Kris Davis News

The Rite of Spring – Spectre d'un songe, due out May 19, 2023 via Pyroclastic Records,

In celebration of the 78th birthday (June 4, 1945) of Anthony Braxton—one of the most important musicians, educators, and creative thinkers of our time, as well as a mentor to EiO—Experiments in Opera presents a rare run of performances of Compositions No. 279-283, composed in 2000 for improvisational actor and improvising musicians.

Hear the heroic story of Elizabeth “Mumbet” Freeman come to life in the world premiere performances of original compositions written by students and performed by musicians from the Berklee Institute of Jazz and Gender Justice on Saturday, October 29 at 1:30 p.m. at the MassArt Art Museum (MAAM), 621 Huntington Avenue, Boston.

NYC-based new music group Wet Ink Ensemble announces its three new Artists-in-Residence: Obie award-winning theater artist Rick Burkhardt, composer and drummer Vicente Hansen Atria, and saxophonist and composer Ingrid Laubrock.

Mesmerism meets drummer Tyshawn Sorey featuring pianist Aaron Diehl and bassist Matt Brewer. Sorey – a 2017 MacArthur Fellow, Professor of Music at the University of Pennsylvania, collaborator with Vijay Iyer, Kris Davis, Roscoe Mitchell, Hafez Modirzadeh, Myra Melford, Marilyn Crispell and other musical luminaries

“Interpret it well,” reads the script text in Raymond Pettibon’s mysteriously evocative drawing. A few thick black ink strokes describe an enigmatic landscape – the telephone poles, the railroad track and the building in the distance seem obvious enough as markers of desolation, but the swirl of lines on the horizon are more ambiguous. The steam from an approaching train? An oncoming tornado? Hope or dread, connection or destruction, all depend on interpretation.

Jazz at Princeton University, helmed by acclaimed saxophonist/composer Rudresh Mahanthappa, announces the return of the Princeton University Jazz Festival. Presented in conjunction with Jazz Appreciation Month, the event, which takes place Wednesday, April 27 – Saturday, April 30, features guest artists guitarist Gilad Hekselman, and saxophonists Seamus Blake, Tony Malaby and Alexa Tarantino performing with Princeton University's stellar student ensembles.

The Nasher Sculpture Center announces 'SCULPTING SOUND: Twelve Musicians Encounter Bertoia', a series of six historic concerts, from February 22–27, 2022, bringing together twelve master musicians to explore the expressive range of Harry Bertoia's sounding sculptures, in complement to the exhibition Harry Bertoia: Sculpting Mid-Century Modern Life on view at the Nasher January 29 – April 23, 2022. 

Bang on a Can announces the launch of LONG PLAY, a new, three-day destination music festival. Originally scheduled for May of 2020, Long Play will be presented for the first time from Friday, April 29 through Sunday, May 1, 2022.

The Nasher Sculpture Center announces 'SCULPTING SOUND: Twelve Musicians Encounter Bertoia', a series of six historic concerts, from February 22–27, 2022, bringing together twelve master musicians to explore the expressive range of Harry Bertoia's sounding sculptures, in complement to the exhibition Harry Bertoia: Sculpting Mid-Century Modern Life on view at the Nasher January 29 – April 23, 2022. 

The Doris Duke Charitable Foundation (DDCF) today announced the 2021 Doris Duke Artists, each receiving an award of $275,000 intended as an investment in their artistic potential and celebration of their ongoing contributions to the fields of contemporary dance, jazz and theater.

By September 2020, Stevens was hunkering down in his wife’s family's hometown of Pittsburgh, still busy with adjunct teaching (virtually) at Baltimore’s Peabody Institute while navigating his way through the crisis.

As trending in the greater jazz community, creative women earned significant recognition: Composer-orchestra leader Maria Schneider, whose album Data Lords (ArtistShare) is Record of the Year, and drummer-producer educator Terri Lyne Carrington, Jazz Musician of the Year, won multiple awards. Women prevailed in several other instrumentalists' categories, too.

See all results of JJA members' 25th annual voting in 47 categories that honor writers, photographers, broadcasters, books, documentaries, podcasts and live-stream productions as well as musicians' achievements, at JAJazzAwards.org. 

Trained in both jazz and classical music, West Coast-based pianist Dahveed Behroozi is the uncommon musician to earn endorsements from icons in both disciplines. Ursula Oppens, a renowned virtuoso of contemporary classical music, has praised Behroozi's “creativity, curiosity and integrity,” adding that “his performances are stunning, his interpretations astonishing.” Likewise, jazz piano star Fred Hersch has described Behroozi's music-making as “intense and immersive,” with the pianist's evolution as an improviser revealing “deep musical knowledge and devotion.”

Eight acclaimed jazz pianists — Kris Davis, Aaron Diehl, Orrin Evans, Sullivan Fortner, Aaron Goldberg, Kevin Hays, Fred Hersch, and Christian Sands perform solos and duets as part of a special fundraiser for The Jazz Foundation of America’s COVID-19 Musician’s Emergency Fund.

A highly skilled master of sound and sense, GRAMMY award-winning bassist and composer Eric Revis has crafted his artistic legacy around asking the same question again and again: Why not? Experimenting remains integral to his expression. Over the years, the critically-acclaimed artist's willingness to traverse the unknown has prompted collaborative partnerships with Branford Marsalis, Nasheet Waits, Kris Davis, Peter Brötzmann and Jason Moran.

Millions of viewers have experienced 92Y's classical online concerts since Garrick Ohlsson inaugurated the series in mid-March. Now, 92Y is proud to announce its Summer Season of classical concerts, twelve enticing and adventurous programs streaming July 7 a?" August 27.

Millions of viewers have experienced 92Y's classical online concerts since Garrick Ohlsson inaugurated the series in mid-March. Now, 92Y is proud to announce its Summer Season of classical concerts, twelve enticing and adventurous programs streaming July 7 - August 27.

Pianist and composer Cory Smythe evokes cyborg choirs and coastal floods on Accelerate Every Voice, his second release for Pyroclastic Records and the follow-up to 2018 album Circulate Susanna. Bringing together five vocalists from the a cappella, new and improvised music scenes, AEV cradles Smythe's piano in an uncanny valley of voices before submerging it in an undersea expanse.