This event is part of Roulette’s 2025 series in honor of composer Anthony Braxton’s 80th birthday year. Earlier in 2025 Roulette honored Braxton at our annual Gala; The Music of Anthony Braxton is a four-part series throughout November that continues our celebration of Braxton’s incomparable and ongoing contributions to creative music spanning more than half a century.

Composer-improvisers Ingrid Laubrock (saxophone) and Shinya Lin (piano) open the evening with Anthony Braxton’s Composition No. 101 (1981).

The Tri-Centric Vocal Ensemble follows, reconvening at Roulette the first time since their 2019 performance to present Braxton’s groundbreaking Syntactical Ghost Trance Music (SGTM). The venue holds special significance for the group, as it was the site of their last performance together, when they celebrated the release of their landmark album GTM (Syntax) 2017. That recording documented all twelve SGTM compositions under the direct guidance of Anthony Braxton himself.

Formed to interpret Braxton’s most ambitious vocal works, The Tri-Centric Vocal Ensemble unites long-time Braxton collaborators who are among today’s most adventurous and skilled vocalists.

The Tri-Centric Vocal Ensemble
Roland Burks
Tomás Cruz
Chris DiMeglio
Nick Hallett
Kyoko Kitamura
Adam Matlock
Anne Rhodes
Kamala Sankaram
Elizabeth Saunders

Ingrid Laubrock is an experimental saxophonist and composer interested in exploring the borders between musical realms and creating multi-layered, dense and often evocative sound worlds. A prolific composer, Laubrock was named a “true visionary” by pianist and The Kennedy Center’s artistic director Jason Moran, and a “fully committed saxophonist and visionary” by the New Yorker. Her composition Vogelfrei was nominated ‘one of the best 25 Classical tracks of 2018’ by The New York Times. She has performed with Anthony Braxton, Muhal Richard Abrams, Jason Moran, Kris Davis, Nels Cline, Tyshawn Sorey, Tomeka Reid, Mary Halvorson, Myra Melford, Zeena Parkins, Tom Rainey, Tim Berne, Dave Douglas, Wet Ink and many others.

Laubrock has composed for ensembles ranging from solo to chamber orchestra. Her awards include the 2025 German Jazz Prize, Fellowship in Jazz Composition by theArts Foundation, BBC Jazz Prize for Innovation, SWR German Radio Jazz Prize and German Record Critics Quarterly Award. She won the “Downbeat Annual Critics Poll”as Rising Star Soprano Saxophonist (2015) and Tenor Saxophonist (2018) as well as Rising Star Composer and Large Ensemble (2025). Laubrock has received composing commissions from The Fromm Music Foundation, BBC Glasgow Symphony Orchestra, Bang on a Can, Yarn/Wire, Grossman Ensemble, The Shifting Foundation, The Robert D. Bielecki Foundation, The Jerwood Foundation, American Composers Orchestra, Tricentric Foundation, SWR New Jazz Meeting, Jazzahead, Wet Ink Ensemble, The Jazz Gallery Commissioning Series, NY State Council of the Arts, Wet Ink, John Zorn’s Stone Commissioning Series and the EOS Orchestra. She was a 2022/23 Artist-in-residence of The Wet Ink Ensemble. She is a recipient of the 2019 Herb Alpert Ragdale Prize in Music Composition, the 2022 Herb Alpert Ucross Prize in Music Composition and the 2021 Berklee Institute of Gender Justice Women Composers Collection Grant. Laubrock is part-time faculty at Columbia University and The New School. She holds an MFA in Music Composition from Vermont College of Fine Arts.

Shinya Lin is a New York City-based performer and composer whose work explores the intersection of everyday life and sound. He is part-time faculty at The New School and co-founder of Chaospace, a nonprofit organization dedicated to supporting and curating the work of Asian artists. His current compositional research centers on life-informed, gestural, and ubiquitous music—drawing from the sounds of daily experience and integrating them into his creative practice. In 2024–25, he was an artist-in-residence at the Museum of Chinese in America, where he developed New Music City, a site-specific sonic project inspired by Chinatown’s history of protest and resilience.

His music spans new music, jazz, improvisation, and electroacoustic genres, with a focus on prepared piano and electronics. Influenced by figures such as John Cage and Cecil Taylor, Shinya embraces spontaneity and the joy of sonic discovery. For him, “being present” is not only a musical approach, but a way to connect people and uncover deeper dimensions of life.

The Tri-Centric Vocal Ensemble, featuring long-time Anthony Braxton collaborators, is a group of vocalists brought together to interpret Braxton’s most ambitious vocal works, including his operas and his Syntactical Ghost Trance Music (SGTM) system. Some of today’s most adventurous and skilled vocalists, each member brings deep commitment to exploring the boundaries of contemporary vocal music.