Wednesday, September 7 at 8pm

Celso Fonseca

 

Come celebrate Brazilian Independence Day! With four critically acclaimed solo albums in his homeland and a 2002 Latin Grammy nomination for a duo album with Ronaldo Bastos, Celso Fonseca may have been considered Brazil’s best kept musical secret. Now touring in support of his recent release Rive Gauche Rio, the secret is finally out.

Celso Fonseca, the new boss of bossa. – Telegraph (UK)

Fonseca captures the easy sexiness and subversive groove the best of this music displays. – Midwest Record Recap

Brazilian Producer, Arranger, and Singer/Songwriter Celso Fonseca has been a vital part of the Brazilian music scene for many years, collaborating with some of the most successful and well-known performers of the music-rich nation including Gilberto Gil, Cataeno Veloso, and Bebel Gilberto. Over the course of several solo albums, including the international hit Natural, he has presented a more traditional approach to bossa nova with acoustic instruments mixing with subtle electronic flourishes. His warm, seductive style has been praised throughout Brazil and, is quickly gaining recognition throughout the world. Don’t miss this rare opportunity to hear Brazil’s latest rising star.

215 Festival

Wednesday, October 5 at 8pm

An Evening with Mike Albo

Writer, Performer and Dazzle Dancer Mike Albo brings his one-man show to International House Philadelphia. From pop culture icons to the everyday characters that inhabit our lives, Mike’s monologues are an all out assault on the things we hold dear. With his most recent book The Underminer , Albo and longtime collaborator Virginia Heffernan introduce us to that insidious individual who always delights in stealing our thunder. Everyone knows an underminer and, Albo’s book and performances capture the hilariously frustrating interactions we’ve all had with one.

Friday, October 7 at 8pm

As Smart As They Are: The Author Project

dir. Joe Pacheco, USA, 2005, video, 63 mins, color

Director Joe Pacheco and One Ring Zero in person

As Smart As They Are documents the collaboration between One Ring Zero, a band whose unique sound combines unconventional instruments with unorthodox techniques, and an ensemble cast of award-winning writers who each contributed original lyrics. Through capturing live performances, studio recording sessions and interviews with the writers and musicians the film explores the relationships between music and literature while painting a portrait of the New York literary community that fostered the band. With a live performance with the band and Q and A, MC'd by Philadelphia City Paper's Music Editor Patrick Rapa.

Saturday, October 8 at 8pm

Roscoe Mitchell Quartet

featuring special guest Muhal Richard Abrams

with Roscoe Mitchell, reeds; Muhal Richard Abrams, piano; Jaribu Shahid, bass;

Tani Tabbal, drums

Roscoe Mitchell’s innovations as a solo performer, his role in the resurrection of long neglected woodwind instruments of extreme register, and his reassertion of the composer in what has traditionally been an improvised form, have placed him at the forefront of contemporary music for over thirty years. He is a founding member of the world renowned Art Ensemble of Chicago and the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians. Born in Chicago. Mitchell started on clarinet and saxophone as a teenager. Later, while serving in the army in Germany, he played in a band with Albert Ayler. Upon his return in the 60s, Mitchell began a number of relationships that would last until this day. Read more

Friday, November 4 at 8pm

Anthony Braxton Sextet

with Anthony Braxton, reeds; Taylor Ho Bynum, trumpet; Jay Rozen, tuba; Jessica Pavone, violin; Carl Testa, bass; Aaron Siegel, drums

 

Composer and saxophonist Anthony Braxton attended the Chicago School of Music and Roosevelt University. He is a founding member of Chicago’s Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians, formed the Creative Construction Company with violinist Leroy Jenkins and trumpeter Wadada Leo Smith and recorded the seminal For Alto, the first-ever recording for solo saxophone. Subsequent collaborations included Circle with Chick Corea and Dave Holland, Italian free improvisation group Musica Elettronica Viva, guitarist Derek Bailey, drummer Max Roach, and pianist Hank Jones. Braxton's steadiest vehicle during the 80s and 90s – and what is often considered his most remarkable ensemble - was his quartet with pianist Marilyn Crispell, bassist Mark Dresser, and drummer Gerry Hemingway. 

