News & Dates
Ten Freedom Summers – Defining Moments in the History of the United States of America
Available for the first time in print.
‘Ten Freedom Summers’ is a large work inspired by the activity of the civil rights movement: from the Niagara Falls Congress of 1905, to President Harry S. Truman signing Executive Order 9981 in 1948, up to Dr. Martin Luther King’s Memphis speech in 1968.
In 19 movements, scored for a variety of ensembles.
Ten Freedon… Read More
Opening Weekend Concert with Wadada Leo Smith and Raven Chacon
As a student at CalArts in the early aughts, Raven Chacon studied with renowned composer-performer Wadada Leo Smith. The creative agency of Smith’s Ankhrasmation Symbolic Music Language inspired Chacon to develop compositions that give performers autonomy in choosing what they play. Twenty years later, the two artists share a joint concert at Arts and Letters, where each has a… Read More
Wadada Leo Smith to Receive Vision Festival’s Lifetime Achievement Award
Trumpeter, multi-instrumentalist, and composer Smith will receive the Vision Festival’s annual award on June 21, 2022.
Mr. Smith joins a venerable pantheon of FreeJazz pioneers in receiving the Vision Festival Lifetime Achievement Award including Amina Claudine Myers, Andrew Cyrille, Peter Brotzmann, Henry Grimes, Milford Graves, and Sam Rivers.
On this special occasion, Mr. Smith will present new work for the opening… Read More
Legendary composer and trumpeter Wadada Leo Smith Celebrates release of Rosa Parks: Pure Love an Oratorio of Seven Songs
Friday, April 26 – Sunday, April 28, 2019 at The Kitchen in NYC
“The trumpeter’s meditation on the legacy of civil rights and the heroism of Rosa Parks is formally inventive and emotionally gripping…. Vividly conveying historical injustice and ongoing struggle through wild instrumental swings and empathetic composition, Rosa Parks is music for the ages.” – Ben Cardew, Pitchfork
“Wadada Leo Smith’s intricate… Read More
Wadada Leo Smith performs at Big Ears Festival 2019
At Big Ears 2019, Wadada Leo Smith applies his beautiful, vulnerable trumpet tone to his solo 2017 set, an eight-piece reflection on Thelonious Monk that includes four originals and four Monk interpretations. Though fiercely original, Smith makes his connections to Monk clear as he plays—their respective singular instrumental vocabularies, their idiosyncratic sense of time, their robust personality. This is… Read More
Wadada Leo Smith tops 3 categories in DownBeat Magazine’s 65th Annual Critics Poll and is featured in DownBeats’ August 2017 cover story
Boldly original trumpeter, multi-instrumentalist and composer Wadada Leo Smith has topped three categories in DownBeat Magazine’s 65th Annual Critics Poll: Jazz Artist, Trumpet and Jazz Album (for America's National Parks on Cuneiform.) A group of 155 international critics from organizations including The Boston Globe, Chicago Tribune Read More
Wadada Leo Smith receives 2016 Mohn Career Achievement Award
The Hammer Museum at UCLA has announced the recipients of its Made In L.A. 2016 Mohn Awards. Among the recipients is jazz trumpeter and composer Wadada Leo Smith, who received the Museum's Career Achievement Award. Read More
Downbeat, November 2016 Cover Story / Wadada Leo Smith: National Treasure
Downbeat, November 2016 Cover Story / Wadada Leo Smith: National Treasure
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Trumpeter, composer, musical visionary Wadada Leo Smith receives 2016 Doris Duke Artist Award
The Doris Duke Charitable Foundation (DDCF) today announced that the boldly original composer, trumpeter and Pulitzer Finalist Wadada Leo Smith has been named a 2016 Doris Duke Artist. Smith is one of twenty-one awardees appointed in recognition of their creative vitality and ongoing contributions to the fields of dance, jazz and theater.
“To receive the prestigious Doris Duke Artist… Read More