The Chapel Restoration's 2012 Evening Music Series continues on Saturday, October 27 at 8 pm when the recipient of Downbeat Magazine's 2012 Critic's Poll award for "Rising Star" on violin, Jason Kao Hwang, performs with his quartet EDGE. EDGE features Taylor Ho Bynum (cornet/flugelhorn), Andrew Drury (drum set), Ken Filiano (string bass) and the leader, Jason Kao Hwang (composer, violin/viola). Admission is $15 for the event and $10 for seniors and students. The Chapel Restration is located at 45 Market Street in Cold Spring, New York and its website is http://www.chapelrestoration.org .
Nested in the urban mountains of New York City, Jason Kao Hwang’s EDGE quartet embraces both past and future with musical tales celebrating life and loss. Their instruments, resonant with human and animal overtones, sing through sharp lines vibrating between histories, cultures and genres. Founded in 2005, EDGE has released three CDs: EDGE (Asian Improv, 2006), Stories Before Within (Innova, 2007), and most recently Crossroads Unseen (Euonymus, 2011). Crossroads Unseen was selected as one of the top CDs of 2011 by Robert Ianapollo (NY Jazz Record), Troy Collins (All About Jazz) and Howard Mandel (Jazz Journalists Association. Stories Before Within was selected as one of the Top Ten Recordings of 2008 by Coda Magazine. All About Jazz selected their first CD, EDGE (Asian Improv Records), as one of the Top Ten CDs of 2006. In 2012 the critics poll of Downbeat Magazine voted Jason Kao Hwang as “Rising Star of the Year for Violin.”
EDGE recently toured Posnan, Katowice and Krakow, Poland. They have also performed at the Vancouver International Jazz Festival (Canada), JazzFest International (Victoria, Canada), Vision Festival XI (NYC), An Die Music (Baltimore), Roulette (NYC), the Smithsonian’s Freer Gallery (Washington, D.C.), and many other venues. They will perform at Edgefest (Ann Arbor, MI) this fall.
REVIEWS
Striking a delicate balance between freedom and form, Eastern and Western tonalities and dynamic shifts in mood, Crossroads Unseen offers a telling appraisal of Hwang’s talent for deftly transcending cultural divisions—one that places him at the creative forefront of his peers.
-- Troy Collins, All About Jazz
They’re now three albums old and one of the most creative and unique bands operating in improvised music today… Crossroads Unseen sounds like a mature band at the peak of their powers and is the strongest Edge release yet.
-- Robert Iannapollo, The New York City Jazz Record
Crossroads Unseen features the original EDGE personnel, a stellar line-up of free jazz veterans, in outstanding performances of five long, riveting Hwang compositions…The notion that the next great force in new jazz could be a violinist may seem a bit incongruous, but Crossroads Unseen is fresh, exciting and creative, and one of the best recordings of the year.
-- Karl Ackerman, All About Jazz
…a delicate, touching solo violin (an instrument that in Hwang’s hands can sing like an angel, crystal like a tear drop, or create fiery sparks as if there’s no tomorrow)…The EDGE manages to play the music that is
unmistakably jazz(the virtuosic and passionate soloing, the level of real-time interplay, the bluesy base at times or the swinging pulse) yet equally unmistakably modern (the composition’s intricacy, the love for chamber sound and dramaturgy) and intercultural(New York, Asia, folk, rock, classical, blues, jazz, experimental), adventurous, imaginative and disciplined. Quite an achievement but more importantly – just great music.
