Frederick Experimental Music Association

FREDERICK EXPERIMENTAL MUSIC ASSOCIATION SPRING 2026 CONCERTS

Design by Bodie Dennis, Rumblecroon Studios, Frederick.

FEMA INAUGURATES
American Music @ 250
with
Steppin’: The Music of Julius Hemphill
a two-concert series presented at
Hodson Auditorium/Rosenstock Hall @ Hood College

Frederick Experimental Music Association will present Steppin’: The Music of Julius Hemphill, a two-concert series, at Hodson Auditorium, located in Rosenstock Hall on the campus of Hood College in Frederick, Maryland.

The first major retrospective of Hemphill’s music in the more than 30 years since his death, Steppin’: The Music of Julius Hemphill celebrates a great American composer on the 250th anniversary of the nation.

The first concert of the series will be given by Marty Ehrlich and Maryland Saxtet on Saturday, April 11th. The second concert will be given by The Hemphill Stringtet on Friday, May 29th. Doors for both events will open at 7:30pm for the 8pm concert.

General admission tickets are $20 for each concert, and may be bought in advance through Event Brite.

Tickets for Marty Ehrlich and Maryland Saxtet can be purchased here:
Marty Ehrlich + Maryland Saxtet: Steppin': The Music of Julius Hemphill, Sat, Apr 11, 2026 at 8:00 PM

Tickets for The Hemphill Stringtet can be purchased here:
The Hemphill Stringtet: Steppin': The Music of Julius Hemphill, Fri, May 29, 2026 at 8:00 PM

Steppin’: The Music of Julius Hemphill is made possible through grants from The Delaplaine Foundation and Maryland State Arts Council, with additional support from Plamondon Hospitality Group.

About Julius Hemphill

Julius Hemphill (1938-1995) was an African American composer and saxophonist who not only wrote for his own small and large jazz ensembles, but also for such renowned classical music artists as Kronos Quartet and pianist Ursula Oppens, and for collaborations with renowned artists like Lester Bowie and Bill T. Jones. He is best known as the principal composer for the pioneering World Saxophone Quartet, “the first supergroup to emerge from the loft jazz of the 1970s” (The Penguin Guide to Jazz). Mixing blues, R&B, and jazz vernaculars with structures and methods used in contemporary classical music, Hemphill’s compositions blurred the boundaries between genres and presented a panoramic view of American music.

Hemphill’s perspective was the product of unique formative experiences. Raised in Fort Worth, the first person he saw playing a saxophone was his cousin, Ornette Coleman. His high school instrumental music teacher was the now-esteemed composer, clarinetist, and Down Beat Hall of Fame member, John Carter. After apprenticeship stints with R&B legends like Ike and Tina Turner, Hemphill co-founded the St. Louis-based Black Artists Group in 1971. In addition to being a community-based platform for visual artists, writers, dancers, and actors, BAG launched the careers of consequential musicians like Hemphill and his colleagues Oliver Lake, Baikida Carroll, Joseph Bowie, and a teenage virtuoso saxophonist, Marty Ehrlich. Reflecting BAG’s DIY ethos, Hemphill recorded in 1972 the now-classic Dogon A.D., which has been recently reissued on New World Records.

Like many of his contemporaries in St. Louis and Chicago, Hemphill relocated to New York in the mid-1970s, contributing compositions and arrangements to Lester Bowie’s Fast Last and recording Anthony Braxton’s groundbreaking composition for saxophone quartet on New York, Fall 1974; leading his own ensemble at the legendary Wildflowers festival; and producing and recording his landmark performance piece, Roi Boye and his Gotham Minstrels, ”a classic” in the opinion of The Penguin Guide to Jazz Recordings, that would “guarantee Hemphill a place among the major figures of the last 50 years.”

Hemphill embarked on two projects in the late 1970s that became central to his legacy. With Lake and Hamiet Bluiett – the other two saxophonists on the crucial Braxton recording – Hemphill formed World Saxophone Quartet in 1977, the fourth member being David Murray. The other was the premiere of Ralph Ellison’s Long Tongues, a collaboration with BAG member, actor-director Malinke Robert Elliott, at the Corcoran Museum of Art in 1978.

Defying conventional wisdom, World Saxophone Quartet became internationally renowned, praised by The New York Times for having “a chamber ensemble's balance, a saxophone section's swing and its members' wide experience to make music that leaps from gutbucket stomps to free improvisation.” As its principal composer, Hemphill shaped the group’s identity with pieces that made exultant use of popular idioms and others that put Duke Ellington’s sepia-toned voicings for his saxophone section into a new, prismatic light. Many of the compositions that form the core of his output – including “Steppin’,” “Revue,” and “Border Town” – were first recorded by WSQ. However, Hemphill’s deteriorating health caused him to leave the group in 1991.

