Avant Music News

From New York’s Interpretations:

Interpretations Presents:
Roy Campbell’s Akhenaten
Matana Roberts’ Illumination

Thursday, January 21, 2010
8PM at Roulette
20 Greene Street (between Canal and Grand)

The 21st Season of Thomas Buckner’s innovative series of new music continues on Thursday January 21, featuring creative ensemble music from two of the downtown scene’s most distinct horn players, both presenting imaginative ensemble configurations that produce vivid imagery. Trumpeter and composer Roy Campbell’s Akhenaten performs music from their recent Aum Fidelity release, Live at the Vision Festival 12. Saxophonist and composer Matana Roberts presents her compositional configuration Illumination, based on ongoing research related to the questions, history, and conundrums of the universal creative act of dreaming.

Roy Campbell’s Akhenaten performs compositions that were inspired by Campbell’s trip to Egypt, where he visited Luxor and Cairo. The band takes inspiration from Pharoah Akhenaten, who ruled Egypt in the 18th Dynasty. He was viewed as a heretic because he believed in monotheism and taught that there was only one God, the sun God. The concert will feature vibraphonist Bryan Carrott, bassist Hilliard “Hill” Greene, and drummer Michael Wimberly.

Matana Roberts, a 2006 Van Lier fellow, Brecht Forum fellow, and 2008 and 2009 Alpert Award in the Arts nominee, presents new music featuring cornetist Graham Haynes, pianist Gabriel Guerrero, harpist Shelley Burgon, bassist Jake Leckie, and drummer Damion Reid. Illumination is not the name of a band per se, but more a musical framework wherein one can ask questions: What does it mean to dream, to imagine sights unseen? Do dreams predict the future? Do dreams illuminate paths that are not easily explained?