Cornish College of the Arts is delighted to have the Wayne Horvitz Gravitas Quartet on campus for a residency in early February that includes master classes with Cornish students and two public events happening February 1-2. Bringing together four uniquely defined voices of new music, jazz, and improvised composition, the Wayne Horvitz Gravitas Quartet features Ron Miles, trumpet, Sara Schoenbeck, Bassoon, Peggy Lee, cello and Wayne Horvitz, piano. The group’s first CD, Way Out East, was released in the spring of 2006 on the Songlines Label to wide critical acclaim. It was picked Album of the Year 2006 by All About Jazz, listed in Best Music of 2006 by Pop Matters and was on the Top 10 Jazz picks of 2006 by Village Voice. The performances at Cornish College of the Arts will include material from the CD, improvisations, and new works.
“Way out East is a beautiful and quietly moving and poetic recording; one that will sound fresh and new decades from now. Horvitz and his players have shown that “improvised” or “new” music can be utterly lovely to listen to.”
- Thom Jurek, AllMusic.com
“Whether drawing upon the blues or a waltz, Horvitz is not simply manipulating a template, but creating a time-warped ambience, in which the listener feels a stillness that is languid and foreboding. The idiom-free improvisations provide ballast, preventing the album from sinking into sentimentality. Peggy Lee, Ron Miles and Sara Schoenbeck are exquisitely balanced, their every detail precisely etched. For the most part, they are slightly understated in the improvisations; when they move to the foreground, they are persuasive, as is Horvitz.”
- Bill Shoemaker, Downbeat
“The Gravitas Quartet occupies a conceptual no man’s land somewhere between nostalgia and the future, where pensive, minor-key piano excursions are joined by stately cello, regal bassoon, ghostly trumpet and burbling electronics. Way Out East perfectly assimilates Horvitz’s bittersweet melodies and sci-fi futurism into a synchronous sound world all his own.”
- Troy Collins, All About Jazz
Wayne Horvitz is a composer, pianist and electronic musician who has performed extensively throughout Europe, Asia, Australia, and North America. He is the leader of Zony Mash, Pigpen, The Four plus One Ensemble and co-founder of the New York Composers Orchestra. He has performed and collaborated with Bill Frisell, Butch Morris, John Zorn, Robin Holcomb, Fred Frith, Julian Priester, Philip Wilson, Michael Shrieve and Carla Bley among others. He has been commissioned by the NEA, Meet The Composer, Kronos String Quartet, Seattle Chamber Players, Mary Flagler, BAM, Earshot Jazz and others. Collaborations with choreographers include work with Paul Taylor with the White Oak Dance Project, Liz Lerman Dance Exchange, and Crispin Spaeth. Film work includes music and sound design for 3 PBS specials and Gus Van Sandt’s Psycho. He is the year 2001 recipient of the Artist Trust Fellowship (Seattle) and the 2002 recipient of the Rockefeller Foundation MAP Grant.
Wayne Horvitz Gravitas Quartet Noon Concert and Workshop
Thursday, February 1, 2007 Noon - 1 pm
PONCHO Concert Hall at Kerry Hall
710 East Roy Street, Seattle
Free and open to the public
Wayne Horvitz Gravitas Quartet Concert
Friday, February 2, 2007 at 8 pm
PONCHO Concert Hall at Kerry Hall
710 East Roy Street, Seattle
Tickets: $15 general; $7.50 students, alumni and seniors
For tickets contact Ticket Window at (206) 325.6500, www.ticketwindowonline.com or at Ticket Window box offices located at Pacific Place, Broadway Market, Pike Place Market, Bellevue’s Meydenbauer Center
