Tomas Fujiwara: 7 Poets Trio at Roulette

Drummer and composer Tomas Fujiwara presents new music written for his latest ensemble, 7 Poets Trio. The group features Fujiwara on drums, Patricia Brennan on vibraphone, and Tomeka Reid on cello. The performance will be centered around the premiere of a new work by Fujiwara, composed specifically for this ensemble, utilizing the distinct musical personalities of his collaborators as well as the unique instrumentation of the trio. The piece seeks to strike a balance between composition and improvisation, to offer each musician a number of roles—foreground and background, soloistic and supportive, melodic and percussive—and, most importantly, to provide an environment for a truly collaborative ensemble sound....

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Drummer and composer Tomas Fujiwara presents new music written for his latest ensemble, 7 Poets Trio. The group features Fujiwara on drums, Patricia Brennan on vibraphone, and Tomeka Reid on cello. The performance will be centered around the premiere of a new work by Fujiwara, composed specifically for this ensemble, utilizing the distinct musical personalities of his collaborators as well as the unique instrumentation of the trio. The piece seeks to strike a balance between composition and improvisation, to offer each musician a number of roles—foreground and background, soloistic and supportive, melodic and percussive—and, most importantly, to provide an environment for a truly collaborative ensemble sound.

7 Poets Trio formed during Fujiwara’s Stone residency in April 2018. The rapport was instantaneous and their debut was described by All About Jazz as “a meshing of chamber jazz, modern classical composition, and improvisation, although most of Fujiwara’s music sounded well organized in advance. All three players rose to an individual expression, working as a composite unit to deliver solo embellishments. Roles were malleable, as the listener decided whether everyone was soloing, or no-one. All three members were devoted to establishing a sensitive group consciousness, and they succeeded eminently.” The trio is a continuation of several of Tomas’s musical interests, including the flexible roles and multifaceted possibilities of a particular instrument, and the sounds of multi-percussion ensembles, from his days as a performer in Stomp, to his bands Triple Double and Double Double, as well as other double drummer ensembles he’s been a part of such as Living By Lanterns, No Moto, and the Taylor Ho Bynum 7-tette.

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