Jazz & Sonic Arts 2026 Faculty Concert 1

Composer, trumpeter, santur player, vocalist, and bandleader Amir ElSaffar has been described in the New York Times as “the celebrated trumpeter and composer who explores vital connections between jazz and Arabic music.” A recipient of the Doris Duke Performing Artist Award and US Artist Fellowship, and Hodder Fellowship at Princeton University, ElSaffar has earned an international reputation for his work combining jazz and western classical music with the microtonal Maqam music of Iraq and the Middle East.

Photo by Maria Baranova

Lorenzo Bianchi Hoesch is a composer and sound artist. His interests goes from pure electronics to compositions for theater and dance, from soundtracks for images to interactive installations. In his compositions his interest is always focused on the idea of establishing new connections between elements that are otherwise distant : with projects outside Western aesthetics, such as those with Ballaké Sissoko or Amir Elsaffar, or with sound installations based on the inherent exoticism of environmental recordings, such as those for the Musée du Quai Branly in Paris, or with compositions for contemporary dance for choreographers such as Michele di Stefano, Richard Siegal, Stijn Celis, or directors such as Adolphe Binder, which immerse the audience in a new soundscape through sound, but also through movement and, above all, space. In this sense, a large part of his work is devoted to 3D sound, multichannel and holophonic composition. He has received commissions from various institutions: Ircam-Center Pompidou, Musical Research Group (GRM), Venice Biennale, Gothenburg Opera, Musée du Quai Branly, Saarbrucken Opera, Ballet National de Marseille, RhurTriennale, Royaumont Foundation, Face Foundation, and many others … and has performed all over the world. 

He graduated in architecture (Italy) and composition (France) he moved to Paris. He founded the Label Ornithology Productions in 2022. He’s associated artist at Ircam – Centre Pompidou from 2019 – 2023. He is professor of Electroacoustic Composition at the Conservatory of Montbeliard, France. 

Kris Davis is a Grammy award-winning pianist and composer described by The New York Times as “a beacon for deciding where to hear jazz on a given night.” Her genre-blending approach is deeply rooted in collaboration and draws from jazz, contemporary classical, and experimental music to explore the intersections of composition and improvisation. Davis has released 25 recordings as a leader or co-leader and collaborated with artists such as Terri Lyne Carrington, Dave Holland, John Zorn, Craig Taborn, Ingrid Laubrock, Tyshawn Sorey, Johnathan Blake, Robert Hurst, Julian Lage, and esperanza spalding. She was named a 2021 Doris Duke Artist alongside Wayne Shorter and Danilo Perez, Pianist of the Year by DownBeat magazine in 2025, 2022, and 2020, and Pianist and Composer of the Year by the Jazz Journalists Association in 2021. Davis is the Associate Program Director of Creative Development at the Berklee Institute of Jazz and Gender Justice, the founder of Pyroclastic Records, and the co-founder of the International Creators and Collaborators Workshop. Davis is a Steinway Artist.

Based in Oslo, Norwegian bass player Ole Morten Vågan has been a central part of the scandinavian jazz and impro community for the last decade, performing with among others Motif, The Deciders, Håvard Wiik Trio, The Trondheim Jazz Orchestra, Maria Kannegaard Trio, Andratx, Bugge Wesseltofts NCOJ, Maciej Obara Int. Quartet, Audun Kleive´s Generator X and more recently also Joshua Redman Trio with Jorge Rossy and Ole Morten Vagan . After discovering jazz as a youngster in the Northern town of Brønnøysund (just below the polar circle), he went on to study with amongst others the fantastic bassist Mats Eilertsen, and attending the very influential Jazz Conservatory in Trondheim, Norway.

Also active as a composer, he has written commissions for a.o. the Grammy Nominated Norwegian string orchestra The Trondheim Soloists, and more recently for the well renowned Trondheim Jazz Orchestra, of which he is now Artistic Director for 2017-2019 - In addition to steadily writing for bands like Motif and The Deciders for the last ten years.

