Trumpet, Santour, Voice
Tenor Saxophone
Drums
Piano
Electronics
Multi-instrumentalist, composer, and vocalist Amir ElSaffar combines a background as a classically trained jazz trumpeter with microtonal techniques idiomatic to Arabic music. For his Pierre Boulez Saal debut, he now presents two world-premiere programs: in the first set, ElSaffar’s trio, with saxophonist Ole Mathisen, drummer Tomas Fujiwara, and ElSaffar on trumpet, is joined by innovative Greek pianist Tania Giannouli, whose instrument will be re-tuned to create microtonal sounds. The evening’s second part, featuring sound artist Lorenzo Bianchi Hoesch and ElSaffar on santur and vocals, explores the boundary between improvisation and composition with music that merges electro-acoustic ideas with traditional Iraqi maqam scales.
Composer, trumpeter, santur player, and vocalist Amir ElSaffar explores the intersections between jazz, Western classical, and maqam music of Iraq and the Middle East. His approach to the trumpet combines his jazz and classical training with microtonal techniques and ornaments idiomatic to Arabic music. He also performs in the Iraqi maqam tradition as a vocalist and on the santur. His compositional approach utilizes a microtonal harmonic palette that merges the maqam modal system with contemporary Western harmony. Amir ElSaffar studied classical trumpet at DePaul University and with Bud Herseth, principal trumpeter of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, as well as with Iraqi vocalist Hamid Al-Saadi. As a trumpeter of the Civic Orchestra of Chicago, he worked with conductors such as Pierre Boulez, Mstislav Rostropovich, and Daniel Barenboim. In 1999 and 2000, he was a member of the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra. He has also performed with jazz musicians including Cecil Taylor, Mark Dresser, Gerry Hemingway, Archie Shepp, Reggie Workman, Vijay Iyer, and Rudresh Mahanthappa. He tours internationally with his Two Rivers Ensemble and Rivers of SoundOrchestra and has composed for symphony orchestras, string quartets, chamber ensembles, Middle Eastern ensembles, and hybrid projects with raga, flamenco, and sub-Saharan African trance musicians. A recipient of the Doris Duke Performing Artist Award, a United States Artists Fellowship, and a Hodder Fellowship at Princeton University, he was composer in residence at the Transcultural Music Section of the Royaumont Foundation from 2016 to 2019.
As of September 2023
A composer and sound artist, Lorenzo Bianchi Hoesch studied architecture and composition in Italy and France, where he currently lives. His interests as a composer range from pure electronics and electroacoustics to theater and dance, to interactive installations. Focused on the idea of establishing new connections between sound, gesture, and space, a large part of his work is devoted to 3D sound, multichannel, and holophonic composition. He frequently collaborates with the MK company, for which he has composed since 2006, and Richard Siegal. He has received commissions and artistic residencies from Centre Pompidou, IRCAM, Musical Research Group, Venice Biennale, and RuhrTriennale, among many others, and teaches as a professor of electroacoustic composition at the Conservatory of Montbeliard, France.
As of September 2023
Tomas Fujiwara is a Brooklyn-based drummer and composer. Born in Boston, he studied with Alan Dawson for eight years before moving to New York. His projects include a duo with cornetist Taylor Ho Bynum, the Tomas Fujiwara Trio with Ralph Alessi and Michael Formanek, Triple Double with Gerald Cleaver, Mary Halvorson, Brandon Seabrook, Ho Bynum, and Alessi, Tomas Fujiwara & The Hook Up with Jonathan Finlayson, Brian Settles, Halvorson, and Formanek, and Thumbscrew with Halvorson and Formanek. He has also worked with artists such as Anthony Braxton, John Zorn, Ben Goldberg, and Benoît Delbecq and has performed in North America, Europa, Asia, Australia, and the Middle East.
As of September 2023
Tania Giannouli is a Greek pianist, composer, improviser, and bandleader. Inspired by many different traditions, her music and projects span a wide range of styles. She has performed at Jazzfest Berlin, Madrid International Jazz Festival, Ars Musica, and Skopje Jazz Festival, among many others, and at special projects such as the concert “634 minutes inside the volcano,” where she and 14 other musicians improvised for more than ten hours inside the crater of Nisyros’s active volcano. Her concert music has been performed by the Camerata/Armonia Atenea String Orchestra, Dissonart Ensemble, the Athens Youth Orchestra, and the Galaxy String Quartet. She has released four albums, most recently In Fading Light with trumpet player Andreas Polyzogopoulos and oud player Kyriakos Tapakis. In May 2021, she was nominated for the German Jazz Prize in the category Piano/Keyboards International together with Tigran Hamasyan and Shai Maestro.
As of September 2023
Ole Mathisen is a saxophonist, composer, and teacher. He trained at Berklee College of Music and studied arranging with Maria Schneider, composition with Ed Green, and saxo- phone with Bob Mintzer at Manhattan School of Music. He is the assistant director of the Louis Armstrong Jazz Performance Program at Columbia University, where he has also been teaching saxophone and directing ensembles since 2005. The recipient of a number of awards, including the ASCAP Plus Award, the Chamber Music America’s New Jazz Works Grant, the DANY Arts Grant from the Danish Government, and the Tono Work Stipend from the Norwegian Composers Rights Organization, he has composed several movie and television scores and released more than 100 CDs.
As of September 2023
