Terence Blanchard with Tarriona "Tank" Ball & The Turtle Island Quartet - Paradise Jazz Series

Continued from page 3

The Quartet’s birth was the result of violinist David Balakrishnan’s brainstorming explorations and compositional vision while completing his master’s degree program at Antioch University West. The journey has taken Turtle Island through forays into folk, bluegrass, swing, be-bop, funk, R&B, new age, rock, hip-hop, as well as music of Latin America and India—a repertoire consisting of hundreds of ingenious arrangements and originals. It has included over a dozen recordings on labels such as Windham Hill, Chandos, Koch, Telarc, and Azica, soundtracks for major motion pictures, TV and radio credits including TODAY, All Things Considered, Prairie Home Companion, and Morning Edition, feature articles in People and Newsweek magazines, and collaborations with famed artists including trumpeter Terence Blanchard, clarinetist Paquito D’Rivera, vibraphonist Stefon Harris, guitar legends Leo Kottke and the Assad brothers, The Manhattan Transfer, pianists Billy Taylor, Kenny Barron, Cyrus Chestnut, and Ramsey

Lewis, singers Tierney Sutton and Nellie McKay, the Ying Quartet, and the Parsons and Luna Negra Dance Companies.

Another unique element of Turtle Island is their revival of venerable improvisational and compositional chamber traditions that have not been explored by string players for nearly 200 years. At the time of Haydn’s apocryphal creation of the string quartet form, musicians were more akin to today’s saxophonists and keyboard masters of the jazz and pop world, i.e., improvisers, composers, and arrangers. Each Turtle Island member is accomplished in these areas of expertise.

As Turtle Island members continue to refine their skills through the development of repertory by some of today’s cutting-edge composers, through performances and recordings with major symphonic ensembles, and through a determined educational commitment, the Turtle Island Quartet stakes its claim as the quintessential “New World” string quartet of the 21st century.

SUBSCRIBE NOW!

DI SE A R PA

2022–2023 SERIES

TERENCE BLANCHARD WITH TARRIONA “TANK” BALL & THE TURTLE ISLAND QUARTET FRIDAY, OCTOBER 14, 2022 AT 8 PM AT ORCHESTRA HALL

MADE POSSIBLE WITH SUPPORT FROM

TERENCE BLANCHARD Fred A. Erb Jazz Creative Director Chair

Terence Blanchard, Fred A. Erb Jazz Creative Director Chair

PARADISE JAZZ SERIES Friday, October 14, 2022 at 8 p.m. at Orchestra Hall

TERENCE BLANCHARD WITH TARRIONA “TANK” BALL & THE TURTLE ISLAND QUARTET Program to be announced from the stage.

MADE POSSIBLE WITH SUPPORT FROM

2022–2023 SERIES

Find upcoming concerts at dso.org/jazz

T

rumpeter, bandleader, composer, and educator Terence Blanchard has served as the DSO’s Fred A. Erb Jazz Creative Director Chair since 2012.

Blanchard has performed and recorded with many of jazz’s superstars and currently leads the celebrated E-Collective.

He is also well-known for his decades-long collaboration with filmmaker Spike Lee, scoring more than 15 of Lee’s movies since the early 1990s. 2018’s BlacKkKlansman earned Blanchard his first Academy Award nomination, with a second Academy Award nomination in 2021 for Da 5 Bloods. In and out of the film world, Blanchard has received 14 Grammy nominations and six wins, as well as nominations for Emmy, Golden Globe, Sierra, and Soul Train Music awards.

A New Orleans native, Blanchard was childhood friends with Wynton Marsalis and studied jazz at Rutgers University.

He was invited to play with the Lionel Hampton Orchestra in 1982 and later joined Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers. He debuted his first solo recording in 1991 and has released more than a dozen acclaimed albums since; he has appeared as a collaborator or sideman on a dozen more. Blanchard’s latest album with the E-Collective, Absence, features music written and inspired by jazz legend Wayne Shorter and was released by Blue Note Records in August 2021.

Blanchard has held artistic leadership positions at the Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz, Monterey Jazz Festival, Berklee College of Music, and Henry Mancini Institute at the University of Miami.

TARRIONA “TANK” BALL

T

arriona “Tank” Ball is a vocalist, poet, and front woman for New Orleansbased band Tank and the Bangas.

Tank and the Bangas rose to prominence in 2017 following their unanimous NPR Music Tiny Desk Contest victory. In 2019, the band released their major label debut, Green Balloon, on Verve Forecast to widespread critical praise. Last year, Tank and The Bangas released their EP Friend Goals, featuring CHIKA, Duckwrth, and PJ Morton.

Tank and The Bangas have toured nonstop, selling out venues both stateside and abroad, including festival appearances at Coachella, Glastonbury, Bonnaroo, Newport Jazz Festival, and more. The group has performed on The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon, Austin City Limits, and TODAY. As a poet, Ball has most recently toured the United States with spoken word performances in support of her debut poetry book, Vulnerable AF.

TURTLE ISLAND QUARTET

S

ince its inception in 1985, the Turtle Island Quartet has been a singular force in the creation of bold, new trends in chamber music for strings. Winner of the 2006 and 2008 Grammy Awards for Best Classical Crossover Album, Turtle Island fuses the classical quartet esthetic with contemporary American musical styles, and by devising a performance practice that honors both, the state of the art has inevitably been redefined.

Continued on next page…