Jacqueline Kerrod, harp; Taylor Ho Bynum, cornet; Ken Filiano, double bass
Program: Three improvisors (Jacqueline Kerrod (harp), Taylor Ho Bynum (cornet), and Ken Filiano (double bass)) come together to create something completely spontaneous and unique in time and space. The audience is invited to join them on a journey of exploration, curiosity, listening and communication through music.
Artist Biographies: Described as ‘exceptionally virtuosic and sensitive’, South African harpist Jacqueline Kerrod is perfectly at home across multiple genres and performs throughout the United States and Europe.
Most recently, she has been touring internationally with composer and multi-reedist Anthony Braxton, both in duo and as part of his ZIM music ensemble. She was a founding member and co-songwriter of the pop duo Addi & Jacq, who were winners of NYC’s Battle of the Boroughs in 2015, and recently toured her show, ‘Harps Uncovered’ featuring vocalist Hannah Sumner through 12 states of the US. Currently, she is working on a solo project further exploring her love of improvisation, songwriting, and use of electronics to augment and manipulate sound.
As a champion of contemporary music, Jacqueline has performed with the International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE), the Argento Chamber Ensemble, Talea Ensemble, Wet Ink, Alarm Will Sound, and Metropolis Chamber Ensemble. As a native South African, she is passionate about commissioning and performing music written by South African composers and has performed over a dozen works written for her. She has also performed with elite chamber groups such as the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center and the Jupiter Symphony Chamber Players.
Described as an ‘eclectic harpist’ by Lucid Culture, her discography includes a recently released duo with Anthony Braxton on the ‘dischi di angelica’ label. Recorded live on May 27th, 2018 at the AngelicA, Festival Internazionale di Musica at the Centro di Ricerca Musicale / Teatro San Leonardo, Bologna, Italy. Available on Bandcamp.Contemporary music, 3 self produced albums with Addi & Jacq, Greg Spears’ Requiem (New Amsterdam Records), Robert Paterson’s Star Crossing and Book of Goddesses (American Modern Recordings), and MAYA – In The Spirit(Perspectives Recordings). Other notable recordings that feature Jacqueline include Tristan Murail’s Winter Fragments (AEON), Anthony Braxton’s Trillium J, and the single Crazy in Love by Antony and the Johnsons (Secretly Canadian/Rough Trade Records). Her recording, “Candlelight Carols” with Grammy®-nominated vocal ensemble Seraphic Fire debuted at #11 on the Classical Billboard charts.
She has performed with Kayne West, Antony & the Johnsons, Jane Birkin, Rufus Wainwright, Santigold, Jónsi & Alex, to name a few.
ORCHESTRAL
Jacqueline has had the great fortune of playing alongside principal harpists, Deborah Hoffman and Nancy Allen in the Metropolitan Opera and the New York Philharmonic orchestras respectively, and as principal harpist with the New York City Opera, American Ballet Theater, American Symphony and the American Composers orchestras. She has performed for various Broadway and off- Broadway shows (Cinderella, The Producers, Beauty and the Beast, The Fantasticks and Donnybrook!).
DEGREES / AWARDS
Jacqueline began playing the harp at the age of nine in Johannesburg, South Africa, where she went on to receive her Bachelor of Music in performance with distinction from the University of the Witwatersrand under the tutelage of Ventura Rosenthal and Pauline Nossel. She was a finalist in the Jim Joel Music Prize and ATKV National Music Competitions. With the prestigious Oppenheimer Memorial Trust Foundation Scholarship, she moved to the US on the invitation of Nancy Allen to study with her at the Yale School of Music (Master of Music and Artist Diploma). During this period she spent her summers at the Aspen Music Festival as the Fellowship recipient and was the winner of the harp competition ’01.
Taylor Ho Bynum is a musician, teacher, and writer, with a background including work in composition, performance, interdisciplinary collaboration, production, organizing, and advocacy. His expressionistic playing on cornet and other brass instruments, his expansive vision as composer, and his idiosyncratic improvisational approach have been documented on over twenty recordings as a bandleader and over a hundred as a sideperson. His past endeavors include his Acoustic Bicycle Tours (where he traveled to concerts solely by bike across thousands of miles) and his stewardship of Anthony Braxton’s Tri-Centric Foundation (which he served as executive director from 2010-2018, producing and performing on many major Braxton projects, including two operas and multiple festivals). Bynum has worked with other legendary figures such as Bill Dixon and Cecil Taylor and currently enjoys playing with friends in collective ensembles like his duo with Tomas Fujiwara, Illegal Crowns (with Fujiwara, Benoit Delbecq, and Mary Halvorson), and Geometry (with Kyoko Kitamura, Tomeka Reid, and Joe Morris), and as a sideperson in groups led by Fujiwara, Reid, Jim Hobbs, Bill Lowe, Bill Cole, and William Parker, among others. His writing has been published in The New Yorker, The Baffler, Point of Departure and Sound American, and he has been the director of the Coast Jazz Orchestra at Dartmouth College since 2017.
Ken Filiano is a bassist, composer, improviser, and teacher who performs around the world, fusing the rich traditions of the double bass with his own seemingly limitless imagination. A “creative virtuoso” (JazzValley), Ken has performed and recorded with a veritable who’s who in multiple genres, from Anthony Braxton to Pablo Ziegler. In addition to being an integral member of groups led by Taylor Ho Bynum, Jason Kao Hwang, Fay Victor, Vinny Golia, Diane Moser, Roswell Rudd, Connie Crothers, Karl Berger, and others, he leads two quartets: Quantum Entanglements and Baudolino’s Dilemma, and is co leader of The Steve Adams/Ken Filiano Duo. His extensive discography includes the solo CD, “Subvenire”(Nine Winds) and Quantum Entanglements’s “Dreams From a Clown Car” (Clean Feed). Ken is a Guiding Artist and on the Board of Advisors for Creative Music Studio in Woodstock, NY.