John Zorn's Stone Commissioning Series presents: Ingrid Laubrock, Marc Hannaford, Sam Pluta, & Josh Modney
6pm doors • 7pm show
About
New Music. New Jazz. Curated by John Zorn.
The John Zorn Commissioning Series celebrates The Stone, Zorn’s revolutionary venue non-profit venue that was “dedicated to the experimental and avant-garde” and served as a vital spot for new music in Manhattan’s Alphabet City for over a decade. Held on the last Wednesday of every month, National Sawdust honors the spirit of the Stone, hosting the world premiere of new works.
This month’s concert features internationally acclaimed saxophonist and composer Ingrid Laubrock, a frequent collaborator with Anthony Braxton and the winner of the BBC’s Jazz Award for Innovation in 2004.
Ingrid Laubrock – saxophones, composition
Tickets
The Artists
Originally from Germany, Ingrid Laubrock is a saxophonist/composer based in Brooklyn since 2009. Laubrock is interested in exploring the borders between musical realms and creating multi-layered, dense and often evocative sound worlds. She has worked with Anthony Braxton, Muhal Richards Abrams, Dave Douglas, Kenny Wheeler, Jason Moran, Tim Berne, William Parker, Tom Rainey, Mary Halvorson, Kris Davis, Tyshawn Sorey, Craig Taborn, Luc Ex, Django Bates’s Human Chain, the Continuum Ensemble, Wet Ink and many others.
Laubrock‘s main projects as a leader are Anti-House, Sleepthief, the Ingrid Laubrock Septet and Ubatuba. Collaborations include Paradoxical Frog, the Ingrid Laubrock/Tom Rainey Duo and Crump/Smythe/Laubrock. She is a member of Anthony Braxton’s Falling River Music Quartet, Nonet and 12+1tet, Tom Rainey Trio and Obbligato, Mary Halvorson Septet, Kris’s Davis Quintet, Nate Wooley’s Battle Pieces and Luc Ex’s Assemblée. She was one of the featured soloists in Anthony Braxton’s opera Trillium J.
Awards include the BBC Jazz Award for Innovation in 2004, a Fellowship in Jazz Composition by the Arts Foundation in 2006, the 2009 SWR German Radio Jazz Prize, the 2014 German Record Critics Quarterly Award, and Downbeat’s Annual Critics Poll Rising Star Soprano Saxophone (2015) and Rising Star Tenor Saxophone (2018). Commissions include Jammy Dodgers for Jazz Quintet and dancers (Covent Garden Opera 2006), Nonet Music for Cheltenham Jazz Festival 2007, Octet for SWR New Jazz Meeting 2011, Echo for SZOctet (A L’Arme Festival 2015), and chamber orchestra pieces Vogelfrei (ACO/Tricentric Foundation 2014), Contemporary Chaos Practices (moers festival 2017), and Chants II (Wet Ink 2018).
Laubrock was Improviser in Residence in 2012 for the German city of Moers. The post was created to introduce creative music into the city throughout the year. As part of this, she led a regular improvisation ensemble and taught sound workshops in elementary schools. Other teaching experiences include improvisation workshops at Towson University, CalArts, UC San Diego, UC Irvine, Baruch College, the University of Michigan, the University of Newcastle, and many others.
Described by Jason Moran as a pianist who has “taken full control of the music histories that interest him: from Messaien to Earl Hines...with a new sound that only comes from within him,” Marc Hannaford has established hi mself in the New York jazz and improvised music scene since his arrival from Australia in 2013. He has performed and recorded with improvised music luminaries such as Tim Berne, Ingrid Laubrock, Tom Rainey, Tony Malaby, Mark Helias, Jen Shyu, and Ellery Eskelin. His 2015 release, Can You See With Two Sets of Eyes? was described as what “advanced, contemporary, improvised, virtuosic music might sound like, a decade or
more into the future.” Marc is also writing a dissertation on Muhal Richard Abrams—composer, pianist, and cofounder of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM)—as part of the PhD program at Columbia University. His academic scholarship appears in Women in Music, Music Theory Online, and American Music Review, and a new essay will be published in the forthcoming issue of Sound American.
Sam Pluta is a composer and electronics performer whose work explores the intersections between instrumental forces, reactive computerized sound worlds, traditionally notated scores, improvisation, audio-visuals, psycho-acoustic phenomena, and installation-like soundscapes. Since 2009, Sam has served as Technical Director and composing member of Wet Ink Ensemble. In addition to his work with Wet Ink, Sam has received commissions and written music for groups like the New York Philharmonic, Yarn/Wire, Ensemble Dal Niente, International Contemporary Ensemble, Mivos Quartet, Mantra Percussion, and Spektral Quartet. Sam appears as a composer and performer on over thirty albums of new music and jazz. He is Assistant Professor of Music at the University of Chicago.
JOSH MODNEY is a violinist devoted to creative musicmaking. A “new-music luminary,” “superb violinist” (The New York Times), and “multitasking virtuoso” (The New Yorker) hailed for “jaw-dropping technical skill…” and as “one of today’s most intrepid experimentalists” (Bandcamp Daily), Modney collaborates with a wide array of renowned ensembles and artists as part of a broad scene of adventurous music that exists at the nexus of composition, improvisation, and interpretation.
Modney is violinist and Executive Director of the Wet Ink Ensemble and a member of the International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE), and performed with the Mivos Quartet for eight years, a vital new-music string quartet he co-founded in 2008.
Modney’s playing has been featured on a wide variety of outstanding recordings, including titles on Carrier Records, Deutsche Grammophon, Sound American, hat(now)ART, Nonesuch, and Tzadik Records. Modney’s 2017 release of improvised chamber music with guitarist Patrick Higgins (ZS), EVRLY MVSIC (NNA Tapes), earned praise for its “clairvoyant connection and sheer instrumental prowess” (The Quietus), and his 2018 triple-CD debut solo release, Engage (New Focus Recordings) was lauded by The New York Times as “one of the most intriguing programs of the year”.
