Frederick Experimental Music Association

FREDERICK EXPERIMENTAL MUSIC ASSOCIATION FALL 2026 CONCERTS

Courtesy of Anthony Davis

ANTHONY DAVIS SOLO PIANO

Frederick Experimental Music Association presents a rare solo piano concert by Anthony Davis on Friday, October 23rd at Hodson Auditorium/Rosenstock Hall at Hood College in Frederick, Maryland. This will be Davis’s first solo concert in Maryland and his only performance in the Mid Atlantic region this year.

The winner of the 2020 Pulitzer Prize for The Central Park Five, Anthony Davis is internationally considered to be the most important American opera composer of his generation. Over the past 40 years, Davis’s groundbreaking operas like X: The Life and Times of Malcolm X and Amistad have been staged by the Metropolitan Opera and other major companies in the US and abroad.

However, the success of Davis’s operas and orchestral works have overshadowed his work as a pianist. By the time of X’s premiere in the mid-1980s, Davis was already renowned for his solo piano recordings and those of his ensemble, Episteme, which drew praise from Newsweek, The Washington Post, and other influential publications.

Doors will open at 7:30 and the concert will begin at 8pm. Tickets are $30 and can be purchased, inclusive of fees, through Eventbrite: Anthony Davis, Solo Piano Tickets, Friday, October 23 • 8 PM - 9:30 PM | Eventbrite. They can also be purchased with cash at the door.

This concert is supported by Plamondon Hospitality Group.

For further information, contact Bill Shoemaker at admin@pointofdeparture.org

About Anthony Davis

Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Anthony Davis is celebrated internationally for his operatic, orchestral, choral, and chamber works. Opera News calls him “a national treasure” for his pioneering music, while The New York Times recognizes him as one of the “great living American composers.” OPERA America inducted Davis into its Hall of Fame in 2023.

Davis is best known for his operas. He was the first composer to write in a new American genre: opera on a contemporary political subject. He uses music to address power structures in a way that creates awareness, empathy, and understanding.

Davis’s newest opera, Pancho Rabbit and the Coyote, based on the book by Duncan Tonatiuh, explores the challenges faced by families crossing the border. The production is directed by J. Ed Araiza and co-presented by Bodhi Tree Concerts and Opera de Tijuana. It premiered in January 2026 in San Diego, California and Tijuana, Mexico.

In 2020, Davis received the Pulitzer Prize for The Central Park Five, which premiered at Long Beach Opera in 2019. The libretto by Richard Wesley is based on the true story of teenagers Kevin Richardson, Antron McCray, Yusef Salaam, Raymond Santana Jr., and Korey Wise, who were wrongfully convicted and served time for the brutal rape of a white female jogger in Central Park in 1989. A recording from the Long Beach Opera performances will be released in the 2026 season.

In 2023, Davis’s X: The Life and Times of Malcolm X, based on the life of the civil rights leader, made its Metropolitan Opera debut, starring baritone Will Liverman in the title role. The work features a libretto by Thulani Davis and a story by Christopher Davis.

Since its 1986 premiere by New York City Opera, X has taken on an almost mythic stature as the first theatrical work to seamlessly integrate the musical worlds of opera and improvised music while telling a compelling story about one of the most charismatic figures in American history.

The new production, directed by Tony Award nominee Robert O’Hara, launched in 2022 at Detroit Opera, continued to Opera Omaha later that year, and – following the Met – traveled to the Seattle Opera in 2024. In 2022, BMOP/sound released a new recording, which was nominated for a GRAMMY® Award for Best Opera Recording and named “one of the year’s most essential, and urgent, opera recordings,” by The New York Times. The original recording of X on the Gramavision label (1992), was nominated for a GRAMMY for “Best Contemporary Composition.”

Davis is currently developing The Reef, adapted from Edith Wharton’s 1912 novel with a libretto by Joan Ross Sorkin. The opera tells the suspenseful story of a young widow and her former lover’s attempt to rekindle their romance, though Davis and Sorkin’s retelling is set on a sugar plantation in Martinique.

Davis’s opera Amistad, also with a libretto by Thulani Davis, was inspired by a poem by Robert Hayden that chronicles the history of the Amistad mutiny, a successful uprising of captives aboard an slave ship. For Tania, with a libretto by Michael-John LaChiusa, Davis was inspired by the abduction of Patricia Hearst, while Wakonda’s Dream, with a libretto by Yusef Komunyakaa, follows a contemporary Ponca family and the spiritual journey of their son, who is connected to the noted chief Standing Bear.

Davis’s orchestral works have been performed by the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, Boston Philharmonic, Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic, New York Philharmonic, and San Francisco Symphony, among others. His instrumental works include “Violin Sonata,” commissioned by Carnegie Hall for its centennial; “Esu Variations,” for the Atlanta Symphony; and “You Have the Right to Remain Silent,” a concerto for clarinet and orchestra.

Clarinetist Anthony McGill – principal clarinet of the New York Philharmonic – has frequently performed You Have the Right to Remain Silent. The concerto was inspired by the composer’s personal experience during a traffic stop: while en route to a concert, Davis was pulled over by the police and held at gunpoint for 45 minutes because he “matched the description” of a suspect fleeing a robbery. During the performance, musicians recite the Miranda rights while playing. Davis has said that parts of “You Have the Right to Remain Silent” became the basis for The Central Park Five.

