Results for "Thomas Helton"

Thomas Helton

Thomas Helton is a composer and bassist who writes and performs music in both solo and ensemble settings. As a composer Mr. Helton was awarded a Houston Arts Alliance Individual Artist Fellowship Grant in 2007 for the commission and premiere of a new work for fifteen-piece ensemble, the Torture Chamber Ensemble. He was awarded an artist residency for the commission and premiere of Pride from DiverseWorks ArtSpace in Houston in October 2004, a work for ten-piece ensemble and video projection created in collaboration with video artist Maria del Carmen Montoya. Other new music commissions include 5 works for the Michele Brangwen Dance Ensemble

Michele Brangwen Dance & Music Ensemble

Active since: 1999

The Michele Brangwen Dance & Music Ensemble is an interdisciplinary performing ensemble of contemporary dance and music. In 22 years, every performance has included live original music and the musicians as integral parts of the visual stage imagery. We believe that the artist’s role in society is to communicate, to challenge, to open a dialogue that can both unite us and inspire meaningful change. We function like a jazz band, and along with sections of choreographed movements and written music, we use improvisation that comes out of the form, concept, and emotional life of the work.

Matthew Shipp: A Dozen Essential Albums

by Karl Ackermann
September 13, 2022

While he was still in his fifties, some pundits were hailing Matthew Shipp as the “elder statesman" of avant-garde jazz piano. The sentiment, if not the Stonehenge-like title, was spot on. The jny: Wilmington, Delaware native grew up in jazz, with trumpeter Clifford Brown being a family friend. Shipp began studying piano at age 6 and ...

Wadada Leo Smith, Trio Xolo & Clean Feed Releases

by Maurice Hogue
August 15, 2022

This episode is loaded up with music from the summer batch of new releases by Clean Feed Records Tarbaby, Angles, Landaeus Trio and Ziv Taubenfeld's Full Sun) with more to come next week. The master trumpeter and endless source of creative, Wadada Leo Smith has a new 5-album box set featuring himself soloing with different drummers ...

Raquel Cepeda: Passion: Latin Jazz

by C. Michael Bailey
February 19, 2020

Raquel Cepeda, prominent member of the Houston Jazz Mafia, drops her second recording, Passion: Latin Jazz, as a follow up to her exceptional debut, I'm Confessin' (Peonia Music, 2013). Her artistic growth over the last six years has been one of an increased gravity and a centering of her repertoire. She brings a completely new band ...

The Core Trio with Matthew Shipp: The Core Trio With Matthew Shipp

by Dan Bilawsky
July 28, 2014

One trio. One guest. A single, forty-two minute, freely improvised piece. That's what you basically have here, but such a bare description doesn't do it justice. The Core Trio--a group that has yet to actually record as a stand-alone trio--has an interesting history that seems to always revolve around personnel twists. The group ...

Your Shipp Has Come In

by Mark Corroto
July 23, 2014

These two guest appearances demonstrate that pianist Matthew Shipp has become an elder statesman in the jazz world. How that happened can be boiled down to two simple elements. One: he has created a unique sound and language for improvised music and two: Shipp has become a doyen of cutting edge music making and opinion.