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“Ms. Victor is a singer with her own brand: She’s theatrical and extreme without being campy. Expectations about a jazz vocalist’s demeanor — that it can’t be too aggressive, or that if it’s biting it can’t also be warm — don’t mean a thing to her...her playing sounds firmly planted in the age of digital media. When she does sing even or discernible pitches, her precision is remarkable. But even more striking is how conversational and direct it feels. She’s essentially invented her own hybrid of song and spoken word, a scat style for today’s avant-garde.”— Giovanni Russonello, The New York Times
Elysium Furnace Works continues its 2024 season with an appearance by the superlative creative vocalist Fay Victor's thrilling, incendiary ensemble SoundNoiseFUNK. This acclaimed, kaleidoscopic supercollision of maverick virtuosi — leader/singer Victor, guitarist Joe Morris, soprano saxophonist Sam Newsome and drummer Reggie Nicholson — unleashes music of unrelenting energy unlimited by tradition.
That said, they're not kidding about "FUNK"!!!
Fay Victor's SoundNoiseFUNK will perform at the VBI Theatre of Cunneen-Hackett Arts Center, located at 12 Vassar St. in Poughkeepsie, NY, on Saturday, April 27 at 8 PM. Tickets are $20 in advance and $30 at the door — advance tickets are on sale now at https://fayvictor.eventbrite.com
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EFW's momentous 2024 season will also include:
(PLEASE NOTE date change for this concert) May 17: Chourmo (Torn / Berne / Rainey), VBI @ CHAC — we present a cataclysmic trio of leaders — guitarist David Torn, alto saxophonist Tim Berne and drummer Tom Rainey — certain to ignite fire, intricate abstraction and passionate forward-motion. Advance tickets on sale now at: https://chourmo.eventbrite.com/
June 22: Jamaaladeen Tacuma / James Brandon Lewis: “On Your Shoulders”, VBI @ CHAC — this historic congregation of the legendary harmolodic bass pioneer from Ornette Coleman's innovative electric ensemble Prime Time Tacuma with the DownBeat Magazine Rising Star on tenor saxophone Lewis is a multi-generational celebration honoring past trailblazers and offering, in Mr. Tacuma's words, "a special thank you to all the mentors and elders in music sharing their knowledge and creativity with the next generation.” Advance tickets on sale now at: https://jtjbl.eventbrite.com/
JUST ANNOUNCED! July 19: Matthew Shipp Trio, St. Andrew's & St. Luke's Church, Beacon NY — the renowned, era-defining pianist and composer Shipp returns to this sacred space in Beacon, joined by the world-class rhythm section of Michael Bisio on bass and Newman Taylor Baker on drums, as they celebrate their aptly-titled new recording for ESP-Disk', New Concepts in Piano Trio Jazz. Advance tickets on sale now at: https://mstrio.eventbrite.com/
September 21: Peter Evans, VBI @ CHAC — the fearsomely gifted trumpeter Evans astonishes with the sheer multiplicity of sounds and textures he is able to coax from his horn and the staggering inspiration that shapes his fathomless exploration in this rare Hudson Valley solo appearance. Advance tickets on sale now at: https://peterevans.eventbrite.com/
October 19: Yuko Otomo, VBI @ CHAC — in her first solo Hudson Valley appearance, the exceptional poet and writer Otomo brings her revelatory work steeped in humane soul and omniversal epiphany, accompanied by musicians TBA. Advance tickets on sale now at: https://otomo.eventbrite.com/
November 16: AM / FM, VBI @ CHAC — this power duo of guitarist Ava Mendoza and violinist Gabby Fluke-Mogul synthesize a heady brew of avant jazz, blues and noise, radically upending experimental music(s) past, present, and future. Advance tickets on sale now at: https://amfm.eventbrite.com/
December 7: Harriet Tubman (Ross / Gibbs / Lewis), VBI @ CHAC — EFW closes out our monumental season with the fiery intensity of the long-running eclectic, electric collective Harriet Tubman, comprising the insanely talented, accomplished trio of guitarist Brandon Ross, bassist Melvin Gibbs and drummer JT Lewis, rounding out 2024 on a monstrously high, heavy note. Advance tickets on sale now at: https://harriettubman.eventbrite.com/
Biographies Fay Victor and the members of SoundNoiseFUNK follow below.
Journalists: please join EFW throughout 2024 — email JK separately to be comped for our events.
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Sound artist Fay Victor is an improvising vocalist, composer, lyricist and educator riding all the chasms and seams of musics that are improvisational and conversational in nature.
