Trio Tarana with Jesse Stewart October 7, 2006

Saturday October 7, 2006
@ The Music Gallery, 197 John St.

TRIO TARANA
JESSE STEWART

Jazz Avant series -- double bill!

Time: 8PM

Tickets: $15 regular/$10 member + senior/$5 student

Event Details:
The Music Gallery presents a Jazz Avant double bill with New York City's Trio Tarana and Guelph, Ontario's Jesse Stewart.

Trio Tarana
Ravish Momin: Drums, Percussion, Voice, Composition
Tanya Kalmanovitch: Violin
Brandon Terzic: Oud

Ravish was born in Hyderabad, India, and spent his childhood in Bombay, and Bahrain (Middle East). He grew up listening to a wide array of Asian Music. Trio Tarana’s music is specific to the interpretations of various Asian musical traditions, including the music of Japanese Taiko Drum Ensembles, Afghani folk songs, Hindu chants and North/South Indian rhythm cycles, while being based in non-idiomatic improvisation.

Ravish Momin (drums, percussion) studied drumset with Andrew Cyrille, Bob Moses and tabla with Zakir Hussain’s disciple Jim DiSpirito. He has collaborated and/or recorded with Kalaparush Maurice McIntyre (AACM) and the Light, Roy Campbell, Ursel Schlicht's Ex Tempore, Susie Ibarra and experimental hip-hop groups Dälek and IsWhat?, and has performed at festivals throughout the US, Asia and Europe. He has recorded his critically acclaimed debut *Climbing the Banyan Tree*, for the prestigious Portuguese label CleanFeed. The Mid-Atlantic Arts Foundation (sponsored by the National Endowment of the Arts) recently awarded him a travel grant to perform at the Mediawave Arts Festival (Gyor, Hungary).

Canadian-born violist and violinist Tanya Kalmanovitch, named by All About Jazz New York as one of the city’s “Best New Talents” of 2004, operates at the intersection of contemporary jazz, classical music, and free improvisation. A formidable classical performer, she has quickly established an international reputation as an innovator on the viola, bringing its warm, malleable tone into contemporary jazz. Kalmanovitch studied at New York’s Juilliard School and has performed with a diverse range of artists including the Turtle Island String Quartet, Ernst Reijseger, Dominique Pifarély, Mark Turner, Benoit Delbecq, Martin Hayes, John Cage and Shujaat Husain Khan.

Brandon Terzic (oud) is a founding member of avant-world music group ‘Howling Makams’. He has performed and/or recorded with world-renowned luminaries such as Hernan Romero, Minu Cinelu (percussionist with Miles Davis), David Fiuczinski, Al Mcdowell, and Shane Shanihan (from Yo Yo Ma’s Silk Road Ensemble) to name a few. He has recorded with Ursel Schlicht’s Ex Tempore, Ravish Momin’s Trio Tarana, Ashley Davis, and is currently working on two up and coming albums. He has also done television sound tracks for PBS.

“Dai Genyo” is based on a traditional Japanese Taiko Drum Ensemble piece, where the melody is transposed from the Shakuhachi to the Violin, and the core rhythm has been transposed to the drumset. “Peace for Kabul” is based on a traditional Afghani folk melody, with the rhythm being interpreted on the African Djembe drum. “Weeping Statue” is inspired by a traditional Hindu chant I’d heard as a child. “Gathering Song” is inspired by a North Indian folk melody. “Gyarah” is a piece based on a traditional North Indian raga, set to a rhythmic pattern in 11-beats. The other pieces similarly subtly utilize ideas from the different cultural traditions without being overtly specific and thus enable the creation of a modern music that is respectful of tradition, yet constantly searching to re-invent itself.

Jesse Stewart
For his Music Gallery performance, Jesse will present several pieces for found objects -- saw blades, stones, canoe paddles, etc -- coaxing hypnotic, almost magical sounds out of seemingly ordinary objects. He will also perform several pieces for solo drum set as well as new work for drum set and vibraphone played in tandem.