Read more

Saturday, December 3 at 8pm

Wadada Leo Smith’s Golden Quartet

with Wadada Leo Smith, trumpet; Vijay Iyer, piano/Fender Rhodes; John Lindberg, bass; Nasheet Waits, drums

With his dry tone, extended use of silence and abrupt smears of color, Wadada Leo Smith is cast from a different model than most trumpet players. The brass instrument has long been seen as a vehicle for many flashy players as well as subtle coaxers of tone. It would seem then that Smith’s personal and inimitable world of sound stands in firm contrast to the history of the instrument, while his writing embraces the roots, philosophy, and history of many of the music’s poll bearers. Born in Leland, MS, Smith was exposed to the blues early on. The improvisational traditions of the Delta blues survive today intact in his music. He has studied in various programs; the US Military band, Sherwood School of Music, and at Wesleyan University. He is a member of the AACM and was one of it’s first to bring its concepts overseas. Read more

Friday, February 3 at 8pm

Ethnic Heritage Ensemble

with Kahil El’Zabar, percussion; Corey Wilkes, trumpet/percussion; Ernest Dawkins, alto/tenor saxophone/percussion

Performing together for over 25 years, the Ethnic Heritage Ensemble was founded by El’Zabar and tenor saxophonist Edward Wilkerson, Jr., who sought to fuse contemporary Afro-American musics with more traditional African instrumentation and rhythms. Featuring Art Ensemble of Chicago
trumpeter Corey Wilkes and Ernest Dawkins, founder of the New Horizons Ensemble, the trio’s “harmonically provocative and rhythmically seductive", Chicago Tribune, compositions impart an ancestral wisdom that conjure an energy rarely encountered in contemporary music.

+ Leroy Jenkins/Myra Melford Duo

with Leroy Jenkins, violin; Myra Melford, piano

Leroy Jenkins founded one of the first of many AACM ensembles, Creative Construction Company, in the late 60’s (with Braxton, Smith and Steve McCall). In 1970, this group provided New York City with its first performance of any AACM ensemble, taking what had previously been confined to Chicago into the national circuit. Jenkins has performed with Archie Shepp, Albert Ayler, and Alice Coltrane, but it was his work with the Revolutionary Ensemble

(co-founded with bassist Sirone and drummer Jerome Cooper) that gained Jenkins’ prominence as the most significant violinist of the modern era. For this performance he is joined by the innovative

and thoughtful pianist Myra Melford, who has collaborated with Han Bennink, Dave Douglas and Joseph Jarman.

Friday, March 17 at 8pm

Henry Threadgill’s Zooid

with Henry Threadgill, alto saxophone/flute/bass flute; Liberty Ellman, acoustic guitar; Rubin Kodheli, cello; Dana Leong, cello; Jose Davila, tuba; Elliot Humberto Kavee, drums

 

Henry Threadgill’s Zooid (a “zooid” is an organic cell capable of independent movement or several cells forming a colony) creates some of today’s most peculiar and adventurous music. With bizarre instrumentation and voicings, Threadgill’s compositions are visceral and compelling, and incorporate his experiences with gospel, blues, world and marching band music. Residing at the forefront of creative music for the past quarter of a century, Threadgill received the Best Composer honors in Down Beat magazine’s International Jazz Critic's Poll in 1991, 1990, 1989 and 1988, when he placed in 11 categories and had two albums nominated as Record of the Year. His late-70s ensemble Air (with Fred Hopkins and Steve McCall) is one of the AACM's most legendary collectives.

Saturday, March 25 at 8pm

The Books with Jose Gonzalez + Death Vessel

Co-presented by R5 Productions

In their first Philadelphia appearance, New England's The Books blend a unique balance of instrumental innovation, found-sound sampling, silence and space sweetly blended

with humor and absurdity. Their latest is an absolutely refreshing album that feels more natural than most records making use of heavy digital manipulation, augmenting the band’s core of cello, mandolin, banjo and guitar with new instruments and an overflowing library of found sounds and serendipitously found spoken word passages. Accompanied by a full live video show.

Jose Gonzalez is one serious talent - a delicate open tuned guitarist in a style somewhere between Brazilian song and classic period late sixties early seventies English folk. His voice simply melts any ill considered opposition, sotto voce and well balanced. You’d choose González to sing you to sleep any night of the year.

Just off tour with Iron & Wine and Calexico, Death Vessel is led by guitarist, singer and songwriter Joel Thibodeau. Using the organic instrumentation of rural sounds, the band delivers a collection of wonderfully twisted art-folk songs which propel Thibodeau’s soaring soprano voice into the stratosphere.

