Evento
THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 7, 9:30 PM
Ambrose Akinmusire: Honey from a Winter Stone
Ambrose Akinmusire, trumpet
Kokayi, voice
Sam Harris, piano
Chiquitamagic, voice & keyboards
Justin Brown, drums
Mivos Quartet, strings
Discounted Prices (c/d)
Under 30 years old and Students
People with disabilities and accompanying person
Members of Convívio Cultural Association
Over 65 years old: 50% discount
Those who had the privilege of witnessing Ambrose Akinmusire’s debut at Guimarães Jazz in 2016 could hardly have remained indifferent impressed to the volcanic and kaleidoscopic performance that the band led by the then emerging trumpeter of the new generation of jazz offered to the festival’s audience. Eight years later, now at a different and more mature stage of his musical career, Akinmusire returns to Guimarães with a firmly consolidated status on the international jazz circuit both as instrumentalist as well as composer, freely orbiting between the centers and the peripheries of jazz music and across the diffuse (yet distinctively contemporary) points of intersection with the universes of classical music and hip-hop. “Honey From a Winter’s Stone”, the heterodox project that the North-American trumpeter will present at the 33rd edition of Guimarães Jazz – which premiered in August 2024 at The Walker cultural center in Los Angeles) – constitutes an almost literal illustration of this principle of free circulation between forms of musical expression. In that sense, Akinmusire will be accompanied by the Mivos String Quartet, a vocalist and performer (Kokayi), a keyboardist and dance music producer (Chiquita Banana) and a drummer (Justin Brown), thus proposing a performance in which music and word converge in a synchronized gesture of creation.
Ambrose Akinmusire (b. 1982) grew up in Oakland, California and began his professional career in music under the guidance of Steve Coleman, who “discovered” him when he was only a teenager as a member of the Berkeley High School Jazz Ensemble, and whom he later invited to join his iconic group Five Elements. Around that same time Akinmusire moved to New York to attended the prestigious Manhattan School of Music and, at the same time, ignitied his first collaborations with fundamental musicians from the emerging jazz generation of the first decade of the 2000s, such as, among others, Vijay Iyer, Aaron Parks or Jason Moran. This gifted trumpeter and composer has since then been developing a highly relevant work as leader, as well as pursuing a prolific trajectory collaborating with some of the greatest artists in contemporary music, both alongside jazz luminaries such as Jack DeJohnette or Brad Mehldau, as well as with musicians from other musical geographies, among whom we may highlight the names of the famous rapper Kendrick Lamar or, more recently, the composer Dhafer Youssef. In recent years Akinmusire’s work denoted, according to his own words, an inflection towards a more narrative, and less conceptual, paradigm than in the past, although the fulcrum of his musical expression remains within the coordinates of a flexible and urban post-bop style with markedly avant-garde features.
Founded in 2008, the Mivos String Quartet is an ensemble formed by violinists Olivia de Prato and Maya Bernardo, violist Victor Lowrie Tafoya and celloist Nathan Watts, dedicated to the interpretation of the works of contemporary music. The activity of this group has been unfolded in collaborations with guest composers and forays into multimedia and improvised music projects, having for this purpose counted on the artistic contributions of musicians such as Cécile McLorin Salvant, Nate Wooley or Ambrose Akinmusire.
An artist, author, vocalist, producer, performer, musician and educator, Kokayi is a multifaceted creator whose artistic trajectory is defined by the intersection of artistic languages, contexts and cultures. In regards to his strictly musical activity, Kokayi develops work both under his own name as well as in collaboration with other musicians and musical formations, such as Terri Lynne Carrington + Social Science and Ego Mondo, among many others.
Chiquitamagic is a Colombian artist and music producer currently based in Toronto, Canada. With a body of work anchored in an aesthetic that fuses avant-garde dance music with the tropical jazz currents predominant in the Noth-American pop-music scene of the present, Chiquitamagic has collaborated throughout his career with musicians as different as Genevieve Artadi, Louis Cole or John Hollenbeck, among others.
A native of California, Justin Brown (b. 1984) is one the most sought-after drummers of his generation and a frequent collaborator with several prominent names in contemporary jazz, such as Esperanza Spalding, Walter Smit III or Vijay Iyer. In parallel to his collaborative activity, Brown also pursues a career under his own name, having released to this date an album as leader (NYEUSI”, 2018) that revealed to the public a composer interested in the disruption of musical genres.