Experience music imagined and created in real-time. This season will run from October 2026 to May 2027. We will announce the full schedule soon!
Performances will take place in the Hartford Ballroom at 56 Arbor Street, Suite #411, Hartford, CT.
Doors open at 2 p.m. The concert begins at 2:30 p.m.
To get inside the 56 Arbor Street building, please use the main entrance on Arbor Street. Come into the lobby and take the elevator up to the 4th floor. Once you’re on the 4th floor, check in with our staff to purchase or show your ticket(s), and turn right to arrive at Suite 411.
October 4 Performance:
Larry Ochs – tenor and soprano saxophone
Larry Ochs works on and breathes music. He composes. He plays saxophone. He looks for adventurous ideas to take on and for other artists – musicians and friends in other art mediums – to take them on with him.
Ochs is primarily found in the worlds of “avant-garde” or “improvised music.” That means that he composes music for “structured improvisation” in general, and in particular for musicians steeped in the art of improvisation, an art form that has really only come into its own in Western music in the past 50 years, primarily thanks to the development of jazz as influenced by the blues and then by Western art music, as well as to the increased exposure of Western musicians to the music of Asia, Africa and Eastern Europe.
But any artists in the visual arts or other performance-based arts that have an interest in taking chances are welcomed in. Thus, for example, he has worked with Shinichi Iova Koga and his dance group inkBoat; he and Rova have collaborated with We Players, a very cool theater company in the Bay Area, and has toured and recorded with Korean performance artist and vocalist Dohee Lee.
Rova Saxophone Quartet: Since 1978, Ochs’s professional activities have been primarily centered around the Rova Saxophone Quartet, (www.rova.org) which has made over thirty-five European tours plus numerous concerts throughout the U.S. and Canada, as well as recording over 30 CDs/LPs as a quartet and/or in collaboration with other artists. Ochs has created roughly two dozen compositions for saxophone quartet as well as other pieces for Rova within larger ensembles, many of which are recorded, and some of which were commissioned by Chamber Music America/Doris Duke Foundation and Meet the Composer. He has been executive director of Rova:Arts since 1988. A recent concert video and accompanying documentary on the making of “Electric Ascension” recorded at 2012 Guelph Jazz Festival was screen at film festivals in 2014, and released by Rogue Art in 2016.
As CEO of Rova:Arts, he books tours for Rova and produces shows in the Bay Area. Unusual shows in extraordinary environments have included the Rova-produced bi-annual event New Music on the Mountain, taking place at the top of Mt. Tamalpais overlooking San Francisco Bay from approx.. 1996 – 2004. The annual Rovaté concert series has taken place since 2000 and generally features a wolrd premier work or set of works for Rova plus guest artists. And with Rova he has helped organize concerts in Grace Cathedral (San Francisco), the 16th century Minoriten Monastery (Wels, Austria) and the 12th century Plasy Monastery (Czech Republic).
In addition Ochs currently composes for and leads The Fictive Five with New York–based musicians Nate Wooley, Ken Filiano, Pascal Niggenkemper, Harris Eisenstadt (“The Fictive Five”- 2015 CD on Tzadik / 2019 CD on Clean Feed); Larry Ochs Aram Shelton Quartet («Continental Drift» — 2020 CD); Kihnoua with vocalist Dohee Lee, Scott Amendola and special guests (“The Sybil’s Whisper”- 2012 CD – music samples here); Larry Ochs Sax & Drumming Core with Scott Amendola, Don Robinson, Satoko Fujii, and Natsuki Tamura. He is performing in and often composing for more “collective” bands such as: Trio Nels Cline / Gerald Cleaver / Larry Ochs; Ochs-Robinson Duo with drummer Don Robinson («A Civil Right»— 2021 CD); Jones Jones – with Mark D resser and Vladimir Tarasov («Just Justice» – 2022 CD on ESP-Disk); East-West Collective with Didier Petit, Sylvain Kassap, Miya Masaoka, Xu Fengxia (“Humeurs” – 2014 CD – music samples); Maybe Monday – with Miya Masaoka and Fred Frith (Unsquare -2008 CD); Trio Dave Rempis- Darren Johnston- Larry Ochs (3 recordings since 2012).
