This performance is part of Roulette’s four-night series, Music for Two Pianos, which features new, historic, and reimagined compositions by some of the great composers of our time: Anthony Braxton; Robert Ashley and “Blue” Gene Tyranny; Henry Threadgill; and Julius Eastman.

NY-based pianists Rahul Carlberg and Maya Keren present compositions by renowned jazz musician Henry Threadgill, arranged for and performed by two pianos. The program includes previous works and one new work.

Both Carlberg and Keren recently recorded and performed the World Premiere of Threadgill’s Listen Ship.

Hailed by the New York Times as “perhaps the most important jazz composer of his generation,” Henry Threadgill has been celebrated for over forty years as one of the most original, forward-thinking composers and multi-instrumentalists in American music. His four-movement work, In for a Penny, In for a Pound, received the Pulitzer Prize for Music in 2016.

A Chicago native, Threadgill studied at the city’s American Conservatory of Music, majoring in composition, piano, and flute. A Vietnam veteran, he performed with the U.S. Army Concert Band. Threadgill is an early member of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM), dedicated to the performance of its members’ original music. He has also received a Guggenheim Fellowship, the Aaron Copland Award, and the Doris Duke Impact Award. Down Beat magazine’s International Jazz Critics Poll has five times distinguished him with its Best Composer Award. The Jazz Journalists Association honored him with its 2002 Composer of the Year Award and its Lifetime Achievement Award. Threadgill has released over thirty critically acclaimed albums.

Rahul Carlberg is a pianist, composer, and educator born in Helsinki, Finland. He grew up in Brooklyn, New York. He began an extensive classical piano education with Natela Mchedlishvili at an early age. He started his performance career in high school, performing at the Chamber Music Festival in Merkin Hall and the Steinway Piano Festival, to name a few. He is a recent graduate of New England Conservatory for Jazz Performance where he studied with a wide range of mentors including Nasheet Waits, Jason Moran, Miguel Zenon, among others. He has performed with artists such as William Parker, Dave Holland, Anna Webber and Melissa Aldana. He recently recorded and performed the World Premiere of Henry Threadgill’s Listen Ship, featuring Bill Frisell, Brandon Ross, Miles Okazaki, Gregg Belisle-Chi, Jerome Harris, Stomu Takeishi, and Maya Keren. That project can be found on Pi Recordings upon release. Rahul has also signed to LA based label, Leaving Records, with an album being released in November 2025. Rahul has performed both internationally and in New York playing at venues including Dizzys (Jazz at Lincoln Center), The Stone, Roulette, The Jazz Gallery and Yamaha Hall.

Maya Keren is a songwriter and improviser from Philly living in Brooklyn. Maya plays piano, guitar, and sings, and is inspired creatively by the question: what does it feel like to live a spiritually nourishing life? Maya writes songs, loops, and words for their band Careful In The Sun, whose debut album is due to release fall of 2025 on Munich-based Squama Recordings. Currently Maya is in the midst of finishing up their second solo record, Slow Burn.