Brooklyn, NY based sound artist/composer Fay Victor hones a unique vision for the vocal role in jazz and improvised music regarding repertoire, improvisation and composition. Victor has an ‘everything is everything’ aesthetic, using the freedom in the moment to inform the appropriate musical response, viewing the vocal instrument as full of possibilities for sound exploration, a through-line for direct messages in an improvising context. Victor embraces all of these ideas in real time and on Victor’s 11 critically acclaimed albums as a leader one can hear the evolution of this expansive expression.
Victor’s work has been featured in media outlets such as The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, The San Francisco Chronicle, Rolling Stone Magazine & The Huffington Post; Victor’s performed with luminaries such as William Parker, Roswell Rudd, Dr. Randy Weston, Nicole Mitchell, Misha Mengelberg, Myra Melford, Archie Shepp, Marc Ribot & Tyshawn Sorey to name but a few; Performance highlights include The Museum of Modern Art & The Whitney Museum of American Art (NYC), The Hammer Museum (LA), The Kolner Philharmonie (Germany), De Young Museum (SF), Symphony Space (NY), The Earshot Jazz Festival (Seattle), The Winter Jazz Festival (NYC) and the Bimhuis (Netherlands).
As a composer, Victor has been awarded prizes such as the 2017 Herb Albert/Yaddo Fellow in Music Composition, a 2018 AIR in Composition for the Headlands Center for the Arts in California and a 2020 recipient of a Jazz Coalition Commission to create during the pandemic. Victor composed ‘Sirens & Silences’, which premiered in May 2022 in Brooklyn, NY. Victor has been commissioned to write a work for voice and violin entitled ‘Breathe Them In’, premiere at the New England Conservatory in 2023, performed by Eden MacAdam-Somer.
An innovative educator, Victor is on the faculty of the College of Performing Arts at the New School where she teaches interdisciplinary practices and Vocal Performance, at the ROC Nation School for Sports, Music and Entertainment at Long Island University and continues to give talks and clinics on Jazz, creative improvisation, Composition and more at institutions around the world. Victor is a member of the International Contemporary Ensemble, Chairs an Advisory Board for the Jazz Leaders Fellowship, a new initiative for the Brooklyn Conservatory of Music, and is an ex-officio Board Member of the IASJ/The International Association of Schools of Jazz.
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Joe Morris is a composer/improviser multi-instrumentalist who plays guitar, double bass, mandolin, banjo, banjouke electric bass and drums. He is also a recording artist, educator, record producer, concert producer/curator and author. His is considered to be one of the most original and important improvising musicians of our time. Down Beat magazine called him “the preeminent free music guitarist of his generation.” Will Montgomery, writing in The Wire magazine called him “one of the most profound improvisers at work in the U.S.”
He is originally from New Haven, Connecticut. At the age of 12 he took lessons on the trumpet for one year. He started on guitar in 1969 at the age of 14. He played his first professional gig later that year. With the exception of a few lessons he is self-taught. The influence of Jimi Hendrix and other guitarists of that period led him to concentrate on learning to play the blues. Soon thereafter his sister gave him a copy of John Coltrane's OM, which inspired him to learn about Jazz and New Music. From age 15 to 17 he attended The Unschool, a student-run alternative high school near the campus of Yale University in downtown New Haven. Taking advantage of the open learning style of the school he spent much of his time playing music with other students, listening to ethnic folk, blues, jazz, and classical music on record at the public library and attending the various concerts and recitals on the Yale campus, including performances by Wadada Leo Smith. He worked to establish his own voice on guitar in a free jazz context from the age of 17, drawing on the influence of Coltrane, Miles Davis, Cecil Taylor,Thelonius Monk, Ornette Coleman as well as the AACM, BAG, and the many European improvisers of the '70s. Later he would draw influence from traditional West African string music, Messian, Ives, Eric Dolphy, Jimmy Lyons, Leroy Jenkins, Steve McCall and Fred Hopkins. After high school he performed in rock bands, rehearsed in jazz bands and played totally improvised music with friends until 1975 when he moved to Boston.
Between 1975 and 1986 he was active on the Boston creative music scene as a performer and concert and music community organizer. He composed music for his first trio in 1977. In 1980 he traveled to Europe where he performed in Belgium and Holland. When he returned to Boston he co-founded the Boston Improvisers Group (BIG). Over the next few years through various configurations BIG produced two festivals and many concerts. In 1981 he formed his own record company, Riti, and recorded his first Lp Wraparound with a trio featuring Sebastian Steinberg on bass and Laurence Cook on drums. Also in 1981 he began what would be a six year collaboration with the multi-instrumentalist Lowell Davidson performing with him in a trio and duo. Between 1986 and 1989 he lived in New York City where he performed at the Shuttle Theater, Club Chandelier, Visiones, Inroads, Greenwich House, etc. as well as performing with his trio at the first festival Tea and Comprovisation held at the Knitting Factory. In 1989 he returned to Boston where he lived until 2001. In 1994 he became the first guitarist to lead his own session in the twenty year history of Black Saint/Soul Note Records with the trio recording Symbolic Gesture. In 2000 he began playing upright bass and in 2001 he returned to the New Haven, Connecticut area.
