Thursday, May 8, 2025 | 6:30-10:30PM
Roulette and our Board of Directors invite you to join us in honoring experimental music legend, NEA Jazz Master, and MacArthur Fellow Anthony Braxton at our 2025 Gala. The evening celebrates Braxton’s incomparable and ongoing contributions to creative music spanning more than half a century, in advance of his 80th birthday.
The gala showcases compositions from Braxton’s vast repertoire, performed by musicians and ensembles from his extensive career, including Mark Dresser, James Fei, Tomas Fujiwara, Mary Halvorson, Darius Jones, Ingrid Laubrock, Steve Lehman, Nicole Mitchell, Jessica Pavone, Tomeka Reid, and Aaron Siegel, with remarks from long-time friends and collaborators Wadada Leo Smith and George Lewis, among others.
Gala Co-Chairs
James Fei, Tri-Centric Foundation
Paul Gertner, Starborn Industries
James S. Staley, Roulette Intermedium
Torsten N. Wiesel, Nobel Prize laureate
Gala Host Committee
Jamie Burns, Executive Director
Matt Mehlan, Artistic Director
Claude Arpels
Jason Kao Hwang
Wadada Leo Smith
Henry Threadgill
Tickets and More Information
MEZZANINE Seating — $125/Hot Buffet + Open Bar All Night
– Balcony Seating
– Open Bar
– Hors d’oeuvres and dessert
– Catered buffet available upstairs
CHAMPION’s Ticket — $1,000/Dinner Seating at Champion’s Table [ONLY A FEW LEFT]
– Seat at a Champion’s Table
– Includes coursed dinner, dessert, and beverage service for one
– Ideal for smaller groups
– Meaningful and invaluable investment in Roulette’s long-term success
CHAMPION's Table — $8,000/Dinner Seating for 8 [SOLD OUT]
– Includes coursed dinner, dessert, and beverage service for eight
– Includes a full spread gala journal ad (Roulette can design)
– Meaningful and invaluable investment in Roulette’s long-term success
PREMIUM TABLE—$15,000/Premium Dinner Seating for 8 [SOLD OUT]
– Front Row; Best view and sound in the house
– Includes coursed dinner, dessert, and beverage service for eight
– Includes a full spread gala journal ad (Roulette can design)
– 15 tickets to Roulette’s 2025-26 season
– Meaningful and invaluable investment in Roulette’s long-term success
All guests enjoy delicious hors d’oeuvres and dessert from Bartleby and Sage, an open bar, and champagne toast. Guests seated at tables enjoy dinner during the performances and beverage service. Guests seated in the balcony enjoy a hot buffet and small bites.
PURCHASE TICKETS
All proceeds from the evening support guaranteed artist fees for the hundreds of performances at Roulette each year, provide commissions and residencies for visionary artists, and help make possible the next chapter of groundbreaking experimental music, movement, and media.
Donate with a Personal Message
Can’t make it, but still want to support? Donations of $250 or more come with the option to display a personal message to our honoree, Anthony Braxton. Messages are displayed at the gala on our 240” wide x 135” tall projection screen throughout the evening.
DONATE
About Anthony Braxton
Anthony Braxton (b. 1945), the Chicago-born composer and multi-instrumentalist, is recognized as one of the most important musicians, educators, and creative thinkers of the past 50 years. He is highly esteemed in the experimental music community for the revolutionary quality of his work and for the mentorship and inspiration he has provided to generations of younger musicians. Drawing upon a disparate mix of influences from John Coltrane to Karlheinz Stockhausen, Braxton has created a unique musical system that celebrates the concept of global creativity and our shared humanity. His work examines core principles of improvisation, structural navigation and ritual engagement—innovation, spirituality, and intellectual investigation.
From his early work as a pioneering solo performer in the late 1960s through to his eclectic experiments on Arista Records in the 1970s, his landmark quartet of the 1980s, and more recent endeavors, such as his cycle of Trillium operas and the day-long, installation-based Sonic Genome Project, his vast body of work is unparalleled. His small ensembles of the 1970s to present day are considered among the most innovative groups of their respective eras, while his Creative Orchestra Music has brought together the varying streams of American jazz orchestras, marching bands, and experimental practices with the traditions of European concert music in a wholly individual compositional voice.
His continuing and evolving current systems of the past 15 years, including Ghost Trance Music, Diamond Curtain Wall Music, Falling River Music, Echo Echo Mirror House Music, and ZIM Music, have served as the artistic incubators for some of the most exciting artists of the current generation. Braxton’s many awards include a 1981 Guggenheim Fellowship, a 1994 MacArthur Fellowship, a 2013 Doris Duke Performing Artist Award, a 2014 NEA Jazz Master Award, and honorary doctorates from Université de Liège (Belgium), New England Conservatory (USA) and the 2020 United States Artists Fellowship.
Special thanks to our event sponsors at New York Distilling Co, Threes Brewing, and Argyle Winery:
photo credits: Carolyn Wachnicki. Drawings pulled from titles of Anthony Braxton’s Compositions No. 76, No.115 and No.142.
For questions or more information, please contact Emily Bookwalter, Director of Development, at emily@roulette.org, 917.267.2440