BILLY CHILDS QUARTET WITH SEAN JONES, THE WINDS OF CHANGE
February 7, 2025 | 7:30 PM
Camp Concert Hall
PRE-CONCERT
ARTIST TALK
Thank You
BILLY CHILDS QUARTET WITH SEAN JONES, THE WINDS OF CHANGE
IS MADE POSSIBLE IN PART BY THE GENEROUS SUPPORT OF
H. G. Quigg Fund
THANKS TO OUR 2024-25 MODLIN ARTS PRESENTS SEASON SPONSORS & COMMUNITY PARTNERS
Louis S. Booth Arts Fund
Dewitt Fund for the Arts
E. Rhodes and Leona B. Carpenter Foundation
A. Dale Mayo Fund
Virginia B. Modlin Endowment
Tucker-Boatwright Festival
Norman and Eleanor Leahy
William and Pamela O'Connor
Welcome
At Modlin Center for the Arts, we are committed to providing the University of Richmond campus and our broader community with the best in diverse, thoughtprovoking, and captivating performances. Each season is cultivated with our attention to showcasing artists who provide insight into our shared humanity. At the University of Richmond, we pledge to you—our patrons and partners, on campus and in our region—that the arts will provide broad access to rich voices, creative passion, and unforgettable experiences.
Paul Brohan, Executive Director
PHOTO: LISA HAGEN GLYNN
Spring 2025
P
Ticketed: Paid
F Free: Tickets Required
F Free: No Tickets Required
Modlin Arts Presents
Department of Theatre and Dance
Department of Music
World Premier Modlin Commission
January
BODYTRAFFIC
Fri 24 Jan 7:30pm
February
Manual Cinema, Frankenstein Sat 1 Feb 7:30pm
Lab Project: The Woman in Black Thu-Sat 6-8 Feb 7:30pm Sun 9 Feb 2pm
Billy Childs Quartet with Sean Jones, The Winds of Change Fri 7 Feb 7:30pm
Leyla McCalla Thu 13 Feb 7:30pm
Documentary Film
Screening: The Sound of Santiago by Dr. Mike Davison and Ed Tillett Wed 19 Feb 7:30pm
Third Coast Percussion with Salar Nader Fri 21 Feb 7:30pm
University Dancers
40th Anniversary Concert Fri-Sat 28 Feb-1 Mar 7:30pm Sun 2 Mar 2pm
March
Doris Wylee-Becker, piano
Sun 2 Mar 3pm
Anzû Quartet
Wed 5 Mar 7:30pm
Kronos Quartet with Peni Candra Rini
Fri 21 Mar 7:30pm
Tanya Tagaq
Thu 27 Mar 7:30pm
Neumann Lecture on Music: Robert Fink
Mon 31 Mar 7:30pm
April
Twyla Tharp Dance with Third Coast Percussion
Sat 5 Apr 7:30pm
Global Sounds Sun 6 Apr 3pm
Jazz & Contemporary Combos
Wed 9 Apr 7:30pm
Simone Dinnerstein, piano
Fri 11 Apr 7:30pm
Spring Choral Concert
Sun 13 Apr 3pm
Wind Ensemble
Mon 14 Apr 7:30pm
Popular Music Ensemble
Tue 15 Apr 7:30pm
Urinetown
Thu-Sat 17-19 Apr 7:30pm Sun 20 Apr 2pm
Chamber Ensembles
Mon 21 Apr 7:30pm
University Symphony Orchestra
Wed 23 Apr 7:30pm
Cuban Spectacular: From Mambo to Motown Thu 24 Apr 7:30pm
MODLIN CENTER FOR THE ARTS PRESENTS
Billy Childs Quartet with Sean Jones, The Winds of Change
Join us at 6:30 pm for a pre-concert artist talk with Billy Childs led by VPM Music Jazz Host Annie Parnell.
ABOUT THE ARTISTS
BILLY CHILDS, piano
Billy Childs has emerged as one of the foremost American composers of his era, perhaps the most distinctly American composer since Aaron Copland – for like Copland, he has successfully married the musical products of his heritage with the Western neoclassical traditions of the twentieth century in a powerful symbiosis of style, range, and dynamism.