Undergoing an almost decade-long evolution from an intimate, abstract multi-disciplinary work based on Ellison’s Invisible Man to a large-scale theatrical production set in the Bohemian Caverns, the storied D.C. jazz club Ralph Ellison’s Long Tongues became Long Tongues: A Saxophone Opera, receiving its first concert reading at Lincoln Center’s Alice Tully Hall in 1987, with fully staged versions presented at D.C.’s Lincoln Theater, Harlem’s fabled Apollo Theater, and Boston’s Strand Theater in 1989-90.

After his departure from WSQ, Hemphill formed the all-saxophone Julius Hemphill Sextet, whose members included Long Tongues collaborators Carl Grubbs and Andrew White (who was a member of the JFK Quintet, the Bohemian Caverns’ house band of the early 1960s), as well as established voices like Tim Berne, James Carter, and Ehrlich. Ehrlich took over as musical director of the Sextet when Hemphill’s failing health prevented him from performing, and after he died on April 2, 1995. Among the Sextet’s recordings made after Hemphill’s passing is At Dr. King’s Table, which includes music for his collaboration with choreographer Bill T. Jones, The Last Supper at Uncle Tom’s Cabin: The Promised Land.

In the last dozen years of his life, Hemphill composed works for classical music artists, ranging from Mingus Gold for Kronos Quartet, solo piano and piano quintet works for his late-life partner, Ursula Oppens, and Plan B for the Richmond Symphony Orchestra and saxophone soloists.

Upon his death, Julius Hemphill was inducted into Down Beat Magazine’s Hall of Fame.

About the Artists

Marty Ehrlich

Marty Ehrlich began his musical career in St. Louis, Missouri, while in high school, performing and recording with the Black Artists Group-affiliated Human Arts Ensemble. He graduated from the New England Conservatory of Music with honors in 1977, where his teachers included George Russell, Jaki Byard, and Gunther Schuller.

Ehrlich has led over two dozen recordings of his compositions for ensembles ranging in size from duo to jazz orchestra. These groups include his Dark Woods Ensemble, Emergency Peace Ensemble, Rites Quartet, Traveler’s Tales Group, and the Marty Ehrlich Sextet.

Ehrlich has performed with a who’s who of contemporary composers including Muhal Richard Abrams, Anthony Braxton, John Carter, Andrew Cyrille, Jack DeJohnette, Anthony Davis, Chico Hamilton, Julius Hemphill, Andrew Hill, and Wadada Leo Smith. He appears on more than 100 recordings with these and other composers.

Ehrlich has performed with the Chicago Symphony, the BBC Symphony, the New York City Opera, Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, Chamber Music Northwest, and other classical ensembles. He has worked with the Jose Limón and Bill T. Jones dance companies, among others. His honors include a Guggenheim Fellowship in Composition, the Peter Ivers Visiting Artist Residency at Harvard University, composition grants from Chamber Music America, the NEA, and NYFA, and a Distinguished Alumni award from New England Conservatory. He is retired from his tenure overseeing the jazz program at Hampshire College, and currently supervises the Julius Hemphill Papers at New York University.

Maryland Saxtet

Three highly respected Maryland resident musicians have joined forces to form Maryland Saxtet: Darryl Brenzel, Howard Burns, and Gregory Thompkins.

Darryl Brenzel is a saxophonist, composer, arranger, and educator who lives in Frederick. He currently teaches jazz saxophone at Towson University and Gettysburg College, and jazz arranging at Shenandoah University. In addition to leading his own ensembles, which have performed at Kennedy Center, Blues Alley, and the East Coast Jazz Festival. Brenzel has performed on various woodwinds with orchestras including the National Symphony Orchestra and the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra. He has appeared at major jazz festivals, including Montreux, North Sea Jazz Festival, and the Newport Jazz Festival. As a composer and arranger, Brenzel has produced a large body of work for big band and various chamber music configurations, including a critically acclaimed reorchestration of Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring for jazz orchestra.

Composer and saxophonist Howard Burns has been an educator for more than 40 years, best known in Frederick as the Jazz Band Director at Frederick Community College for more than 30 years. A native of Baltimore who lives in Hagerstown, Burns received his Bachelor degree from Howard University in 1979 and a performance degree from the Belgian Royal Conservatory of Music in 1980 in classical saxophone, and has studied with saxophonists Thomas (Whit) Williams and George Coleman. Burna has performed with various jazz legends as Jimmy Heath, Jimmy Cobb, Clark Terry, Gary Bartz, and Eddie Henderson. For almost 20 years, Burns was the Director of the Don Redman Next Generation Jazz Academy at Harpers Ferry National Historical Park.