Folk music of different kinds has also been at the core of Vågans interests, and through collaborations with a.o. Jovan Pavlovic, Ola Kvernberg and Stian Carstensen, he has immersed himself in the gipsy music of eastern Europe, Indian Classical Music and also norwegian folk music. He has also had the pleasure of performing with artists from an array of different countries and cultures, including some of the premier Eastern European folk musicians, among them Giani Linca, Filip Simoneov, Ivo Papasov and Petar Ralchev (after a rehearsal with the latter two, Ole Morten experienced his first and probably also last odd meter-induced fever.)

A curious interest in folk music and also classical music is the main focus in the group Gammalgrass, where he plays alongside Carstensen and Kvernberg, two of the most talented musicians coming out of Norway in recent years.

Vågan was also the recipient of the Dnb Nor/Kongsberg Jazz Festival Award in 2009, following in the footsteps of people like Sidsel Endresen, Bugge Wesseltoft, Christian Wallumrød, Audun Kleive, Nils Petter Molvaer and many more.

GRAMMY-nominated saxophonist and composer Melissa Aldana has garnered international recognition for her visionary work as a band leader, as well as her deeply meditative interpretation of language and vocabulary. She was recently signed with Blue Note Records and releases her debut album with the historic label titled 12 Stars in March 2022. “Melissa Aldana is one of the foremost musician/composers of her generation,” says Blue Note President Don Was.

Aldana was one of the founding members of ARTEMIS, the all-star collective that released their debut album ARTEMIS on Blue Note this past Fall. The album featured Aldana’s simmering composition “Frida,” which was dedicated to Mexican painter Frida Kahlo, who inspired the musician through “her own process of finding self-identity through art.” 

Kahlo was also the subject of Aldana’s celebrated 2019 album Visions (Motéma), whichearned the saxophonist her first-ever GRAMMY nomination for Best Improvised Jazz Solo, an acknowledgement of her impressive tenor solo on her composition “Elsewhere.” In naming Visions among the best albums of 2019 for NPR Music, critic Nate Chinen wrote that Aldana “has the elusive ability to balance technical achievement against a rich emotional palette.”
 

Aldana was born in Santiago, Chile and grew up in a musical family. Both her father and grandfather were saxophonists and she took up the instrument at age six under her father Marcos’ tutelage. Aldana began on alto, influenced by artists such as Charlie Parker and Cannonball Adderley, but switched to tenor upon first hearing the music of Sonny Rollins. She performed in Santiago jazz clubs in her early teens and was invited by pianist Danilo Pérez to play at the Panama Jazz Festival in 2005.

Aldana moved to the U.S. to attend the Berklee College of Music, and the year after graduating she released her first album Free Fall on Greg Osby’s Inner Circle label in 2010, followed by Second Cycle in 2012. In 2013, at 24, she became the first female instrumentalist and the first South American musician to win the Thelonious Monk International Jazz Saxophone Competition, in which her father had been a semi-finalist in 1991. After her win, she released her third album Melissa Aldana & Crash Trio (Concord). Aldana is also an in-demand clinician and educator, and the New England Conservatory’sJazz Studies Department recently appointed her to their jazz faculty beginning in the Fall of 2021.

Simon studied with a huge range of drummers in the US, Australia and Korea. Since 1990 he has performed regularly throughout Australia, Europe, Asia and the US. He has produced a large collection of solo drumming recordings and over the past 20 years he has been involved in numerous ongoing collaborative projects including Chiri (trio with Bae il Dong and Scott Tinkler), Showa 44 (duo with Carl Dewhurst), duo with Scott Tinkler, and most recently, a duo with saxophonist Hinano Fujisaki.

He has also played regularly with many of Australia’s most established ensembles including the Phil Slater Quintet, Matt McMahon trio, the Australian Art Orchestra, Vince Jones,  Paul Grabowsky sextet, Cameron Undy’s 20th Century Dog, Stu Hunter, as well as various groups led by Scott Tinkler. Over the past few years Simon has collaborated with numerous local and international artists including Jen Shyu, Gian Slater, Kim Hyelim, Chris Hale, Tony Malaby and Kris Davis, Jo Jonghun and Lim Mijeong (Byeolsinak), Mary Rapp and Carl Dewhurst, as well as with Henry Kaiser, Bill Laswell, and Rudresh Mahanthappa.