John Zorn Presents The Stone Commissioning Series:

Tyshawn Sorey

Name: John Zorn Presents: The Stone Commissioning Series: Tyshawn Sorey
Start: 2018-01-31T19:00:00-05:00
End: 2018-01-31T20:30:00-05:00
Location: National Sawdust

Wednesday, January 31st – 7pm

About the Show

Newark-born multi-instrumentalist and composer Tyshawn Sorey (b. 1980) is celebrated for his incomparable virtuosity, effortless mastery and memorization of highly complex scores, and an extraordinary ability to blend composition and improvisation in his work. He has performed nationally and internationally with his own ensembles, as well as artists such as John Zorn, Vijay Iyer, Roscoe Mitchell, Muhal Richard Abrams, Wadada Leo Smith, Marilyn Crispell, George Lewis, Claire Chase, Steve Coleman, Steve Lehman, Robyn Schulkowsky, Evan Parker, Anthony Braxton, and Myra Melford, among many others.

The New York Times has praised Sorey for his instrumental facility and aplomb, “he plays not only with gale-force physicality, but also a sense of scale and equipoise”; The Wall Street Journal notes Sorey is, “a composer of radical and seemingly boundless ideas.” The New Yorker recently noted that Sorey is “among the most formidable denizens of the in-between zone…An extraordinary talent who can see across the entire musical landscape.”

A 2017 MacArthur Foundation Fellow, Sorey was recognized for “Assimilating and transforming ideas from a broad spectrum of musical idioms and defying distinctions between genres, composition, and improvisation in a singular expression of contemporary music.”

Recent commissions include a residency at the 2017 Berlin Jazz Festival and Carnegie Hall’s 125 Commissions Project in partnership with Opera Philadelphia supporting “Cycles of My Being,” a new opera for tenor Lawrence Brownlee and small woodwind & string ensemble, with original text by poet Terrance Hayes addressing themes associated with Black Lives Matter.

As a leader, Sorey has released six critically acclaimed recordings that feature his work as a composer, multi-instrumentalist and conceptualist including his latest Verisimilitude (Pi Recordings, 2017), among many others.

Verisimilitude is Sorey’s continued effort to shatter the jazz piano trio tradition by extending the compositional influence to include the likes of Feldman, Debussy and Xenakis. The prior recorded work by this group, Alloy, combined formal classical composition and improvisation, and was described as “shadowy and elegant” by The New York Times. The new work utilizes a wider array of percussion effects, along with judicious use of electronic effects to explore a wider textural soundscape. Sorey daringly weaves together formal classical composition and improvisation, staking new musical ground in the process.

Tyshawn Sorey – drums, percussion
Cory Smythe – piano, toy piano, electronics
Chris Tordini – bass

About the Artists

Tyshawn Sorey

Born and raised in Newark, NJ Tyshawn Sorey blends composition and improvisation across a variety of styles and genres. As an instrumentalist, he is known for his skillful open, groove-oriented, and through-composed forms and for his virtuosity on drums, piano, and trombone. The International Contemporary Ensemble, Spektral Quartet, and TAK Ensemble have performed his compositions, which integrate African diasporic, Western classical, and avant-garde musical forms. As a bandleader, he has released five critically acclaimed recordings of his work. He has been selected as a Danish International Visiting Artist (2013) and for the Other Minds Residency (2012). He has lectured on composition and improvisation at Columbia University, Banff Workshop in Jazz and Creative Music, and Hochschule für Musik Köln, among other institutions.

Tyshawn Sorey is a composer, performer, educator, and scholar working across an extensive range of musical idioms. A 2015 Doris Duke Impact Award recipient, Sorey performs percussion, trombone and piano nationally and internationally with his own ensembles, and artists including Muhal Richard Abrams, Steve Coleman, John Zorn, Roscoe Mitchell, Misha Mengelberg, Vijay Iyer, Wadada Leo Smith, Anthony Braxton, Steve Lehman, Tim Berne, and Myra Melford. The International Contemporary Ensemble, Spektral Quartet, and TAK Ensemble have performed his compositions, which integrate African diasporic, Western classical, and avant-garde musical forms. In 2012, he was selected as an Other Minds Composer. As a leader, Sorey has released five critically acclaimed recordings – most recently The Inner Spectrum of Variables (Pi, 2016), which features both classical/contemporary composition and conducted improvisation. He has taught lectures and courses on composition and improvisation at the Banff Centre, International Realtime Music Symposium (Norway), Hochschule für Musik Köln, Musikhochschule Nürnberg, Rhythmic Conservatory (Denmark), Birmingham Conservatory of Music, Conservatorium van Amsterdam, Cité de la Musique (Paris), and Vallekilde Højskole (Denmark). Soreys works have premiered at the Issue Project Room, Walt Disney Hall, the Bimhuis, Mostly Mozart Festival at Lincoln Center, the Village Vanguard, the Jazz Gallery, and Roulette. He received a BM in Jazz and Performance Studies from William Paterson University and an MA in Music Composition from Wesleyan University. He expects to receive his Doctorate in Musical Arts in Musical Composition from Columbia University in 2017.