Fully Altered Media
Showcase Schedule
Sunday January 12, 2024
10 AM – 3 PM
The Jazz Gallery
1158 Broadway at 27th Street
5th Floor
New York, NY 10001
10:00 AM – Miriam Elhajli / Matthew Jamal
Miriam Elhajli is a folk singer, composer-improviser, and musicologist whose work is influenced by the musical traditions of her Venezuelan, Moroccan and North American heritage.
Elhajli lives in New York City where she performs and works as a researcher at The Association for Cultural Equity founded by Alan Lomax.
10:45 AM – Ohad Talmor’s Back to the Land
Back to the Land is a band led by saxophonist and composer Ohad Talmor, featuring vibraphonist Joel Ross, bassist Chris Tordini, and drummer Eric McPherson. The group draws inspiration from newly discovered music by Ornette Coleman, which Talmor has completely reimagined. The result is a vibrant, kaleidoscopic exploration of the musical world through the lens of a 21st-century visionary, blending the familiar with the unexpected. Collaborating with some of New York’s most inventive improvisers, Talmor and his ensemble build on the legacies of Coleman and Dewey Redman, while forging a unique path that honors their spirit and pushes into new, uncharted territory.
11:30 AM – Adam Birnbaum’s Preludes
Preludes is a ground-breaking album which re-imagines the work of J.S. Bach for a new generation. With Matt Clohesy (Darcy James Argue’s Secret Society) on bass and Keita Ogawa (Snarky Puppy) on percussion, jazz pianist Adam Birnbaum (NY Village Vanguard Orchestra) creates fresh and vital arrangements of well-known works by J.S. Bach. The music manages to be both faithful to Bach’s original compositions while at the same time thoroughly modern and surprising at every turn. Baroque music, especially that of Johann Sebastian Bach, has long attracted jazz artists as a vehicle for improvisation, from the bebop era into the 21st century; in that spirit, New York-based pianist Adam Birnbaum presents his own improvisatory vision of a dozen of Bach’s preludes selected from The Well-Tempered Clavier and arranged for jazz-trio. Past and future performances include such prestigious stages as The Gilmore Piano Festival, The Kennedy Center, Dumbarton Concerts, Bach Festival at the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra, and the Belvedere Series amongst others.
12:15 PM – Adam O’Farrill’s Elephant
ELEPHANT is a quartet led by the Brooklyn-born-and-bred composer Adam O’Farrill, featuring Yvonne Rogers on piano, prepared piano, and synthesizer, Walter Stinson on double bass, Russell Holzman on drums, and O’Farrill on trumpet and electronics. Drawing influence from 20th century classical music and minimalism, as well as the beat music of the subsequent drum machine era, ELEPHANT strikes an impressive balance between the freedom and small-group intimacy of the jazz quartet tradition, the patience and emotional scale of Reich, Sakamoto, and Britten, and the urgency and excitement of contemporary dance music.
1:00 PM – Joel Harrison Guitar Choir
Guitarist/composer/producer/educator Joel Harrison introduces a new ensemble, a roving cast of supremely creative guitar players, who demonstrate the infinity of the instrument. Each performance features 3 to 4 guitarists, all of whom collaborate in different configurations, duo, solo, trio or quartet. The pool that the Summit draws from includes Anthony Pirog, Steve Cardenas, Marvin Sewell, Ben Monder, Camila Meza, Pete McCann, and Gregg Belisle Chi. Groups will not only perform Harrison’s original music, but tunes from his body of work in other ensembles he’s created, Free Country, Harrison on Harrison, Mother Stump, and the Great Mirage. The repertoire may also include music by Paul Motian, jazz standards, Danny Gatton tunes. Nothing is off-limits. Depending on the performance situation, there may also be a rhythm section involved. Alternative Guitar Summit, a series of concerts and camps, began 15 years ago and has become the premier gathering of its kind. An artist with 25 recordings to his name, two guitar-themed books, and countless teaching engagements has led Harrison to become a uniquely gifted curator of talent, involving new voices and some of the most legendary guitar players on earth.
1:45 PM – Janel & Anthony
Cellist and vocalist Janel Leppin and guitarist Anthony Pirog have led deeply fascinating creative lives. Leppin has been a pillar of the Washington D.C. music scene as an acclaimed cellist for over twenty years. She composes at the helm of her celebrated Ensemble Volcanic Ash. As a collaborator and multi-instrumentalist, she has contributed to a wide swath of internationally-known experimental and indie sounds, from the inquisitive new-music of Eyvind Kang and Oren Ambarchi to the haunting folksong of Marissa Nadler, to the dynamic psych-rock of Rose Windows and art-punk of PRIESTS. One of the finest guitarists of his generation, Anthony Pirog is a member of Impulse! and Dischord recording artists the Messthetics, featuring the rhythm section of post-hardcore legends Fugazi, as well as an acclaimed jazz and avant-garde improviser and an important torch-carrier for the legacy of D.C. guitar god Danny Gatton. Together, they have reached rare heights of sonic invention and personal expression. Their 2012 Cuneiform Records debut, Where Is Home, earned critical plaudits for its inviting beyond-genre explorations, a seamless blend of composition and improvisation, otherworldly electronics and masterful technique. In 2024 they returned with an ambitious double album, New Moon in the Evil Age, reconciling two facets of their lifelong obsessions in art and music. The first half is a stunning 10-track instrumental disc of inventively produced duets; the second, an evocative nine-track vocal album, reflects the pair’s enduring love of rock, pop and alternative songcraft.
2:30 PM – Nicole Mitchell/Fay Victor “Flutter”
FLUTTER is the duo project of Nicole Mitchell & Fay Victor and Nicole Mitchell for voices, flute and electronics. Fay Victor is a sound artist/bandleader that uses performance, improvisation and composition to examine representations of modern life and blackness. Victor has released thirteen critically acclaimed albums as a leader. In 2024, she released ‘Life Is Funny That Way,” a project dedicated to the unsung pianist, Herbie Nichols with Victor’s own arrangements and lyric to Nichols’ iconic compositions. Victor is the Board chair for the Jazz Leaders Fellowship, an initiative of the Brooklyn Conservatory of Music to fund black women/non-binary jazz leaders. Nicole Mitchell is an award-winning creative flutist, conceptualist, poet and composer. Having emerged from Chicago’s creative music community in the 90’s, she was the first woman president of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM). Mitchell’s music, inspired by the mysteries of nature and the sci-fi writings of Octavia E. Butler, often bridges the familiar with the unknown in effort to offer alternative worlds through sound. As a creative flutist, she’s developed a unique improvisational language which has repeatedly awarded her “Top Flutist of the Year” by Downbeat Magazine Critics Poll and the Jazz Journalists Association. As a soloist and with her Black Earth Ensemble, she has performed throughout Europe, the U.S. and Canada. Mitchell composes for solo instruments, chamber ensembles, orchestra and big bands. Mitchell is the recipient of the Doris Duke Artist Award, the United States Artist Award, the Herb Alpert Artist Award, and was inducted into the American Academy Arts and Letters. She is a Professor of Music at the University of Virginia and enjoys teaching composition, improvisation, creative music ensemble and Black studies courses. Her first book, The Mandorla Letters was published in 2022 by Green Lantern and the University of Minnesota Press.