Michael Wimberly was born and raised in Cleveland, Ohio, during the civil rights era, surrounded by the toxic fumes of steel mills buoyed by a sea of blue-collar workers. This is where Wimberly’s early beginnings in soul, funk, rock, jazz, and classical music began. Beating rhythms on the hoods of cars and boxes while dancing to the pulsating music of James Brown, Sly Stone, Funkadelic, and Aretha Franklin…the spirit of revolution was in the air.
It was during Wimberly’s undergraduate years at Baldwin Wallace University that the rhythms from the streets connected him to the rhythms of West Africa and 20th century contemporary music. During his graduate years at Manhattan School of Music, Wimberly broadened his musical palette by studying electronic and improvised music. Music of the African Diaspora and improvisation have become key components of Wimberly’s musical excavations and explorations. These explorations connected him with master musicians from Africa, Asia, the Caribbean, South America and Europe. He’s performed with funk legends George Clinton and the Parliament Funkedelic; The Boys Choir of Harlem; Paul Winter Consort; rock icons: Vernon Reid, Henry Rollins, and Blondie; R&B royalty: Dionne Warwick, Valerie Simpson, D’Angelo, Angie Stone and Alyson Williams. Wimberly has been a featured artist with Berlin’s Rundfunk Symphony, Vienna’s Tonkuntsler Symphony, Leipzig Symphony, and International Region Symphony Orchestra performing compositions of Daniel Schnyder, as well as his own orchestral compositions performed by Yakima Symphony Orchestra, and Sage City Symphony of Vermont.
As a composer and sound designer, Wimberly’s compositions have been performed by dance companies Urban Bush Women, Joffrey Ballet II, Alvin Ailey, Ailey II, Philadanco, Forces of Nature Dance Theatre, Joan Millers Dance Players, Complexions Contemporary Ballet, Ballet Noir, Alpha Omega, Purelements, and The National Song and Dance Company of Mozambique. Film scores include As An Act of Protest by Dennis Leroy Moore, and Atlantic City Lights by Brent Owens for HBO. Sound design for theatre includes Shakespeare’s Midsummer Night’s Dream for the Classical Theatre of Harlem, Saint Lucy’s Eyes by Bridgette Wimberly for the Women’s Project & Cherry Lane Theatre, and Iced Out, Shackled and Chained for the National Black Theatre for which Wimberly received two Audelco nominations.
Wimberly’s percussion instruction book/DVD “Getting Started on Djembe” and “Getting Started on Cajon” have received outstanding reviews and is available from Hudson Music/Hal Leonard publications. His latest album, “Afrofuturism” on the Temple Mountain Record label (TMR) distributed on Warner Music Group/Level, can be accessed on all major streaming sources. Wimberly joined the Bennington faculty in Fall 2012, where the revolutionary spirit continues in his courses on black music by Sun Ra, Bill Dixon, and Milford Graves, and regenerates through courses on Funk, Improvisation, Composition for Dance, and global rhythms.
Nate Wooley-trumpet
Hailed as making “… the most progressive campfire music ever” by The New York Times, Nate Wooley has been a quiet force in reshaping contemporary American music. Born in Clatskanie, Oregon, Wooley began playing professionally in his father’s big band at age twelve. He is now an internationally recognized performer, a leading-edge composer, and a champion of the wonderful strangeness of American experimentalism.
As a trumpet player, Wooley has been an important interpreter of experimental composition, making his premiere as a soloist with The New York Philharmonic in 2019. His For/With series has led to the commissioning, premiere, and documentation of new works for trumpet from composers such as Christian Wolff, Wadada Leo Smith, Sarah Hennies, and others. As an improviser, he has been a part of a movement to redefine the technical possibilities of the instrument. His solo performances have been described as “exquisitely hostile” by Massimo Ricci of Touching Extremes, and he has worked with such iconoclasts as Anthony Braxton, John Zorn, Evan Parker, Annea Lockwood, and Éliane Radigue.
Wooley’s compositions are evolving amalgams of improvisation, folk music, text, and immersive experiences that communicate an arc of human experience from the fragility of being alone to the ecstasy of collectivity. His series of solo works based on the physicality of speech, Syllables, redefined the way the trumpet’s virtuosity if perceived. Much of his composition is collaborative, such as his ecstatic song cycle, Seven Storey Mountain and the ever-evolving Mutual Aid Music compositional ecosystem. Recent work has been dedicated to ecology, documenting the cohabitation of natural features and industrial presence, which then becomes a part of the composition’s polyphony. He has been commissioned by Yarn/Wire, Dither Quartet, and his work has been performed by Apartment House, among other ensembles.
