Ars Nova Workshop brings the messiahs of Chicago's contemporary avant-garde to Philly

This is big, people. The city is getting slammed with a succession of concerts featuring some of the most innovative jazz composers of our time, thanks to Ars Nova Workshop.

Ars Nova is partnering with the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM)-a Chicago-based collective of black musicians created in 1965 that's arguably the most innovative and vital music organization of its time-for a local celebration of what many aficionados consider the messiahs of contemporary avant-garde jazz: composers and musicians such as Anthony Braxton, Muhal Richard Abrams, Roscoe Mitchell, Henry Threadgill, Leo Smith and Leroy Jenkins.

“These living legends are musicians who have been around for ages and are still producing some of today's most rigorous work," says Ars Nova Work-shop executive director Mark Christman. “Even now they continue to create new ways to approach and generate progressive statements."

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