Julius Masri and Dan Blacksberg present an evening of the music of veteran composer and percussionist Thurman Barker. The evening will feature works of Barkers performed by a group of Philadelphia's established and up-and-coming creative musicians in a myriad of arrangements and collaborations.
Admission is FREE. Registration is REQUIRED and seating is limited. Please register at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/thurman-barker-returns-to-the-rotunda-registration-288976686047
The curators of this event require proof of vaccination at the door. Please present your CDC vaccination card or a legible photo on your phone.
Masks are required regardless of vaccination.
Contact tracing enforced.
Growing up in Chicago in the 1950’s, Thurman Barker was exposed to the city’s rich musical heritage, regularly hearing R&B, doo-wop, soul, jazz and blues music. Accordingly, he began his professional career at age seventeen by anchoring the rhythm section for blues legend Mighty Joe Young. In Thurman’s own words, performing with Mighty Joe Young was an experience that rooted him in the blues and the many ways to play the blues: fast, slow, happy and sad. Plus this first experience on the road was thrilling and exciting performing for crowds from 10:00 pm to 2:00 am, three nights a week. Barker’s fondness for classical music goes back even earlier to when he attended the American Conservatory at the age of twelve to study drum lessons but he was advised to study music theory before drum lessons. This advice rooted him through his career. His association with the AACM taught him about creativity and finding his own voice. Barker has many foundational influences with Harold Jones being his one and only drum teacher, Edward Poremba from Roosevelt University with whom he studied classical percussion and Dr. Muhal Richard Abrams who taught him composition and how to combine it with improvisation. He has recorded with Cecil Taylor, Muhal Richard Abrams, Amina Claudine Meyers, Anthony Braxton, Roscoe Mitchell, Sam Rivers, Billy Bang, Joseph Jarman, and Henry Threadgill. Under his record label Uptee Productions, he has recorded 6 CDs. He has composed 2 pieces for Chamber Orchestra, “South Side Suite” and “Pandemic Fever”. Barker is continuing to write for the Chamber Orchestra. In addition he has led the Jazz program at Bard College since 1993 where he is Professor of Jazz Studies.
Joining Barker is a group of Philadelphia musicians from across the city's creative music spectrum. They include Julius Masri (Mephisto Halabi, Night Raids) on drums, percussion, and electronics, Dan Blacksberg on trombone (Anthony Braxton Quartet, Deveykus), Tessa Ellis on trumpet (Arcana Ensemble), Salina Kuo (River Full of Fruit, Rehearsing Philadelphia) on marimba and percussion, and Matt Engle (Shot X Shot, Sonic Liberation Front) on bass.
Philadelphia-native Dan Blacksberg has created a singular musical voice as a trombonist, composer, and educator. One of the foremost practitioners of klezmer trombone and a respected voice in jazz & experimental music, Dan is known for a formidable virtuosity and versatility. This has led to performances with artists such klezmer masters as Elaine Hoffman Watts and Adrienne Cooper, and experimentalists like Anthony Braxton and extreme doom metal band The Body. Dan composes music from danceable klezmer melodies on Radiant Others, to genre-busting projects like his Hasidic doom metal band Deveykus and Jewish-Jazz suite Name Of the Sea, Dan forges music that “aims to infuse the fearless avant-garde with timeless sounds and techniques, and vice versa.” (WXPN’s The Key)
Dan currently teaches jazz and klezmer at Temple University, coordinates the Instrumental and Dance programs at Yiddish New York with Deb Strauss, and is the musician-in-residence at Kol Tzedek Synagogue. He also makes the Radiant Others Klezmer Podcast.
Salina Kuo is a Philadelphia-based person (settler of Lenape territory) and an active songwriter, improviser + multi-instrumentalist. She plays vibraphone + leads indie-RnB project “St. John’s Wort” and plays guzheng in Chinese-American folk duo “River Full of Fruit.” She holds a B.M. in music education from Temple University, where she studied orchestral repertoire, jazz vibraphone, latin percussion, and drumset. She has performed at the Oh My Ears New Music Festival, Toronto Creative Music Lab, Steve Weiss Mallet Festival, and Montreal Contemporary Music Lab.
Matt Engle grew up in the Philadelphia area and has been an active member of the creative and improvised music scene for 20 years. He has contributed to many varying musical situations and has previously performed with Dan Blacksberg, Bobby Zankel, Sonic Liberation Front, Bird Fly Yellow, Shot By Shot, The Scriptors, Yapp, Jarrett Gilgore, Split Red, Dave Liebman, Tim Young, Marshall Allen, Anomalous Warmth, Watson, Roberto Pace, Sam Newsome, Rick Iannacone, Jaimie Branch, Elliot Levin, Anthony Pirog, Raymond King, David Middleton, Vince Johnson, Veronica MJ, Muhammad Ali, Oliver Lake, Seth Meicht, Tim Berne, Jack Wright, Thurman Barker, Jay Lunar, and Brandon Seabrook among many others.
Tessa Ellis has been fascinated by the sound of the trumpet since she was a four-year-old hearing the instrument for the first time. Her work as a Philadelphia-based freelance trumpeter and teaching artist is inspired by her lifelong drive to create new and nuanced sounds. Tessa is a founding member of the Arcana New Music Ensemble and the Opus 5 Brass Quintet and has enjoyed genre-bending performances with Hanson, Amos Lee, Square Peg Round Hole, and Caracara. She studied with David Bilger at the Curtis Institute of Music and earned a Bachelor’s of Music (2017) and a Community Artist Fellowship Diploma (2018). As an orchestral musician, she has performed with the Rochester Philharmonic, the Lancaster Symphony, Orchestra 2001, and Symphony in C. Tessa was a finalist in the 2016 Ellsworth Smith International Trumpet Solo Competition and she has won first place in two divisions of the National Trumpet Competition.
Julius Masri is a Philadelphia based multi-instrumentalist, performer and composer for the city’s dance community at large. His music focuses on improvisatory methods and syncretic/ linguistic/ somatic exchanges within various musical languages including Jazz, Metal, AfroCuban, Experimental Noise, and Arabic music. Born in Tripoli, Lebanon, he moved to the States in 1990 and began studying with Philadelphia instructors Carl Mottola, Elaine Hoffman-Watts, and as an undergraduate at Bard College, with AACM’s Thurman Barker, Richard Teitelbaum, and Joan Tower. Julius plays drums, circuit modified Casio keyboards, Oud, Kamancheh (aka Rabab, Spike Fiddle), and various other instruments. In November 2021, Julius released the album “The Arabic Room” under the project name Mephisto Halabi, garnering international praise in music publications and websites including WIRE Magazine (Dec2021), PopMatters, Radio al-Harra, Foxy Digitalis, and many others.
This performance has been put together by Julius Masri and Dan Blacksberg in collaboration with The Rotunda. Admission is FREE. Registration is REQUIRED and seating is limited. Please register at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/thurman-barker-returns-to-the-rotunda-registration-288976686047
The curators of this event require proof of vaccination at the door. Please present your CDC vaccination card or a legible photo on your phone.
Masks are required regardless of vaccination.
Contact tracing enforced.