Chris Jonas: Music from the Deserts and Beni Adam

Chris Jonas: Music from the Deserts
With Chris Jonas, Thomas Heberer, Cyrus Cambell and Andrew Drury

and debut of opening performers
Beni Adam
WEDNESDAY, March 12, 2025 | 7PM-9PM
Location: Mt. Ida Preservation Hall, 548 Congress St., Troy, NY 12180
Tickets! $20 Suggested donation

Improv Spaces is thrilled to announce a special evening of improvisational music at Mt. Ida Preservation Hall on Wednesday, March 12, 2025 of Chris Jonas: Music from the Deserts with Chris Jonas, compositions, projected video, soprano and tenor saxophones; Thomas Heberer, cornet; Cyrus Campbell, acoustic bass; Andrew Drury, drums. Local Troy-based Beni Adam, the team of multi-talented improvisational musicians Adam Tinkle and Adam Elabd, will debut their acoustic and electric clarinet duo to open the evening.

Music from the Deserts is a project of Santa Fe-based composer/sax player Chris Jonas, featuring Thomas Heberer on cornet, bassist Cyrus Campbell and drummer Andrew Drury. Deserts explores music written in complete solitude during winter camping over three years during the Pandemic, created in Arizona's Barry Goldwater Missile Range adjacent to the Trump Border Wall that cuts across Arizona's granite Tinajas Altas. This collection of music is in the midst of touring worldwide in 2023-25. Jonas’s music contains some elements of jazz while mixing elements that are quirky, delicate, weirdly groovy, polyphonic, and a mixture of the disjointed and melodic.

About the artists:

Chris Jonas, reeds, compositions, video 

Santa Fe-based Jonas has been a long time and very active artistic figure in the creative music world, working as a collaborator in video, conducting and performing with Anthony Braxton (with whom he has recorded dozens of albums, conducted orchestras, produced operas and large scale events, and toured extensively), Cecil Taylor (1996-98 as performer and musical director), William Parker (as a member of Little Huey 1992-2001), and touring across the EU as a member of the Anthony Braxton Saxophone Quartet in 2022, which was just released as a four record set Sax QT (Lorraine). He is currently working in the EU and US with an array of projects, including 2025 work with bassist Sylvia Bolognese with a 30 person creative orchestra in Pisa, tours with Desert project ensembles in Italy, Germany, UK and Sweden, with Myra Melford on a series of video and music pieces about painter Cy Twombly, and with Anthony Braxton in a variety of ensembles, including a concert at the Library of Congress March 8, 2025. He is co-founder of the Santa Fe-based multi arts non-profit, Little Globe (www.littleglobe.org) and won the United States Artists Award in 2009. www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chris_Jonas 

Thomas Heberer, cornet 

Time Out New York called him “an innovator,” the The Penguin Guide to Jazz “outstandingly gifted,” and pianist Alexander von Schlippenbach “our new trumpet genius.” Thomas Heberer, born 1965 in Schleswig, Germany, started playing the trumpet at age 11. From 1984 to 1987, he studied under Manfred Schoof at the Cologne University of Music. He has performed in 70 countries on 6 continents; was a lecturer at the the Frankfurt University of Music and Performing Arts (1993-97); and can be heard on approximately 150 recordings. Honors include receiving the prestigious SWR Jazzpreis in 1990, and being awarded the Down Beat Critics Poll as a member of the ICP Orchestra in 2002. Wim Wenders' feature-length dance movie Pina, winner of the 2011 European Film Award, includes music Thomas contributed to Ten Chi, a choreography by Pina Bausch. Besides his ongoing work with the ICP Orchestra, Heberer maintains a busy performance and recording schedule with numerous New York City based ensembles, among them the Nu Band, Remedy and the Angelica Sanchez nonet. www.thomasheberer.com 

Cyrus Campbell, acoustic bass 

Having moved to New York City late 2024, Cyrus has been New Mexico’s fastest rising performing artists, performing with many of the region's greatest musicians, including Eddie Daniels, James Emery, Alex Murzyn, Donald Bailey, John Trentacosta, and many others. He has performed all over the US as well as the southwest region. 

Andrew Drury, drums 

There is no doubt that Andrew Drury is one of most innovative and bold drummers on the modern music scene. (Hrayr Attarian, All About Jazz). Andrew Drury is a drummer, improviser, composer, and bandleader as well as a presenter, producer, educator, and a pioneer of extended techniques for percussion. Rooted in a fascination for Jazz and African-diasporic creativity that began in childhood, and further inspired by a nearly decade-long mentorship with the drummer Ed Blackwell, Drury’s work is in the tradition of those who inspired him in that it doesn’t conform to fixed limitations and always explores the infinite. Originally from Seattle, he lives in Brooklyn, New York. Over the years he has had the pleasure of playing with great artists, well-known and obscure, including Christine Abdelnour, Kris Davis, Michel Doneda, Mark Dresser, Peter Evans, Satoko Fujii, Charles Gayle, Craig Harris, Wayne Horvitz, Earl Howard, Howard Johnson, Eyvind Kang, Mazen Kerbaj, Ku-umba Frank Lacy, Annea Lockwood, Jessica Lurie, Myra Melford, Butch Morris, Aruán Ortiz, Jay Rodriguez, Tomeka Reid, Stephanie Richards, Roswell Rudd, Elliott Sharp, Wally Shoup, Wadada Leo Smith, Steve Swell, John Tchicai, Reggie Watts, Nate Wooley, and Jack Wright, to name a few.

Beni Adam (“human beings” in Arabic) is the new duo of neighbors and friends Adam Elabd and Adam Tinkle, centered on intimate conversational improvisational interplay between two clarinets and timbral exploration of the woodwind families and their electronic prostheses.

IMPROV SPACES serves as a hub in the Saratoga/Capital region to provide opportunities and resources for performance, practice and workshops for musicians involved in improvisation with a community of interdisciplinary collaborators. IMPROV SPACES is fiscally sponsored by the New York Foundation for the Arts and is in residence at Saratoga Arts. www.improvspaces.org 

Event Venue & Nearby Stays

Mt. Ida Preservation Hall, 548 Congress Street, Troy, United States