Charlottesville Jazz Society

Three master improvisers come together – Robert Dick, Stephen Nachmanovitch and Robert Jospé will play on May 6, 2017 at Brooks Hall at UVa, sponsored by The Charlottesville Jazz Society. This trio concert will be a spontaneous musical conversation and exploration of sound, rhythm, melody and more. Dick will be playing flute, bass flute and other instruments, Jospé will be playing drum set, hand drums, log drums, and other percussion. Nachmanovitch will be playing violin, viola, electric violin, viola d’amore and voice. It promises to be an experience in free expression with totally open horizons.

Doors open at 7:30 pm. Brooks Hall is located on the grounds of The University of Virginia, next to the Rotunda.

For more information call Gary Funston at (434) 240-6191 or visit Cvillejazz.org.

Robert Dick
 “… a  flutist whose technical resources and imagination seem limitless.”
                                                 – Allan Kozinn, New York Times

“He is one of those rare creators (think of Liszt with the piano or Paganini with the violin) who have effectively reinvented his instrument, creating an entire glossary of fresh techniques.”
                                                 – Tim Page, Washington Post

“The sounds are volcanic and beautiful.”
                                                 – Tages-Anzeiger, Zürich

Robert Dick has completely dispensed with preconceptions about what music a flutist plays and what the flute can sound like. He’s created a unique approach to improvisation and composition, and a unique sound-world for his music to inhabit. He’s collaborated with many improvisers from over the world and has toured and recorded with an extraordinary array of musical personalities. Listening to Robert play solo has been likened to the experience of hearing a full orchestra. He plays the flute as a human powered synthesizer; his sound can be thick chords one instant, then chromatic percussion, then delicate whispering filigrees, then a display of surprising power. Robert loves the idea of continuous transformation and, while a soulful melodic artist, is a true shapeshifter as well! Robert received the National Flute Association’s Lifetime Achievement Award in 2014. His newest CD is “Our Cells Know”, improvisations for solo contrabass flute (Tzadik) which received 5 Stars in Downbeat Magazine.
www.robertdick.net

Stephen Nachmanovitch performs and teaches internationally as an improvisational violinist, and at the intersections of music, dance, theater, and multimedia arts. He is the author of Free Play: Improvisation in Life and Art (Penguin, 1990). Born in 1950, he studied at Harvard and the University of California, where he earned a Ph.D. in the History of Consciousness for an exploration of William Blake. His mentor was the anthropologist and philosopher Gregory Bateson. He has taught and lectured widely in the United States and abroad on creativity and the spiritual underpinnings of art. In the 1970s he was a pioneer in free improvisation on violin, viola and electric violin. He has presented master classes and workshops at many conservatories and universities, and has had numerous appearances on radio, television, and at music and theater festivals. He has collaborated with other artists in media including music, dance, theater, and film, and has developed programs melding art, music, literature, and technology. He has published articles in a variety of fields since 1966, and has created computer software including The World Music Menu and Visual Music Tone Painter.
www.freeplay.com

Robert Jospé is a jazz drummer, composer, educator and band leader of Robert Jospé Express and the Inner Rhythm band. Robert also presents the “World Beat Workshop”, an educational assembly program following the rhythms of West Africa to the Americas.  Robert has been a VCA touring artist for 22 years. Robert teaches jazz drumming at UVA along with a rhythmic fluency course, “Learn To Groove” and is a member of the UVA Free Bridge Quintet. Born in Manhattan, Robert Jospé was inspired by his Belgian parents love of music and began playing the drums at fourteen. He had his first professional performance in France at the age of sixteen. Jospé became an active player in the New York jazz and rock scene as well as co-leader of the fusion band Cosmology. He studied with Tony Williams and Bob Moses and performed with Michael Brecker, Dave Liebman, John Schofield and John Abercrombie. Jospé joined the University of Virginia’s music department’s faculty in 1989. He is a member of UVA’s faculty jazz ensemble, The Free Bridge Quintet. In 2013 Robert was featured on the PBS TV series Charlottesville Inside–Out and was awarded the 2012 artist/educator of the year by the Charlottesville Jazz Society.
www.robertjospe.com