-- Krzysztof Penarski, jazzalchemist.blogspot.com (review of Krakow concert)
Both savage-like and scintillating, the compositions display multiple characteristics which enable the music to jump out at the listener…the core of the music is stemmed by a singular leading principle which aligns every track to share a kindred spirit…Hwang’s ability to cross cultures in his music has made him an eclectic composer and an exciting live performer…
-- Susan Frances, associatedcontent.com
BIOGRAPHIES
Jason Kao Hwang (composer, violin/viola) has created works ranging from jazz, “new” and world music. Mr. Hwang recently released two CDs: Symphony of Souls, performed by his string orchestra Spontaneous River, and Crossroads Unseen, the third CD of his quartet EDGE. The 2012 Downbeats Critics’ Poll voted him “Rising Star for Violin.” In 2011, EDGE toured Poland and the critics’ poll of El Intruso voted him #1 for Violin/Viola. In 2010, the NYC Jazz Record selected Commitment, The Complete Recordings, 1981-1983, from a collective quartet that was Mr. Hwang’s first band, as one of the “Reissued Recordings of the Year.” His octet Burning Bridge, commissioned by Chamber Music America/ New Jazz Works in 2009, performed at the Chicago World Music Festival the Smithsonian’s Freer Gallery, and Ann Arbor’s Edgefest. Innova Records will release Burning Bridge in the fall of 2012. Mr. Hwang’s opera, The Floating Box, A Story in Chinatown was named one of the “Top Ten Opera Recordings of 2005” by Opera News. Mr. Hwang has received support from US Artists International, Meet the Composer, the NEA, and others. As violinist, Mr. Hwang has worked with Reggie Workman, Pauline Oliveros, William Parker, Anthony Braxton, Henry Threadgill and many others. (jasonkaohwang.com)
Taylor Ho Bynum is a performer on cornet and various brass instruments, composer, bandleader, and interdisciplinary collaborator with artists in dance, film, and theater. Critics have called him “a young brass
master and compelling composer” (Boston Phoenix), “one of the most exciting figures in jazz’s new power generation” (Time Out Chicago), and “one of his generation’s top avant-garde figures” (The New York Times). The Guardian (UK) describes his work as “splicing the slurs and bluesy elisions of the earliest jazz brass players into the spiky phrasing and rhythm-pattern conundrums of contemporary music.” Bynum leads his Sextet and the chamber ensemble SpiderMonkey Strings, co-leads the little big band Positive Catastrophe with Abraham Gomez-Delgado, and works with many collective ensembles including a duo with Tomas Fujiwara and the quartet The Thirteenth Assembly. Bynum’s ongoing association with Anthony Braxton is recognized as one of the most fruitful partnerships of that iconic composer’s long career, and his work with Bill Dixon produced some of the departed trumpet innovator’s late masterpieces. He has worked with other legendary figures including Cecil Taylor and Wadada Leo Smith, and regularly performs with forward thinking peers like Mary Halvorson, Jason Hwang, Nicole Mitchell, Joe Morris, John Hebert, Gerald Cleaver, and Tyshawn Sorey. (taylorhobynum.com)
Andrew Drury is a percussionist, composer, improviser, and educator who has performed in over 20 countries and on 40 cds as a bandleader, as a soloist, and with Jason Kao Hwang, 10^32K (featuring Kuumba Frank Lacy), IRON DOG, Christine Abdelnour, and TOTEM>, to name a few. Originally from the Seattle area, Drury studied with Ed Blackwell and Bill Lowe at Wesleyan University in the 1980s and gained early playing experiences with Wadada Leo Smith, Dickie Wells, Wayne Horvitz, and a teenage Brad Mehldau. While maintaining and developing his connection to jazz he has since also worked in dance, environmental theater, new music, and has extended the sonic palette of the drum set by originating a battery of wind, friction, and bowing techniques. Recent and current projects include work with J.D. Parran, Robert Dick, Peter Evans, Kris Davis, Darius Jones, Denman Maroney, Brandon Seabrook, the composers Kevin James and Kristin Norderval, and the improviser Jack Wright. (andrewdrury.com)
Ken Filiano performs throughout the world, playing and recording with leading artists in jazz, spontaneous improvisation, classical, world/ethnic, and interdisciplinary performance, fusing the rich traditions of the double bass with his own seemingly limitless inventiveness. Critics have called him a “creative virtuoso,” a “master of technique” … “a paradigm of that type of artist…who can play anything in any context and make it work, simply because he puts the music first and leaves peripheral considerations behind.” An integral member of numerous ensembles, Ken also composes for his own quartet, Quantum Entanglements, (with Michael Attias, Michael T.A. Thompson, and Tony Malaby). His extensive discography includes the solo bass CD, “subvenire” (NineWinds) and his Quantum Entanglements CD, “Dreams From a Clown Car” (Clean Feed). Ken teaches bass and improvisation at his Brooklyn studio, and is on the teaching roster at The New School in New York. (myspace.com/kenfiliano)
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