Baltimore’s Gregory Thompkins leads his own groups, directs the Baltimore Jazz Education Project, and teaches jazz history at the Renaissance Institute Notre Dame of Maryland University. After earning his degree in 1989 from Towson University, where he studied with Hank Levy and Greg Hatza – and privately with Carl Grubbs – Thompkins became a ubiquitous presence on the Baltimore jazz scene as a member of numerous ensembles including Lafayette Gilchrist’s New Volcanoes and The AfroBeat Society, and as the leader of his own ensembles. Called “One of Baltimore’s premier tenor saxophonists” by the Baltimore Sun, Thompkins has been frequently included in the year’s-best revues by Baltimore Magazine and The City Paper. His last Frederick performance was in December 2024, a FEMA-presented duo concert with Gilchrist at YMCA Ausherman Arts Center.

The Hemphill Stringtet

The Hemphill Stringtet is a conventionally configured string quartet dedicated to the music of Julius Hemphill. Each member of the Stringtet has impressive individual credentials.

In addition to being one of classical music’s brightest rising stars as a soloist and composer, seven-time Grammy-nominated violinist and composer Curtis Stewart is Artistic Director of the American Composers Orchestra and a professor at the Julliard School of Music. In 2025, Stewart gave his first public performance of Coleridge-Taylor’s Ballade with the National Philharmonic Orchestra at Strathmore Hall; the Virginia Symphony Orchestra premiered his I wouldn't stop there: in the words of a KING; his American Caprices was commissioned by American Public Media and Juilliard Pre-College; and he was appointed as the Hartford Symphony Orchestra’s 2025-2026 Joyce C. Willis Artist in Residence and Composer-in-Residence. In addition to The Hemphill Sextet, Stewart is a member of the award-winning ensembles, PUBLIQuartet and The Mighty Third Rail, and has worked with forward-thinking musicians like Henry Threadgill and SilkRoad Ensemble.

Sam Bardfeld is a violinist, composer, arranger and author. He is a member of The Jazz Passengers, a frequent collaborator of Bruce Springsteen, and has worked with everyone from Elvis Costello to Anthony Braxton, and Debbie Harry to The Red Clay Ramblers. Bardfeld’s immersion in New York’s fertile Salsa and Latin Jazz scene led to writing Latin Violin (Hal Leonard, 2002), considered to be the authoritative text on the Afro-Cuban violin tradition. He is also an instructor of jazz violin at the New School jazz program in NYC. Bardfeld is an Ambassador for Schertler pick-ups and endorses Acoustic Image amplifiers.

Stephanie Griffin is an innovative composer and violist. Born in Canada and based in New York City, her music has taken her from Indonesia to England, and from Mexico to Mongolia. In addition to her work with The Hemphill Stringtet, Stephanie is the founder of the Momenta Quartet in 2004 and the principal violist of the Princeton Symphony, Griffin received a Doctor of Musical Arts degree from The Julliard School and is on the faculty of Brooklyn College. Griffin has received composition fellowships from the Jerome Foundation and the New York Foundation for the Arts.

MacArthur “Genius” Tomeka Reid is a critics’ poll-winning jazz cellist and composer, and the Artistic Director of the annual Chicago Jazz String Summit. In addition to leading her critically acclaimed quartet, Reid has performed with ear-shaping artists like Art Ensemble of Chicago and Anthony Braxton. From 2019 to 2021 Tomeka Reid held the Darius Milhaud chair in composition at Mills College. She has also been the Artist in Residence for the Moers Jazz Festival, a Visiting Roth Scholar, and visiting professor at Dartmouth College. She received her doctorate in music from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign in 2017.

Listen to The Hemphill Stringtet Plays the Music of Julius Hemphill here: The Hemphill Stringtet Plays the Music of Julius Hemphill | The Hemphill Stringtet | Out Of Your Head Records

FREDERICK EXPERIMENTAL MUSIC ASSOCIATION PAST CONCERTS

Design by Bodie Dennis, Rumblecroon Studios, Frederick.

OCTOBER 11th
AMINA CLAUDINE MYERS, piano
A Tribute to Lester Bowie and Fontella Bass
JBK Theater Frederick Community College – 7932 OPPOSSUMTOWN PIKE.

National Endowment for the Arts Jazz Master Amina Claudine Myers has been a force in American music for over a half-century. In addition to leading her own ensembles and releasing twelve albums, the keyboardist and singer has performed with a long list of luminaries, including Rahsaan Roland Kirk, Pulitzer Prize winning composer Henry Threadgill, and Charlie Haden’s Liberation Music Orchestra. Of her new, inspiring solo album, Solace of the Mind, Jazz Times proclaimed, “Amina Claudine Myers is speaking quietly – the quietest ever – while holding the heaviest and holiest of sticks.”

An early member of Chicago’s famed Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians, Myers was a member of several ensembles led by Lester Bowie, including his Quintet and his New York Organ Ensemble. But it was in Bowie’s From the Root to the Source, an ensemble whose repertoire spanned gospel, rhythm and blues, and jazz, that Myers collaborated with singer Fontella Bass. Although she is most widely known for the soul classic “Rescue Me,” Bass made iconic recordings with Art Ensemble of Chicago and Bowie during their marriage, and later became a towering figure in gospel music.

