Following on the work featured on the 2020 release Horizons, this iteration of Evans’s ensemble will perform a program of all new compositions. The group will draw on the unique and idiosyncratic musical personalities of the band members (all multi-instrumentalists and composers in their own right) as well as a wide variety of influences, both traditional and experimental.
Peter Evans: trumpets, compositions
Mazz Swift: violin, voice
Ron Stabinsky: synthesizers, piano
Levy Lorenzo: percussion, electronics
This group has been performing in various configurations since 2016. This specific quartet recorded the album Horizons on Evans’ More is More Label, which was released in September of 2020. This concert will feature a full program of new music specifically for this group, which we will tour in Europe and the USA in 2021.
The Peter Evans Ensemble grew out of Evans’s work with his acclaimed Quintet (2010-16). The Ensemble, through extensive touring and recording, developed into a modular and highly adaptable outlet for Evans’ compositions. After a series of NYC concerts, the quartet with Swift, Stabinsky, and Lorenzo formed an inimitable group sound and dynamic and quickly documented their work with the 2020 release Horizons. Incorporating through-notated chamber music turns of individual instrumental virtuosity (both acoustic and electronic), and tight rhythmic frameworks as vehicles for improvisation, the group continues to develop new music and will be touring Europe and the USA in 2021. Horizons is available on the More is More Records Bandcamp site, on both vinyl and digital formats: peterevansmusic.bandcamp.com
Peter Evans is a trumpet player and composer based in New York City since 2003. Evans is part of a broad, hybridized scene of musical experimentation, and his work cuts across a wide range of modern musical practices and traditions. Peter is committed to the simultaneously self-determining and collaborative nature of musical improvisation as a compositional tool, and works with an ever-expanding group of musicians and composers in the creation of new music. His primary groups as a leader are the Peter Evans Ensemble and Being & Becoming (with Joel Ross, Nick Jozwiak, and Savannah Harris). Evans has been exploring solo trumpet music since 2002 and is widely recognized as a leading voice in the field, having released several recordings over the past decade. He is a member of the cooperative groups Pulverize the Sound (with Mike Pride and Tim Dahl) and Rocket Science (with Evan Parker, Craig Taborn, and Sam Pluta) and is constantly experimenting and forming new configurations with like-minded players. As a composer, he has been commissioned by the International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE), Wet Ink, Yarn/Wire, the Donaueschingen Musiktage Festival, the Jerome Foundation’s Emerging Artist Program, and the Doris Duke Foundation. Evans has presented and/or performed his works at major festivals worldwide and tours his own groups extensively. He has worked with some of the leading figures in contemporary music: John Zorn, Peter Broetzmann, Pauline Oliveros, Brian Ferneyhough, Kanye West, George Lewis, Anthony Braxton, Mary Halvorson, Ambrose Akinmusere, Weasel Walter, Ingrid Laubrock, Jeff “Tain” Watts, Tyshawn Sorey, Jim Black, Ikue Mori, Steve Schick, and performs with both the ICE and Wet Ink. As an interpreter of notated concert music Evans’ has performed works by Varese, Xenakis, Bach, Stravinsky, Elliott Carter, Marcos Balter, Agusta Read Thomas, Roscoe Mitchell, and many more. Peter Evans has been releasing recordings on his own label, More is More, since 2011.
As a solo performer and bandleader, Violin/Vox/Freestyle Composition artist Mazz Swift is critically acclaimed as one of America’s most talented and versatile performers today, and engages audiences worldwide with her signature weaving of composition and improvisation called MazzMuse. She is a proud performing member of Yo-Yo Ma’s Silkroad Ensemble, as well as with the Jersey City based chamber music organization Con Vivo Music. Mazz’s collaborative string trio HEAR in NOW (together with Tomeka Reid on cello and Silvia Bolognesi on the doublebass) was awarded the 2018 Chamber Music America Residency Partnership Program grant, and as such were featured artists in Philadelphia’s October Revolution Festival.Ms. Swift has performed and taught workshops in free improvisation on six continents, most notably having traveled to Suriname, Mozambique, Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, Cameroon, Senegal, Albania and Siberia as cultural ambassador at the invitation of the United States Department of State. She is currently working on her first solo CD, Modern Day Protest Songs.
Ron Stabinsky enjoys working in many stylistically diverse musical contexts throughout the United States and Europe with a wide variety of other musicians and ensembles. These include free-improvising saxophonist Jack Wright, lead trumpet legend Dave Stahl, bass trombone virtuoso David Taylor, and NEA Jazz Master David Liebman. In 2016, he released his debut album, Free for One, the culmination of more than a decade of evolving his improvised solo language. It received four stars in DownBeat and tied for number one debut of the year in the 2016 NPR Music Jazz Critics Poll. He is currently a regular performing member of the groups Mostly Other People Do the Killing, Relâche, the Meat Puppets, and the Peter Evans Ensemble
Born in Bucharest, Filipino-American Levy Marcel Ingles Lorenzo, Jr. works at the intersection of music, art, and technology. On an international scale, his body of work spans custom electronics design, sound engineering, instrument building, installation art, free improvisation, and classical percussion. With a primary focus on inventing new instruments, he prototypes, composes, and performs new electronic music. As an electronic art consultant, Levy designs interactive electronics ranging from small sculptures to large-scale public art installations with artists such as Alvin Lucier, Christine Sun Kim, Ligorano-Reese, and Leo Villareal. As a percussionist, he co-founded the experimental theater/electronics duo Radical 2 with Dennis Sullivan and is a member of the Peter Evans Septet. As a sound engineer, he specializes in the realization and performance of complete electro-acoustic concerts with non-traditional configurations. One of his main engagements is Claire Chase’s Density 2036 project. A core member of the acclaimed International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE), he fulfills multiple roles as live sound engineer, electronicist, and percussionist. Filling a unique niche, Levy is in demand as a freelance designer and artist. His work has been featured at STEIM, Harvestworks, MIT Media Lab, Ensemble Moderne, Darmstadt, Yellow Barn, Pitchfork.com, Slashdot.org, G4TV, Grey Group, Bose, The New York Times, BBC, and Burning Man. An advocate for interdisciplinary arts, he has collaborated with dancers, video artists, public artists, mathematicians, sculptors, architects, and dramaturgs. Bridging the gap between the electronics design cycle and the performance practice of cutting-edge contemporary music, Levy is as equally comfortable wielding a soldering iron as drumsticks and four-mallets. He has fluency navigating hardware schematics and coding in various software environments, as well as interpreting complex musical scores and playing chamber music. Levy earned degrees as Master of Electrical & Computer Engineering from Cornell University, and Doctor of Musical Arts in Percussion Performance from Stony Brook University. He has given numerous guest workshops and lectures on electronic musical instrument design and performance practice. Dr. Lorenzo holds a position as Professor of Creative Technologies at The New School, College of Performing Arts.
Photos: Peter Gannushkin
