Canceled
composer Robert Cuckson first set, Ethan Iverson solo second set
Robert Cuckson was born in 1942 in the U.K., grew up in Australia, and is a US citizen. Since 1972, he has taught at the Mannes School of music, where he is Professor of the Techniques of Music, member of the Composition faculty, and chair of the Techniques of Music Department. He taught at the Curtis Institute in Philadelphia from 1990 to 2016.
His principal compositions include three chamber operas, concerti for Cello, Piano, Saxophone, Guitar, Violin, Guitar, and Viola, concertinos for Trombone and Strings, and for Trumpet and Strings, and numerous chamber works. A recording of his Concertino for Trombone, with trombonist Haim Avitsur, was released in 2017. In 2009, he was composer in residence at the Marlboro Festival in Vermont. He was a founding faculty member of the Atlantic Music Festival in Maine (2009-2017).
Soundcloud link:
https://soundcloud.com/robert-cuckson
Ethan Iverson-curator’s note
There are two hour-long concerts every night at 7:30 and 9, more like jazz practice than classical convention. We expect to turn the room over (there are only 60 seats) so most of those who are performing formally notated works will probably play the same program twice (a comparatively rare opportunity to enjoy such a liberating sequence)
Sun 18 (first set) Robert Cuckson is another great NYC composer who lives a bit below the radar. When Miranda told me her dad was really good I demanded aural evidence, and, of course, Miranda was right. His style features long form structures that unfold in an unforced manner, high on lyricism and swept with chromaticism. For Father’s Day, Miranda will join a cast of elite chamber musicians including Haodong Wu, David Ordovsky, and Blair McMillen for a set of flute, violin, viola, and piano music.
Sunday 18 (second set) Ethan Iverson. To conclude the festival I will play a solo set of surprises, undoubtedly influenced by all the sounds I’ve taken in from the previous two weeks.
Pianist, composer, and writer Ethan Iverson was a founding member of The Bad Plus, a game-changing collective with Reid Anderson and David King. The New York Times called TBP “Better than anyone at melding the sensibilities of post-60’s jazz and indie rock.” During his 17-year tenure, TBP performed in venues as diverse as the Village Vanguard, Carnegie Hall, and Bonnaroo; collaborated with Joshua Redman, Bill Frisell, and the Mark Morris Dance Group; and created a faithful arrangement of Igor Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring and a radical reinvention of Ornette Coleman’s Science Fiction.
Since leaving TBP, Iverson has kept busy. 2017: Co-curated a major centennial celebration of Thelonious Monk at Duke University and premiered the evening-length Pepperland with the Mark Morris Dance Group. 2018: premiered an original piano concerto with the American Composers Orchestra and released a duo album of new compositions with Mark Turner on ECM. 2019: Common Practice with Tom Harrell (ECM), standards tracked live at the Village Vanguard. 2021: Bud Powell in the 21st Century, a vigorous reconsideration of the bebop master, is featured on the March cover of DownBeat. 2022: The current release is Every Note is True on Blue Note records, an album of original work in trio with Larry Grenadier and Jack DeJohnette.
Iverson also has been in the critically-acclaimed Billy Hart quartet for well over a decade and occasionally performs with elder statesmen like Albert “Tootie” Heath or Ron Carter or collaborates with noted classical musicians like Miranda Cuckson and Mark Padmore. For almost 20 years, Iverson’s website Do the Math has been a repository of musician-to-musician interviews and analysis. Time Out New York selected Iverson as one of 25 essential New York jazz icons: “Perhaps NYC’s most thoughtful and passionate student of jazz tradition—the most admirable sort of artist-scholar.” Iverson has also published articles about music in the New Yorker, NPR, The Nation, and JazzTimes. Iverson resides in Park Slope with his wife Sarah Deming.