Saturday, May 20 at 8pm

Around the World with Relache

Co-presented by International House Philadelphia + Relache

Exotic and sultry, the restless music of Sophia Serghi seduces listeners with the sounds and rhythms of her Mediterranean homeland, Cyprus. Relâche lets loose with a world premiere commission from Serghi that explores acoustics, modes, and other sonic discoveries from Ancient Greece. Also on the program, Argentinean composer Claudio Triputti’s passionate tangos, Turkish composer Kamran Ince’s ecstatic dervish dances, and hypnotic Balinese melodies from Claude Vivier.

Saturday, July 15 at 7pm

Venezuelan Sounds 2006 - Featuring The Trio de Cuatro with special guests Casa de Venezuela’s Music Ensemble

Presented by The Cultural Affairs Office of the Embassy of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela Casa de Venezuela Delaware Valley + International House Philadelphia

 

A spectacular group of young and talented Venezuelan cuatrists come together in this ensemble. These virtuosos represent Venezuela’s new generation of musicians.

Exceptionally talented, The Trio de Cuatro showcase not only the Venezuelan music genre but also the high level of ability reached with the cuatro, a four string small guitar and Venezuela’s national instrument. Delight your senses with the Joropo rhythms from Los Llanos (the plains) shared by Venezuela and Colombia.

Join us for The Trio de Cuatro’s only appearnace in the Philadelphia Region.

Thursday, August 3 at 8pm

An Evening with The Red Krayola with special guests The Notekillers

Co-presented by the Institute of Contemporary Art + sponsored by FunSavers

at PhillyFunGuide.com.   A Speigel Fund Event.

International House Philadelphia is pleased to announce a rare performance by

The Red Krayola, celebrating this seminal band that has continued to push the boundaries of rock for four decades. This concert appearance will feature a line-up representing all stages of the band’s life.

 

The Red Krayola, led by front man Mayo Thompson, has featured a rotating personnel of musicians and artists: including Albert Oehlen, Stephen Prina, and Christopher Williams, whose works are on display in Make Your Own Life at the ICA. In fact, Thompson has been a key player in the artistic and social migrations at the heart of the exhibition, moving from Texas

to New York to London to Colonge to Los Angeles, and now Edinburgh, Scotland. More about The Red Krayola.

This one-night-only show coincides with Make Your Own Life: Artists in and out of Cologne at the Institute of Contemporary Art in Philadelphia. The exhibition has been extended for a special tour and wine + cheese reception at 6:30pm prior to the show led by Jenelle Porter, Associate Curator and artist/musician Stephan Prina. ICA will be open 5-8pm that evening. The exhibit examines the mythic and art historical significance of Cologne, Germany in the 1980s and 90s when it was one of the most important centers for contemporary art in Europe.

Philly Fringe Festival

Friday, September 8 at 8pm

The Valerie Project

Co-presented by Joseph A Gervasi

The Valerie Project has some of the music from this performance on MySpace,

(the only live performance of the piece so far). Click here to listen.

live score by members of Espers, Fern Knight, Fursaxa and Grass and featuring Greg Weeks, Mary Lattimore, Charles Cohen, Jesse Sparhawk and special guest performance by Marissa Nadler

Valerie and Her Week of Wonders

dir. Jaromil Jires, Czechoslovakia, 1970, 16mm, 72 mins, color, w/ English subtitles

Philadelphia musicians led by Greg Weeks, bring new life to a forgotten classic of the Czech New Wave, Valerie and Her Week of Wonders. The sound goes off and the amps get cranked (do harps need amps?) as a collective of Philadelphia's finest underground musicians pay tribute to this seminal film of the new folk movement. Their lush haunting melodies are the perfect compliment to this surreal tale in which love, fear, sex and religion merge into one fantastic world. When a 13-year-old girl crosses the threshold into womanhood, her life unfolds as a gothic saga of vampires, witchcraft, and mysticism. Rich in imagination, color, and textures, this remarkable film has been described as “a Jodorowsky/ Bergman co-production of a Grimm’s fairytale.”

Philly Fringe Festival

Saturday, September 9 at 5pm + 8pm and Sunday, September 10 at 3pm

OneDream

Co-presented by ArcheDream + ONE

OneDream is a mask and music adventure featuring the universal themes of air, fire, water, earth and spirit, directed by Glenn Weikert of ArcheDream for HUMANKIND and Thomas Flanagan

of ONE. OneDream combines brightly colored neon masks, movement and costumes of with an original score performed live. Instrumentation includes sitar, guitar, sarod, tabla, trombone and drums.

The essence of ONE is an instrumental world fusion experience. Having worked together for over seven years, the five multi-instrumentalists of ONE bring well

over a century of combined experience to the stage.

