01/25/2023
Brian Shankar Adler Quartet at UMA- Tuesday January 31st, 7:00pm Farber Form (aka Jewett Hall) Free and Open to the Public. Also live streamed -
https://youtu.be/uxjTJ-Q4EjA
Award-winning percussionist and composer, Brian Shankar Adler presents a new program of globally infused music for improvisers. Adler has been described as: “a polyrhythmic force… New York City gritty yet still somehow capable of evoking the delicacy of a summer breeze…” by Brad Cohan, JazzTimes. His recent project, Fourth Dimension won best music video at Transcinema International Film Festival in Peru and at the 2020 Independent Music Awards. Anna Webber (John Hollenbeck, Dave Douglas), Mike Effenberger (Bing and Ruth, Weird Turned Pro) and Mali Obomsawin (Lula Wiles, Taylor Ho Bynum) join Adler for this adventurous, genre-bending performance.
Personnel:
Brian Shankar Adler. drum set, tabla
Anna Webber. saxophone, flute
Mike Effenberger. piano, rhodes
Mali Obomsawin. upright bass
Bios:
Described as "a polyrhythmic force… New York City gritty yet still somehow capable of evoking the delicacy of a summer breeze…” (JazzTimes), multidisciplinary drummer, percussionist and composer Brian Shankar Adler transcends the terrain between genre and geographic region, asking: how can we find connection through rhythm?
Brian Shankar Adler has performed in caves, forests and adjacent glacial ice fields as well as Carnegie Hall, Jazz Standard, Lincoln Center, Roulette, Rubin Museum and The Stone. He has been recorded on over forty albums including his solo works, For a Gallery on the Moon (Chant Records, 2020) and Fourth Dimension (Chant Records, 2019). His music video, “Mantra” won best music video at Transcinema International Film Festival in Peru and an official selection at Quiet City Film Festival in New York City. Adler has also been featured in Jason Bivin’s book Spirits Rejoice, Newsweek, NPR, Downbeat and Modern Drummer Magazine. He has recorded and/or toured with Ballet Hispanico’s Doña Perón, Chelsea Clinton's film Of Many, Kamala Sankaram’s operas Thumbprint (LA Opera), A Rose (Houston Grand Opera) and The Jungle Book (Glimmerglass), and Elizabeth Swados’ final theatrical productions The Nomad and The Golem. In 2013, Adler was the guest soloist with La Bomba de Tiempo in Buenos Aires, Argentina. He returned to the states to create Human Time Machine, a percussion ensemble that would hold a three year residency at Barbès as well as performances at the Queens World Fair and Roulette. Adler has traveled to Germany to perform with singer Sunny Kim and Kuwait to perform with oudist Ahmed Alshaiba. He was a composer in residence at Antenna Cloud Farm and was commissioned to compose and arrange several pieces for Palaver Strings' 2022-2023 tours. Adler has also worked with: Pablo Aslan, Sheila Jordan, Guillermo Klein, The Michael Leonhart Orchestra, Frank London, Kate McGarry, Meg Okura, Talujon, Emilio Teubal and Ray Vega. He is a member of the eclectic surf-noir band Bombay Rickey and performs environmental-activism with Bash the Trash. In 2013, Adler published A World of Percussion connecting rhythm, language, mathematics and environment through a study of shared musical concepts from around the globe. He is currently on faculties at: Bates College, University of Maine, and Vermont Jazz Center. www.brianadler.com
Anna Webber is a flutist, saxophonist, and composer whose interests and work live in the aesthetic overlap between avant-garde jazz and new classical music. In May 2021 she released Idiom, a double album featuring both a trio and a large ensemble, and a follow-up to her critically-acclaimed release Clockwise. That album, which the Wall Street Journal called "visionary and captivating," was voted #6 Best Album of 2019 in the NPR Jazz Critics Poll, who described it as “heady music [that] appeals to the rest of the body.” Her 2020 release, Both Are True (Greenleaf Music), co-led with saxophonist/composer Angela Morris, was named a top ten best release of 2020 by The New York Times. She was recently named a 2021 Berlin Prize Fellow and was voted the top “Rising Star” flutist in the 2020 Downbeat Critic’s Poll. The trio featured on Idiom is Webber’s “Simple Trio”, her working band of almost a decade which features drummer John Hollenbeck and pianist Matt Mitchell. A prolific bandleader, Webber also leads a quartet and a septet in addition to the above-mentioned large ensemble and co-led Webber/Morris Big Band. She has performed and/or recorded with projects led by artists such as Dan Weiss, Jen Shyu, Dave Douglas, Matt Mitchell, Ches Smith, John Hollenbeck, and Trevor Dunn, among others. Webber is a 2018 Guggenheim Fellow. She has additionally been awarded grants from the Copland Fund (2021 & 2019), the Shifting Foundation (2015), and the New York Foundation for the Arts (2017) and residencies from Exploring the Metropolis (2019), the MacDowell Colony (2017 & 2020), the Millay Colony for the Arts (2015), and the Brush Creek Foundation for the Arts (2014). Webber is originally from British Columbia. www.annakristinwebber.com
Mike Effenberger is a recording and performing artist who has been living in the outer Seacoast woods since 2007. He has curated an unmistakably individual voice that draws on gospel, American minimalism, jazz, and 20th century music. Known affiliations include: Bing and Ruth, OURBIGBAND, fiveighthirteen, Soggy Po’ Boys and Weird Turn Pro. Mike appears on countless recordings from independent releases to larger labels and is active as a producer. www.mikeeffenberger.bandcamp.com
Mali Obomsawin is an award winning songwriter, bassist and composer from the W8banaki (Abenaki) First Nation at Odanak. With an eclectic background in American roots, jazz, and indie rock, Obomsawin carries several music traditions. A Smithsonian Folkways Recordings artist, Mali has received acclaim from NPR and RollingStone and toured internationally with her band Lula Wiles. She received the International Folk Music Association's “Rising Tide Award” in 2022, which recognizes new generation artists who embody the values and ideals of the folk community through their creative work, community role, and public voice. She frequents the folk music circuit as both frontwoman and sidewoman, appearing at festivals like Newport and Philly Folk with Jake Blount and Lula Wiles, and also performs in the creative music scene with the likes of Peter Apfelbaum, Taylor Ho Bynum, and Bill Cole's Untempered Ensemble. She is one of five artists featured in Welcome To Indian Country, an Indigenous Performance Production highlighting leading Native voices in jazz and roots music. As a composer-arranger, she recently scored the upcoming film We Are Warriors, collaborated with Red Sky Performance and the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, and Palaver Strings. Her debut album Sweet Tooth is set to be released this fall on Out Of Your Head Records. www.maliobomsawin.com
