Legendary composer and trumpeter Wadada Leo Smith presents
the CREATE Festival
April 8 & 9, 2017 at Firehouse 12 in New Haven, CT
The first-ever celebration of Smith’s visionary compositions features five ensembles performing classic works and several world premieres
“A trumpeter and composer of penetrating insight.” – Nate Chinen, The New York Times
"Smith uses his magisterial instrumental voice, his inspirational leadership and his command of classical, jazz and blues forms to remind us of what has gone down and what's still happening.” – Bill Meyer, DownBeat’s 80 Coolest Things in Jazz Today
“This idea has been in a dream state for many, many years,” Smith says. That long-cherished dream has been realized in part due to support from the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, which awarded Smith the Doris Duke Artist Award in 2016. The festival offers a thrilling, rare opportunity to delve deeply into the full scope of Smith’s sui generis compositional voice and approach, which – in their category-defying range and breadth – can only be classified using Smith’s preferred term, “Creative Music.”
The eclectic weekend will include two unique trios, each featuring unusual, ingenious instrumentation; three of the composer’s most recent works for string quartet, the latest entries in an oeuvre now spanning more than five decades; a vocal oratorio; and the world premiere performance of Smith’s latest epic composition, “America’s National Parks.” In addition, both days’ performance schedules will kick off with short sets by young, unrecorded musicians (including Wadada’s 21-year-old grandson, guitarist Lamar Smith), providing an invaluable opportunity for artists in the early stages of their careers to receive guidance and exposure from the iconic composer.
Both evenings’ concert programs will culminate with the first-time live performance of the four largest movements from “America’s National Parks” by Smith’s newly-expanded Golden Quintet: Smith, pianist Anthony Davis, bassist John Lindberg, drummer Pheeroan akLaff, and cellist Ashley Walters. Cuneiform’s 2-CD recording of the suite last year was widely acclaimed, taking its place at or near the top of most annual lists of the year’s best releases. JazzTimes wrote that the album “unites political engagement with a soul-deep connection to nature… rich with ineffable majesty, [the suite] fully engages with tensions at the heart of the American experience.”
Saturday’s line-up commences with “Dark Lady of the Sonnets,” a piece dedicated to Billie Holiday and originally recorded in 2011, by Smith’s Mbira trio with akLaff and pipa virtuoso Min Xiao-Fen. Mbira will then be joined by the RedKoral Quintet, a string quartet specially assembled to perform Smith’s music, and a pair of vocalists for excerpts from his “Rosa Parks Oratorio,” originally premiered during the 2016 FONT Festival of New Trumpet Music. The Oratorio, Smith says, “is not a portrait of Rosa Parks. It’s my view of how she generated her ideas, her courage and her notions about how to resolve conflict.”
The RedKoral Quintet, comprising longtime collaborators Shalini Vijayan and Mona Tian (violin), Lorenz Gamma (viola) and Ashley Walters (cello), will then premiere Smith’s “String Quartet No. 9” and the first movement of “String Quartet No. 10,” two of the latest in a book of music begun in the mid-1960s. “No. 9” features four movements dedicated to female African-American pioneers in music and the Civil Rights movement (Ma Rainey, Marian Anderson, Rosa Parks, and Angela Davis), while “No. 10” was inspired by the legendary Duke Ellington and also features pianist Anthony Davis.
Several of the works will be supplemented by images provided by video artist Jesse Gilbert, who Smith says adds integral visual context to the aural elements. “The music and imagery don’t move in separate streams,” he says. “They’re actually intimately connected and responsible for each other, allowing us to create a narrative that transcends space and time. It’s twofold: there’s a technical and musical connection, and then there’s a psychological and historical connection that help to provide for comprehension of the work.”
In order to further that comprehension, Smith (aided again by Gilbert’s images) will offer two afternoon seminars during the weekend, one to elaborate on several of the compositions and the inspirations and approaches behind them, and one to offer insights into his symbolic musical language, Ankhrasmation. Both seminars will be accompanied by premium coffee brewed by Wadada himself and Creole gumbo prepared by Gianna Chachere, executive director and founder of New Orleans arts organization The New Quorum.
Smith chose New Haven’s Firehouse 12 as the ideal venue for the CREATE Festival, calling it “almost a perfect place to play. The size is intimate enough that everybody in the space will feel that they’re part of the performance and can have a clear, engaged audio and visual experience. It’s a strong center for music in Connecticut.”
As with every performance, Smith sees the overall festival as a work in itself, which he calls “Kosmic Music: A Sonic Spectrum of Crystallized Rhythm: Pure – In Eight Parts with Five Ensembles.” In the end, Smith hopes that audiences who attend the festival will come away “with a deeper understanding of how I make my art. I expect that they’ll be more informed about what my music is and therefore they can create a deeper level of appreciation for what I do. Ultimately I wish to create a dialogue about issues of liberty, democracy, art and the connection between human beings.”
CREATE Festival April 8 & 9, 2017, Firehouse 12
Saturday, April 8
12-2:00pm Seminar
A presentation centered around a dialogue about Wadada Leo Smith’s music and some of the pieces being performed over the two days, with Jesse Gilbert, video artist. Premium coffee brewed by Wadada and Creole gumbo prepared by Gianna Chachere.
7:00pm Concert
1. Young People’s Opening Act LaStar
Lamar Smith, guitar, plus two musicians TBA
2. Dark Lady of the Sonnets
3. Excerpt from Rosa Parks Oratorio
The Montgomery Bus Boycott: 381 Days: Fire
Mbira
Pheeroan Aklaff, drums and percussion
Min Xiao Fen, pipa and voice
Wadada Leo Smith, trumpet
with RedKoral Quartet and Jesse Gilbert, video artist on Rosa Parks Oratorio
4. String Quartets 9 and 10, World Premiere
String Quartet No. 9
Ma Rainey
Marian Anderson
Rosa Parks
Angela Davis
String Quartet No. 10
Ellingtonia
Reminiscing in Tempo
RedKoral Quartet
Shalini Vijayan, violin
Mona Tian, violin
Lorenz Gamma, viola
Ashley Walters, cello
Anthony Davis, piano on String Quartet #10
5. Excerpts from America’s National Parks
New Orleans; National Cultural Park, World Premiere Yellowstone; the Spirit of America
Wadada Leo Smith’s Golden Quintet
Wadada Leo Smith, trumpet
Anthony Davis, piano
Ashley Walters, cello
John Linberg, bass
Pheeroan Aklaff, drums
Jesse Gilbert, video artist
Sunday, April 9
12-2:00pm Seminar
A presentation of a dialogue concerning the symbolic music language Ankhrasmation, with Jesse Gilbert, video artist. Premium coffee brewed by Wadada and Creole gumbo prepared by Gianna Chachere.
7:00pm Concert
1. Young People’s Opening Act
Musicians TBA
2. String Quartet #12, Pacifica
Viola Quartet with Trumpet and electronics
The Sextet
Stephanie Griffin, viola
Gwen Lester, viola
Tanya Kalmanovitch, viola
Jason Kao Hwang, viola
Hardedge, electronics
Wadada Leo Smith, trumpet
3. New premiere, TBA
New Delta Ahkri
Wadada Leo Smith, trumpet
Dwight Andrew, saxophones/flutes
Bobby Naughton, vibraphone
4. Excerpts from America’s National Parks
Mississippi River
Yosemite
Wadada Leo Smith’s Golden Quintet
Wadada Leo Smith, trumpet
Anthony Davis, piano
Ashley Walters, cello
John Linberg, bass
Pheeroan Aklaff, drums
Jesse Gilbert, video artist