He has performed or recorded with Anthony Braxton, John Zorn, Evan Parker, Matthew Shipp, William Parker, Wadada Leo Smith, David S. Ware, Sunny Murray, Marshall Allen, Dewey Redman, Lawrence “Butch” Morris, Andrew CyrilleJoe Maneri, Barry Guy, Tyshawn Sorey, Ken Vandermark, Mary Halvorson, Han Bennink, Barre Phillips, Tomeka Reid, Paul Rutherford, Agustí Fernández, Nate Wooley, Peter Evans, Gerald Cleaver, Rob Brown, John Butcher, Eugene Chadbourne, DKV Trio, Aaly Trio, Daniel Carter, Rashid Bakr, Wilbur Morris,, Kidd Jordan, Alvin Fielder, Ikue Mori, Zeena Parkins, Tim Berne, Fred Anderson, Ivo Perelman, Andrea Parkins, Hamid Drake, Thurman Barker, Fred Hopkins, Bern Nix, Joe McPhee, Billy Bang, Lowell Davidson, Peter Kowald, Simon Fell, Roy Campbell Jr., Raphé Malik, Whit Dickey, Sabir Mateen, Mark Dresser, Gerry Hemingway, Warren Smith, Karen Borca, Malcolm Goldstein, Paul Lytton, Tim Berne, Suzie Ibarra, Mat Maneri, Sylvia Courvosier, Thurston Moore, Alex Ward, Jamie Saft and many others. He has also performed as a member of William Parker’s Organic Ensemble, Pipeline 2000, Jim Hobbs Ghost Band, Alan Silva’s Celestial Communications Orchestra, Simon Fell Orchestra, Agustí Fernández Celebration Ensemble, and in a large ensemble led by Leroy Jenkins. He currently leads various groups including Abstract Forest, a 20+ piece improvising ensemble, Go Go Mambo, Joe Morris Quartet, Mess Hall, Shock Axis, Plymouth, as well as performing solo, in duos and as a freelance guitarist and double bassist. In 2019 he began his INSTANTIATION music, recording and performing the first four parts of the multi-part work that uses the properties of free music in new ways with various ensembles.
He is featured as leader, co-leader and sideman on 150 recordings to date. Many of his recordings as a leader have been named among Writer’s Choice (best of the year) in the Village Voice, Chicago Tribune, Wire, Coda, and Jazziz, and on Free Jazz.org and All About Jazz.com. He has recorded for the labels AUM Fidelity, SoulNote, Thirsty Ear, Ayler, Knitting Factory, Okka Disc, OmniTone, Avant, Incus, Hat Hut, ECM, Leo, Homestead, NoMore, About Time, Clean Feed, Skycap, Rogue Art, Rare Noise, ESPdisk, Bug Incision, Relative Pitch, and Cuneiform. In 2014 he founded Glacial Erratic records.
In 2019 he was nominated for a St Botolph Distinguished Artist Award. He received the 2017 Killam Visiting Scholar Award from the University of Calgary Alberta Canada. He was the recipient of a Meet the Composer grant in 2004. He was nominated for a 2001 Calarts Alpert Award. He was nominated as New York Jazz Awards Guitarist of the Year in 1998 and 2002.
In 2012 he published the book Perpetual Frontier: The Properties of Free Music (Riti, 2012). His article Encryption was included in Arcane vol 7 (Tzadik 2014). His article Perpetual Frontier appears on www.pointofdeparture.org (Pod39) May 2012. He has written numerous liner note articles on his music and for other artists for recordings on the labels Sony, Hat Hut, Aum Fidelity, RogueArt and others. His monthly column Intentional Evolution begins publication in the German magazine Jazz Podium in January 2020. He has presented workshops and master classes in a wide variety of settings throughout North America and Europe, including at Harvard University, Princeton University, Dartmouth College, University of the Arts, Berklee College of Music, University of Calgary, University of Guelph, University of Alberta, and Mannes School of Music. He has taught improvisation and/or guitar on the faculty at Tufts University Experimental College, Southern Connecticut State University and the Longy School of Music at Bard College. He is a lesson faculty member at New School Jazz and Contemporary Music. He has been on the faculty in the Jazz and Contemporary Improvisation Department at New England Conservatory of Music since 2000.
