Donny McCaslin

Ars Nova Workshop is excited to present the genre-defying saxophonist Donny McCaslin, best known as the saxophonist on David Bowie’s last album, Blackstar, at Solar Myth on Saturday, May 18, 2024.

Donny McCaslin is a visionary artist, saxophonist and composer who is pushing the boundaries of jazz. The noted composer and bandleader has released a dozen albums over his genre-defying, Grammy-nominated career. McCaslin joined the Gary Burton Quintet fresh out of Berklee College of Music and went on to work with greats including Dave Douglas, Danilo Pérez, Brian Blade, Pat Metheny and Tom Harrell, among others. Bowie saw McCaslin perform as soloist for the Maria Schneider Orchestra and brought in McCaslin’s progressive quartet (with Jason Lindner, Tim Lefebvre and Mark Guiliana), which came to define Blackstar‘s visionary stylistic fusion. As David Hadju wrote in The Nation, “Donny McCaslin was David Bowie’s David Bowie.” In turn, Bowie influenced McCaslin, who fused alt-rock and jazz on his subsequent albums, including last year’s I Want More, a monumental and vital addition to the jazz canon that elevates the genre to a new dimension and smashes conventional perceptions of what a jazz album can be.