Venue:
Christ Church Neighborhood House Theatre20 North American StreetPhiladelphia, PA Map
Price:
$25 General Admission/$60 Festival Pass (link in event description)
Sponsored by: 
Composer Portrait: Henry Threadgill has been supported by The Pew Center for Arts & Heritage through the Philadelphia Music Project.
Sunday, June 5, 2011 - 8:00pm
Henry Threadgill & Zooid
AACM | Great Black Music
Henry Threadgill, alto saxophone, flute
Jose Davila, trombone, tuba
Liberty Ellman, guitar
Christopher Hoffman, cello
Stomu Takeishi, acoustic bass
Elliot Humberto Kavee, drums
“Henry Threadgill has long been one of the most thrillingly elusive composers in and around the jazz idiom: a sly maestro of unconventional timbres, bristling counterpoint and tough but slippery rhythms.” - The New York Times
“I write mutable music. I’m not interested in the fixed idea. You have to change. For me, it’s death otherwise. To stop seeking, to stop moving, is death.” - Henry Threadgill
Please join Ars Nova Workshop for a very rare Philadelphia performance by Henry Threadgill's Zooid, a singular creative music sextet whose recent albums and performances have been praised by The Wire, The New York Times, Village Voice, Wall Street Journal, and NPR.
AACM Festival Passes for admission to all five events are available for $60. You can purchase them here.
Joining the AACM in the late-1960s, composer-performer Henry Threadgill worked alongside Anthony Braxton, Muhal Richard Abrams, Joseph Jarman, Steve McCall, and Roscoe Mitchell. Over the years he has worked with Fred Hopkins, Leroy Jenkins, David Murray, Billy Bang, and the ensemble Air, and has led many pioneering creative music ensembles, including Make a Move, Very Very Circus, the Henry Threadgill Sextet, and Zooid, which has released two highly celebrated albums on Pi Recordings. One of the most original jazz composers of his generation, Threadgill’s art transcends stylistic boundaries and embraces the world of music in its entirety, from ragtime to circus marches to classical to bop, free jazz, and beyond. A given project might exploit a particular genre or odd instrumentation, but whatever the slant, it always bears its composer’s inimitable personality.
Pre-Concert Public Discussion with Francis Davis
[NOTE: We apologize for the inconvenience, but the pre-concert discussion with Francis Davis and Henry Threadgill is cancelled. The performance by Henry Threadgill & Zooid will still begin at 8pm.]
Francis Davis is an American author and journalist currently living in Philadelphia. He is best known as the jazz critic for The Village Voice, and a contributing editor for The Atlantic Monthly. He has also worked in radio and film, and taught courses on Jazz and Blues at the University of Pennsylvania. Along with international publication, Davis has been widely recognized with awards, including a Guggenheim Fellowship (1992), a Pew Fellowship (1993), a Grammy Award, and the Jazz Journalists Association Lifetime Achievement Award (2007). He has written several celebrated books on jazz, including Outcats, Bebop and Nothingness, and Jazz and Its Discontents.
Ars Nova Workshop is a Philadelphia nonprofit jazz and experimental music presenting organization. As a facilitator between artists and their audiences, Ars Nova Workshop works to inform, inspire and challenge listeners in order to elevate the role of jazz, improvisation and experimental music in contemporary culture.