Vision Festival

Last updated
2Final set from Vision Festival XIII, June 11, 2008. From left to right: Billy Bang, Fred Anderson, William Parker and Kidd Jordan. Vision Festival.png
2Final set from Vision Festival XIII, June 11, 2008. From left to right: Billy Bang, Fred Anderson, William Parker and Kidd Jordan.

The Vision Festival is the world's premier festival of experimental music (typically free jazz/avant-garde jazz), art, film and dance, held annually in May/June on the Lower East Side of New York City from 1996 to 2011, in Brooklyn from 2012-2014, and returning to Manhattan in 2015. [1] [2] [3] It usually consists of between thirty and sixty performances, spread out over a number of days. [4] Inspired by the 1984 and 1988 Sound Unity Festivals, it was a direct outgrowth of the seminal but short-lived Improvisors Collective (1994–95). In 1996, the collective's founder, dancer-choreographer Patricia Nicholson Parker, staged the first Vision Festival at the Learning Alliance on Lafayette Street, and subsequently founded the not-for-profit Arts for Art, Inc to organize the festival on an annual basis, along with other events and concert series throughout the year. In addition to Nicholson Parker, other members of Arts for Art's Board of Directors include: Hal Connolly, Patricia Ali, Jo Wood Brown, Whit Dickey, Judy Gage, Patricia Nicholson Parker, William Parker, Todd Nicholson and Patricia Wilkins.

Contents

Over the years, the festival has taken place in numerous venues, including the Angel Orensanz Center for the Arts, the St. Nicholas of Myra church basement, the New Age Cabaret (formerly known as the Electric Circus), the Knitting Factory, St. Patrick's youth center, CBGB, Clemente Soto Vélez Cultural Center, the Abrons Arts Center, Roulette Intermedium and Judson Memorial Church. [5]

Music performers

The list of artists who have performed at the Vision Festival is long and varied, including David S. Ware, Cooper-Moore, Sam Rivers, Frank Lowe, Abbey Rader, Daniel Carter, William Parker, Roy Campbell, Jr., Hamid Drake, Nicole Mitchell, Rob Brown, Kidd Jordan, Henry Grimes, Marc Ribot, Chad Taylor, Rashied Ali, Joe McPhee, Jason Kao Hwang, Jayne Cortez, Fred Anderson, Matthew Shipp, Billy Bang, Eddie Gale, Whit Dickey, Amiri Baraka, Roscoe Mitchell, Steve Lacy, DJ Spooky, Yo La Tengo, Peter Kowald, Peter Brötzmann, Cat Power and Louis Moholo, among others. [5] The festival also often features special "event" performances, such as the 2004 reunion of the Revolutionary Ensemble, who hadn't performed publicly together in almost thirty years. [4]

About Arts for Art, Inc.

Arts for Art, Inc. is a multicultural, artist-initiated and artist-run organization whose purpose is to build awareness and understanding of avantjazz and related expressive movements. Our principal activities are the presentation of cutting edge music, multi-discipline performances, and the exhibition of visual arts installations. Arts for Art, is devoted to the presentation of experimental American music from an Afro-American perspective and traditions. Avantjazz is a direct outgrowth of jazz, historically an African-American music. It has gone world wide and gained audience and artists from all cultures. Our programming is multi-racial, reflecting this development of avantjazz into a multi-cultural art form. Yet we respect and encourage the roots of this music, which are essentially black.

Arts for Art mission statement

Arts For Art supports diversity in music, dance, art and ideas that embrace improvisation as a means to transform both artist and audience.

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cecil Taylor</span> American jazz pianist and poet (1929–2018)

Cecil Percival Taylor was an American pianist and poet.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">William Parker (musician)</span> American jazz musician

William Parker is an American free jazz double bassist. Beginning in the 1980s, Parker played with Cecil Taylor for over a decade, and he has led the Little Huey Creative Music Orchestra since 1981. The Village Voice named him "the most consistently brilliant free jazz bassist of all time" and DownBeat has called him "one of the most adventurous and prolific bandleaders in jazz".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Matthew Shipp</span> American pianist, composer, and bandleader

Matthew Shipp is an American avant-garde jazz pianist, composer, and bandleader.

The Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM) is a nonprofit organization, founded in 1965 in Chicago by pianist Muhal Richard Abrams, pianist Jodie Christian, drummer Steve McCall, and composer Phil Cohran. The AACM is devoted "to nurturing, performing, and recording serious, original music," according to its charter. It supports and encourages jazz performers, composers and educators. Although founded in the jazz tradition, the group's outreach and influence has, according to Larry Blumenfeld, "touched nearly all corners of modern music."

