The David Bindman Ensemble Residency at UMASS Dartmouth April 1-6
The David Bindman Ensemble will be in residence at UMASS Dartmouth during the week of April 1-6. The group will participate in a diverse range of activities, including classes, concerts, and collaborations with students and members of the community.
The ensemble performs original compositions by the saxophonist/leader. Many of these works are expansive narrative suites that explore rich layers of rhythmic and harmonic complexity, adapting elements from world music traditions, and drawing on the improvisational voices of the group's members.
During the residency, the group will perform and interact with students in many ways: collaborating with visual artists in real time to create work, interacting with students in theory, improvisation, composition, and electronic music classes. Throughout the week the ensemble will be playing works from their repertoire and unveiling new ones.
David Bindman Ensemble Performances
Tuesday, April 2 at 12:30 p.m. CVPA, room 153
Music Department Recital Series
Wednesday, April 3 at 8 p.m., CVPA room 104;
Rick Britto performance Jazz Session Series
with young artists in concert and session
Thursday, April 4, 4:30 p.m. auditorium
UMD Chancellor Divina Grossman inauguration
Friday afternoon, April 5, 2-4 p.m., Unity House
with poets at the Frederick Douglass
Friday night, April 5, 8 p.m., Wamsutta Club, New Bedford
Concert to benefit YWCA, sponsored by Neal Weiss and Whaling City Sound
Saturday, April 6, 8 p.m., St. Paul's United Methodist church corner of Kempton Street and Rockdale Avenue, New Bedford. UMass Dartmouth gospel choir directed by Professor Wes Brown, with the David Bindman Ensemble
Following the 2012 release of Sunset Park Polyphony, the group has received critical acclaim; critic Mike Shanley describes the music as 'a new forceful strain of jazz' while Sergio Picirilli writes that 'David Bindman completes here a successful creative circle born of his curiosity to understand the world.'
The group draws on long collaborations and newer connections. Bindman, bassist Wes Brown and drummer royal hartigan have been collaborating for 30 years. They have made numerous recordings together, including hartigan's Blood Drum Spirit: Live in China, Talking Drum's Some Day Catch Some Day Down, numerous works by Fred Ho, and most recently Bindman's 2-disc Sunset Park Polyphony. The quartet Blood Drum Spirit, joined by pianist Hirahara, have performed and conducted workshops in China and the Philippines.
Following a decade co-leading of the Brooklyn Sax Quartet, Bindman formed the ensemble in 2008 to perform a series of suites in community concerts in Brooklyn. He created works drawing on the sights and sounds close to home and on journeys of discovery and transformation; among the group's pieces, the album's title work Sunset Park Polyphony draws on Indian raga (modes) and tala (time cycles), while the multi-movement Landings Suite follows the fictional odyssey of an adventurer turned environmentalist and teacher.
Frank London, the group's trumpeter, leads the Klezmatics and is a leader in the downtown "radical Jewish music" scene in New York. Israeli-born trombonist Reut Regev leads her group R* Time with her husband Igal Foni, performing often in Europe. Wes Brown, who teaches bass and leads the UMD Gospel Choir, toured the world with legendary pianist Earl "Fatha" Hines, among many others. Art Hirahara, originally from the San Francisco bay area, leads his trio and is a freelance pianist in New York who performs around the world. royal hartigan has been teaching at UMD for 13 years, where he has helped build a program that includes West African drumming and dance and Javanese Gamelan, in addition to jazz.