Jesse Stewart is a percussionist, improviser, composer, visual artist, instrument builder, and writer. As a musician, he works primarily in the areas of jazz, new music, and free improvisation. He has performed with many internationally acclaimed musicians including George Lewis, Roswell Rudd, Evan Parker, Bill Dixon, Carlo Actis Dato, Dominic Duval, Frank Gratkowski, Gerry Hemingway, Achim Kauffman, Joe Mcphee, Gordon Monahan, Maggie Nicols, Eddie Prévost, LaDonna Smith, Assif Tsahar, Evan Ziporyn (of the Bang on a Can All Stars), Martin Tetreault, Anne Bourne, Kevin Breit, Matt Brubeck, and many others. He is currently a member of the David Mott quintet in Toronto in addition to leading his own groups and performing regularly as a soloist. He has performed at many festivals including the Guelph Jazz Festival and the Guelph Spring Festival, the Hillside Festival, the Open Ears Festival, the 416 and Beaches International Jazz Festivals in Toronto, the Atlantic International Jazz Festival, the Ottawa International Jazz Festival, and the Vancouver International Jazz Festival.

In 1993, Stewart was named “Outstanding Young Canadian Jazz Musician” by the International Association of Jazz Educators and “Young Musician of the Year” by Jazz Report magazine. His playing has been described as “truly exciting” (Musicworks 76), “exceptional” (Cadence Oct. 2002), “phenomenal” (Cadence Nov. 1999), and “ingenious” (Exclaim! June 2006). In a 2002 review, Texas-based music critic Frank Rubolino described him as "...one of the finest young drummers and percussionists on the scene today" (One Final Note Summer/Fall 2002).

He has made several compact disc recordings including a duo recording with pianist Ajay Heble and a quartet recording featuring violinist Jacques Israelievitch, the concert master of the Toronto Symphony. He can also be heard on the David Mott Quintet’s Eleven, a record that Wholenote magazine described as “one of the most enticing and intense recordings to emerge from Toronto’s buoyant extended-jazz scene.” In March of 2006, the C3R label released a solo record entitled “Music for Found Objects” on which Stewart plays various found objects ranging from stones to canoe paddles, from steel bowls to saw blades. Vish Khanna of Exclaim! describes Music For Found Objects as “an endlessly fascinating exploration of sound.” Several additional solo and group recordings are forthcoming.

After majoring in both visual art and in music as an undergraduate student at the University of Guelph, he went on to complete two Master of Arts degrees concurrently at York University in Toronto: one in ethnomusicology and another in music composition. His composition teachers included James Tenney and David Mott. Much of his creative work crosses disciplinary boundaries, exploring the links between the visual and the sonic arts. In the year 2000, for example, he was commissioned by the Guelph Jazz Festival to create a ‘multi-media improvised jazz opera’ entitled Passages with celebrated poet Paul Haines.

As a visual artist, Stewart has exhibited work in numerous solo, group, and juried art exhibitions. In 2006, he showed a body of audio-visual installation-based work titled “Waterworks” at the Robert McLaughlin Gallery in Oshawa and at the Glenhyrst Gallery of Brant. In the summer of 2005, he contributed a sculptural work and a performance to a group show titled Demons Stole My Soul: the Rock and Roll Drum Set in Contemporary Art at the Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art in Toronto. In 2003, he had a solo exhibition of audio-visual installation-based work entitled Wheels of Time at the Macdonald Stewart Art Centre in Guelph.

His writings on music and art have appeared in various publications including Musicworks and Canadian Theatre Review, as well as in several catalogues related to visual art exhibitions. He also contributed an essay titled “Freedom Music: Jazz and Human Rights” to the book Rebel Musics: Human Rights, Resistant Sounds, and the Politics of Music Making co-edited by Daniel Fischlin and Ajay Heble.

In 2002, Jesse began doctoral level studies at the University of Guelph where he was the first recipient of the Brock Doctoral Scholarship, the University's most prestigious graduate scholarship. He also teaches percussion in the University’s applied music program and is currently teaching a course on the history of popular music. In June of 2006, he was appointed as the Artistic Director of NUMUS, one of Canada’s preeminent presenters of new music. He lives in Guelph with his wife Michele and his children Parker and Grace.

Related Links:
http://www.myspace.com/triotarana

Official Website: http://www.musicgallery.org