Category Archives: Featured Artists

Karl Berger (Vibraphone)—Featured Signature Artist

KarlBergerKarl Berger is a six time winner of the Downbeat Critics Poll as a jazz soloist, recipient of numerous Composition Awards ( commissions by the National Endowment for the Arts, the New York State Council on the Arts, the Rockefeller Foundation, European Radio and Television: WDR, NDR, SWF, Radio France, Rai Italy. SWF-Prize 1994 ). He became noted for his innovative arrangements for recordings by Jeff Buckley (“Grace”), Natalie Merchant (“Ophelia”), Better Than Ezra, Buckethead, Bootsie Collins, and for his collaborations with producer Bill Laswell.

He recorded and performed with Don Cherry, Lee Konitz, John McLaughlin, Gunther Schuller, the Mingus Epitaph Orchestra, Dave Brubeck, Ingrid Sertso, Dave Holland, Ed Blackwell, Ray Anderson, Carlos Ward, Pharoah Sanders, Blood Ulmer, Hozan Yamamoto and many others at festivals and concerts in the US, Canada, Europe, Africa, India, Phillippines, Japan, Mexico, Brazil.

Founder and director of the Creative Music Foundation, Inc., dba The Creative Music Studio, a not-for-profit corporation, dedicated to the research of the power of music and sound and the elements common to all of the world’s music forms; and to educational presentations through workshops, concerts, recordings, with a growing network of artists and CMS members worldwide.

Website

Play the Karl Berger Mix on Weblogmusic

Myra Melford (Piano)—Featured Signature Artist

MyraMelford

Originally from Chicago and classically trained, Myra Melford is a composer with a singular, kinetic, and lyrical voice in piano improvisation. Chicago blues, architecture, jazz, and experimental music inspire her work. She has released over 40 recordings, including 20 as a leader or co-leader, and maintains three bands: the celebrated quintet Snowy Egret, the collective Trio M, and the duo Dialogue with clarinetist Ben Goldberg. She is a Guggenheim Fellow for “Language of Dreams,” (2013), a Doris Duke Performing Artist (2013) an Alpert Award in the Arts recipient (2012), and has been honored numerous times in Down Beat Critic’s polls. She was the Artistic Director and Co-curator for the 2015 New Frequencies Fest: Jazz@YBCA in San Francisco, and has been a professor at UC Berkeley since 2004, teaching classes in improvisational practices and composition.

Recent projects include Snowy Egret (Enja/Yellowbird), her latest quintet recording released in spring 2015 and Life Carries Me This Way (Firehouse 12, 2013), a solo piano recording featuring original compositions based on the drawings of Don Reich. She presented a 25-year retrospective of her work at The Stone, in New York City, in March 2015.

New and upcoming recordings include a duet with Ben Goldberg (released in January 2016), a duet with Allison Miller due out in fall of 2016, a trio with Miya Masaoka and Zeena Parkins, and a trio with Nicole Mitchell and Joelle Leandre.

In March 2016, she will present Snowy Egret for a week at the Village Vanguard in New York City. In May/June 2016, she will be in residence at the Atlantic Center for the Arts, developing “Dissonant Futures,” a piece for piano, prepared piano, electronics and video with Ian Winters.

Website

 Play the Myra Melford Mix on Weblogmusic