Two Nights of Braxton in Philly

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Friday, October 10 | 8pm
Anthony Braxton Falling River Quartet
with
Anthony Braxton, alto/soprano/ sopranino saxophone + contrabass clarinet
Erica Dicker, violin
Sally Norris, piano
Katherine Young, bassoon

Settlement Music School
416 Queen Street

$35 General Admission
Seating is very limited.
All ticket holders will receive free admission to the October 11 brass music concert.

Composer and saxophonist Anthony Braxton (b.1945) attended the Chicago School of Music and Roosevelt University. He is a founding member of Chicago’s Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM), formed the Creative Construction Company with violinist Leroy Jenkins and trumpeter Wadada Leo Smith and recorded the seminal For Alto, the first-ever recording for solo saxophone. Subsequent collaborations included ‘Circle’ with Chick Corea and Dave Holland, Italian free improvisation group Musica Elettronica Viva, guitarist Derek Bailey, drummer Max Roach, and pianist Hank Jones. Braxton’s steadiest vehicle during the ’80s and ’90s – and what is often considered his most remarkable ensemble – was his quartet with pianist Marilyn Crispell, bassist Mark Dresser, and drummer Gerry Hemingway.

He is the founder and Artistic Director of the Tri-Centric Foundation, Inc., a New York-based not-for-profit corporation including an ensemble of some 38 musicians, four to eight vocalists, and computer-graphic video artists assembled to perform his compositions. He is a recipient of the MacArthur Fellowship and a tenured professor at Wesleyan University. His teaching has become as much a part of his creative life as his own work, and includes training and leading performance ensembles and private tutorials in his own music, computer and electronic music, and history courses in the music of his major musical influences, from the Western Medieval composer Hildegard of Bingen to contemporary masters with whom he himself has worked (e.g. Cage, Coleman). A seasoned master, Anthony Braxton’s name continues to stand for the broadest integration of such oft-conflicting poles as “creative freedom” and “responsibility,” discipline and energy, and vision of the future and respect for tradition in the current cultural debates about the nature and place of the Western and African-American musical traditions in America.

Anthony Braxton is widely and critically acclaimed as a seminal figure in the music of the late 20th and early 21st century. His work, both as saxophonist and composer, has broken new conceptual and technical ground in the trans-African and trans-European (a.k.a. “jazz” and “American Experimental“) musical traditions in North America. Braxton’s extensions of instrumental technique, timbre, meter and rhythm, voicing and ensemble make-up, harmony and melody, and improvisation and notation have revolutionized modern American music. Braxton’s five decades worth of recorded output is kaleidescopic and prolific, with well over 200 recordings to his credit. He has won prestigious awards and critical praise, including the MacArthur “Genius Grant” Fellowship, and is a tenured professor at Wesleyan University, one of the world’s centers of world music.

The performance of Anthony Braxton’s Falling River Quartet is made possible by a grant from the Philadelphia Music Project, a program of the Philadelphia Center for Arts and Heritage, funded by The Pew Charitable Trusts and administered by The University of the Arts.

Saturday, October 11 | 8pm
Composition N.103 (for Seven Trumpets)
with
Taylor Ho Bynum, Tim Byrnes, Forbes Graham, Sam Hoyt, John McDonough, Nicole Rampersaud, Nate Wooley, trumpet
Costume design by Rosemary Kielnecker

Composition N.169 (for Brass Quintet)
with
Taylor Ho Bynum, trumpet
Nate Wooley, trumpet
Jeremy Thal, French horn
Reut Regev, trombone
Jay Rozen, tuba

Anthony Braxton, conductor

St. Mark’s Church
1625 Locust Street

$10 General Admission

Anthony Braxton’s Composition N.103 (for seven trumpets) features 145 pages of notated music and choreography for seven costumed instrumentalists. Composed in 1983, the 45-minute piece was first performed in 2005, in a fully staged and costumed realization at Wesleyan University celebrating Braxton’s 60th birthday. This ANW performance will be the Philadelphia premiere, and only the third performance anywhere, of this major work.

Braxton’s Composition N.169 is one of the seminal pieces in the composer’s oeuvre, yet has never been performed by the intended instrumentation. Originally written for brass quintet (on swivel chairs), 169 consists of an hour of intense and unrelenting rhythmic complexity, contrasting with sections of lush, static harmonies. Braxton never found an ensemble brave enough to tackle the imposing piece, so instead has performed the work in configurations ranging from saxophone quartet to full orchestra. This ANW performance marks the second time this composition will be staged with its original instrumentation.

Anthony Braxton is widely and critically acclaimed as a seminal figure in the music of the late 20th and early 21st century. His work, both as saxophonist and composer, has broken new conceptual and technical ground in the trans-African and trans-European (a.k.a. “jazz” and “American Experimental“) musical traditions in North America. Braxton’s extensions of instrumental technique, timbre, meter and rhythm, voicing and ensemble make-up, harmony and melody, and improvisation and notation have revolutionized modern American music. Braxton’s five decades worth of recorded output is kaleidescopic and prolific, with well over 200 recordings to his credit. He has won prestigious awards and critical praise, including the MacArthur “Genius Grant” Fellowship, and is a tenured professor at Wesleyan University, one of the world’s centers of world music.

The performance of Anthony Braxton’s brass music is made possible by a grant from the Philadelphia Music Project, a program of the Philadelphia Center for Arts and Heritage, funded by The Pew Charitable Trusts and administered by The University of the Arts.

This performance is part of ANW’s Free/Form: Composer Portrait series.

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