He began his work as an organizer and performance producer/curator in 1976 in Boston and continued there and in New York until 2001 when he left Boston for New Haven CT. Upon moving to Connecticut in 2001 he created the Just Play series in New Haven (2003/2004), curated the premier season at Firehouse 12 (2005), was artistic director for Hartford Jazz Society Jazz in the Park series (2008), co-founded and curated the Improvisations series at Real Art Ways in Hartford (2011–2016), and founded and co-curated the Multiplex series at State House in New Haven (2019). He was in residence at The Stone NYC for two weeks in January 2013, and for one week in June 2014, August 2016, June 2017 and May 2018. In September 2015 through June 2016, he produced the series Arcade which presented him in performance with new emerging musicians with ten performances presented in New Haven, Hartford, Cambridge, Mass., and Brooklyn, N.Y. His one-day festival Spectacle was presented at Real Art Ways in Hartford CT annually from 2013-2018. It featured emerging musicians performing in ad-hoc groupings with well-known professionals.
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Sam Newsome stands as a multifaceted figure in the world of jazz—a saxophonist, music professor, and accomplished writer. In 2023, his artistic endeavors manifested in two duo recordings: Soprano-Logues, a collaborative effort with saxophonist Dave Liebman, and Cosmic Unconsciousness Unplugged, where he joined forces with pianist Jean-Michel Pilc. These releases showcased Newsome's ability to engage in sonically-rich musical dialogues across different instrumental landscapes.
His contributions to the music world have not gone unnoticed. In 2022, Newsome received the prestigious Bronx BRIO Award for Instrumental Music and secured the title of Soprano Saxophonist of the Year in the 14th Annual International Critics Polls. His accolades extend to the 2020 Instant Award in Improvised Music, the 2018 Alpert/Ragdale Prize in Music Composition, the 2016 NYFA Fellowship for Music Composition, and he's been a consistent nominee for Soprano Saxophonist of the Year by the Jazz Journalist Association over the past five years.
Beyond his musical accomplishments, Newsome is a prolific author, having penned two books of personal essays: "Be Inspired, Stay Focused" (2022) and "Life Lessons from the Horn" (2015). In 2023, his piece, “From NoHa to SoBro” was featured in the Bronx Memoir Project Anthology, VII.
Newsome's avant-garde approach, particularly in the realm of prepared saxophone, has positioned him as a sought-after player in New York's improvised music scene. His innovative voice has resonated in collaborations with notable artists such as Elliot Sharpe, William Parker, Fay Victor, Daniel Carter, Joe Morris, and Dave Liebman. Through his diverse talents and contributions, Sam Newsome continues to shape and enrich the landscape of contemporary jazz.
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Reggie Nicholson, drummer, percussionist and composer is a native of Chicago, Illinois. While performing with many musicians in Chicago, such as Jon Logan, Von Freeman, Vince Willis, Byther Smith, Fred Nelson III and Orbit Davis, Nicholson's reputation as an outstanding drummer was established. In 1979, Nicholson became a member of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM). During this time, Nicholson developed a musical relationship with all the members of the AACM including Muhal Richard Abrams, Steve McCall, Edward Wilkerson, Jr., Henry Threadgill, Phil Cohran, Joseph Jarman, Mwata Bowden, Ernest Dawkins, Douglas Ewart, Rita Warford, Amina Claudine Myers and Anthony Braxton.
Since relocating to New York City in 1988, Nicholson has performed with a wide variety of Jazz and New Music luminaries such as Don Pullen, Jon Hendricks, Billy Bang, Butch Morris, Reuben Wilson, Melvin Sparks, Abdullah Ibrahim, Sonny Rollins, Hamiet Bluiett, Myra Melford , Wilber Morris and Roy Campbell. Nicholson has performed in many noted festivals throughout Europe, Asia and the United States including, Chicago, North Sea, Saalfelden, Verona, Knitting Factory- NYC, Red Sea, Tampere, Moers, Nancy, just to name a few.
The instantly recognizable style and sound of his drumming and his music has elevated Nicholson as one of the most distinctive, inventive and inspirational composer and percussionist of his generation.
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Elysium Furnace Works is a cooperative project co-led by Mike Faloon and James Keepnews. EFW seeks to present the work of vanguard artists in settings as dedicated and uncompromising as the art itself, focusing primarily although not exclusively on live music performances in and around New York's vibrant Hudson Valley. Follow us on Facebook — https://www.facebook.com/elysiumfurnaceworks — and on Instagram @elysiumfurnaceworks.
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Event Venue & Nearby Stays
Cunneen-Hackett Arts Center, 12 Vassar St, Poughkeepsie, NY 12601-3046, United States,Poughkeepsie, New York
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