For its third annual concert, FEMA’s tribute expanded to include both Lester Bowie and Fontella Bass.

Watch the National Endowment for the Artis Jazz Masters’ short documentary about Amina Claudine Myers here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B1AhnUg-peY

ECHOES
... of the 20th Century ...

Design by Bodie Dennis, Rumblecroon Studios, Frederick.

DECEMBER 6th
FAY VICTOR, voice + ANTHONY COLEMAN, piano + RATZO HARRIS, double bass
Herbie Nichols SUNG
Frederick YMCA Arts Center – 115 E. CHURCH ST.

Since his death in 1963, Herbie Nichols has become one of the most influential composers in jazz. Although he is best known for “Lady Sings the Blues,” very few of Nichols’ compositions had lyrics. Fay Victor has rectified that with her Herbie Nichols SUNG project, writing lyrics that convey the whimsy, romance, and ever-changing sameness of the blues that permeates Nichols’ mid-century modern music. In a program recently given at Kennedy Center, Victor, whom The New York Times called “a singer with her own brand,” pianist Anthony Coleman, and double bassist Ratzo Harris, transforms the music of a jazz great.

Air Legacy Trio: Hilliard Greene; Marty Ehrlich; Pheeroan ak Laff

NOVEMBER 15th
MARTY EHRLICH, woodwinds + HILLIARD GREENE, double bass + PHEEROAN AK LAFF, percussion
Air Legacy: The Music of Henry Threadgill, Fred Hopkins, and Steve McCall
Frederick YMCA Arts Center – 115 E. CHURCH ST.

Air was one of the most impactful small groups of the 1970s and ‘80s. Though it is generally recognized as the initial platform for Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Henry Threadgill, Air was renowned for equalizing woodwinds, double bass, and percussion, into a readily identifiable ensemble sound. Air Legacy is a trio with an almost umbilical connection, as percussionist Pheeroan ak Laff joined New Air after the passing of McCall. Rounded out by double bassist Hilliard Greene and saxophonist/clarinetist/flutist Marty Ehrlich, Air Legacy gives new life to a body of work foundational to a towering figure in current American music.

SEPTEMBER 26th
LUCIAN BAN, piano + MAT MANERI, viola
Transylvanian Dance: éla Bartók and Romanian Folk Music
Frederick YMCA Arts Center – 115 E. CHURCH ST.

In addition to acclaimed work in various jazz and chamber music settings, pianist Lucian Ban and violist Mat Maneri have extensively researched the fieldwork of composer Béla Bartók, who documented Romanian folk music through thousands of transcriptions, recordings, and photographs, during the 1910s and ‘20s. Their work has resulted in one of the year’s most highly praised albums, Transylvanian Dance, issued by the prestigious ECM label. Ban and Maneri have transformed melodies that are as old as the hills into music that is lyrical, evocative, and new.

Onilu: Joe Chambers and Kevin Diehl

MAY 23rd, 2025
ONILU: JOE CHAMBERS + KEVIN DIEHL
Frederick YMCA Arts Center – 115 E. CHURCH ST.

Onilu is an ensemble utilizing the extensive family of drummed and tuned percussion instruments to create beautifully composed and arranged small ensemble music. Contrary to the stereotype of modern percussion ensembles as esoteric or academic pursuits, Onilu – the Yoruba word for drummer – creates music that reaffirms the powerful social and sacred musics made in African diasporic communities and across cultures since the beginning of human time.

The members of Onilu are:

Joe Chambers is a living legend, the drummer on classic 1960s Blue Note recordings by Wayne Shorter, McCoy Tyner, Andrew Hill, Sam Rivers, and Bobby Hutcherson. In 1970, Chambers became a founding member of Max Roach’s breakthrough percussion ensemble M’Boom, and performed in the large ensemble Charles Mingus assembled for his historic 1971 concert at Lincoln Center’s Philharmonic Hall. Since the mid-1970s, Chambers has focused on recording his own compositions for Blue Note and other labels, developing distinctive voices as a vibraphonist and a pianist, and leading small groups and large ensembles.

Kevin Diehl leads the enduring Philadelphia-based Afro-Cuban-Yoruba ensemble Sonic Liberation Front, whose eight CDs have garnered international critical acclaim. Diehl also performs with NEA Jazz Master Marshall Allen’s Ghost Horizons ensemble, and has recorded with other Philadelphia jazz legends like Sunny Murray and Jamaaladeen Tacuma. Diehl is also a priest and an Ilu Bata (keeper of the sacred drums) of the Lucumi (Afro-Cuban-Yoruba) culture, and the founder of the Lucumi Youth Choir.

Anthony Pirog, Devin Gray, Dave Ballou.