Wooley is also a writer of essays on new music published in The New York Review of Books, The Nation, and E-Flux Journal and others. His writing explores the maverick spirit of American experimentalism as well as shining light on emerging and underheard voices in the international improvised music and composition worlds. To this end, he founded and was the editor-in-chief of Sound American, a print and online music journal making space for musicians to speak in their own words, for ten years. The journal, which had a run of thirty issues, was internationally distributed and remains a critical and community favorite among musicians and music fans.
Joe Morris-bass
Joe Morris is a composer/improviser multi-instrumentalist who plays guitar, double bass, mandolin, banjo, banjouke, electric bass, and drums. He is also a recording artist, educator, record producer, concert producer/curator, and author. He is considered to be one of the most original and important improvising musicians of our time. Down Beat magazine called him “the preeminent free music guitarist of his generation.” Will Montgomery, writing in The Wire magazine, called him “one of the most profound improvisers at work in the U.S.”
He is originally from New Haven, Connecticut. At the age of 12, he took lessons on the trumpet for one year. He started on guitar in 1969 at the age of 14. He played his first professional gig later that year. With the exception of a few lessons, he is self-taught. The influence of Jimi Hendrix and other guitarists of that period led him to concentrate on learning to play the blues. Soon thereafter, his sister gave him a copy of John Coltrane’s OM, which inspired him to learn about Jazz and New Music. From age 15 to 17, he attended The Unschool, a student-run alternative high school near the campus of Yale University in downtown New Haven. Taking advantage of the open learning style of the school, he spent much of his time playing music with other students, listening to ethnic folk, blues, jazz, and classical music on record at the public library, and attending the various concerts and recitals on the Yale campus, including performances by Wadada Leo Smith. He worked to establish his own voice on guitar in a free jazz context from the age of 17, drawing on the influence of Coltrane, Miles Davis, Cecil Taylor, Thelonious Monk, Ornette Coleman, as well as the AACM, BAG, and the many European improvisers of the ’70s. Later he would draw influence from traditional West African string music, Messiaen, Ives, Eric Dolphy, Jimmy Lyons, Leroy Jenkins, Steve McCall, and Fred Hopkins. After high school, he performed in rock bands, rehearsed in jazz bands, and played totally improvised music with friends until 1975, when he moved to Boston.
Between 1975 and 1986, he was active on the Boston creative music scene as a performer and concert and music community organizer. He composed music for his first trio in 1977. In 1980, he traveled to Europe, where he performed in Belgium and Holland. When he returned to Boston, he co-founded the Boston Improvisers Group (BIG). Over the next few years, through various configurations, BIG produced two festivals and many concerts. In 1981, he formed his own record company, Riti, and recorded his first LP, Wraparound, with a trio featuring Sebastian Steinberg on bass and Laurence Cook on drums. Also in 1981, he began what would be a six-year collaboration with the multi-instrumentalist Lowell Davidson, performing with him in a trio and duo. Between 1986 and 1989, he lived in New York City, where he performed at the Shuttle Theater, Club Chandelier, Visiones, Inroads, Greenwich House, etc., as well as performing with his trio at the first festival Tea and Comprovisation held at the Knitting Factory. In 1989, he returned to Boston, where he lived until 2001. In 1994, he became the first guitarist to lead his own session in the twenty-year history of Black Saint/Soul Note Records with the trio recording Symbolic Gesture. In 2000, he began playing upright bass, and in 2001 he returned to the New Haven, Connecticut area.
