Fred Hersch and Julian Lage
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Fred Hersch and Julian Lage Sun, Mar 9 Fred Hersch Piano Schoenberg Hall Julian Lage Guitar 7pm ABOUT THE ARTISTS Fred Hersch Proclaimed by Vanity Fair magazine, “the most arrestingly innovative pianist in jazz over the last decade or so,” 6-time Grammy nominee Fred Hersch balances his internationally recognized instrumental skills with significant achievements as a PERFORMANCE DURATION: composer, bandleader, and theatrical conceptualist, as well as remaining an in- Approximately 90 minutes; demand collaborator with other noted bandleaders and vocalists. As a solo pianist (he No intermission was the first artist in the 75-year history of New York’s legendary Village Vanguard to play week-long engagements as a solo pianist - his second featured run is documented on the 2011 release, Alone at the Vanguard); as leader of a widely praised trio whose Whirl found its way onto numerous 2010 best-recordings-of-the-year lists; and as the impetus behind the ambitious 2011 production, My Coma Dreams, a full-evening work for 11 instrumentalists, actor/singer and animation/multimedia—Hersch has fully lived up to the approbation of the New York Times who, in a featured Sunday Magazine article, praised him as “singular among the trailblazers of their art, a largely unsung innovator of this borderless, individualistic jazz – a jazz for the 21st century.” MEDIA SPONSORS: He was nominated for two 2011 Grammy Awards for Alone at the Vanguard - for Best Jazz Album and Best Improvised Jazz Solo. His newest trio album is a 2-CD set Alive at the Vanguard and it has been garnering wide critical acclaim as one of his best releases in his 30-year recording career. It has been awarded the 2012 Grand Prix du Disque by the Académie Charles Cros in France and it was named one of the Best CDs of 2012 by Downbeat Magazine. He has been nominated for his sixth Grammy Award for his solo on Duet from the CD Free Flying, a duo album with guitarist Julian Lage; the disc received a rare 5-Star rating from Downbeat. In addition to his more than three-dozen recordings as a leader/co- MESSAGE FROM THE CENTER: leader, his numerous awards include a 2003 Guggenheim Memorial Fellowship for composition, and a Grammy® nomination for Best Though they were born more than three decades apart, both Fred Instrumental Composition, as well as five Grammy® nominations for Hersch and Julian Lage seem to have come into this world imbued Best Jazz Instrumental Performance. Hersch has featured himself with a similar predilection for artistry. Their earliest evolution as as either a solo performer or at the helm of varied small ensembles, musicians runs parallel to their early child development. which in addition to his trio, include a quintet, as well as his “Pocket Orchestra” featuring an unconventional line-up of piano, trumpet, Now one of the most influential pianists in jazz, Hersch was voice and percussion. Hersch is considered to be the most prolific and already an accomplished composer and performer by the age of 10 celebrated solo jazz pianist of his generation. In 2006, Palmetto released when he won his first competition. Comparatively, by 8-years-old the solo CD Fred Hersch In Amsterdam: Live at the Bimhuis and 2009 Julian Lage had performed with the legendary Carlos Santana and welcomed his eighth solo disc, Fred Hersch Plays Jobim, cited as one recorded with mandolin great David Grisman (and had become the of the year’s Top Ten jazz releases by NPR and the Wall Street Journal. subject of an award-winning documentary). Alone won the “Coup de Coeur” de l’Académie Charles Cros in France and 2011 also saw Hersch place 4th in the Downbeat Critic’s Poll and That one was accomplishing such extraordinary creative heights win as Jazz Pianist of the Year by the Jazz Journalists Association. in the 1960s and one in the 1990s just makes the fact that they’ve come together now with such verve and power even more special Hersch’s career as a performer has been greatly enhanced by his and highlights the great impact and import of jazz—its ongoing composing activities, a vital part of nearly all of his live concerts lineage, its eager and welcome infiltration into each successive and recordings. In 2003, Hersch created Leaves of Grass (Palmetto generation. Their shared status as child prodigies has since taken Records), a large-scale setting of Walt Whitman’s poetry for two voices them each on singular, organic journeys, the fruits and findings (Kurt Elling and Kate McGarry) and an instrumental octet; the work of which add texture and flavor to every collaboration they’ve was presented in March 2005 in a sold-out performance at Zankel Hall since undertaken. at Carnegie Hall as part of a six-city US tour. More than 70 of his jazz