently, he’s been touring widely with pianist/composer Vijay Iyer to support their March 2016 duo recording a cosmic rhythm with each stroke on ECM.  

Upcoming recordings scheduled for fall 2016, include Wadada Leo Smith: Nagwa (TUM) featuring Smith with guitarists Michael Gregory Jackson, Henry Kaiser, Brandon Ross and Lamar Smith, plus Bill Laswell on electric bass, Pheeroan akLaff on drums and Adam Rudolph on percussion. Also on TUM will be a solo recording of Monk’s music.  Cuneiform will release Wadada Leo Smith: The National Parks featuring Smith’s Golden Quintet plus cellist Ashley Walters.

Smith’s 2016 schedule includes performances at the Montreal International Jazz Festival, Berlin Jazz Festival, Molde Jazz Festival, Pittsburgh International LiveJazz Festival, Jazz at Lincoln Center, Vision Festival, Festival Suoni Per il Pipolo, Summer Stage, NYC and the premiere of his opera/cantata Rosa Parks at the FONT Festival, among others (see full schedule at end of this release.)  He will also be honored as Faculty Emeritus and receive an honorary doctorate from CalArts.

This will be the final group of Doris Duke Artists to receive these awards under the umbrella of the foundation’s Doris Duke Performing Artists Initiative, a larger $50 million allocation by DDCF above its existing funding to the performing arts. However, having witnessed the tremendous value of the program over the past five years, DDCF is pleased to announce plans to extend the life of the Doris Duke Artist Awards by incorporating the program into its annual grant-making budget at a more sustainable scale for the long term. In the future, the foundation will continue to yearly give Doris Duke Artist Awards to three artists. These awards will be managed internally by DDCF staff. DDCF expresses deep gratitude to Creative Capital for their successful administration of the first five classes of Doris Duke Artists and for their part in making the awards program a success.


“The Doris Duke Performing Artist Awards has been a truly visionary program, setting a standard for comprehensive artist support,” said Ruby Lerner, founding president and executive director at Creative Capital. “We at Creative Capital have been so proud to be a part of the powerful partnership that has supported the 101 artists who have received awards to date.”

Each recipient of a Doris Duke Artist Award receives $275,000—including an unrestricted, multi-year cash grant of $225,000, plus as much as $25,000 more in targeted support for audience development and as much as $25,000 more for personal reserves or creative exploration during what are usually retirement years for most Americans. Artists will be able to access their awards over a period of three years under a schedule set by each recipient. Creative Capital, DDCF’s primary partner in the Doris Duke Performing Artist Awards, will also offer the awardees the opportunity to participate in professional development activities, regional gatherings, and financial and legal counseling—all designed to help them personalize and maximize the use of their grants.

To qualify for consideration by the review panels, all the Doris Duke Artists must have won grants, prizes or awards on a national level for at least three different projects over the past 10 years, with at least one project having received support from a DDCF-funded program. The panel chose the artists based on demonstrated evidence of exceptional creativity, ongoing self-challenge and the continuing potential to make significant contributions to the fields of contemporary dance, jazz and theater in the future.



About Wadada Leo Smith

Wadada Leo Smith, whose roots are in the Delta blues, is one of the most boldly original figures in American jazz and creative contemporary music and one of the great trumpet players of our time.  As a composer, improviser, performer, music theorist/writer and educator, Smith has devoted a lifetime to navigating the emotional heart, spiritual soul, social significance and physical structure of jazz to create new music of infinite possibility and nuance. 

A 2016 Doris Duke Artist and 2013 Pulitzer finalist, Smith was DownBeat Magazine’s 2013 “Composer of the Year” and the Jazz Journalist Association’s 2013 Musician of the Year and Trumpeter of the Year. In 2014 DownBeat magazine named him “One of the 80 Coolest Things in Jazz Today,” citing his “magisterial instrumental voice, his inspirational leadership, and his command of classical, jazz and blues forms to remind us of what’s gone down and what’s still happening.” The Jazz Journalists Association named Smith Composer of the Year in 2015. Early in his career, Smith developed Ankhrasmation, a radically original musical language that uses visual directions and remains the philosophical foundation of his oeuvre. In October 2015, The Renaissance Society at the University of Chicago presented the first comprehensive exhibition of his Ankhrasmation scores.

Smith has released more than 50 albums as a leader. His landmark 2012 civil rights opus Ten Freedom Summers was called “A staggering achievement… It merits comparison to Coltrane’s A Love Supreme in sobriety and reach,” (Francis Davis, Rhapsody Jazz Critics Poll). Recent recordings include The Great Lakes Suites, which earned second place in NPR Music’s 2014 Jazz Critics Poll and Celestial Weather, which garnered extensive praise as “a perfectly suited twosome…4.5 stars” (DownBeat).  In March 2016 ECM released a cosmic rhythm with each stroke featuring pianist Vijay Iyer and Smith, whom Iyer calls his “hero, friend and mentor.” The recording has earned wide critical acclaim and the duo is touring internationally in 2016 and 2017.

Born December 18, 1941 in Leland, Mississippi, Smith began performing at age thirteen with his stepfather, bluesman Alex Wallace and went on to play in his high school bands. He received his formal musical education from the U.S. Military band program (1963), the Sherwood School of Music (1967-69), and Wesleyan University (1975-76). Part of the first generation of musicians to come out of Chicago’s AACM (Association for the Advancement of Creative Music), Smith collaborated with a dazzling cast of fellow visionaries. He has received commissions to write music for numerous groups including the Wroclaw Philharmonic Orchestra, and was invited to perform and speak on human rights at the Onassis Cultural Centre in Athens.  

Smith has been awarded grants and fellowships from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, the Fromm Music Foundation at Harvard University, Chamber Music America with support from the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, Meet the Composer/Lila Wallace-Reader's Digest Commissioning Program, the MAP Fund and the National Endowment for the Arts, among many others. 



Wadada Leo Smith Upcoming Events

• May 10 – Smith honored as Faculty Emeritus by CalArts

• May 13 – Smith receives honorary doctorate from CalArts    

• June 2 – Smith’s Golden Quartet – Festival Suoni Per il Pipolo – Montreal QC

• June 11 – Smith and viola quartet – Vision Festival, NYC

• June 23 – Smith, John Lindberg and Jesse Gilbert – Hammer Museum, LA  

• June 25 – Smith and Iyer – Pittsburgh International LiveJazz Festival  

•  July 7 – Smith and Vijay Iyer – Montreal International Jazz Festival  

•  July 18 – Smith and John Lindberg – Jazz at Lincoln Center, NYC

•  July 21 – Smith’s Golden Quartet – Molde Jazz Festival, Norway

• August 10 – Smith with Nublu Orchestra/ DarkMatterHalo – Summer Stage, NYC

• September 24 – Premiere of Smith’s opera/cantata Rosa Parks – FONT Festival, NYC

• September 28 – Smith and Iyer – Amherst, MA

• October 23 – Smith & John Lindberg duo Celestial Weather – Grand Rapids, MI

• October 26 – Smith & John Lindberg duo Celestial Weather – Ann Arbor, MI

• October 28 and 29 – Smith & John Lindberg duo Celestial Weather – Constellation, Chicago, IL

• October 30 – Smith & John Lindberg duo Celestial Weather – Milwaukee, WI

• November 3 – Smith’s Great Lakes Quartet performing The Great Lakes Suites – Berlin Jazz Festival

• November 6 – Wadada with pianist Alexander Hopkins duet – Berlin Jazz Festival