MARCH 1st, 2025
DEVIN GRAY TRIO with DAVE BALLOU and ANTHONY PIROG
Frederick YMCA Arts Center – 115 E. CHURCH ST.

Devin Gray is a top call drummer in modern jazz circles in New York City and Berlin, Germany. His fresh approach to modern drumming has enabled him to play with many of the world’s great jazz musicians: David Liebman, Sam Rivers, Kris Davis, Angelica Sanchez, and many others.

A graduate of Peabody Conservatory, Gray came up in the thriving Baltimore jazz scene, where he first encountered trumpeter Dave Ballou and guitarist Anthony Pirog, both of whom are renowned leaders in their own rights. Together, they create rapid-fire three-way exchanges and virtuosic fireworks, lulling occasionally in vividly colored soundscapes.

Design by Bodie Dennis, Rumblecroon Studios, Frederick.

APRIL 19th, 2025
JACQUELINE KERROD, harp + JOE MORRIS, guitar
Frederick YMCA Arts Center – 115 E. CHURCH ST.

South African harpist Jacqueline Kerrod has performed with everyone from Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center and NEA Jazz Master Anthony Braxton to Rufus Wainwright and Jane Birkin. She has premiered more than a dozen works written for her by South African composers. In her solo music, Kerrod has made innovative use of electronics. A seasoned improviser, her latest CD with cornetist Taylor Ho Bynum, Simple Ways Such Self, documents their 2023 performance as part of FEMA’s IF: Improvisers Forum series, presented at the Frederick YMCA Arts Center. Joe Morris is one of the more innovative guitarists to emerge in the past 40 years, integrating African, Asian, and Eastern European influences into a singular vocabulary. Appearing on nearly 200 recordings playing guitar or double bass, Morris has been on the faculty of the New England Conservatory of Music since 2000. He is the author of Perpetual Frontier: The Properties of Free Music, published in 2012.

MARCH 29th, 2025
TERRY JENOURE, violin, voice + ANGELICA SANCHEZ, piano
Frederick YMCA Arts Center – 115 E. CHURCH ST.

Terry Jenoure is a polymath, a violinist, a vocalist, a visual artist working in a variety of media, a scholar documenting African American performing artists in academia, and an educator specializing in diversifying arts education in public schools. A member of the ensemble that recorded John Carter’s epochal Roots and Folklore: Episodes in the Development of American Folk Music in the 1980s, Dr. Jenoure’s own music frequently draws upon the life experiences of her parents and grandparents, a family with Jamaican and Puerto Rican roots. Over the years, the duo with Angelica Sanchez has become central to Jenoure’s music. The Arizona-born pianist has collaborated with iconic figures like Wadada Leo Smith, recorded albums praised by, among others, National Public Radio and The New York Times, and received numerous awards and fellowships in the US and Europe.

FEBRUARY 22nd, 2025
JASON KAO HWANG, violin + SUN LI, pipa
Frederick YMCA Arts Center – 115 E. CHURCH ST.

Violinist and violaist Jason Kao Hwang has been a leader in the integration of American and Asian music since the 1990s, when his Far East Side Band included Chinese American, Korean American, Japanese American, and African American instrumentalists. In addition to composing for his renowned ensembles – including Human Rites, Critical Response, and Burning Bridge – Hwang has written extended works like The Floating Box: A Story in Chinatown, one of the Opera News’ Top Ten Opera Recordings of 2005. Hwang is the recipient of many grants and fellowships from such esteemed bodies as the National Endowment for the Arts, Meet the Composer, and the Rockefeller Foundation. Before coming to the US in the early 2000s, pipa player Sun Li was a member of the Central Song and Dance Ensemble of Beijing, performing traditional Chinese music internationally. Since 2002, she has performed with the New York-based Music from China, garnering acclaim for her “virtuosic and colorful” music by The New York Times. She has been a soloist with several US orchestras, performed with Jason Kao Hwang at new music festivals throughout North America, and given recitals at Lincoln Center, the Staunton Music Festival, and other prestigious classical music festivals.

DECEMBER 6th, 2024
LAFAYETTE GILCHRIST, piano + GREGORY THOMPKINS, tenor saxophone
Frederick YMCA Arts Center – 115 E. CHURCH ST.

Familiar to Frederick audiences from his performances at the Weinberg Center and New Spire Arts, pianist Lafayette Gilchrist returned in duo with his longtime colleague, tenor saxophonist Gregory Thompkins. The pianist NPR called “an old soul, at ease in the modern world,” Gilchrist has an encyclopedic knowledge of the jazz piano tradition, and can invoke the spirits of Ellington, Monk, and others at any moment. The Music Director of the Baltimore Jazz Education Project, Thompkins has absorbed the tenor tradition from Coleman Hawkins onward to creative ends. After years of working together in Gilchrist’s New Volcanoes and other settings, this was their first duo concert.