Childs has received orchestral and chamber commissions from, among others: Esa-Pekka Salonen and the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Detroit Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Leonard Slatkin, the Los Angeles Master Chorale, the National Symphony, the Minnesota Orchestra, the Orpheus Orchestra, the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, the Kronos Quartet, the Dorian Wind Quintet, the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra, the Isidore Quartet, the
PHOTO: LISA HAGEN GLYNN
American Brass Quintet, the Ying Quartet, the Lyris Quartet, Anne Akiko Meyers, Rachel Barton Pine, and Inna Faliks. His works have been performed at Carnegie Hall, Kennedy Center, and Disney Concert Hall. He has also garnered seventeen GRAMMY nominations and six awards: two for Best Instrumental Composition, two for Best Arrangement Accompanying a Vocalist, and two for Best Instrumental Jazz Album: Rebirth (2018) and The Winds of Change (2024). In 2006, Chamber Music America awarded Childs a New Jazz Works Award and in 2019 a Classical Commissioning Award – making him the first artist to receive awards in both genres. In 2009 Childs was the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, and in 2013 was awarded the Doris Duke Performing Artist Award. He has also been awarded a Composers Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters (2015). In 2018, Childs was named Outstanding Alumnus of the Thornton School of Music (sharing that honor with, among others: Morton Lauridsen, Michael Tilson Thomas, and Marilyn Horne). Childs has also served as president of Chamber Music America (2016-2022).
Childs’ jazz career began in 1977, when he joined the band of trombonist J.J. Johnson. Soon thereafter trumpet legend Freddie Hubbard recognized the 21-year-old’s prodigious talents, and invited Childs to join his star-studded ensemble. Over a six-year internship that followed, Hubbard became Childs’ mentor in mastering the art of small ensemble improvisation. Childs launched his recording career as a jazz solo artist in 1988, when he released four critically acclaimed albums on the Windham Hill Jazz label. He has also recorded two volumes of “jazz/chamber music” (an amalgam of jazz and classical music) – Lyric, Vol. 1 (2006) and Autumn: In Moving Pictures, Vol. 2 (2010); both recordings have collectively been nominated for five GRAMMY awards (winning twice). In 2017, Childs released the first of his Mack Avenue recordings, Rebirth, which won the 2018 GRAMMY award for Best Instrumental Jazz Album. The second, Acceptance, was released in 2020, and the third, The Winds of Change, was released in March, 2023, winning the 2024 GRAMMY Award for Best Instrumental Jazz Album.
As a pianist Childs has performed with Yo-Yo Ma, Sting, Renee Fleming, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, The Los Angeles Master Chorale, the Detroit Symphony, Rachel Barton Pine, Anne Akiko Meyers, Chick Corea, the Kronos Quartet, Wynton Marsalis, Jack DeJohnette, the Dorian Wind Quintet, Ying Quartet, the American Brass Quintet, and Dave Holland.
SEAN JONES,
trumpet
Music and spirituality have always been intertwined in the artistic vision of trumpeter, bandleader, composer, educator, and activist Sean Jones. Mr. Jones sang and performed as a child with the church choir in his hometown of Warren, Ohio, and switched from playing the drums to the trumpet at the age of 10.
Mr. Jones is a musical chameleon, comfortable in any musical setting no matter the role or genre. After a six-month stint with the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra, Wynton Marsalis offered him a permanent position as lead trumpeter of the ensemble, a post he held from 2004 until 2010. In 2015, Mr. Jones was tapped to become a member of the SFJAZZ Collective. During this time, he has managed to keep a core group of talented musicians together under his leadership, forming the foundation for groups that have produced and released eight recordings on Mack Avenue Records.
Mr. Jones has been prominently featured in recordings and performances with many major figures in jazz, including Illinois Jacquet, Jimmy Heath, Frank Foster, Nancy Wilson, Dianne Reeves, Gerald Wilson, and Marcus Miller. He was selected by Mr. Miller, Herbie Hancock, and Wayne Shorter for their A Tribute to Miles tour in 2011. He has also performed with the Cleveland, Pittsburgh, and Youngstown symphony orchestras, as well as Soulful Symphony in Baltimore and a chamber group at the Salt Bay Chamberfest.
Mr. Jones is an internationally recognized educator. He is president of the Jazz Education Network and holds the Richard and Elizabeth Case Chair in Jazz Studies at The John Hopkins University’s Peabody Institute in Baltimore. As well as artistic Director for the NYO JAZZ Program of Carnegie Hall. Previously, he served as chair of the Brass department at Berklee College of Music in Boston.
MATT PENMAN, double bass
Originally from New Zealand, Matt Penman moved to the U.S in 1994 to attend Berklee College of Music, and in 1995 to New York, where he maintains an international performing, recording and teaching schedule as one of jazz music’s most in-demand bassists.