He has performed or recorded with Anthony Braxton, John Zorn, Evan Parker, Matthew Shipp, William Parker, Wadada Leo Smith, David S. Ware, Sunny Murray, Marshall Allen, Dewey Redman, Lawrence “Butch” Morris, Andrew CyrilleJoe Maneri, Barry Guy, Tyshawn Sorey, Ken Vandermark, Mary Halvorson, Han Bennink, Barre Phillips, Tomeka Reid, Paul Rutherford, Agustí Fernández, Nate Wooley, Peter Evans, Gerald Cleaver, Rob Brown, John Butcher, Eugene Chadbourne, DKV Trio, Aaly Trio, Daniel Carter, Rashid Bakr, Wilbur Morris,, Kidd Jordan, Alvin Fielder, Ikue Mori, Zeena Parkins, Tim Berne, Fred Anderson, Ivo Perelman, Andrea Parkins, Hamid Drake, Thurman Barker, Fred Hopkins, Bern Nix, Joe McPhee, Billy Bang, Lowell Davidson, Peter Kowald, Simon Fell, Roy Campbell Jr., Raphé Malik, Whit Dickey, Sabir Mateen, Mark Dresser, Gerry Hemingway, Warren Smith, Karen Borca, Malcolm Goldstein, Paul Lytton, Tim Berne, Suzie Ibarra, Mat Maneri, Sylvia Courvosier, Thurston Moore, Alex Ward, Jamie Saft and many others. He has also performed as a member of William Parker’s Organic Ensemble, Pipeline 2000, Jim Hobbs Ghost Band, Alan Silva’s Celestial Communications Orchestra, Simon Fell Orchestra, Agustí Fernández Celebration Ensemble, and in a large ensemble led by Leroy Jenkins. He currently leads various groups including Abstract Forest, a 20+ piece improvising ensemble, Go Go Mambo, Joe Morris Quartet, Mess Hall, Shock Axis, Plymouth, as well as performing solo, in duos, and as a freelance guitarist and double bassist. In 2019, he began his INSTANTIATION music, recording and performing the first four parts of the multi-part work that uses the properties of free music in new ways with various ensembles.
He is featured as leader, co-leader, and sideman on 150 recordings to date. Many of his recordings as a leader have been named among Writer’s Choice (best of the year) in the Village Voice, Chicago Tribune, Wire, Coda, and Jazziz, and on Free Jazz.org and All About Jazz.com. He has recorded for the labels AUM Fidelity, SoulNote, Thirsty Ear, Ayler, Knitting Factory, Okka Disc, OmniTone, Avant, Incus, Hat Hut, ECM, Leo, Homestead, NoMore, About Time, Clean Feed, Skycap, Rogue Art, Rare Noise, ESPdisk, Bug Incision, Relative Pitch, and Cuneiform. In 2014, he founded Glacial Erratic Records.
In 2019, he was nominated for a St Botolph Distinguished Artist Award. He received the 2017 Killam Visiting Scholar Award from the University of Calgary, Alberta Canada. He was the recipient of a Meet the Composer grant in 2004. He was nominated for a 2001 Calarts Alpert Award. He was nominated as New York Jazz Awards Guitarist of the Year in 1998 and 2002.
In 2012, he published the book Perpetual Frontier: The Properties of Free Music (Riti, 2012). His article Encryption was included in Arcane vol. 7 (Tzadik 2014). His article Perpetual Frontier appears on www.pointofdeparture.org (Pod39), May 2012. He has written numerous liner note articles on his music and for other artists for recordings on the labels Sony, Hat Hut, Aum Fidelity, RogueArt, and others. His monthly column Intentional Evolution began publication in the German magazine Jazz Podium in January 2020. He has presented workshops and master classes in a wide variety of settings throughout North America and Europe, including at Harvard University, Princeton University, Dartmouth College, University of the Arts, Berklee College of Music, University of Calgary, University of Guelph, University of Alberta, and Mannes School of Music. He has taught improvisation and/or guitar on the faculty at Tufts University Experimental College, Southern Connecticut State University, and the Longy School of Music at Bard College. He is a teaching faculty member at New School Jazz and Contemporary Music. He has been on the faculty in the Jazz and Contemporary Improvisation Department at New England Conservatory of Music since 2000.
He began his work as an organizer and performance producer/curator in 1976 in Boston and continued there and in New York until 2001, when he left Boston for New Haven, CT. Upon moving to Connecticut in 2001, he created the Just Play series in New Haven (2003/2004), curated the premier season at Firehouse 12 (2005), was artistic director for Hartford Jazz Society Jazz in the Park series (2008), co-founded and curated the Improvisations series at Real Art Ways in Hartford (2011–2016), and founded and co-curated the Multiplex series at State House in New Haven (2019). He was in residence at The Stone NYC for two weeks in January 2013, and for one week in June 2014, August 2016, June 2017, and May 2018. In September 2015 through June 2016, he produced the series Arcade, which presented him in performance with new emerging musicians, with ten performances presented in New Haven, Hartford, Cambridge, Mass., and Brooklyn, N.Y. His one-day festival Spectacle was presented at Real Art Ways in Hartford, CT, annually from 2013 to 2018. It featured emerging musicians performing in ad-hoc groupings with well-known professionals.