NOVEMBER 2nd, 2024
LILI MAYA, video + JAMES ROUVELLE, electronics
Frederick YMCA Arts Center – 115 E. CHURCH ST.

Artist Lili Maya and composer James Rouvelle have paired original music and video art in live performance internationally since 2009. Maya, a longtime faculty member of the Maryland Institute College of Art, and Rouvelle, a Julliard-trained composer, create performances that integrate traditional and emerging media in a way that permits improvisation both visually and musically through a set of organized sections that are arranged in real time. Maya’s room-sized screens and Rouvelle’s sound system create an immersible environment of vivid images and sounds.

OCTOBER 18th, 2024
SAM PLUTA, electronics + JOHN DIERKER, woodwinds
Frederick YMCA Arts Center – 115 E. CHURCH ST.

An internationally recognized pioneer in the art of live processing – taking the sounds produced in real time by his collaborators, transforming them with advanced software, and mixing them into evolving improvisations – Sam Pluta moved to Baltimore several years ago to become the chair of the electronic music department at the Peabody Institute. Baltimore native John Dierker is a mainstay of the city’s creative music scene, his tenor saxophone and clarinets being a core ingredient to the avant-funk of Lafayette Gilchrist’s New Volcanoes, and beyond-category ensembles like Microkingdom and Quartet Offensive. This was the duo’s first concert outside of Baltimore.

OCTOBER 4th, 2024
WADADA LEO SMITH: A TRIBUTE TO LESTER BOWIE
New Spire Arts – 15 W. PATRICK ST.

Russ Lossing

SEPTEMBER 21st, 2024
RUSS LOSSING TRIO
Frederick YMCA Arts Center – 115 E. CHURCH ST.

New York City-based pianist, composer, and improviser, Russ Lossing has been at the forefront of creative jazz for over 30 years. Since the early 1990s, Lossing has performed internationally at major jazz clubs and festivals, and has recorded 23 albums as a leader for labels in the US and Europe. Lossing is also known for his longtime association with master drummer Paul Motian.

The press in the US and Europe have praised Russ Lossing. Downbeat Magazine proclaimed that “Lossing shines as brightly as any of the jazz pioneers who preceded him in mapping out their own musical journeys.” The Village Voice lauded Lossing as a “gripping improviser, pulling ideas out of the air and nudging them into the action at hand as if they always belonged there.” Jazzman, France’s respected jazz magazine, delved into how Lossing “illuminates the silence, suspends the time, and intensifies the collective flux. The wealth of his harmonic knowledge, the fluidity of his phrasing and his attention to the weight of every single note creates a sound palette for endless pleasures.’

Lossing was joined by veteran drummer Billy Mintz, and trombonist Samuel Blaser.

Angelica Sanchez

MAY 10th, 2024
ANGELICA SANCHEZ
Frederick YMCA Arts Center – 115 E. CHURCH ST.

Pianist/Composer/Educator Angelica Sanchez moved to New York from Arizona in 1994. Since moving to the East Coast Sanchez has collaborated with such notable artists as Wadada Leo Smith, Paul Motian, and Richard Davis, among others. Sanchez leads numerous groups, the most recent being her Trio with Michael Formanek and Billy Hart and her Nonet.

Her music has been recognized in national and international publications including Jazz Times, The New York Times, and The Chicago Tribune. She was also the 2008 recipient of a French/American Chamber Music America grant, the 2011 Rockefeller Brothers Pocantico artist residency, and the 2021 Civitella Ranieri Fellowship, Italy.

Sanchez’s recordings have won critical praise since Sanchez’s debut solo CD A Little House was featured on NPR’s Weekend Edition. More recently, her piano duo How to Turn the Moon with Marilyn Crispell was voted as one of the top 50 best recordings in the 2020 NPR critics poll. Sparkle Beings, featuring her trio with Michael Formanek and Billy Hart, was chosen by The New York Times as one of the top ten Jazz recordings of 2022. And the recently issued Night Creatures, the debut album of her Nonet, was enthusiastically reviewed by NPR’s Kevin Whitehead.

Angelica Sanchez has a Masters Degree in Arranging from William Paterson University. She is currently on faculty at Bard College.

Matthew Shipp

APRIL 13th, 2024
MATTHEW SHIPP
Frederick YMCA Arts Center – 115 E. CHURCH ST.

Matthew Shipp possesses a unique style that is entirely his own, one of the few pianists in jazz that can say so. Down Beat cited Shipp as a “musician who deserves a place of choice in the jazz piano pantheon … he is the connection between this past, present and future for jazz heads of all ages.” The Wall Street Journal stated that “Shipp has helped define, with uncommon distinction, a fresh range of possibilities for contemporary pianism grounded in jazz tradition - raise complex questions and yet invites listeners in.”