He is an established member of the SFJazz Collective, an 8-piece composers’ collective devoted to presenting the original works of its members as well as arrangements of the jazz greats’ oeuvre. The Collective features some of the finest composer/ improvisers on the scene, including David Sanchez, Warren Wolf and Miguel Zenon.
In addition to his main projects, Matt performs regularly in Nils Wogram’s Root 70, and in trio with Aaron Goldberg. Other notable collaborators have included John Scofield, Joe Lovano, Wayne Shorter, Kurt Rosenwinkel, Kenny Werner, Dave Douglas, Chris Cheek, Seamus Blake, Wolfgang Muthspiel, Guillermo Klein, Rebecca Martin, Nicholas Payton, Fred Hersch and Madeleine Peyroux.
As a teacher, Matt has led workshops throughout Europe, and was an Artistin- Residence at the Brubeck Institute in Stockton, California. He was also on the faculty of the 2009 Banff Workshop for Creative and Improvised Music, and
recently became part of the faculty of the new Roots, Jazz and American Music program at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music.
Matt’s projects as a band-leader include the co-led album Flipside (Naxos, 1998), The Unquiet (2001) and Catch of the Day (2008), both on the Barcelona label Fresh Sound, as well as 2018’s Good Question on Sunnyside. He is featured on well over 100 recordings on various labels.
ARI HOENIG, drums
Ari Hoenig (born on November 13, 1973 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania), is a jazz drummer, composer and educator known for his unusual and intense approach to drumming emphasizing complex rhythms in direct harmony with other group members. Ari is widely noted particularly for his drumming not being relegated to just keeping tempo, or being a side issue to the music he plays in, but rather for elevating drumming as an indispensable part of the performance.
Hoenig is also known for his unique ability to modify the pitch of a drum by using drum sticks, mallets, and even parts of his body (such as his hands and elbows). Using this technique, he can play any note in the chromatic scale, virtually any melody, and even improvise on a chord structure in the same way as any other instrumentalist would.
Hoenig was born into a family of classically trained musicians. His father being a choral conductor and mother a violinist, he was exposed to classical and folk music at an early age. He played both piano and violin as a child, then rock and metal drums as a teen before settling into jazz and improvised music. Ari has recorded written and produced 14 cd’s as a leader. He has written and published 3 educational books, 4 educational DVD’s and a songbook. Currently, his group tours worldwide and performs regularly at the legendary New York jazz club Smalls.
Ari is currently touring and performing with his trio of Nitai Hershkovits on piano and Or Bareket on bass as well as his nonet and quartet which he won the BMW Welt competition in 2013.
Other artists Hoenig has performed or recorded with include Shirley Scott, Jean Michel Pilc, Mike Stern, Kenny Werner, Joshua Redman, Wayne Krantz, Kurt Rosenwinkel, Richard Bona, Chris Potter, Toots Thielemans, Pat Martino, and Billy Childs.
Tonight’s performance will last approximately 90 minutes, without intermission.
Modlin Arts Presents
LEYLA MCCALLA
Thu 13 Feb 2025
Camp Concert Hall
THIS MULTILINGUAL SINGER-SONGWRITER ENCHANTS AUDIENCES WITH MUSIC THAT WILL GET YOUR FEET MOVING AND YOUR HEART DANCING. MCCALLA RETURNS TO MODLIN TOURING HER ALBUM SUN WITHOUT THE HEAT.
THIRD COAST PERCUSSION
WITH SALAR NADER
Fri 21 Feb 2025
Camp Concert Hall
WE ARE HONORED TO PRESENT THE PREMIERE OF MURMURS IN TIME, COMPOSED BY THE LATE TABLA MASTER ZAKIR HUSSAIN. THE CONCERT FEATURES THIRD COAST PERCUSSION AND TABLA VIRTUOSO SALAR NADER, A STAR STUDENT OF HUSSAIN.
KRONOS QUARTET WITH PENI CANDRA RINI
Fri 21 Mar 2025
Camp Concert Hall
KRONOS HAS REVOLUTIONIZED THE STRING QUARTET GENRE FOR 50 YEARS. IN THAT TIME THEY’VE COMISSIONED WORK FROM HUNDREDS OF COMPOSERS, INCLUDING INDONESIAN GAMELAN VOCALIST PENI CANDRA RINI WHO JOINS TO PERFORM HER COMPOSITIONS WITH THE QUARTET.
TICKET INFORMATION
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