ArcheDream for HUMANKIND is a multidisciplinary mask theatre that uses dance, pantomime and puppetry to tell magical tales. Characters such as Peace, Anger, War, Fire and Water grace the stage while special effects support the characters with dramatic and sometimes supernatural stunts. OneDream is a highly inspired collaboration.

Thursday, September 21 at 8pm

Dengue Fever with special guests Extra Golden

Co-presented by

Dengue Fever is in the vanguard of an emerging global pop sensibility, making music that’s both familiar, yet eerily unique. Fronted by Cambodian pop star Ch’hom Nimol, who sings in Khmer, the Los Angeles sextet blends the rhythms of ‘60s Cambodian pop - heavily influenced by American surf, rock and early psychedelic garage bands - with their own eclectic mix of American and international styles. Dengue Fever is more concerned with

a universal groove and breaking down musical barriers than with notions of authenticity. There are echoes of Bollywood soundtracks, Ethiopian soul, American R&B, Cambodian folk, Spaghetti Western weirdness and girl group angst in the mix, but the resulting concoction is all their own.

Wednesday, October 11 at 8pm

Matmos with special guests So Percussion

Co-presented by R5 Productions

M. C. (Martin) Schmidt and Drew Daniel are the core members of Matmos, an experimental eclectronica duo from San Francisco, aided and abetted by many others, including notably J Lesser. In their recordings and live performances over the last nine years, Matmos has made music out of the sounds of objects, animals, people and actions. They’ve used the sounds of amplified crayfish nerve tissue, the pages of bibles turning, a bowed five string banjo, slowed down whistles and kisses, water hitting copper plates, the runout groove of a vinyl record, a $5.00 electric guitar, liposuction surgery, contact microphones on human hair, violins, tanks of helium, violas, human skulls, cellos, peck horns, cards shuffling, field recordings of conversations in hot tubs, frequency response tests for defective hearing aids, whoopee cushions and balloons, latex fetish clothing, rhinestones on a dinner plate, Polish trains, insects, ukulele, aspirin tablets hitting a drum kit from across the room… the list goes on.

Matmos has collaborated with Rachel's, So Percussion, Jay Lesser, Alter Ego, People Like Us, Kronos Quartet and Bjork. They have shared stages with Slint and Wolf Eyes, remixed Foetus and Erase Errata (and many others), taught seminars on sound art at Harvard University and the San Francisco Art Institute, and DJed at proms for homeless teenagers. They have had pieces in the Whitney Museum of American Art and The Natural History Museum of Los Angeles, and performed live at the Yerba Buena Museum of Contemporary Art in San Francisco.

Saturday, October 14 at 8pm

Philadelphia Four – World Premiere performance

with Dave Burrell, piano; Reggie Workman, bass; Muhammad Ali, drums; Rashied Ali, drums

“Burrell crams a century of jazz history into every chugging stride episode and churning dissonance. Encyclopedic as well as eccentric, he’s a living treasure.” – Francis Davis, The Village Voice

Since the mid-1960’s, Dave Burrell has contributed to nearly 150 recordings including pivotal works such as Archie Shepp’s Attica Blues , Pharoah Sanders’ Tauhid, Marion Brown’s Three for Shepp and Grammy Award-winner David Murray’s Lovers and Ballads. A recipient of the Pew Fellowship in Jazz Composition, Burrell’s recent releases include Expansion with his Full-Blown Trio with William Parker and Andrew Cyrille, which was nominated as The Village Voice’s #2 Jazz album of 2004, the reissue of 1970’s After Love (Universal Records) featuring Roscoe Mitchell, and Consequences, his first recording with Medeski, Martin and Wood percussionist Billy Martin.

Reggie Workman has long been one of the most technically gifted of all bassists. After working regularly with Gigi Gryce, Red Garland, and Roy Haynes, he became a member of the John Coltrane Quartet, participating in several important recordings such as Africa/Brass and Impressions. Subsequently, Workman became a member of Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers, and groups led by Yusef Lateef, Herbie Mann and Thelonious Monk. He recorded frequently in the 1960s (including many Blue Note dates and Archie Shepp’s classic Four for Trane).

A Philadelphia native, Rashied Ali became a fixture of New York’s avant-garde in the 1960s, backing up the excursions of such musical free spirits as Don Cherry, Pharoah Sanders, Paul Bley, Archie Shepp, Bill Dixon and Albert Ayler. Ali’s relationship with John Coltrane began in 1965, resulting in the seminal duo recording Interstellar Space. Following Coltrane’s death in 1967, Ali continued playing with pianist Alice Coltrane. A student of Philly Joe Jones and an admirer of Art Blakey, Ali developed the style known as “free jazz” drumming, which liberates the percussionist from the role of human metronome.

