Edward Simon & Afinidad and Mivos Quartet

Award-winning pianist and composer Edward Simon hails from Venezuela. He made his first recording as a leader in 1994 (Beauty Within, Audioquest), giving birth to the Edward Simon Trio. Since then, he founded several other ensembles such as: the Edward Simon Quartet, Ensemble Venezuela and Afinidad. Today, the Edward Simon Trio has become an established voice with five recordings and recent performances at well-known jazz venues around the world.

Simon has recorded 15 critically acclaimed albums as leader, including two New York Times Top Ten Jazz Records of the Year: Edward Simon (1995) and Simplicitas (2005). His recording Unicity was voted “Best CD of 2007” by Downbeat. He has appeared as guest artist on more than 50 recordings, including Paquito D’Rivera’s Grammy Award winning Funk Tango (Best Latin Jazz Album, 2007) and several Grammy Award nominated albums.

Simon is a three-time Chamber Music America New Jazz Works grantee and a 2014 Doris Duke Impact Award nominee. In 2010 Simon was named Guggenheim Fellow by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation. That same year he became a member of the SFJAZZ Collective, a prominent musician/composer jazz ensemble dedicated to creating new work and highlighting the music of historically significant jazz composers of the modern era. His recent recording recording with the SFJAZZ Collective Wonder, received the 2014 NAACP Image Award. He is currently instructor at the California Jazz Conservatory, resident artist at the Brubeck Institute and Visiting Jazz Artist at Western Michigan University.

Simon’s recent album Trio Live in New York at Jazz Standard(Sunnyside Records), featuring John Patitucci and Brian Blade, was selected among Best Releases of 2013 by All About Jazz. His latest release, Venezuelan Suite (Sunnyside Records), received 4 and 1/2 star from Downbeat and was selected among Best Latin Releases of 2014 by The New York City Jazz Record.

The Mivos Quartet, “one of America’s most daring and ferocious new-music ensembles” (The Chicago Reader), is devoted to performing the works of contemporary composers, presenting new music to diverse audiences. Since the quartet’s beginnings in 2008 they have performed works by emerging and established international composers who represent varied aesthetics of contemporary composition. Mivos is invested in commissioning and premiering new music for string quartet, particularly in a context of close collaboration with composers over extended time-periods. Recent collaborations include works with Mark Barden (Wien Modern Commission, Dan Blake (Jerome Commission), Richard Carrick (Fromm Commission), Patrick Higgins (ZS), Sam Pluta (Lucerne Festival Commission), Kate Soper, Saul Williams, Scott Wollschleger and Eric Wubbels (CMA commission). Mivos is committed to working with guest artists, exploring multi-media projects involving live video and electronics, creating original compositions and arrangements for the quartet, and performing improvised music. The quartet has appeared on concert series including Wien Modern (Austria), Transart (Italy), Music at the Phillips (Washington, DC), Lucerne Festival (Switzerland), HellHOT! New Music Festival (Hong Kong), Festival International Chihuahua (México), Edgefest (Ann Arbor, MI), Asphalt Festival (Germany), and Aldeburgh Music (UK). www.mivosquartet.com