HARRISON BANKHEAD QUARTET

Ed Wilkerson, Jr., Mars Williams, Avreeayl Ra.

Thursday, March 28, 8PM, Bezanson Recital Hall

The Chicago jazz bassist Harrison Bankhead combines an appreciation for musical challenges, with a journeyman’s ability to fit in an array of styles from straight-ahead to free jazz, flamenco to classical, gospel to soul. “Harrison Bankhead has been about as ubiquitous on the local scene as a jazz musician can be,” writes Peter Margasak. “Over the past couple decades he’s amassed a discography that includes dozens of credits, backing countless Chicago heavies—Roscoe Mitchell, Fred Anderson, Muhal Richard Abrams, Malachi Thompson—and serving as a key member in groups like 8 Bold Souls, Indigo Trio, Frequency, and Witches & Devils. He’s the kind of selfless musician who makes just about everyone he plays with sound better.”   

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General Admission: $12; $7 students

Thursday, March 14, 7:30PM, Concert Hall
The Joffrey Ballet, the celebrated Chicago-based dance company, has put together a memorable lineup of works for its national tour.  Luckily for us the tour includes Vaslav Nijinsky’s Le Sacre du Printemps (The Rite of Spring), the reenactment of a sacrificial fertility rite, which inspired audience members to storm the streets of Paris following its 1913 debut.  Set to the strident, now classic, commissioned Stravinsky score, The Rite of Spring stands as one of the most magnificent musical and dance masterpieces of the twentieth century.

$50, $40, $15; FC, GCC, STCC and 17 & under $10

 

For more information please visit our website at https://fac.umass.edu/online/default.asp?doWork::WScontent::loadArticle=Load&BOparam::WScontent::loadArticle::article_id=DAD007C2-6653-4B92-B11F-5E07B20E8B9C

Tuesday MAR 5, 7:30PM

Bowker Auditorium

This exciting, live multi-media “informance” celebrates the groundbreaking achievements of the iconic trumpeter, bandleader, and cultural provocateur, Miles Davis.  The program traverses Davis’ extensive career and features music from some of the most creatively fertile periods of his career, including his controversial divergence into electric music in the late 1960s.

Using both, jazz history, and 20th-century American history as a backdrop, Miles Davis and the Blue Flame Incident (which alludes to one of Davis’ earliest childhood memories) will engage, inform, and enlighten audiences about one of the most compelling, infinitely creative, and trailblazing artists the world has ever known. 

General Admission: $15; Five College, GCC. STCC and 17 and Under: $7

Metta Quintet is the official resident ensemble of JazzReach Performing Arts & Education Association, Inc. In addition to fulfilling the organization’s endeavors in arts education, Metta Quintet is dedicated exclusively to commissioning, recording, and performing all-new works. 

A highly creative unit comprised of some of today’s fastest emerging jazz artists, Metta Quintet aims to establish itself in the vanguard of contemporary music ensembles as a unique, dynamic voice committed to exploring exciting new artistic territory and the infinite boundaries of the live jazz experience.

The Metta Quintet is H. Benjamin Schuman, drums and founder of JazzReach, Inc.; David Bryant, piano; Marcus Strickland, tenor saxophone; Mark Gross, alto saxophone; Joshua Ginsburg, bass.

What is an Informance?

An informance is an educational performance that includes live narration, some demonstration, integrated video projections, live music featuring the Metta Quintet, and special guests and a post-show Q&A with the artists.

What is JazzReach? 

Established in 1994, JazzReach is a nationally recognized New York City-based not-for-profit organization dedicated to the promotion, performance, creation and teaching of jazz music. Through the presentation of innovative, widely acclaimed live multi-media educational programs for young audiences, captivating main-stage concerts for general audiences and informative clinics and master-classes for student musicians and ensembles, JazzReach is steadfastly dedicated to fostering a greater appreciation, awareness and understanding of this rich, vital, ever-evolving American art form.

JazzReach has developed a unique and diverse repertoire of substantive, high quality live educational programs for young and adult audiences.  All of JazzReach’s educational programs are highly immersive and interactive and are as entertaining as they are informative and actively engage audiences in an analysis of:

• the cultural factors that have come together to make jazz such a compelling art form
• the social conditions that shaped the music’s development
• the immense impact jazz has had on the sound and evolution of indigenous American music

Artist’s website

 

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Thursday, March 7, 7:30PM, Bowker Auditorium

Classical Chinese Opera by Chinese Theater Works

The Peony Pavilion is one of the great epic masterpieces of Chinese opera.   Chinese Theater Works version presents two of the most famous scenes: “A Stroll in the Garden,” and the “Awaking from the Dream”.  A sweeping romantic tale filled with ghostly intrigue that tells the story of Du Liniang, a young maiden who falls asleep in her garden on a spring day and dreams about falling in love with a handsome scholar.  After awakening, she pines for him and dies of a broken heart.  She is allowed to return to Earth as a ghost in order to try to entice her beloved to bring her back to life. Its theme of love beyond the grave has captivated audiences ever since it was written during the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644).

$30, $15; FC, GCC, STCC and 17 & under $10 

For more information please visit our website at https://fac.umass.edu/online/default.asp?doWork::WScontent::loadArticle=Load&BOparam::WScontent::loadArticle::article_id=FF1392CC-0309-47C7-AB25-3D1C5C16C176