With his unique and recognizable style, pianist Matthew Shipp worked and recorded vigorously from the late '80s onward, creating music in which free jazz and modern classical intertwined. He first became well known in the early ‘90s as the pianist in the David S. Ware Quartet, and soon began leading his own dates -- most often including Ware bandmate and leading bassist William Parker, and recording a number of duets with the legendary Roscoe Mitchell, who later performed with Shipp’s trio at a historic 1997 Carnegie Hall concert.

After establishing a new trajectory in chamber jazz through a series of recordings for the Swiss, Hat Hut label, Shipp was the curator and director of the acclaimed "Blue Series" of recordings issued on the Thirsty Ear label in the 2000s, a body of work that set a benchmark for 21st Century jazz. Shipp has continued to be a prolific recording artist, leading or co-leading nearly 100 titles, and counting.

Shipp maintains a vigorous performance schedule, regularly performing at major jazz festivals throughout North America and Europe.

Alexander Hawkins

MARCH 16th, 2024
ALEXANDER HAWKINS
Frederick YMCA Arts Center – 115 E. CHURCH ST.

Alexander Hawkins is an Oxford UK-based composer, pianist, organist, and bandleader. Working in a vast array of creative contexts, he seeks to reconcile both a love of free improvisation and a fascination with composition and structure.

His writing has been said to represent “a fundamental reassertion of composition within improvised music,” and his voice one of the “most vividly distinctive ... in modern jazz.” As a pianist, he has been praised for “possessing staggering technical ability and a fecund imagination as both player and composer.” Brian Morton, co-author of The Penguin Guide to Jazz, calls Hawkins “the most interesting Hammond [organ] player of the last decade and more.”

In addition to his solo concerts, Hawkins performs in duos with Nicole Mitchell, Evan Parker, and Tomeka Reid. His trio, quartet co-led with vocalist Elaine Mitchener, and larger ensembles receive enthusiastic reviews throughout Europe. Togetherness Music, released in January 2021, has been called a masterpiece that stands next to the best works of Roscoe Mitchell and Anthony Braxton.

In 2012, he was chosen as a member of the first edition of the London Symphony Orchestra’s “Soundhub” program for young composers. He has been widely commissioned by the likes of the BBC, and has performed festivals in Berlin, Chicago, and London and venues such as the South Bank Centre and the Pierre Boulez Saal. He was named “Instrumentalist of the Year” in the 2016 Parliamentary Jazz Awards. In 2018, he was elected a fellow of the Civitella Ranieri.

Hawkins’ concert was his first on the East Coast.

Trevor Watts and Jamie Harris

OCTOBER 26th, 2023
TREVOR WATTS & JAMIE HARRIS
New Spire Arts – 15 W. PATRICK ST.

Trevor Watts is a globally recognized jazz and world music pioneer. In the 1960s, the English saxophonist permanently expanded the parameters of jazz, co-founding Spontaneous Music Ensemble and leading the equally groundbreaking Amalgam. In the early 1980s, Watts formed the first of several ensembles under the Moire Music banner, blending rhythms from Africa and Asia with jazz-steeped virtuosity, and performing on six continents. Now in its third decade, Watts’ duo with percussionist Jamie Harris distills 60 years of Watts’ immersion in diverse music traditions with ear-grabbing themes, infectious grooves, and an uplifting vibe. A rare opportunity not to be missed.

OCTOBER 7th, 2023
THE 5TH POWER: A TRIBUTE TO LESTER BOWIE:
AHMED ABDULLAH, DAVE BALLOU, LEWIS ‘FLIP’ BARNES, TAYLOR HO BYNUM, trumpets
Asbury United Methodist Church – 101 ALL SAINTS ST.

Janel & Anthony

SEPTEMBER 23rd, 2023
JANEL & ANTHONY:
JANEL LEPPIN, cello + ANTHONY PIROG, guitar
Frederick YMCA Arts Center – 115 E. CHURCH ST.

Janel Leppin and Anthony Pirog are stalwarts of the DC new music scene. In addition to their duo, they both play in Janel’s acclaimed Ensemble Volcanic Ash, and other groups. Janel is a conservatory-trained cellist, steeped in North Indian and Persian music, as well as rock and Americana. Anthony studied jazz at Berklee, subsequently exploring the outer limits of sound and tapping the roots of American music. They draw from numerous traditions, using an electronics-laced palette to create beyond-category music that is inviting and robust, teeming with engaging melodies and vivid textures.

Lafayette Gilchrist

SEPTEMBER 22nd, 2023
LAFAYETTE GILCHRIST SOLO
New Spire Arts – 15 W. PATRICK ST.

Lafayette Gilchrist returns to Frederick, presenting a solo piano program at New Spire Arts that distills a century of African American music through his unique 21st Century sensibility. Gilchrist creates an exhilarating, kaleidoscopic soundscape with original compositions that draw on Jelly Roll Morton’s Latin tinge, Fats Waller’s stride, Duke Ellington’s elegance, and Thelonious Monk’s quirky swing, as well as funk and go-go rhythms. Lafayette Gilchrist’s solo concerts are an affirmation of soul, swing, and grooves, essentials of American music.

