Contemporary composer and pianist Ben Cosgrove, followed by GlobeTrotting—an improvisatory world/jazz fusion project featuring Steve Gorn, John Davey, and Brian Melick
EAST MEREDITH — On Saturday, October 26, starting at 7 p.m., the West Kortright Centre in East Meredith closes its 2019 season with a double bill of instrumental innovators: contemporary composer and pianist Ben Cosgrove, followed by GlobeTrotting—an improvisatory world/jazz fusion project featuring Steve Gorn, John Davey, and Brian Melick.
Ben Cosgrove is a composer-performer whose music explores themes of landscape, place, and ecology in North America. He has spent years exploring every corner of the country and writing music
in response to it. Ben is fascinated and inspired by the different ways people interact with their built and natural environments. Through songs with names like “Prairie Fire,” “Champlain,” “Nashua,”
“Kennebec,” and others, he seeks to explore those relationships and reflect them in sound. Of his work, Cosgrove says, “I don’t necessarily think of my pieces as rendering places in music, but more just as a way for me to respond to places musically. Writing music just turns out to be a great way for me to process the world.”
Cosgrove has held artist residencies and fellowships with institutions including the National Park Service, the National Forest Service, Harvard University, the Schmidt Ocean Institute, and the Sitka
Center for Art & Ecology. His live performances on solo piano are at once dazzling and intimate, the music both delicate and commanding. He performs regularly both as a solo artist and as a sideman
(most recently in our area playing with the Ghosts of Paul Revere at Roxbury Arts Group this past summer), tours widely across the US and Canada, writes scores for films, plays, radio, and television,
and has produced several well-received albums of original instrumental music.
GlobeTrotting is a cooperative music ensemble featuring Steve Gorn (Bansuri flute, clarinet, and soprano saxophone), John Davey (bass and cello), and Brian Melick (percussionist). The trio’s fusion of non-Western musical structures with the improvisatory aesthetic of jazz creates a unique and beautiful sonic experience.
Grammy-winner and five-time Grammy-nominee Steve Gorn, whose North Indian bamboo Bansuri flute is featured on the 2004 Academy Award-winning documentary film, “Born into Brothels”, has
performed Indian classical music and new American music in concerts and festivals throughout the world. Drawing from Indian classical music, jazz, and world music, Gorn’s signature sound infuses a haunting, lyrical sweetness, bringing the healing breath of the sacred to our demanding contemporary
lives. With his teachers including Sri Gour Goswami of Kolkata and Pandit Raghunath Seth, Gorn is well known to audiences in both India and the West and has been praised by critics and leading Indian musicians as one of the few westerners to have captured the subtlety and beauty of Indian
music. As an innovator in the field of contemporary world music, Gorn is creating a new idiom — music that combines the essence of classical Indian tradition with a contemporary world music
sensibility. His virtuoso mastery generates a vibrant fusion, alive and accessible to western ears. He has composed for film, television, dance, and theater, as well as performed with luminaries such as with Paul Simon, Richie Havens, Jack DeJohnette, Paul Winter, and others.
Bassist/cellist John Davey studied under Mark Helias, Dave Holland, and Gary Peacock—all masters of improvisation and creative modern music. He has performed with a wide array of artists including jazz pianists Mike Holober, Francesca Tanksley, and Jeremy Wall; saxophonists Al Galodoro, Erica Lindsay, Brian Patneaude, and the late J.R. Montrose; iconic jazz guitarist John Stowell; the late
percussionist Collin Walcott; and jazz cellist Hank Roberts. Davey can currently be seen and heard playing with his jazz trio at various regional venues. For this event, Davey debuts the Czech-Ease™
bass—a new full-sounding bass with an unusually shortened body.
Drummer, hand percussionist, and educator Brian Melick has been a featured artist on over 400 commercially recorded works and has played with many well-known musicians, including Kim and
Reggie Harris, Pete Seeger, Jay Ungar & Molly Mason, Bela Fleck, Sloan Wainwright, and Bruce Molsky, among others. Melick has created his own series of percussion educational curriculum for various ages and levels of experience and works with percussion-related companies in different capacities. He is especially known for his work with—and promotion of—the Nigerian Side Hole Pot Drum, affectionately known as the udu drum. He first teamed up with Davey over twenty years ago,
performing with The Roop Verma Ensemble, an experimental group blending western jazz with Indian
ragas.
Tickets are $17 in advance ($20 day of); $15 for WKC members ($18 day of); $10 for ages 9-19; free for ages 8 and under. Advance tickets are available online at westkc.org; day-of tickets are available
at the door on the 26th, starting at 6pm on Saturday. Doors for this inside concert open at 6:30. The Tulip and The Rose will be on-site selling dinner before the show from 5–7PM, with outdoor seating.
The West Kortright Centre is a non-profit performing arts and community organization, located in a repurposed historical church, at 49 West Kortright Church Rd., midway between Oneonta, Delhi, and
Stamford. Follow signs from State Route 23 in Davenport Center or State Route 10 east of Delhi. For exact travel directions and more information, visit westkc.org.
