On Friday, March 14, at 8:00 p.m. in the Vermont Jazz Center performance space at the Cotton Mill Hill complex, Friends of Music at Guilford presents a “World Music & Jazz Roots” concert benefiting its annual Music Enrichment Program at Guilford Central School.
The Friday concert features two ensembles drawing on jazz and classical foundations as well as traditional instrumental and vocal music from around the world. They blend those roots and rhythms into World Music and jazz forms, often original and sometimes skillfully improvised, but always a masterful, creative fusion carrying their audience along on a joyful, soulful journey.
In 2008, Friends of Music at Guilford (FOMAG) launched a Music Enrichment Program for Guilford Central School, prompted both by music budget cuts and by a desire for students in the upper grades to make music a lifelong passion as they move on to middle and high school. The Max Y. Seaton Trust has awarded six annual grants of $1,500 to support this program, but the remainder of each year’s $3,500 budget has been FOMAG’s responsibility. This season’s “Rhythms for Drums, Voices, and Other Instruments” residency on March 12-14 is being led by Brattleboro-based musicians Todd Roach and Anna Patton.
The opening set of Friday’s concert at the Jazz Center will feature Brattleboro-based percussionist TODD ROACH with New York guests BRANDON TERZIC and KANE MATHIS. Masters on multiple instruments from many cultures, this duo’s music honors tradition but also is a rich alchemical blend exploring new places.
Brandon Terzic plays guitar, the Arabic Oud, the Turkish Saz, and the Malian jalli Ngoni. He has studied and performed with Master musicians from Morocco, Senegal, India, the US, and Europe, and has released two albums—the groundbreaking “Xalam Project” and a duo improvisation album with master percussionist Ravi Padmanabha enti
tled “Western Skies, Eastern Dreams.”
Kane Mathis may be the only musician in the world to master both the Kora and the Turkish Oud. He also plays guitar and sings in the Mandinkin language of West Africa. He has recorded several albums during his years of shuttling back and forth between the US and the Gambia, as well as traveling to Turkey to dedicate himself fully to his music. An esteemed solo artist, he is also a sought-after sideman in multiple idioms.
Todd Roach performs on darbuka, riqq, frame drums, pandeiro, djembe and percussion and is an artist-endorser and representative for the Cooperman Drum Company. A teacher in area public and private schools and at his Cotton Mill Hill studio, he released an instructional video, “The Quick Guide to Playing Doumbec,” with Carl Fisher Publishing in 2000. Todd performs with a wide variety of musical groups in the U.S. and overseas, and also provides rhythms for theater, dance, and visual artists.
The globe-trotting trio above will be followed by the AS YET QUINTET, whose members include ROACH and PATTON, as well as EUGENE UMAN on piano, JULIAN GERSTIN on drums, and CHARLIE SCHNEEWEIS on trumpet. These accomplished players perform a creative medley of Mideastern, Caribbean, and jazz sounds. All five contribute to their program of entirely original pieces ranging from Latin grooves to Turkish modes, Balkan rhythms played on Cuban wooden boxes, and blues with a touch of Bulgarian choral singing.
Anna Patton was an ethnomusicology major at Marlboro, studied Bulgarian music in-country and among immigrant musicians in New York City, and is completing a Master’s program at New England Conservatory. A teacher, arranger, and composer, she coaches a popular Jazz Vocal Harmony group at the Vermont Jazz Center and travels throughout the U.S., Canada, and Europe playing the clarinet with innovative dance bands such as Elixir and the swing quartet Housetop.
Eugene Uman is artistic and executive director of the Vermont Jazz Center. He has appeared as pianist with acts ranging from rocker Bo Diddley to straight-ahead jazz with Sonny Fortune and Sheila Jordan, to the avant-garde. With As Yet he brings his interest in Colombian rhythms, learned during two years of teaching and performing in Colombia.
Charlie Schneeweis brings to the trumpet an intense lyricism and a creative vision encompassing both jazz and classical idioms. He is a regular with Simba, Ill-Wind Ensemble, Keene Jazz Orchestra, VJC Big Band, Hugh Keelan Ensemble, and his own quartet. The Virtual Consort trio, with Charlie on trumpet, won Prairie Home Companion’s 1998 “Talent from Towns Under 2,000” Contest on NPR.
As Yet’s two percussionists tap expertly into the infinite world of folk rhythms:
Julian Gerstin, a master of Caribbean and African percussion, is a member of the Afro-Cuban folkloric troupe Iroko Nuevo, the Afrobeat ensemble Fenibo, and Dan DeWalt’s Green Mountain Mambo. A veteran of numerous Latin jazz, experimental jazz, highlife, soukous, and mbaqanga bands, he is a specialist on the tanbou bèlè drum of Martinique, a technically demanding instrument rarely heard off-island.
Todd Roach, a master of Middle Eastern and North African instruments, has taught percussion-based residencies and clinics in schools and at festivals in the U.S., Canada, South America, and Europe. (See additional bio notes above.)
Admission to the March 14 concert is $15 per person, $5 for students age 16 and under. A dessert buffet will offer delectable treats, warm and cold cider, and coffee.
The Vermont Jazz Center is located at 72 Cotton Mill Hill, Studio 222; use the flagpole entrance and head upstairs. For further information, contact Friends of Music at (802) 254-3600 or by emailing office@fomag.org; visit online at www.fomag.org.
