michael 
On April 10, we performed the third and final concert of “Changing Tides: A Telematic Translocational Concert Series,” a series I’m co-directing with Mark Dresser. This concert was with a fantastic quintet in Stony Brook, NY: Marty Ehrlich, Ray Anderson, Min Xiao Fen, Denman Maroney, and Satoshi Takeishi, with our co-director Sarah Weaver conducting. In San Diego, I performed with … Read more
I recently enjoyed performing on and co-directing a telematic concert featuring George Lewis’ work “Spooky Interaction: Lesson II (2016).” It featured Geri Allen (piano) and George Lewis (trombone) performing from the University of Pittsburgh, Nicole Mitchell (flute) and myself performing from UC Irvine, and Francis Wong (saxophone) performing at the San Francisco Jazz Center. There were also two “virtual performers” … Read more
I’m happy to announce that my trio has received a New Music USA Project Award! The award will help support performances and a recording centered around “Somewhere In The Upstream,” a composition I premiered with the trio last fall that is dedicated to and inspired by Yusef Lateef. I look forward to performing and recording this work with Chris Tordini … Read more
We had a great telematic concert on Feb. 13 between San Diego and Zurich for the second event in “Changing Tides: A Telematic Translocational Concert Series,” a series I’m co-directing with Mark Dresser. Myra Melford, Nicole Mitchell, Stephanie Richards, and Mark and myself performed in CA, along with Matthias Ziegler and Gerry Hemingway in Zurich. Brian Cross and Benjamin Burger … Read more
On Feb. 19 and 20, I have the privilege and pleasure of joining concerts at UC Irvine with a trio led by Kei Akagi, an outstanding pianist with a long and deep history in the jazz world including work as a sideman with Miles Davis, Stanley Turrentine and so many others. Kei has worked in a trio format for over … Read more
After more than a year of planning, it was fantastic to finally perform this telematic concert with our friends in Korea, for the first of three concerts in “Changing Tides: A Telematic Translocational Concert Series,” which I am co-directing with Mark Dresser. In addition to Mark and myself, the quartet in San Diego included Myra Melford and Nicole Mitchell, and … Read more
After almost a decade of doing telematic projects, I’m excited to announce the release of our first DVD documenting this work: Virtual Tour: A Reduced Carbon Footprint Concert Series was just released on pfMENTUM, and documents a telematic concert series that I co-directed with Mark Dresser, with premieres by eight different composers, myself included. The DVD contains all three concerts, each featuring the … Read more
I started 2016 recording new albums with two of my favorite bandleaders and friends: the Mark Dresser Septet and Jason Robinson’s Janus Ensemble. Dresser’s group features Marty Ehrlich, Nicole Mitchell, myself, David Morales-Boroff, Joshua White and Kjell Nordeson. After a couple concerts in SoCal, we recorded in Hollywood’s famed EastWest Studios with the great engineer Ron Saint Germain (pictured here). That album … Read more
I had a great time subbing with the Steve Lehman Octet on a concert at Brown University in October. I’ve admired Steve’s music for years so it was great to experience it as a player, and a real pleasure to perform with this outstanding group of musicians that included Jonathan Finlayson, Mark Shim, Chris Dingman, Dan Peck, Drew Gress, and … Read more
I enjoyed starting fall 2015 performing with many outstanding and diverse musicians on a string of concerts in California. They included a double bill at REDCAT as part of the Angel City Jazz Festival, the first set with bassist Lisa Mezzacappa’s Glorious Ravage (pictured above), a wonderfully innovative, multimedia work about Victorian-era “lady explorers” featuring a 15-piece ensemble and several video artists, and the second set with … Read more
In September, I was thrilled to do a one-week residency in Korea at the Seoul Institute of the Arts, where I was invited to share some of my work in telematics with with faculty and students and to meet the artists and technologists who will be collaborating on a California-Seoul telematic concert in 2016 that I’m co-directing. I’m so grateful … Read more
We had another great telematic concert between UCSD and Zurich last week, working once again with musicians Matthias Ziegler and Gerry Hemingway as well as their excellent team of artist-technicians, including VJ Benjamin Burger, all based in Zurich. At UCSD, I was part of a quartet of Mark Dresser, Joshua White, and Stephanie Richards, along with filmaker Brian Cross, and we also had … Read more