Davis made his Broadway debut in 1993 composing music for Tony Kushner’s critically acclaimed play Angels in America: Part One: Millennium Approaches, and for its companion piece, Part Two: Perestroika. He has made important contributions in choral music; “Voyage Through Death to Life Upon these Shores” is an a cappella choral work about the slave trade and the Middle Passage,” while “Restless Mourning” is an oratorio for mixed chorus and chamber ensemble with live electronics, offers a powerful evocation of the September 11 tragedy.

Davis is also known for his cutting-edge virtuoso performances as a solo pianist and as the leader of Episteme, a distinctive ensemble of disciplined interpreters and provocative improvisers in equal measure. Davis “writes music that forges composition and improvisation into what he calls ‘a seamless and coherent musical structure,’ resulting in “music that is both sensuous and intellectually engaging” (The New York Times).

A graduate of Yale University, Davis holds the Cecil Lytle Endowed Chair in African American Music at the University of California, San Diego. In 2021, he was elected as a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters. The following year, he was honored with the Shadow and Act Award from the Ralph Ellison Foundation. He previously earned the “Lift Every Voice” Legacy Award from the National Opera Association (2008) and a fellowship from the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation (2006).

Davis has also been honored by the New York Foundation of the Arts, the National Endowment of the Arts, the Massachusetts Arts Council, the Carey Trust, Chamber Music America, the Meet the Composer Wallace Fund, the Multi-Arts Production Fund with the Rockefeller Foundation, and OPERA America. He has been an artist fellow at the MacDowell Colony, Civitella Ranieri and at the Rockefeller Foundation’s Bellagio Center in Italy.

Courtesy of Marilyn Crispell

MARILYN CRISPELL SOLO PIANO

Frederick Experimental Music Association presents a solo piano concert by National Endowment for the Arts Jazz Master Marilyn Crispell on Saturday, November 14th. Doors open for the 8pm concert at 7:30. This will be her first concert in Frederick.

The concert will take place at the Frederick YMCA Ausherman Arts Center, located at 115 East Church Street in Frederick, Maryland. There is wheelchair access through the back parking lot entrance.

Tickets for the concert are $30 and can be bought in advance through Eventbrite: Marilyn Crispell Solo Piano Tickets, Saturday, November 14 • 8 PM - 9:30 PM | Eventbrite. They may also be bought with cash at the door.

In an interview with National Public Radio, former Kennedy Center Artistic Director for Jazz Jason Moran remarked on Crispell’s incredible musicianship. “Following her playing all these years, watching also then all this kind of incredible lyricism flow from her hands, it’s easy to say that she’s a storyteller, but she also makes peace with the instrument. That’s the kind of piano player she is.”

About Marilyn Crispell

Marilyn Crispell has been in the vanguard of contemporary improvised music since 1978. Through the 1980s and into the ‘90s, Crispell was a member of two landmark groups – the Anthony Braxton Quartet and the Reggie Workman Ensemble. After a string of critically acclaimed recordings for niche labels in the US, Canada, and Europe, Crispell began a long-term relationship with the iconic ECM label in 1996, which yielded stellar solo albums like Vignettes, as well as Nothing ever was, anyway, a classic trio recording with Gary Peacock and Paul Motian. Her most recent ECM release is 2026’s Memento, an album of duets with Swedish bassist Anders Jormin. Additionally, she is heard on the ECM releases by Joe Lovano's Trio Tapestry.

Crispell has been the recipient of three New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship grants, a Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship, a Mary Flagler Cary Charitable Trust composition commission and recipient of a 2025 National Endowment for the Arts Jazz Masters Fellowship award, an Instant Award in Improvised Music (Berlin, Germany), and a 2026 Jazz Foundation of America/Mellon Foundation Jazz Legacy Award.

Marilyn Crispell is a graduate of the New England Conservatory of Music where she studied classical piano and composition. She has been an educator and mentor since 1977, teaching at the pioneering Creative Music Studio in Woodstock. In 2006, she was co-director of the Vancouver Creative Music Institute and a faculty member at the Banff Centre International Workshop in Jazz. In 2014 she led a three-week music residency at the Atlantic Center For the Arts, New Smyrna Beach, Florida, and in 2016 led a one-week residency at the Conservatory Manuel de Falla in Buenos Aires. In 2019, she was a guiding artist at the Jazzdanmark Summer Session in Denmark, and in 2025 was on the faculty of the International Creators and Collaborators Workshop at Bard College, and led a residency at the International Institute for Critical Studies in Improvisation in Guelph, Canada. Additionally, she has taught improvisation workshops and given lecture/demonstrations at universities and art centers throughout the US, Europe, Australia and New Zealand, often collaborating with videographers, filmmakers, dancers and poets.

FREDERICK EXPERIMENTAL MUSIC ASSOCIATION PAST CONCERTS

Design by Bodie Dennis, Rumblecroon Studios, Frederick.

MAY 29th, 2026
THE HEMPHILL STRINGTET
Steppin’: The Music of Julius Hemphill
Hodson Auditorium, Rosenstock Hall, Hood College.

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.

APRIL 11th, 2026
MARTY EHRLICH with MARYLAND SAXTET
Steppin’: The Music of Julius Hemphill
Hodson Auditorium, Rosenstock Hall, Hood College.

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.

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.

Design by Bodie Dennis, Rumblecroon Studios, Frederick.

OCTOBER 11th, 2025
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.

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

Design by Bodie Dennis, Rumblecroon Studios, Frederick.

DECEMBER 6th, 2025
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, 2025
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, 2025
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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