compositions have been recorded by Hersch and by numerous other Jazz regularly thrives in the space and distance between things, artists. His 2010 multi-media theatrical project My Coma Dreams is a it has a thrilling tendency to see the past and the future conjoined, full-evening work for actor/singer, 11 instrumentalists and animation/ to entice sonic explorers who are equally at home reaching back to computer-generated imagery; it was based on dreams he retained traditional forms and leaping forward into the unknown. after emerging from a 2-month coma in the summer of 2008. It has been performed in New York (Columbia University), New Jersey, San What is known, here, tonight, is that we are in for an incredible Francisco and Berlin. www.mycomadreams.com performance by a duo that seemed fated to come together. Hersch and Lage released their first duo album last fall, titled Free Flying, Hersch has collaborated with an astonishing range of instrumentalists recorded live over three nights at Manhattan’s Jazz at Kitano. and vocalists throughout worlds of jazz (Joe Henderson, Charlie Haden, Art Farmer, Stan Getz and Bill Frisell); classical (Renée Fleming, Dawn According to an interview the pair gave to the New York Daily Upshaw, Christopher O’Riley); and Broadway (Audra McDonald). Long News in November of 2013, that recording strategy came about as a admired for his sympathetic work with singers, Hersch has joined with creative fix after several studio sessions weren’t panning out the way such notable jazz vocalists as Nancy King, Norma Winstone and Kurt the pair had envisioned. And, the fact they even began collaborating Elling. He has received commissions from The Gilmore Keyboard at all is colored by a sense of divine intervention. Lage, a longtime Festival, The Doris Duke Foundation, The Miller Theatre at Columbia fan of Hersch ran into the pianist at a coffee shop in Boston and University, The Gramercy Trio and The Brooklyn Youth Chorus. A disc convinced Hersch to give him composition lessons. of his through-composed works, Fred Hersch: Concert Music 2001- 2006, has been released by Naxos Records; these works are published by And the rest, as they say, is history (luckily for us). the prestigious firm Edition Peters. Thank you for being here on a very special occasion as we revel in Born in Cincinnati, Ohio in 1955, Hersch began playing the piano at the collaboration between these to modern geniuses of jazz. We’re age four and was composing music by age eight and winning national all in for a treat. piano competitions starting at the age of ten. He has been awarded a Rockefeller Fellowship for a Bellagio residency, grants from Chamber Music America, The National Endowment for the Arts and Meet the Composer, and seven composition residencies at The MacDowell Colony. In addition to a wide variety of National Public Radio programs including Fresh Air, Jazz Set, Studio 360 and Marian McPartland’s Piano Jazz, Hersch has also appeared on CBS Sunday Morning with Dr. Billy Taylor. A committed educator, Hersch has taught at The Juilliard School, The New School and Manhattan School of Music, and conducted a Professional Training Workshop for Young Musicians at The Weill Institute at Carnegie Hall in 2008. He is currently on the Jazz Studies faculty of The New England Conservatory and at Rutgers University. Hersch’s influence has been widely felt on a new generation of jazz pianists, from former Hersch students including Brad Mehldau and Ethan Iverson of the Bad Plus, to his contemporary Jason Moran, who has said, “Fred at the piano is like LeBron James on the basketball court. He’s perfection.” Julian Lage Whether he’s playing his Linda Manzer electric archtop guitar, writing with his rare 1934 R.A. Mango, which he used to compose 233 Butler COMING UP AT CAP UCLA (Lage recorded the track on his Manzer), or the 1932 Gibson L-5 heard Be a part of our story this season. Experience more great art on the tension-filled Telegram (inspired by Garry Harrison’s Red and artists. Prairie Dawn), Lage brings a purity of tone and consistency of attack to everything in his repertoire. Hailed by All About Jazz as “a giant in the making,” Lage grew up in California and was the subject of an Academy Award-nominated documentary, Jules at Eight. He gained pivotal early exposure as a protégé of legendary vibraphonist Gary Burton, recording and touring with Burton on two projects: Generations (2004) and Next Generation (2005). Other recent high-profile sideman appearances include Lucky To Be Me and Let It Come To You by longtime friend and close collaborator, pianist Taylor Eigsti. Lage reunited with Gary Burton for live engagements in 2010, Julian can also be heard as a member of the “New Gary Burton Quartet” on the CD Common Ground (featuring Scott Colley and Antonio Sanchez).