APRIL 29th, 2023
THUMBSCREW: MICHAEL FORMANEK, TOMAS FUJIWARA, and MARY HALVORSON
New Spire Arts – 15 W. PATRICK ST.

Celebrate Jazz Appreciation Month with the internationally acclaimed Thumbscrew, featuring guitarist Mary Halvorson, bassist Michael Formanek, and drummer Tomas Fujiwara, “three of jazz’s most dauntless and resourceful artists,” according to NPR.

A collaboration with New Spire Arts and The City of Frederick

APRIL 1st, 2023
INGRID LAUBROCK, saxophones; TOM RAINEY, drums
Frederick YMCA Arts Center – 115 EAST CHURCH ST.

Ingrid Laubrock:
Saxophonist Ingrid Laubrock was named a “true visionary” by pianist and Kennedy Center artistic director Jason Moran, and a “fully committed saxophonist and visionary” by The New Yorker. She has received the BBC Jazz Award for Innovation and commissions the Fromm Music Foundation at Harvard University and other funders.

Tom Rainey:
Percussionist Tom Rainey has literally played with jazz greats from A to Z, from John Abercrombie to Denny Zeitlin. He is the recipient of composition and performance grants from the National Endowment for the Arts.

MARCH 18th, 2023
TAYLOR HO BYNUM, cornet; JACQUELINE KERROD, harp + electronics
Frederick YMCA Arts Center – 115 EAST CHURCH ST.

Taylor Ho Bynum:
One of the more accomplished under-50 improvisers and composers in the US, cornetist Taylor Ho Bynum has led ensembles varying from sextets to 15-piece orchestras on 20 critically acclaimed recordings. He is the director of the Coast Jazz Orchestra at Dartmouth College. He contributes to The New Yorker.

Jacqueline Kerrod:
Harpist Jacqueline Kerrod has toured internationally with NEA Jazz Master Anthony Braxton. She has performed with such renowned contemporary music ensembles as the International Contemporary Ensemble. She has a Masters of Music and Artist Diploma from the Yale School of Music.

Lafayette Gilchrist

FEBRUARY 18th, 2023
LAFAYETTE GILCHRIST PLAYS HERBIE NICHOLS AND LAFAYETTE GILCHRIST
Weinberg Center for the Arts – 20 W. PATRICK ST.

with
Brian Settles, tenor saxophone; Christian Hizon, trombone; Herman Burney, bass; Kevin Pinder, percussion; Eric Kennedy, drums

Celebrate Black History Month with Lafayette Gilchrist, best known for his music heard on the iconic television series, The Wire. Gilchrist pays homage to Herbie Nichols, a composer overlooked during his too-brief lifetime, but now compared to Duke Ellington and Thelonious Monk. Leading his new sextet, the pianist also performed his own groove-laden compositions.

A collaboration with Weinberg Center for the Arts and The City of Frederick

NOVEMBER 5th, 2022
MICHAEL FORMANKEK, double bass; BRIAN SETTLES, tenor saxophone
Frederick YMCA Arts Center – 115 EAST CHURCH ST.

Michael Formanek:
Double bassist and composer Michael Formanek has led some of the more acclaimed jazz ensembles of the past 25 years, including his Elusion Quartet, Very Practical Trio, and the 18-piece Ensemble Kolossus. His compositions have been supported by Chamber Music America, the Mid-Atlantic Arts Foundation, and other institutions.

Brian Settles:
Since earning his Masters of Music from Howard University, Brian Settles has become an in-demand tenor saxophonist, performing in acclaimed ensembles like Luke Stewart’s Silt Trio. The New York Times identifies Settles as “one of several young improvisers [who are] insightful and invigorating.”

OCTOBER 15th, 2022
SUSAN ALCORN, pedal steel guitar; ROBERT DICK, flutes
Frederick YMCA Arts Center – 115 EAST CHURCH ST.

Susan Alcorn:
Susan Alcorn has extended the pedal steel guitar far beyond its traditional role in country music, exploring jazz, tango nuevo, and other idioms. She has collaborated with numerous iconic musicians like Pauline Oliveros and Evan Parker. In 2017, she received the Baker Artist Award; in 2018, she and her long-time collaborator Joe McPhee won the Instant Award in Improvised Music.

Robert Dick:
Robert Dick is to the flute what Jimi Hendrix was to the guitar, an artist who introduced new worlds of sound. His trademarked Glissando Headjoint allows for voice-like pitch fluctuations and his use of multiphonics and his palette of timbres are unparalleled, particularly on the seldom-heard bass and contrabass flutes.

Frederick Experimental Music Association, Inc. is a Maryland non-profit corporation.

For more information about FEMA and IF, contact Bill Shoemaker at admin@pointofdeparture.org

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