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Roscoe Mitchell</span> American composer, jazz musician, and educator

Roscoe Mitchell is an American composer, jazz instrumentalist, and educator, known for being "a technically superb – if idiosyncratic – saxophonist". The Penguin Guide to Jazz described him as "one of the key figures" in avant-garde jazz; All About Jazz stated in 2004 that he had been "at the forefront of modern music" for more than 35 years. Critic Jon Pareles in The New York Times has mentioned that Mitchell "qualifies as an iconoclast". In addition to his own work as a bandleader, Mitchell is known for cofounding the Art Ensemble of Chicago and the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dave Douglas (trumpeter)</span> American jazz trumpeter, composer, and educator

Dave Douglas is an American jazz trumpeter, composer, and educator. His career includes more than fifty recordings as a leader and more than 500 published compositions. His ensembles include the Dave Douglas Quintet; Sound Prints, a quintet co-led with saxophonist Joe Lovano; Uplift, a sextet with bassist Bill Laswell; Present Joys with pianist Uri Caine and Andrew Cyrille; High Risk, an electronic ensemble with Shigeto, Jonathan Aaron, and Ian Chang; and Engage, a sextet with Jeff Parker, Tomeka Reid, Anna Webber, Nick Dunston, and Kate Gentile.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Newport Jazz Festival</span> Music festival in Newport, Rhode Island, US

The Newport Jazz Festival is an annual American multi-day jazz music festival held every summer in Newport, Rhode Island. Elaine Lorillard established the festival in 1954, and she and husband Louis Lorillard financed it for many years. They hired George Wein to organize the first festival and bring jazz to Rhode Island.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">George E. Lewis</span> American composer, performer, and music scholar

George Emanuel Lewis is an American composer, performer, and scholar of experimental music. He has been a member of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM) since 1971, when he joined the organization at the age of 19. He is renowned for his work as an improvising trombonist and considered a pioneer of computer music, which he began pursuing in the late 1970s; in the 1980s he created Voyager, an improvising software he has used in interactive performances. Lewis's many honors include a MacArthur Fellowship and a Guggenheim Fellowship, and his book A Power Stronger Than Itself: The AACM and American Experimental Music received the American Book Award. Lewis is the Edwin H. Case Professor of American Music, Composition & Historical Musicology at Columbia University.

Joseph Jarman was an American jazz musician, composer, poet, and Shinshu Buddhist priest. He was one of the first members of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians and a member of the Art Ensemble of Chicago.

AUM Fidelity is an independent record label in New York City primarily devoted to avant-garde jazz artists such as William Parker, Matthew Shipp, and David S. Ware. It has also released recordings by improvisational rock band Shrimp Boat and exclusively distributes the CaseQuarter and Riti labels. It was founded in 1997 by former Homestead Records label manager Steven Joerg.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Roy Campbell Jr.</span> American trumpeter (1952–2014)

Roy Sinclair Campbell Jr. was an American trumpeter frequently linked to free jazz, although he also performed rhythm and blues and funk during his career.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kidd Jordan</span> American saxophonist (1935–2023)

Edward "Kidd" Jordan was an American jazz saxophonist and music educator from New Orleans, Louisiana. He taught at Southern University at New Orleans from 1974 to 2006.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jason Moran (musician)</span> American jazz pianist, composer, educator (born 1975)

Jason Moran is an American jazz pianist, composer, and educator involved in multimedia art and theatrical installations.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gerald Cleaver (musician)</span> American drummer

Gerald Cleaver is a jazz drummer from Detroit, Michigan.

Judy Dunaway is a conceptual sound artist, avant-garde composer, free improvisor and creator of sound installations who is primarily known for her sound works for latex balloons. Since 1990 she has created over thirty works for balloons as sound conduits and has also made this her main instrument for improvisation.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ivo Perelman</span> Brazilian free jazz saxophonist (born 1961)

Ivo Perelman is a Brazilian free jazz saxophonist born in São Paulo.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kavita Shah</span> Musical artist

Kavita Shah is a vocalist and composer from New York, NY. She has been hailed by NPR for possessing an “amazing dexterity with musical languages”.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tomeka Reid</span> American jazz musician

Tomeka Reid is an American composer, improviser, cellist, curator, and teacher.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Roulette Intermedium</span>

Roulette Intermedium is a performing arts and new music venue located in Brooklyn, New York City. Founded in 1978, it has been located in the neighborhoods of Tribeca and SoHo in Manhattan, and now resides in a renovated theater in downtown Brooklyn. Roulette is a nonprofit organization focusing on fostering experimental dance, new music, and performance.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Karlton Hester</span> American musician

Karlton Hester is an American, performer, composer, scholar, and educator.

References

  1. ↑ Chinen, Nate. (2006). "The Vision Festival: On the Fringe and Reveling in Rhythm". The New York Times. Retrieved June 22, 2007.
  2. ↑ Ratliff, Ben. (2007). "If It’s June, This Must Be Jazz". The New York Times. Retrieved June 22, 2007.
  3. ↑ Jazz Concert Details @ jazzreview.com
  4. 1 2 Chinen, Nate. (2004). "Hello Goodbye: The ultimate jazz outsider confab comes to praise the dead". The Village Voice. Retrieved June 22, 2007.
  5. 1 2 Gross, Jason. (2002). "20/20 Visionaries". The Village Voice. Retrieved June 22, 2007.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.