Ars Nova Workshop is beyond excited to announce a new member of our team: Anthony Tidd is coming on as our Chief Creative Catalyst! Anthony has worked with us unofficially for a number of years, and we have decided to just jump in and bring him officially on staff. Anthony will be instrumental in helping Ars Nova create programs and opportunities for creative music and revitalization in Philadelphia and around the world.
Biography
A child of Trinidadian parents, Anthony Tidd was born, raised and educated in London, England, and he’s been a Philadelphian for more than two decades. Anthony is a true leader in Philadelphia’s creative music scene. As an international touring bassist, he has worked with Steve Coleman, Greg Osby, Ravi Coltrane, Vijay Iyer, Talib Kweli, Rudresh Mahanthappa, Meshell Ndegeocello, Common, Jill Scott, De La Soul, David Byrne, Frank Ocean, and many others. As an accomplished composer-bandleader, he released his critically acclaimed album Quite Sane – The Child of Troubled Times in 2002, and he has written and recorded works for everything from small ensembles, to big bands, and orchestras. (There’s a new Quite Sane in the works now!)
A Grammy Award-winning musician in his own right, Anthony has also recorded and produced a number of records for multiplatinum artists such as The Roots, Macy Gray, Lady Gaga, The Black Eyed Peas, Fergie, Pink, Ursula Rucker, etc. He also has a career composing scores for major film and television projects, most recently including Jay Z’s Paramount/BET docuseries Rest in Power – The Trayvon Martin Story and Seven Years, a 90-minute words-and-music production for Amazon Audible that featured Black Thought of the Roots.
As an educator and long-standing member of the M-BASE collective, Anthony has taught and presented masterclasses at a number of prestigious institutions, including New York University, Temple University, The New School, University of Chicago, University of California, San Diego, University of California, Los Angeles, Banff Center (Canada), Berklee College of Music, New England Conservatory, Engelsholm (Denmark), The Pavarotti Center (Bosnia), The Lincoln Center, Durban University (South Africa), Paris Conservatory (France), The London South Bank (U.K), The Royal College of Music (U.K), and many others. Tidd also served as the creator and director of well-respected education programs such as the Creative Music Program and Jazz Camp of Philadelphia. For more than 10 years, he was also curator of Meet the Masters and the popular Philly concert series Sittin’ In at the Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts.
In 2020, he founded ACT4Music, a venue/platform which hosted an eight-week online international festival featuring more than 100 hours of performances from 250 artists based all over the world. Most recently, in 2022 Tidd was part of the creative team that wrote and premiered the new Off-Broadway sensation Black No More, along with John Ridley, Tariq Trotter, James Poyser, Daryl Waters, and Bill T. Jones.