This unique performance brings Rashied together with his brother Muhammad Ali best known for his contributions to the music of Archie Shepp, Frank Wright and Alan Shorter. He also appeared on Albert Ayler’s last recording, Music is the Healing Force of the Universe.

Saturday, November 4 at 8pm

Cecil Taylor

"I discovered very early that it wasn’t quite enough for me to imitate people.” – Cecil Taylor

Few musicians have explored the full tonal range of a keyboard the way that Cecil Taylor has. Since forming his quartet in the mid-50s (which originally included Steve Lacy on soprano saxophone, bassist Buell Neidlinger, and drummer Dennis Charles), Taylor has been an uncompromising trail-blazer. His blending of jazz and modern classical sensibilities has transformed the jazz vocabulary, similar to the work of Ornette Coleman and John Coltrane, with whom he recorded Coltrane Time (Blue Note Records) in 1958. By 1962, Taylor was performing frequently with longtime associate Jimmy Lyons and Sunny Murray, with whom he recorded Nefertiti, The Beautiful One Has Come at Cafe Montmartre, one of the greatest live recordings in jazz. The alumni from his ensembles also include jazz greats such as Archie Shepp, Roswell Rudd, Max Roach, Derek Bailey, Tony Oxley and Leroy Jenkins. In addition, he has collaborated with the Art Ensemble of Chicago and drummer Tony Williams.

Even after 45 years as a recording artist he continues to create with astounding rigor and was recently awarded the National Endowment of the Arts Jazz Master Award.

Friday, December 8 at 8pm

Spaceship on the Highway – East Coast Debut

with Fred Anderson, tenor saxophone; Marshall Allen, alto saxophone; Henry Grimes, bass; Avreeayl Ra, percussion

A "free-form summit...dominated by stratospheric eruptions." - Downbeat

Please join us for the east coast debut of Spaceship on the Highway, a new quartet of jazz masters and elder statesmen. Philadelphia native Henry Grimes performed with Anita O'Day, Sonny Rollins, and the Gerry Mulligan Quartet. A versatile instrumentalist, Grimes (quite remarkably) performed at the 1958 Newport Jazz Festival with the Benny Goodman Big Band, Lee Konitz, Sonny Rollins, and Thelonious Monk. In 1961 he became a respected contributor to the Free Jazz movement, working regularly with Cecil Taylor, Perry Robinson, Sonny Rollins, Albert Ayler and Don Cherry. By 1967, however, Grimes disappeared completely from jazz. Following three and half decades of destitution, he resurfaced in 2003, after residing in a South Central Los Angeles hotel for nearly 20 years. He now performs regularly with many of the leaders of modern Jazz.

Chicago's Fred Anderson, an "old-school" musician in terms of grounding and early influences, was a founding member of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM). He studied with Gene Ammons, Coleman Hawkins, and Lester Young, and has reflected that training throughout his career, while also easily absorbing the new ideas pioneered by Ornette Coleman and other free theorists. It is this ability to merge old and new that has made Anderson a seminal figure in this music. Beginning in the early 90s, Anderson has frequently recorded, often with drummer Hamid Drake, on labels such as Thrill Jockey. 

Spaceship also includes Sun Ra Arkestra maestro Marshall Allen, who performed with pianist Art Simmons, Don Byas and James Moody before joining the Arkestra in 1958 and leading Sun Ra's formidable reed section for next 40 years. Marshall, along with John Gilmore, June Tyson and James Jacson, lived, rehearsed, toured and recorded with Sun Ra almost exclusively for much of Ra's musical career. As a member of the Arkestra, Marshall Allen pioneered the Free Jazz movement of the early sixties, having remarkable influence on most of the leading voices in the avant-garde. He is featured on over 200 Sun Ra recordings in addition to collaborating with Phish, Sonic Youth, Digable Planets and Medeski, Martin & Wood.

Percussionist Avreeayl Ra was described by the Chicago Tribune as An indispensable innovator", who "shapes the music-making swirling around him with remarkable precision and poise; extraordinarily sensitive percussion. Avreeayl is a long-term member of the Chicago AACM, his relationship with the seminal music organization having begun with early studies with co-founder Kelan Philip Cohran. He has performed Amiri Baraka, Fontella Bass, Lester Bowie, Henry Byrd (Professor Longhair), Malachi Favors, Sun Ra, and Pharoah Sanders.